Riley Bowman: And welcome to the Concealed Carry
Riley Bowman: Podcast, part of the ConcealedCarry.com network, brought to you by HK.
Riley Bowman: Today is Friday, April 3rd, 2026.
Riley Bowman: As of the recording here, we're doing this live, of course, but many of you
Riley Bowman: are probably tuning in or listening after the fact.
Riley Bowman: I am your host, Riley Bowman, and I'm joined today by co-host...
Jacob Paulsen: Jacob Paulson. I was just thinking, man, if today had been Friday the 13th,
Jacob Paulsen: right? Season 13, episode 13.
Riley Bowman: I know, right? We dodged it. Dude. Yeah, and I think, wasn't it March? I think had it.
Jacob Paulsen: It was a Friday the 13th last month.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: So we could have been all over the 13s.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, I saw that. Cursed season 13, episode 13. I was like, oh,
Riley Bowman: that's a lot of 13s there.
Riley Bowman: So, yeah. Anyway, we are glad to be with you today. We are talking about concealed
Riley Bowman: carry positions and kind of break that down. We've talked about this before.
Riley Bowman: Probably in a number of episodes in various contexts. So we've done an episode
Riley Bowman: specifically about concealed carry positions. And by our checking,
Riley Bowman: that episode is so old now, it's fallen off the- It's basically ancient.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, it's not available anymore on the current podcast feed.
Riley Bowman: You guys may not know this, but when you've been doing a podcast as long as
Riley Bowman: we have, for as many years and episodes as we have,
Riley Bowman: The podcast feeds only keep so many. I think by default, don't they only keep like 100 or something?
Jacob Paulsen: I can't remember.
Riley Bowman: You had to go in and change some setting somewhere just so it would keep 500.
Jacob Paulsen: Yes, that is true. That is true. Part of the challenge, I think actually,
Jacob Paulsen: okay, I think in theory a podcast feed could have as many episodes as you want.
Jacob Paulsen: The problem is bandwidth.
Riley Bowman: Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: Like what happens is it'll crash the server trying to load the last 800 episodes.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. So you kind of are trying to balance, like, you know, you got to consider
Jacob Paulsen: how many podcast apps are out there. Probably hundreds.
Jacob Paulsen: And how often are they hitting our site and our server to check for new content?
Jacob Paulsen: And when they do that, they don't just check for anything in the new recency
Jacob Paulsen: of the feed. They check the entire feed every time. Right.
Riley Bowman: And it's a text file.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, it's an XML file. It looks like text.
Riley Bowman: Right. And so, like, the longer that is, the more it's got to check.
Jacob Paulsen: And it has to load that every time. Yeah, exactly. And we try and cache it,
Jacob Paulsen: which reduces the burden on our server for you technical people out there who
Jacob Paulsen: are about to send me emails.
Jacob Paulsen: We do the smart things to reduce the load.
Jacob Paulsen: But, yes, that's the real issue is us finding the balance of how many episodes
Jacob Paulsen: dare we include in this before it's just not wise.
Riley Bowman: So, anyway, not that you all needed to know all of that, but in case you wondered
Riley Bowman: why you're like, hey, my favorite episode ever is no longer on the feed. What's up with that?
Riley Bowman: There's a technical reason why that is. and uh so anyway this is we're going
Riley Bowman: to revisit some uh material that we you know there's no longer on the feed we
Riley Bowman: thought that this would be a perfect opportunity to do that i was trying.
Jacob Paulsen: To pull it up and see when it was we actually
Riley Bowman: Covered that and also while he's doing that uh you
Riley Bowman: can still find all episodes if you
Riley Bowman: go directly to our website concealed carry.com forward slash podcast for instance
Riley Bowman: uh that you can go back and back and back and back and find all the episodes
Riley Bowman: so it's just going to be on your podcast feeds or apps that are going to be
Riley Bowman: limited to that 500 episode count. Um,
Riley Bowman: So, yeah, but.
Jacob Paulsen: It was episode 94.
Riley Bowman: Episode 94.
Jacob Paulsen: That was February 2017.
Riley Bowman: We've basically been a year into the podcast experiment.
Jacob Paulsen: Yep, there it is. 2017. So, not only do we have more experience,
Jacob Paulsen: more wisdom, more whatever, but, you know, to your point, the vast majority
Jacob Paulsen: of people listening to this probably have not been with us since 2017.
Riley Bowman: That's right. That's right. so yeah we're going
Riley Bowman: back basically nine years and uh that's
Riley Bowman: that's the whole point of today's episode and aiden on
Riley Bowman: facebook's asking where's the best place to put your firearm concealed on
Riley Bowman: your person well aiden you're the right place that's part
Riley Bowman: of what we're here to talk about that's today's topic very episode
Riley Bowman: is the different concealed carry positions we'll talk
Riley Bowman: about pros and cons about those positions and give you
Riley Bowman: some some food for thought on uh well
Riley Bowman: you know because the answer that's best for everyone is or
Riley Bowman: for me let's say is not necessarily the answer for everybody or for
Riley Bowman: you or whatever but uh so we'll break that
Riley Bowman: down but today's episode first of all is sponsored by ksg
Riley Bowman: armory holsters yes ksg armory holsters makes sense when we're talking about
Riley Bowman: concealed carry positions and where you're carrying so uh if you want the best
Riley Bowman: concealed carry equipment on planet earth as far as we're concerned with respect
Riley Bowman: to holsters we hope that You'll look no further than ksgarmory.com.
Jacob Paulsen: Can I say something about KSG real quick?
Riley Bowman: Absolutely.
Jacob Paulsen: Today we had a little powwow out here in the warehouse where KSG Armory holsters are made.
Jacob Paulsen: Several of the guys, when I first got here this morning, we were talking about
Jacob Paulsen: some logistical things and business systems and things like that.
Jacob Paulsen: And it was funny because...
Jacob Paulsen: A lot of our competitors are cranking out what are effectively like cookie cutter holsters.
Jacob Paulsen: You know, it's like, just make it, you know, they make the same every time.
Jacob Paulsen: And that allows those holster companies to produce a high volume at a low amount of time.
Riley Bowman: Yep.
Jacob Paulsen: Because it's just, you know, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. We chose a business model
Jacob Paulsen: at KSG Armory that is the opposite of that.
Jacob Paulsen: For better or for worse when you order
Jacob Paulsen: a holster from KSG Armory you're customizing
Jacob Paulsen: it you're choosing a ton of things I think
Jacob Paulsen: that the number one thing that makes the Lexington holster
Jacob Paulsen: which is the flagship holster at KSG special and
Jacob Paulsen: unique is that it's versatility it's
Jacob Paulsen: modularity the idea that you can use it with six different or more than that
Jacob Paulsen: different types of belt attachment clips or systems or hardware that you can
Jacob Paulsen: have adjustable everything adjustable cant adjustable ride height adjustable
Jacob Paulsen: um when you're ordering retention adjustable
Riley Bowman: Length of the.
Jacob Paulsen: Whole yes like yeah how long do you want to do it be same length of the gun
Jacob Paulsen: longer than the gun even longer than that yeah
Riley Bowman: What sweat guard height do you.
