This is way faster than a fanny pack. Full AIWB speeds.
Once I can laser-engrave the whole thing and do wild graphics treatments I can solve the "looks like a holster" thing. Massively solve :). I can make something that looks like a hippie got drunk on patchouli oil and shit it out :).
Drawings and close up pics:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k2KdoXnaJvmUjt43cDEavzKcG5WPmKno/view
The interior holster is currently what's left of the first holster I tried on this gun, a Crossbreed SuperTuck with the two leather wings cut off that originally held belt mounts.
I'm getting some kydex soon and will do my own mold that is symmetrical and kydex on both sides. The advantage would be that it's flippable between right hand and left hand functionality. In other words if I broke my right hand some time, I could just rotate the interior holster, wear it just left my belt buckle and now it's a lefty setup with no other changes.
Another engineering change coming is to the ripcord. Right now it's a piece of paracord 1100. Problem is, it flops around a bit up and down and can take an extra fraction of a second to get a hold of. I'm going to make an entirely new grab handle right there out of leather that's been wetted and dried and is rolled double thickness, like a briefcase handle but a lot smaller. I should be able to get that to stay in exactly the same place every time.
Either way, I found that if I'm around objects or people, resting my right thumb on top of the pack and simply closing off the grab handle or rip cord or whatever you call it with my palm, I can absolutely block it from being played with by some kid or caught on something.
The other big engineering change coming is to the way the graphics package will work.
I'm going to spend about $3,000 bucks on something like this:
That's a desktop laser cutting engraving machine. At low power it can do graphics at over 2,000 DPI resolution, and at high power it can drill all the holes and do the cutouts for the entire blank pieces.
Right now I've used some big fancy rivets but in the production version I have in mind, the four rivets would be as low profile heads as possible.
Right now there's a 3-in diameter round leather disc that is sewn into the top panel mainly to cover up the outermost rope mounting point. In the production version, that's going to grow to cover the entire front face of the body including the rivet heads and will have a giant graphic treatment that people can custom order or pick from a catalog.
That outer graphic plate would also come with the side panels so the graphics treatment would be really significant. I've got a bunch of ideas in mind including "the Haight Ashbury" (massively hippie with a huge peace sign, very deep cover because nobody's going to believe a gun is in there!), "Civil Rights Heros" (King, Malcolm X, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, all of whom were major gun nuts), "Math is cool" (the image of Einstein sticking his tongue out of the camera is in the public domain, on a background of high order math on a chalkboard scribbles) and a whole bunch more.
Nothing at all that screams "gun culture" :).
I also found out something really weird. In 2018 the Philippines passed a law that says if you have a carry permit, you can carry in public but only in a fanny pack, fully enclosed chest pack, gun purse or backpack. They banned all belt holsters, all shoulder holsters, all ankle holsters and so on.
Damned if I know why, but it leaves this thing as the absolute fastest draw possible. I'm trying to get any holster maker in the Philippines to build them there for that market, I don't even want royalties, I just want them to use it as a test bed. In the US I think the market is for guns the size of my Hellcat, the Sig P365, Ruger Max 9 or similar. But in the Philippines? Glock 19 size might make sense.
Rocked his world in a concrete fashion. Granite, it was a stoner's weapon, but the defenders were clearly boulder than most.
In the end, his brain was like a lot of PS4s - bricked.
Yup.
Ian at ForgottenWeapons did a whole episode criticizing that button. I emailed him asking if he's gonna do a Kyle related update.
There's ZERO question that Kyle didn't have time to do a tap/rack/bang, never mind a proper modern school jam clear. The button saved his ass.
The heads up mentality that kid showed in that fight is fucking amazing in terms of weapon handling. Situational awareness before that was more like a syphilitic drunk woodchuck. And then on the stand he did shockingly well for his age. Honestly...he's a weird but cool kid.
He wasn't a felon. He was the only one Kyle shot at that night who wasn't. He had a sketchy record short of that and he's a habitual drunk with a DUI problem, but he's not yet a felon.
If a new DA gets in because of this case and cleans up the shop, they might yet charge him with armed assault of some sort for pointing that Glock at Kyle. Statute of limitations on that is probably quite a few years.
He wasn't a felon. He had a sketchy record short of being a felon, he's a habitual drunk, but he's not federally barred from gun ownership.
More DUIs and that might change...
Let's start with flagging/sweeping.
I don't think so but this is a practice/training issue. This video was taken two days after I finished this version with the "pop-out" functionality.
Now for the really good news, off-hand and one-hand.
The middle rope that connects the three layers (what I've named "the Van Vogt rope") isn't a bungee. So once you yank it open, it stays open. On a strong-hand-only draw you pop it open and grab the grip - it's as fast as the same thing AIWB.
Off hand, same thing, except you have to roll your hand around to do the grab. As far as I can tell it's faster than AIWB doing the same thing.
Now let's say you break or otherwise temporarily damage your strong hand. You can flip the kydex core inside the shell and turn it fully into a left hand rig if it started as a righty, or vice versa, and flip it back when you heal.
Close range, you have an interesting option: yank the grab handle straight up. This keeps the gun hidden and covered until you grab grip, draw and fire.