14 July 17
âYou can fool yourself, you know. You’d think it’s impossible, but it turns out it’s the easiest thing of all.â
Jodi Picoult
Holsters!
A good friend and maker of kydex holsters recently sent us an IWB appendix holster for Vickiâs G42.
It was wonderfully made, but would not allow smooth re-holstering. The problem was that Glock has put a block on the forward edge of the G42’s extractor that serves as a tactile âloaded-chamber indicator.â
When the pistol is unloaded, it re-holsters smoothly, because the loaded-chamber indicator is depressed. But, when loaded, the loaded-chamber indicator is elevated, because there is a round chambered. The elevated block then hits the edge of the holster and prevents quick and smooth re-holstering.
Of course, we donât holster empty guns, so this problem became evident to us immediately!
Plastic models used by the holster-maker to construct the G42 holster were modeled after an empty pistol, so the holster-maker did not notice the issue at the factory.
âLoaded-chamber indicatorsâ take several forms. S&Wâs M&P uses a visual peep-hole. Springfield Armoryâs XDâs version is a small âteeter-totterâ on the top fo the slide. Neither of these affects holster fit.
Glockâs âextractor blockâ does, at least in some cases.
The interesting point here is that we were the first customers to report this issue to the holster-maker!
He has been making this style of G42 holsters for months and has had no complaints, until now!
My conclusion is that many of his âcustomersâ are not actual âusers.â They either carry guns with no round chambered, or donât carry at all!
Either practice represents a form a self-deception!
/John