Jacob Paulsen: Want sweat guard height yes you
Riley Bowman: Can't choose that from the you know a lot of our.
Jacob Paulsen: Competitors no no no you can't and so that that on one hand maybe that presents
Jacob Paulsen: a ordering challenge for some who are maybe less experienced with holsters and
Jacob Paulsen: they're not sure what they want in that regard and so we're trying to, you know,
Jacob Paulsen: we have order video resources you can watch to try and understand,
Jacob Paulsen: and we have standard configurations.
Jacob Paulsen: You say, just give me the standard thing that most people like.
Jacob Paulsen: But I just want you to understand that that makes, that sets KSG apart in a significant way.
Jacob Paulsen: It creates some business challenges for us because we're making them one by
Jacob Paulsen: one. There's no world where we just,
Jacob Paulsen: crank out a bunch in advance and when you order we put it in a in a package
Jacob Paulsen: and ship it to you because it's not a thing
Riley Bowman: Yeah that's right i appreciate you pointing that out
Riley Bowman: and i think that is important for people to understand i would
Riley Bowman: say this in addition you said it's sort of
Riley Bowman: like the opposite business model and i'd say yes
Riley Bowman: but we're kind of also somewhere in between a little bit because
Riley Bowman: there are holster companies that are truly fully
Riley Bowman: custom like where you get to customize like every aspect
Riley Bowman: i mean you're basically getting to customize just about every variable
Riley Bowman: that you know we can imagine with our holsters but we're still trying to create
Riley Bowman: a process that's you know as much as possible straightforward on the manufacturing
Riley Bowman: side but still allowing that flexibility of you know you being able to customize
Riley Bowman: it to your specific needs or wants.
Jacob Paulsen: You can't upload a picture of your dog and have us print it on your holster we don't do
Riley Bowman: That Right, right. Yeah, that's true. So anyway, ksgrarmory.com for the finest
Riley Bowman: semi-custom holsters out there, in our opinion.
Riley Bowman: We're obviously biased, but we work really hard and people that we trust in
Riley Bowman: the industry seem to also agree in many respects.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, that or they're paying us lip service. We don't know.
Riley Bowman: But there you go. Today's episode is also sponsored by GuardianNation, GuardianNation.com.
Riley Bowman: If you want to go deeper than what we do here on the podcast,
Riley Bowman: GuardianNation is where it's at.
Riley Bowman: I mean, one of the big benefits of GuardianNation membership is you get access
Riley Bowman: to our complete library of training content, which is substantial,
Riley Bowman: hundreds of hours of content.
Riley Bowman: It would take you weeks and weeks and weeks to probably consume it all if you
Riley Bowman: were just to really get after it.
Riley Bowman: So there's a lot in there and we're constantly adding to that content.
Riley Bowman: And in fact, pretty soon we'll be adding a whole new feature length training
Riley Bowman: course to Guardian University, which actually is the library of video content,
Riley Bowman: which is available to all Guardian Nation active members at no additional cost.
Riley Bowman: It's one of the big, big benefits of Guardian Nation membership.
Riley Bowman: In addition to that, here in the next few days, in the next week,
Riley Bowman: we will be shipping to active Guardian Nation members that have been active
Riley Bowman: for the last quarter, at the very least,
Riley Bowman: the latest gearbox of stuff.
Riley Bowman: We got some cool stuff in this latest box. So really looking forward to sending that out.
Riley Bowman: Guardian Nation members also can get access to additional benefits.
Riley Bowman: I'll just mention one more. We are actively pushing and working hard towards
Riley Bowman: our preparations and getting ready for and selling tickets to the Guardian Conference later this year.
Riley Bowman: And Guardian Nation members get a substantial discount off of that ticket price.
Riley Bowman: It used to be that one of the members of Guardian Nation was we actually envisioned
Riley Bowman: this as sort of a, hey, you would get an opportunity if you'd been around for
Riley Bowman: a year or whatever. you'd be able to attend a guardian pistol class or something.
Riley Bowman: And that just became, well, let's just say we just morphed that into,
Riley Bowman: hey, we have an annual training conference that is a great, it is the place
Riley Bowman: you want to be each year in September, especially if you want to learn and get
Riley Bowman: better at all things self-defense.
Riley Bowman: So guardian nation members get a, basically the equivalent of a one day class,
Riley Bowman: if you will, discount off of attendance at that conference.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, and they get some other benefits while they're there at the event as well.
Riley Bowman: Oh, absolutely. VIP dinner and….
Jacob Paulsen: Some extra swag or goodies.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, for sure, for sure. So we hope you'll join us at the conference this year
Riley Bowman: in September, 18th, 19th, 20th in September.
Riley Bowman: And please consider joining Guardian Nation today, guardiannation.com.
Riley Bowman: We've been talking about stuff and tooting our own horn a little bit,
Riley Bowman: promoting our companies and brands. But we've got one more thing here.
Riley Bowman: Jacob and I were talking this last week. We were on the road coming back from
Riley Bowman: TACCON, a tactical conference.
Riley Bowman: That's another conference different than our Guardian conference.
Riley Bowman: It's a good event. We had the opportunity to chat a little bit.
Riley Bowman: And one of the things we were talking about was, hey, what if we did a better
Riley Bowman: job of letting our listeners, our followers, the podcast know of things we have
Riley Bowman: coming up? Sort of a. Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: What's going on over here?
Riley Bowman: Yeah. Here's what's new and here's what's going on. Here's what we got coming up.
Riley Bowman: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if we're going to come up with a segment name for this.
Riley Bowman: I don't have anything right now. What's happening?
Riley Bowman: No, I don't know. Yeah. It's the one. What's happening? That's super, super clever.
Riley Bowman: Good job, Jacob. So for today on the What's Happening segment, what do we got going on?
Jacob Paulsen: Well, we just got done shipping a very substantial order to a European NATO
Jacob Paulsen: military. So we're really excited about that.
Jacob Paulsen: And right now, the biggest thing, project coming up is shipping out all the Guardian gear boxes.
Jacob Paulsen: We just got all the stuff in hand for all that. So we're getting all those out the door.
Jacob Paulsen: But in terms of other things that are interesting, we're pushing really hard
Jacob Paulsen: right now, promoting a brand new line of dummy ammo that we're manufacturing.
Jacob Paulsen: So we used to only manufacture 9mm and 5.56, and now we've finished all the different calibers.
Jacob Paulsen: Those are being made here in the U.S. They're the Cadillac.
Jacob Paulsen: I mean, they're really nice. Yeah. So now we have 380 Auto, 40,
Jacob Paulsen: 45, 38 Special, in addition to 9mm and 5.56.
Jacob Paulsen: So a lot of promotional efforts on that, shipping a lot of them,
Jacob Paulsen: samples out to law enforcement, things like that.
Jacob Paulsen: And in terms of events, what's coming up is growing a gun conference and the
Jacob Paulsen: inter-annual meetings are both this month in April, and I'll be at both of those.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, that's exciting. I'll just add to that.
Riley Bowman: Recently, I added to my training calendar a class in Northern Idaho in the kind of Coeur d'Alene area.
