pdb

As alluded to previously, wearing a pistol in a drop-leg thigh rig where a normal belt holster would suffice is an instant 9/10 on the Derp scale.

Unrelated, but serendipitously relevant, a friend had a short but sharp discussion with a drop-leg favoring friend on his Fazeboog, and I thought the concluding post was too excellent to remain in Zuckerburg’s hands:

If you’re not wearing hard body armor and carrying gear all over your vest, you have no reason to be wearing a drop leg holster. Stop it. You look like a goober.

Drop leg holsters suck while sitting in a car. They alternatively dig into and get hung on your seat if you’ve got it low enough to look cool, and they just don’t fit in most car seats if you put them where they’re supposed to go.

They suck while running, putting a hefty metal weight on the second-most violently swinging part of your body in motion. Take off your shoe, grip it tightly by the shoelaces as close the the body of the shoe as you can, and go for a jog. I’ll even allow you to move your hands as little as possible. Now try again, but tie the shoe to your shoulder.

They may put your gun in what you think is the ideal position for drawing… while standing straight up and still. I’m not bragging, but I’ve drawn a pistol in fear dozens of times, and the thought to draw a pistol NEVER occurred before the thought to get into some position, any position, that wasn’t standing up straight. Others who can replace “dozens” with “hundreds” or “thousands”, feel free to tell me that I’m wrong.

They suck for retention. I’m not in great shape, and I’ve got next to no training, but let’s put a pistol in a drop leg retention holster and go rolling around for a bit. I’ll bet you a very fancy sushi dinner that the gun will be mine. I’ll also bet you that I can protect a gun in a simple snap holster on my waist for as long as you want to play. That’s because the procedure for retaining a belt-mounted pistol is “put your hand on the grip and push down on it until you can get away or the fight is over.”

There are two acceptable reasons for wearing a drop leg holster:

1. You wear or are very likely to wear armor/LBE gear so thick and long that it will interfere with the draw of your pistol. Note that police officers wear some pretty gnarly gear all day long, with a belt-mounted holster. They get away with this because their holsters usually tilt outwards. This gives you about 4″ between the pistol and your belly, which usually plenty.

2. You just think they look cool. That’s fine. Just don’t fool yourself into thinking that wearing one, even at the range, accomplishes anything other than making you look like the guys in Miami Vice. Awareness is curative.

Drop leg holsters are a seldom-needed compromise, like walking with a cane. You could walk with a cane to look cool, I guess… but don’t try to convince the rest of us that the cane makes practical sense for you unless you actually need one.

I can’t say it enough: Define your requirements first and work from there. Let the mission drive the gear train, not the other way around. Don’t try and find a niche or justification for your gear, identify a need and fill it. It’s much less expensive this way as you tend to focus on what’s important, rather than what’s cool.