All posts tagged Blackhawk Omega

In praise of the Sig 239

I have to force myself to buy various technical gear and sometimes even firearms just to stay on top of what is out there.   I still haven’t jumped into the .380 market, but at some point I’ll settle on some kind of pistol.   I was never big on j-frame revolvers until I went to 5 weddings in one summer and got tired of putting a Sig 239 in a pocket.   The pants I was wearing could fit a Sig 239 very easily, but the gun was so darn heavy that the constant off balance pull it had was as bad as jock itch.   I started out with a 38 Special snub nose T-85 for CCW and got tired of it real fast.   I then tried a Colt 1911 for  a little, but didn’t like the idea of having to disengage a safety.

After several months of not knowing what to carry, I carried my Beretta 92FS and one spare magazine.   It was ok, for a little while, but if I need to carry it for more than 5 days, I got sore spots on my hips.   A friend of mine has his own gun holsters company and offered to make me a holster, but I knew that I was on the verge of changing my concealed carry gun so I held off.  Like a freakish bought of karma, I walked into a gun shop and saw a used Sig 239 for sale, called up my buddy and told him to make a holster for me and here we are 8yrs later.  The Sig 239 is by no means a light handgun, it is small, but this is a combat worthy and durable firearm.

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CCW for the skinny guys

I’m talking about guys here because I don’t k now very many females that carry guns IWB or pocket carry.   I’m not sure why, but most females I am friends with carry in a purse or carry in a paddle or strong side holster.   There are many ways of carrying a gun on just a belt line.   You can carry with a belt loop, double belt loop, clip on or paddle holster.   I have a few backup holsters that are the Don Hume jit holsters that work very well for me because they keep the gun up and don’t take up very much room like a paddle holster.  I also can’t feel it push against my body at all when I am sitting down, unlike the IWB holsters.   I am still looking to pick up a crossbreed holster for a Sig 239 in 40 S&W because I’ve heard they are the most comfortable holsters.   I’ll find out and tell you my thoughts later.

I have never been a big fan of putting on a holster that need to through with a belt because I really don’t feel like having to do that every morning when I get up and go off to work.  That extra 20 minutes of wiggling things around and trying to line up the holster to the belt loops ect. is rather annoying and a clip on the belt gun holsters takes 2 seconds.   I do believe that I may have found a replacement for my paddle holsters which I tend to only carry when I am wearing a vest.   The Don Hume Jit holster may work for you if you have a large cut shirt, but us skinny guys don’t have the shape to hide very much unless it’s flat up against us.

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The FN 5.7 as a defensive weapon

I first saw the 5.7  in all it’s glory with what I would consider to be AP ammo.   I heard a few people mention that they thought that this gun should be illegal, but ballistically it couldn’t do anything that the much more common M855 or SS109 could do.   Yeah I know that a criminal might prefer a handgun to defeat a police officers armor, but the last Police Officer killed here in Pennsylvania was killed with an SKS with standard ammo and a 30rd magazine that actually jammed.   The SKS can take detachable magazines, but I have never seen them hold up as well as the AK family of guns with these mags.   The 5.7 has the ballistics of something close to the 22 magnum, and even though that is not a very powerful stopping round it is as effective as the person carrying it.

I don’t know of any reliable 22 magnum semi auto guns, I know a few pocket revolvers that were fun to shoot, but if you want a small and light semi auto with similar 22 magnum ballistics and has a much  higher capacity, there’s nothing wrong with packing the 5.7 FN.  I think there are better calibers for duty officers, but there are a number of gun holsters like the Blackhawk Serpa that can be had for this gun.  Unfortunately the piece of crap that killed our soldiers at Fort Hood used this firearm arm very effectively, but hopefully anyone reading this will know that every firearm used in the hands of a good and law abiding citizen is an asset to society.

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Protruding magazines, snags and sights

As someone in the tactical gear and accessory business, I am a little overwhelmed by the number of holsters that are available and how they are being used.   I get questions about how to assemble and modify various things and often it takes a little research to find how to answer a customers questions.  Something that I am finding more and more about is that customers are ordering holsters for firearms knowing the gun should fit the holster, but the sights that they put on the gun are now causing the gun to snag when being drawn.

The best way to know that you have tactical gear that works is to test it out,  even if you have done research into matching up the correct gear, practice with it before you actually train with it or god forbid have to use your gear and training in a real situation.   Pocket gun holsters and clip on holsters tend to have high rates of failures in Defensive training classes.   The real reason is that many of these students are practicing with higher levels of stress and doing things that they didn’t think they would be doing and causing guns to spin in their hands when the front sight snags in the  holster.

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New CCW holders and training

Even though I would have to acknowledge that I am above average in training, I would rather spend my afternoon working with a new shooter or a new CCW holder than train with fellow SWAT Team students all day.   There is something more that I get from seeing a Civilian learn responsible ways of handing a firearm and basic defensive shooting skills.   In some Countries like Israel and South Korea, there is mandatory military service and every young man and women gets training to understand that there are threats against their Country and that it’s up to them to pass on the information they learned to every succeeding generation.

I have seen some really bad instructors in all of my years of sitting in on classes and most of them were overzealous in teaching.   I don’t think it’s good instruction to freak people out when they are new to handling firearm in certain situations and being a CCW holder doesn’t mean  you need to train to storm the beaches of Normandy with your Blackhawk Serpa gun holsters.   Learning how to move away from an attacker or barricade yourself in your bedroom with a firearm and knowing where the safest postions are can be life saving training that every adult family member should know.

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