Riley Bowman: So if you want to come to do some training with me, I've got a two-day class
Riley Bowman: there. I think it's the second weekend of June.
Riley Bowman: And so 13th, 14th, I think, are the dates, 2026.
Riley Bowman: You can find all of our training classes at class.concealedcarry.com.
Riley Bowman: You can find that class listed there as well. So I'd love to see you there if you want to come train.
Jacob Paulsen: You know, you never have to be more specific than Northern Idaho.
Jacob Paulsen: See, in most states, you have to say Northwestern, Northeastern, but in Idaho.
Riley Bowman: When you have a nice, long, skinny tail.
Jacob Paulsen: North Idaho is North Idaho. It's both East and West.
Riley Bowman: Yeah. Sorry. That is not wrong.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah.
Riley Bowman: So Coeur d'Alene or if you're in like the Pullman, Washington area or Spokane
Riley Bowman: or thereabouts, that's probably pretty close to many of you,
Riley Bowman: but, uh, be a good time. We'll have a good time there.
Riley Bowman: Uh, got some folks signed up already and look forward to doing that.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah.
Riley Bowman: There you go. That's what's happening. There's probably other things,
Riley Bowman: but those are the things that come to mind today.
Riley Bowman: I mentioned a minute ago that the Guardian Nation or Guardian University Video
Riley Bowman: Library will have a new course added to it soon.
Riley Bowman: We've done the work.
Jacob Paulsen: The filming's been done. Now it's about editing, post-production,
Jacob Paulsen: marketing, packaging, all that kind of stuff.
Riley Bowman: Our video guy, Corey, is actively working
Riley Bowman: on that right now we got a bunch of review on that to do
Riley Bowman: and no spoilers yeah no not telling what it
Riley Bowman: is not yet so but uh look for
Riley Bowman: that it'll be coming soon don't have
Riley Bowman: the exact date on that yet let's jump into our uh our topic today so concealed
Riley Bowman: carry positions uh where's your gun right now where are you carrying right now
Riley Bowman: uh not going to try to tell anybody what to do but do hope that our discussion
Riley Bowman: today will provide people some, uh,
Riley Bowman: some context, some information, uh,
Riley Bowman: some ideas about, you know, so that we, so that we can all think a little bit
Riley Bowman: more about how and where we carry our guns.
Riley Bowman: Uh, there's, you know, maybe some of you will hear some of what we talk about
Riley Bowman: today and go, Hmm, maybe I will rethink what I'm doing.
Riley Bowman: Um, or maybe you'll go, no, this is the right choice for me.
Riley Bowman: And that's, that's really what this is about is I want you to make the right
Riley Bowman: choice the best choice for you wherever you are with whatever you're doing and because.
Riley Bowman: Maybe this is a good place to start with some kind of contextual setup of the
Riley Bowman: topic, Jacob, but all of us are different in unique ways.
Riley Bowman: We are different sizes, different heights, different shapes, different weights.
Riley Bowman: We may dress differently. That may be dictated by personal choices.
Riley Bowman: That may be dictated by work or uniform. uh it
Riley Bowman: it could be you know we all do different activities we
Riley Bowman: you know we are going different places doing different things and those
Riley Bowman: need to be taken into consideration we live in different
Riley Bowman: places different environments different temperatures different
Riley Bowman: humidity uh yeah the climate right and so that might be a factor to how and
Riley Bowman: where we choose to to carry our guns uh so let's see i'm trying to think if
Riley Bowman: there's anything else i missed well and then there's another probably lesser
Riley Bowman: discussed aspect of this would be if you have any specific, uh,
Riley Bowman: health or, uh,
Riley Bowman: biomechanically related challenges.
Riley Bowman: Um, maybe, yeah, I mean, one thing that came up and I was just doing some preparation
Riley Bowman: for this and it's not something that gets thought about very often is what if
Riley Bowman: you have something like an insulin pump that you, that you wear full time, right?
Riley Bowman: 24 seven. And that could be a factor here or uh
Riley Bowman: you had a colostomy and you've got an
Riley Bowman: ostomy back you know like that's that's never any fun but that is the reality
Riley Bowman: for some people right and so those can also be factors in you know in a relevant
Riley Bowman: you know thing to at least be thinking of because i want to make sure as much
Riley Bowman: as best we can we're speaking to to everybody out there and considering all these things.
Jacob Paulsen: In one of the classes you taught this last weekend in Dallas,
Jacob Paulsen: in the same class, we had a shooter that basically had one hand,
Jacob Paulsen: not two, and another shooter who was in a wheelchair.
Riley Bowman: Yes.
Jacob Paulsen: Limitations that could impact what's viable for you.
Riley Bowman: In fact, at that whole conference, there were two individuals,
Riley Bowman: at least, that I saw that were in wheelchairs.
Riley Bowman: You're right. There was one individual that basically didn't have a hand.
Riley Bowman: Their support hand and there's another individual that their support hand was
Riley Bowman: missing most of their digits.
Jacob Paulsen: So that's going to, I mean, you know, limitations, but like we have an employee
Jacob Paulsen: here yesterday. This was on my mind because he came into my office yesterday and
Jacob Paulsen: And he said, hey, what are some considerations or things that I should be thinking
Jacob Paulsen: about with reference to shoulder holsters?
Jacob Paulsen: He's, you know, beyond what might be obvious. And at first, it kind of caught
Jacob Paulsen: me off guard. I was like, whoa, what's going on? Why are you looking?
Jacob Paulsen: But then I stopped and, like, processed, like, oh, this is an employee of ours
Jacob Paulsen: who's dealing with some pretty significant physical therapy right now.
Jacob Paulsen: He's got some spinal back-related issues that he's working through.
Riley Bowman: He's had a lot of challenges over the last few years.
Jacob Paulsen: It's been a rough year or so or more for him. And so just dealing with a lot
Jacob Paulsen: of chronic pain and trying to figure out how to manage some of these things.
Jacob Paulsen: And that's a great example as well of a limitation in that respect.
Riley Bowman: Yeah. Great comment by our friend Dan Brady on Facebook, actually.
Riley Bowman: He says, hernia mesh repair causes
Riley Bowman: tons of pain, AIWB or appendix inside waistband carry for some people.
Riley Bowman: So, yes, there you go. There's another potential thing that's fairly common, actually.
Riley Bowman: To have that kind of repair done for hernia.
Riley Bowman: So that could be a problem. I know actually a couple of people that do not or
Riley Bowman: cannot carry in the appendix position, which has become more and more prevalent
Riley Bowman: and popular in the last few years, last decade especially so.
Riley Bowman: But I know a few people that that is not an option really anymore because of
Riley Bowman: similar hernia type problems.
Jacob Paulsen: Let's start with the WB.
Riley Bowman: Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: The waistband.
Riley Bowman: The waistband.
Jacob Paulsen: Because certainly there's a lot of carry positions we're going to get into in
Jacob Paulsen: this episode, but the most common or popular carry positions are on the waistband.
Riley Bowman: Yep.
Jacob Paulsen: So – Yeah.
Riley Bowman: I think that's a perfect place to start because there are some positions,
Riley Bowman: if you will, or styles or types of carry that we would probably include as part
Riley Bowman: of this discussion that are not on the waistband.
Riley Bowman: So let's kind of separate those out. So we're talking about off-body stuff,
Riley Bowman: off-body options, ankle, for
Riley Bowman: instance, if you're, you know, maybe using like some kind of chest rig.
Jacob Paulsen: For instance, we could put that in there.
Riley Bowman: Yeah. So we could put that in those, and we'll put those things in that category.
Riley Bowman: So let's start with that waistband.
Jacob Paulsen: Waistband. So within the waistband, I think that we can start with breaking
Jacob Paulsen: this also into two halves. Yep.
Jacob Paulsen: Or I suppose there's two different perspectives. One is wear on the waistband.
Jacob Paulsen: The other perspective is in or outside the waistband.
Jacob Paulsen: So we start with OWB versus IWB. So outside the waistband and inside the waistband.
Jacob Paulsen: Yep. So think, you know, if it's on my pants, but it's on the outside of my pants, then it's OWB.
Jacob Paulsen: If it's between the pants and body sandwiched, then it's IWB.
Jacob Paulsen: Yep. So that's a starting point. And in the concealed carry context,
Jacob Paulsen: which is our arena, we don't see a lot of OWB because OWB is inherently more
Jacob Paulsen: difficult to conceal, right?
Jacob Paulsen: Stuffing something in the waistband between the pants and the body means that
Jacob Paulsen: you have the pants to help you conceal the holster.
Jacob Paulsen: Right. And so that tends to be the most common thing we see in the concealment community.
Jacob Paulsen: But I don't think we should swear off OWB and maybe that's the place to kind
Jacob Paulsen: of start and get that talk about.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, let's do that. But so I'm right there with you as far as outside waistband
Riley Bowman: carry is less prevalent in the concealed carry context because typically what
Riley Bowman: that means is we don't typically see outside waistband in front of the hips.
Riley Bowman: So it's typically a thing that's reserved for on the hip, maybe even slightly behind the hip.
Riley Bowman: So already we kind of end up removing from the discussion. Yeah.
Riley Bowman: About half of the waistband where you might carry something outside the waistband.
Riley Bowman: And it's not that you can't conceal an outside waistband holster.
Riley Bowman: It's just that it is more difficult and typically requires looser clothing,
Riley Bowman: which, you know, has its pros and cons as well.
Riley Bowman: Typically, from what I've observed for those people that are successful at carrying
Riley Bowman: in a concealed fashioned outside the waistband.
Riley Bowman: Uh, they're wearing a pretty loose fitting, you know, shirt or something over top or a jacket.
Riley Bowman: Jackets were coat jacket vest. Yeah. So, so cold weather actually is probably the most, uh,
Riley Bowman: you know, relevant thing is in this discussion, like as far as outside waistband
Riley Bowman: carry being viable for concealed carry,
Riley Bowman: there's some people that will, uh, maybe they inside waistband carry in the
Riley Bowman: warmer months on their hip or thereabouts,
Riley Bowman: but then in the winter they'll go OWB because they're, you know,
Riley Bowman: every time they're leaving the house, they've got at least at the very least
Riley Bowman: a light jacket or a hoodie over top. Yeah, sure. Right.
Riley Bowman: And so, I mean, that's, that's an important thing I think to recognize as part of this.
Jacob Paulsen: Yes. I carry OWB consistently every week. Because on Sundays when I go to church,
Jacob Paulsen: I'm wearing a suit jacket or a sports coat or something.
Jacob Paulsen: And so that's a scenario where I choose to go to OWBI.
Jacob Paulsen: It's the best option for me in that when I dress that way. Yeah. So, yeah.
Riley Bowman: Well, and that's a context that makes perfect sense. You know,
Riley Bowman: if you're wearing a sports coat or suit coat or something or jacket to church,
Riley Bowman: yeah, absolutely. I don't see any reason why not. I will say, though.
Riley Bowman: At least I can't take my jacket off. Yeah, that's true. you've probably experienced
Riley Bowman: this though that you've got to be still fairly discerning with that because
Riley Bowman: it's not that difficult for the butt of the gun to print and it's hard for.
Jacob Paulsen: You to straight up you know poke out yeah
Riley Bowman: Yeah if you got a pleated coat or something yeah if you got uh yeah exactly
Riley Bowman: if you got two uh uh it's not pleats but the tails i.
Jacob Paulsen: Don't know what they're called
Riley Bowman: Yeah split anyway yeah i have seen that not to me but i have seen that happen
Riley Bowman: to somebody else before where they just, they moved a certain way and the,
Riley Bowman: split there between you know in there yeah just actually got caught right on the on the grip of the.
Jacob Paulsen: Gun and that is a thing and and obviously uh i
Jacob Paulsen: think another thing that's worth mentioning before we get off the owb topic
Jacob Paulsen: is just that um there are owb holsters that are designed for different things
Jacob Paulsen: a lot of a lot of owb holsters are effectively duty holsters they're designed
Jacob Paulsen: to be on a duty holster uh and then you have owb holsters that are you know
Jacob Paulsen: for competition rigs you know,
Jacob Paulsen: the speed shooting game.
Jacob Paulsen: So, you know, that's fine too. But an OWB holster that is intended for concealed
Jacob Paulsen: carry is going to probably be a slightly different design.
Jacob Paulsen: It's probably going to go right on a belt. It's probably going to kind of curve
Jacob Paulsen: or hug or intended to be kind of tighter into the body and not kind of offset off of a big rig or belt.
Jacob Paulsen: You know, so anyway, that's another thing that's just worth noting that not
Jacob Paulsen: every OWB holster is intended to be an OWB concealment holster.
Riley Bowman: True, true.
Jacob Paulsen: Because we're full of shameless plugs today, it seems, I'll add that my favorite
Jacob Paulsen: is the KSG Trenton. And the KSG Yorktown is not too dissimilar.
Jacob Paulsen: But that's a holster that, while it is outside the waistband,
Jacob Paulsen: it hugs the body pretty tight.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. So you're not getting a lot of space that you have to conceal.
Riley Bowman: Yeah. Yeah. By the way, those are called suit vents.
Jacob Paulsen: Oh, suit vents.
Riley Bowman: So that's a two-vent suit jacket.
Jacob Paulsen: Did you just Google that just now?
Riley Bowman: Yeah, yeah. I was like, it's going to bother me until I...
Jacob Paulsen: Your gun could poke out the suit vent.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So...
Riley Bowman: Again, the reality of an outside waistband carry is you're taking something
Riley Bowman: and attaching it to your body, attaching to the belt, sitting outside of that.
Riley Bowman: And a lot of the features with a concealment holster that make those work,
Riley Bowman: the feature is just not an option with an outside waistband design.
Riley Bowman: What I'm talking about is when we start going inside the waistband,
Riley Bowman: we're bringing the gun closer to the body.
Riley Bowman: That's true. and that does have an effect but
Riley Bowman: inside waistband holsters today ones that are designed well
Riley Bowman: that are designed uh with you know
Riley Bowman: thoughtfulness in mind behind that design are going
Riley Bowman: to use certain features to help them conceal better one of those that's uh i
Riley Bowman: mean it's pretty common in today's world i still see some holster makers that
Riley Bowman: do not do this but it's become a well accepted thing that you want a holster
Riley Bowman: for inside waistband use that has a claw or wing.
Riley Bowman: And if you're not familiar with what that is, the claw or wing attaches to typically
Riley Bowman: somewhere on the face of the holster.
Riley Bowman: And it is essentially a lever that sits right behind where the belt goes as
Riley Bowman: it passes, you know, through clips or loops on the holster itself.
Riley Bowman: And the belt is going to go right over top of that lever that wing and then
Riley Bowman: as the belt is tightened that wing acts as a lever and it helps leverage the
Riley Bowman: grip in better to the body along the.
Jacob Paulsen: Curvature of the body
Riley Bowman: Correct and so that's you know simply does not exist in the world of outside waistband yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: It's just not
Riley Bowman: Just by nature of the design unless.
Jacob Paulsen: We can figure that out and come up with it we could be rich well just that was
Riley Bowman: A joke a quick Hey, just as a quick side note, some companies, by the way, are...
Riley Bowman: Not the Trenton, but the Yorktown holster that you mentioned a moment ago with
Riley Bowman: KSG Armory holsters, when it's set up correctly, you do have the ability to
Riley Bowman: create what we call asymmetry.
Riley Bowman: And I'm stealing that term shamelessly from John Houtman at Philster.
Riley Bowman: By the way you mount the loops on the Yorktown holster, you can create asymmetry
Riley Bowman: which helps tuck that grip in,
Riley Bowman: meaning that one of the loops is mounted further away than the other on the
Riley Bowman: holster itself. So that helps tuck that in.
Riley Bowman: They did something similar with their holster at Philster a few years back.
Riley Bowman: What was that one called now?
Riley Bowman: I can't remember what it's called.
Jacob Paulsen: There's no world I'm going to remember that.
Riley Bowman: It's blanking on me right now. But they basically, as far as I know,
Riley Bowman: are the first ones I ever saw, execute a concept like that, which helped create
Riley Bowman: asymmetry in an outside waistband holster.
Jacob Paulsen: It's not a wing, but it's an alternative way to try and achieve a similar end.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, it essentially just means where the loops mount on the holster,
Riley Bowman: they are not on the same plane.
Riley Bowman: And so you can create a little bit of a tuck of sorts.
Riley Bowman: So anyway, we can move on from that.
Jacob Paulsen: All good.
Riley Bowman: America 250 Project 1868. Yeah, hey.
Jacob Paulsen: So I think then if we go inside the waistband, the first thing I think we need
Jacob Paulsen: to do is clarify what we mean when we use some of these clock positions. Yep.
Jacob Paulsen: So, you know, you've mentioned on the hip is something you just said or strong
Jacob Paulsen: side, I can't remember, I think you said on the hip. Yep.
Jacob Paulsen: But I think probably the clearest way to communicate a position on the waistband
Jacob Paulsen: is to think of it like the dial of a clock. So, you know, if you are standing
Jacob Paulsen: or sitting normal and you look straight ahead, then you're kind of looking at your 12 o'clock.
Jacob Paulsen: And, you know, if you look where your right arm is, like right there,
Jacob Paulsen: you know, where your right arm is, that's your 3 o'clock.
Jacob Paulsen: And then like the small center of the rear in your back, you know,
Jacob Paulsen: that would be your 6 o'clock.
Jacob Paulsen: And, of course, obviously your left arm would be your 9 o'clock.
Jacob Paulsen: So I think just to remove any ambiguity or to try and communicate more clearly,
Jacob Paulsen: that's the most common way I try to refer to these positions.
Jacob Paulsen: And you'll see holster companies and things as well. And I think generally as
Jacob Paulsen: a community, I didn't make this up.
Jacob Paulsen: This is just how we often refer to these carrier positions. Oh, I carry at 130.
Riley Bowman: Mm-hmm.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, it's a convenient way of classifying those positions on the body for sure.
Riley Bowman: And you and I were having a discussion before we went live about that.
Riley Bowman: And I was kind of saying that I would try to think less about a specific spot
Riley Bowman: on the body as far as like on that clock.
Riley Bowman: And just think of these a little bit more generally. They're sort of like this,
Riley Bowman: you know, like where do you draw the line at?
Jacob Paulsen: More like you're playing zone.
Riley Bowman: Yeah you know i mean like where you draw a line between small back and inside
Riley Bowman: the waistband but you know behind the hip and on the hip like you know we we
Riley Bowman: talk about these things as as more,
Riley Bowman: generalities um you know i i could say on the hip and that might actually mean
Riley Bowman: one thing to me and something different to somebody else as far as a clock reference
Riley Bowman: sure or just even a specific location on the hip right a.
Jacob Paulsen: Little bit a little bit tough i think i think we got to think of it But when
Jacob Paulsen: we talk about consumer positions, I think you have to think about in terms of zones.
Jacob Paulsen: You have to dial in your position. So we can say 3 o'clock on the hip,
Jacob Paulsen: and we don't mean exactly 3 o'clock or even necessarily exactly on the hip.
Jacob Paulsen: I think what we're trying to say is that general kind of zone or range is what
Jacob Paulsen: we're referring to, and you can dial that in based on what works for you.
Riley Bowman: Yeah. Yeah. So, all right.
Riley Bowman: Let's talk a little bit more specifically now about some of these zones or these locations on the body.
Riley Bowman: We've got some comments already coming in about this somewhat.
Riley Bowman: Like Dan, for instance, says anything between four and eight o'clock should be a no-go zone. So...
Riley Bowman: We don't intend to necessarily call any of these out specifically like that
Riley Bowman: right now. We want to talk about the specific positions and address them one by one.
Riley Bowman: Pros and cons. Where should we start?
Jacob Paulsen: I think we start with the appendix.
Riley Bowman: All right. Start in the front.
Jacob Paulsen: There's a reason why I think we should start there. And I think we can start
Jacob Paulsen: there by saying the reason.
Jacob Paulsen: And that is that this is today has become the most popular, trendy,
Jacob Paulsen: if you like, highly accepted by subject matter experts. and credible firearm trainers position.
Jacob Paulsen: So I think we start there because it's the big dog. It's the 800-pound gorilla.
Jacob Paulsen: And that wasn't always the case. In fact, you and I are kind of talking about this.
Jacob Paulsen: I really feel like I entered this industry full-time as a full-time professional
Jacob Paulsen: during a transitional period in our community where people were transitioning to appendix.
Jacob Paulsen: And so I don't have a lot of experience or if you prefer subject matter expertise
Jacob Paulsen: or wisdom from the 1990s and 2000s when other carry positions were more dominant.
Jacob Paulsen: I mean, I really am a child of the appendix carry position. Not that I've always appendix carried.
Jacob Paulsen: As far as this decade, we've been full-time in this industry together.
Riley Bowman: That's what's going on. At the time we launched the podcast,
Riley Bowman: I think you and I are both still carrying on the hip or slightly behind.
Riley Bowman: But we're just starting to become you
Riley Bowman: know sort of start to experiment with things like appendix carry
Riley Bowman: and that has something that was something i had experimented with
Riley Bowman: a little before here and there but always was just frustrated with what i found
Riley Bowman: and some of that was a limitation of there weren't that many options in the
Riley Bowman: marketplace that supported appendix carry that were viable good quality well-designed
Riley Bowman: options and some of that was a lack of knowledge on my part.
Riley Bowman: Of like really how to do it, how to dial it in, how to make it work for me.
Riley Bowman: I like the example that, or kind of the description that John Hottman gives,
Riley Bowman: which is, you know, I've heard him describe it as this, that,
Riley Bowman: you know, fitting a holster on you is really kind of like fitting a prosthetic.
Riley Bowman: You know, that, you know, when someone has, you know, the loss of a limb or
Riley Bowman: something and they got to get a prosthetic, like those prosthetics are custom
Riley Bowman: fitted and designed for that individual.
Riley Bowman: Yes uh and so that's kind of how the approach
Riley Bowman: ought to be a lot of times like especially if you're going to
Riley Bowman: get a holster to really work with and for you uh because
Riley Bowman: you could certainly just grab any holster off the shelf and strap it on yes
Riley Bowman: and and and sometimes you're just gonna get lucky and it's gonna totally work
Riley Bowman: for you another time but most times i would say uh is something you got to kind
Riley Bowman: of play around with experiment change ride height change you know can't maybe
Riley Bowman: a little bit, change, you know,
Riley Bowman: a little bit on where it is exactly on you, maybe change how tight or how loose
Riley Bowman: your belt is worn, all sorts of things you got to do,
Riley Bowman: a wedge, adding a wedge and, you know, where is that wedge placed on the holster?
Riley Bowman: What shape of wedge? Like you like to use a block for your wedge, last I checked.
Jacob Paulsen: Not currently, actually, but I go back and forth on that.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, you know, and I'm good with more of a standard kind of wedge,
Riley Bowman: shape, wedged for most of my use.
Riley Bowman: And so those are all individual choices here, and that's where this can get
Riley Bowman: also difficult and sometimes frustrating for people.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, I think we better, it just occurred to me, we've been talking about appendix
Jacob Paulsen: for a minute here, but we have not actually described it for anyone who's not familiar with the term.
Riley Bowman: I started going down the rabbit hole.
Jacob Paulsen: I think the majority of our listeners know exactly what we're talking about.
Jacob Paulsen: Sure, sure. But we don't want to assume.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, just in case. So when we say appendix, we're referring to kind of in front of the hip position.
Jacob Paulsen: I think if we were using the dial of a clock, this is probably somewhere between,
Jacob Paulsen: you know, most people, for most people, it's probably somewhere between like 1 and 2.
Jacob Paulsen: Maybe it's, you know, more 1230. Maybe it's even more 230.
Riley Bowman: I would say noon to 2. Noon to 130. Because I know plenty of people that go
Riley Bowman: straight on the midline.
Riley Bowman: Okay, so I think you include 12 o'clock in that. So I would say noon to 1.30.
Jacob Paulsen: Maybe 2 o'clock. Yeah, so in front, center line, or more likely off center a
Jacob Paulsen: bit, is what we're talking about.
Jacob Paulsen: I assume the appendix is somewhere in that region. I have no idea where your appendix is.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, I mean, it's right
Riley Bowman: Side of your body. It's, you know, of course, at the top of your intestines.
Jacob Paulsen: I don't know who decided to call it appendix, Kerry, someone who knew stuff
Jacob Paulsen: about. But anyway, that's what we're talking about.
Jacob Paulsen: And it is, you know, if I knew it was interesting, we were just at TACCON,
Jacob Paulsen: you mentioned earlier in the episode, and TACCON has a competitive component
Jacob Paulsen: where everybody kind of shoots a competition, a match, I don't know if you recall it. I don't know.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, it's a match. It's a match, thank you. There's a match.
Jacob Paulsen: And then, you know, there's a final 16 that kind of do a final head-to-head
Jacob Paulsen: showdown for men and also eight women. So a total of 24 kind of final people
Jacob Paulsen: who score the best over the course of the first two days, and they all come
Jacob Paulsen: together on the third day and battle it out.
Riley Bowman: And top 16 for the men and top eight for the ladies.
Jacob Paulsen: Correct. So a total of 24 people. Of those 24 people, which we went and we watched that…
Jacob Paulsen: Man, I could get this number off, but I think of the 16 men,
Jacob Paulsen: I only saw one who was not drawing from appendix.
Riley Bowman: Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: And of the women,
Riley Bowman: I… I know there was at least, I think there was one dude that was using a duty
Riley Bowman: rig setup. Now, here's the thing.
Riley Bowman: With TACCON, you do have some professional, like, LEOs, law enforcement,
Riley Bowman: that are there. And they're running duty gear.
Riley Bowman: So, I think there was one guy that may have been duty gear. And I think there
Riley Bowman: was one lady that was running, you know, like a duty belt setup. And that's acceptable.
Riley Bowman: They're typically running a duty holster with retention and all that.
Riley Bowman: And that has its own, I guess you could say, handicap.
Riley Bowman: Sure, sure, sure. Right? But the point is... Out of concealed shooters, yeah, I'm with you.
Riley Bowman: I think, especially for sure out of the dudes, I observed one man that was coming
Riley Bowman: from something other than appendix.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, I think the takeaway is appendix is... I'm using that as an example to
Jacob Paulsen: prove what I said earlier, which is this is the 800-pound gorilla.
Jacob Paulsen: This is the dominant position. It's where Riley and I carry.
Riley Bowman: Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: And I think that it's worth mentioning maybe what some of the features are and
Jacob Paulsen: the cons potentially about why that's become so popular.
Riley Bowman: Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: I think that we have to focus on the pros because obviously if so many people
Jacob Paulsen: have migrated to this position, I'm laughing because that sounds like a funny adjective,
Jacob Paulsen: or no verb, excuse me, migrated to this position, then there must be reasons
Jacob Paulsen: why. And so I think we have to think through that.
Jacob Paulsen: And I think there's several that come to my mind like really quick and fast
Jacob Paulsen: that we could talk about.
Jacob Paulsen: But the one I will start with that I find most impactful for me is just that I can see it.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. My ability to see it leads to a lot of other advantages,
Jacob Paulsen: like my ability to retain it, retain the gun in some sort of physical encounter,
Jacob Paulsen: standing up or on the ground.
Jacob Paulsen: My ability to reholster safely is critical or is enhanced because I can see the rig.
Jacob Paulsen: Even with my little bit of a muffin top here, I can see my holster.
Jacob Paulsen: When I go to put my gun in there, I can see it when I draw it.
Jacob Paulsen: So I think that something as simple as just I can see it.
Riley Bowman: That's huge, actually. I think that is one of the greatest benefits of,
Riley Bowman: appendix carry it so it really anything in front
Riley Bowman: of the hips because it's so much more visible than any
Riley Bowman: other carry position even more so than right on the hip three o'clock or you
Riley Bowman: know as soon as we start going behind the hip it starts becoming basically invisible
Riley Bowman: to you you got to do things by feel or maybe proprioception uh and i like and
Riley Bowman: it's something that i try to do consistently.
Riley Bowman: I'm not always perfect with it, but, uh, I try every time I reholster to make
Riley Bowman: sure one, I kind of move my hips a little bit forward.
Riley Bowman: So I'm creating a little more, uh, you know, the angle becomes more,
Riley Bowman: uh, less likely to be, you know, problem as far as pointing the gun at myself.
Riley Bowman: And if you do this correctly, by the way, you can absolutely draw from and reholster
Riley Bowman: to an appendix holster without pointing any part of the gun or muzzle at yourself.
Riley Bowman: And so that's where you'll hear people talk about, you know,
Riley Bowman: throwing the hips forward a little bit.
Riley Bowman: And then you've got pretty much a clear sight line through that holster.
Riley Bowman: And I can prove it. I've never shot the video because I'm a little bit unsure
Riley Bowman: about showing, you know, everything down there doing this.
Riley Bowman: I'm a little bit more of a private individual, but when I'm wearing shorts in particular.
Riley Bowman: So in the warmer months, I like to wear shorts. I see daylight through my holster,
Riley Bowman: through my short leg, you know, on the right side and all the way down to the
Riley Bowman: ground when I am reholstering in the appendix position.
Riley Bowman: And that's what that slight, you know, can't forward or throwing forward of
Riley Bowman: my hip. And I see pure daylight.
Riley Bowman: So anyway, I explained that to say that I like to look at the holster and confirm.
Riley Bowman: It's not about it is a little bit
Riley Bowman: but it's less about me being able to see and
Riley Bowman: make the reholstering of the gun easier it is
Riley Bowman: that but it's more about is the holster clear do i have a garment in the way
Riley Bowman: is there something in there that shouldn't be in there some people like an open
Riley Bowman: bottom holster because they're they're a little bit you know nervous about uh
Riley Bowman: an ejected shell casing or something going in there and preventing them being able to reholster,
Riley Bowman: I'm just using that as an example like could there be something that got into
Riley Bowman: the holster my biggest concern is the concealment garment that I can you know
Riley Bowman: remove this and I can look right down in there and go yep holster opening is
Riley Bowman: wide open there's nothing in the way I can now go back into the holster.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, because the most common thing people use to point out as a negative of
Jacob Paulsen: appendix carries the idea that the gun is oriented toward the body.
Jacob Paulsen: So I think here's how I think of this or how I think it might be valuable to think about it.
Jacob Paulsen: In fact, our friend John likes to say a holstered gun is not pointed.
Jacob Paulsen: Right. Because the first, I guess, second rule or whatever it is of firearm
Jacob Paulsen: safety is never point the gun at anything you're not willing to destroy or something on those lines.
Jacob Paulsen: But when the gun is in the holster, it's not pointed at anything because the
Jacob Paulsen: holster's inherent job is to keep the gun from being able
Jacob Paulsen: to go bang it's protecting the trigger trigger guard and
Jacob Paulsen: and it is the mechanism that is
Jacob Paulsen: preventing a discharge of the gun so when the gun is in the holster where it
Jacob Paulsen: points is is in my opinion a non-concern assuming right you have a safe gun
Jacob Paulsen: a safe holster right that thing doesn't just go off on you know it's not really
Jacob Paulsen: you know i don't know if i would carry appendix or any other position with a
Jacob Paulsen: p320 you can call that a joke or you might think I'm serious,
Jacob Paulsen: but the point, the takeaway here is that when it's in the holster,
Jacob Paulsen: I'm not concerned about its orientation.
Jacob Paulsen: And I don't know anywhere else on the waistband I could put the gun in a holster.
Jacob Paulsen: Have the sense that it's never going to be pointed at
Jacob Paulsen: myself and i think that's that's the second kind of half so
Jacob Paulsen: the first half is when holstered so what and if
Jacob Paulsen: it is and if you if you think i shouldn't say so what it's still
Jacob Paulsen: concerning you probably shouldn't be putting it anywhere on the waistband um
Jacob Paulsen: and that's the second half the second half is this idea of well in the moment
Jacob Paulsen: of drawing the gun or reholstering the gun where is it pointed and in it's my
Jacob Paulsen: observation uh i think Like last year,
Jacob Paulsen: I went and counted this up, but I think I spent like 40 days,
Jacob Paulsen: full days on a gun range with a line of people, either at a conference or a
Jacob Paulsen: class I was teaching or something.
Jacob Paulsen: But I think I spent 40 days on firing lines with a bunch of humans for whom
Jacob Paulsen: I had some degree of supervision or responsibility or something.
Jacob Paulsen: And I'm not trying to toot my horn. I'm simply saying that I get a lot of observation
Jacob Paulsen: time of watching people draw guns and reholster them.
Jacob Paulsen: And the people who muzzle themselves the most often in that process of draw,
Jacob Paulsen: reholster, are not the appendix carriers.
Jacob Paulsen: It's the other people. It's the other positions on the waistband that we're going to talk about.
Jacob Paulsen: So, for us, related to the specific safety concern, I know I'm kind of going
Jacob Paulsen: off a little bit of rant, but I'm trying to kind of put this to bed a little bit.
Jacob Paulsen: If your concern is while the gun's in the holster it might point at something
Jacob Paulsen: wrong then I suppose that's true anywhere the waistband you're like IWP holsters
Jacob Paulsen: orient the gun such that it points toward the body and
Jacob Paulsen: based on the movement you make uh i mean right now
Jacob Paulsen: my holster is not pointed at a part of my body but you
Jacob Paulsen: know maybe when i tie my shoes or move in a certain way it might and that's
Jacob Paulsen: true of any position on the waistband that's just the nature of the game and
Jacob Paulsen: it doesn't concern me because the holster its job is to prevent the gun from
Jacob Paulsen: going off when it's in the holster so i'm really concerned about where the gun
Jacob Paulsen: is pointed in the moments i i have to draw the gun and the moments i reholster of the gun.
Jacob Paulsen: And that for me is easier to manage safely in a position where I can see and
Jacob Paulsen: think about the orientation of my body relative to the holster than in a position
Jacob Paulsen: where I can't see well or can't manage it at all.
Riley Bowman: Yeah. Yeah. Excellent points.
Riley Bowman: We're here to talk about pros and cons, right? About these things.
Riley Bowman: And as you mentioned, appendix carry is kind of, it's becoming the way that
Riley Bowman: many people are going with.
Riley Bowman: It's hard to say whether it is the way, you know, overall, you know,
Riley Bowman: across the shooting or gun carrying communities.
Riley Bowman: I don't have numbers on that per se, but amongst the, those that take this more
Riley Bowman: seriously, meaning like it's more than just something that they do casually,
Riley Bowman: but that they train regularly, they practice regularly.
Riley Bowman: Maybe their instructors, things like that. We see a high percentage of those
Riley Bowman: people going with appendix carry.
Riley Bowman: So a couple other pros and cons I want to make sure we hit on.
Riley Bowman: I think these are relevant. I do think there is a potential for...
Riley Bowman: You know, some inherent risk there.
Riley Bowman: If you are, if you do not follow some of the procedures, reholstering can be problematic.
Riley Bowman: So it's something that I think requires at least some knowledge and understanding
Riley Bowman: about how you go about doing it so that you can do it safely.
Riley Bowman: So there is that, but I think that can be true of just about any of the carry positions.
Riley Bowman: As you noted, I mean, one thing we see, it's quite common for those that carry,
Riley Bowman: I would say, on or behind the hip, especially the more behind we go.
Riley Bowman: It's not uncommon to see the person inboard the gun on themselves,
Riley Bowman: meaning that they orient the muzzle inward as they are essentially fishing for
Riley Bowman: the opening of the holster.
Riley Bowman: And that can be true of any position.
Riley Bowman: And none of those are good, regardless of up front or on the hip or behind or anything like that.
Riley Bowman: So we don't want to do that, But I have observed that it seems to be more prevalent
Riley Bowman: when we're talking about going back here where we just can't see particularly
Riley Bowman: well and we start doing things more by feel.
Riley Bowman: I think that's maybe one of the reasons why people will start inboarding the
Riley Bowman: gun is they're doing it by feel. It's like, where is the opening of that holster?
Riley Bowman: And it's sort of like, I'm going to point muzzle first trying to find the opening
Riley Bowman: because if I can find the opening, then I can get the rest of the gun in.
Riley Bowman: To me, that's psychologically kind of like what's going on there when people do that.
Jacob Paulsen: Sure, sure.
Riley Bowman: And so if you can just see what you're doing, then you're a lot less likely to do that, I think.
Riley Bowman: Let's talk about one more pro, at least one more pro, about appendix carry speed. What do you think?
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah.
Riley Bowman: What have you observed?
Jacob Paulsen: I think it's really difficult to have any sort of true data-based thing on this
Jacob Paulsen: because we can't take any given person and test them with different positions
Jacob Paulsen: because it comes down to what they're used to or what they've practiced and trained in the past.
Jacob Paulsen: That said, if we look at it, you know, if there is a kind of an objective way
Jacob Paulsen: to look at this, what we could do is say, look at the top draw speed times out
Jacob Paulsen: there, people who are drawing and getting a gun into a fight faster than anyone
Jacob Paulsen: else, and how are they carrying it compared to others.
Jacob Paulsen: So I think that we see both from strong side, you know, hip carry,
Jacob Paulsen: duty positions, you know, common duty carry positions, and appendix carry,
Jacob Paulsen: from both those positions, we tend to see pretty dang fast draw times.
Jacob Paulsen: I think that if you look at competitive shooters and if you look at serious
Jacob Paulsen: defensive-oriented trainers and shooters, we tend to see the fastest draw times from those positions.
Jacob Paulsen: Now, there could be kind of a data bias because the people who train a lot today
Jacob Paulsen: are more likely to be carrying in that position, as we mentioned.
Jacob Paulsen: But there's i think there's no doubt that it seems to me to be both logical
Jacob Paulsen: and observational that if you're carrying that gun behind the hip you're going
Jacob Paulsen: to be slower to get it to target you have more distance to cover
Riley Bowman: Well yeah that's just true i i that's exactly
Riley Bowman: where my mind is at that i think coming from
Riley Bowman: say appendix position even versus on the
Riley Bowman: hip three o'clock you still got to cover more distance
Riley Bowman: it may not be much but you still got to cover more um
Riley Bowman: to your point i've seen people that come from you know
Riley Bowman: on the hip very very quickly uh and
Riley Bowman: you know so like it can be done but i do think that you know physics be physics
Riley Bowman: and that you know if you got a greater distance to to cover in in performing
Riley Bowman: a certain action or motion like there's just a certain amount you know may not
Riley Bowman: be very much but there's going to be some finite amount of time extra that's, you know,
Riley Bowman: tacked on because you've got to cover more distance.
Riley Bowman: Here's one more thing, too, that I want you to think about. And it's not just
Riley Bowman: about, say, raw speed, but also efficiency.
Riley Bowman: And the efficiency of movement that you've got to do with your body to come
Riley Bowman: from here, you know, at your waist in front of you.
Riley Bowman: Versus here or back here, so on the hip or behind the hip, is quite a bit different.
Riley Bowman: I can actually just be standing there totally neutral, and you can watch me
Riley Bowman: from behind, watch my shoulders, watch my head, watch my spine.
Riley Bowman: And if I draw from appendix, those things, spine, shoulders,
Riley Bowman: head, it can be done with almost no movement in those parts of the body.
Riley Bowman: But as soon as I got to go to my strong side hip or behind the hip, what do you see?
Riley Bowman: You're going to see one shoulder dip a little more than the other.
Riley Bowman: Another one come up higher than the other.
Riley Bowman: You'll see the head turn a little bit. The spine has to now turn a little bit
Riley Bowman: because we got to twist that upper torso just to get things back there.
Riley Bowman: The strong hand and arm has got to come back and up.
Riley Bowman: You know, so not that that can't be done again very effectively.
Riley Bowman: However, you are now having to alter your anatomy to make that possible to get
Riley Bowman: your hand to the gun, to get it out.
Riley Bowman: You got to come up now towards your, your, your armpit and then back to the target.
Riley Bowman: And that's just simply less efficient movement than what I can do here up front.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, I think those are all valid points. I think there's some downsides to appendix too.
Jacob Paulsen: I don't think that it's fair to consider it to be the end all because there are some downsides.
Jacob Paulsen: In addition to all the potential physical limitations that any given individual
Jacob Paulsen: might have that make that really non-viable, I think that there's some other concerns.
Jacob Paulsen: I think concealing in the appendix position has its challenges.
Jacob Paulsen: I think in some ways it's easier, to be clear. I think in some ways it could
Jacob Paulsen: be more difficult because the body is shaped like a bean.
Jacob Paulsen: We're flat across the back. We're relatively rounded around the side.
Jacob Paulsen: And in the front, there's some variance depending on your own shape,
Jacob Paulsen: but it tends to be a rounded front.
Jacob Paulsen: And it's just more difficult, in my opinion, to conceal there.
Jacob Paulsen: It requires more holster optimization. It requires more thinking about position and right height.
Jacob Paulsen: I think it's less dummy proof. I think it requires more work and optimization
Jacob Paulsen: to conceal effectively in the appendix position than it does a lot of others.
Jacob Paulsen: It's also kind of the part of your body that people look at when they see you.
Jacob Paulsen: So that's a factor too that it's just a little bit maybe more visible than something
Jacob Paulsen: that's under my arm or off to the side or something like that or a little bit behind my hip.
Jacob Paulsen: So I think those are all also valid considerations that are potential cons.
Riley Bowman: Yeah. And those are, that's valid. That's the part of, you know,
Riley Bowman: talking about fitting it like a, like a prosthetic, you know,
Riley Bowman: that's where that becomes relevant because that is where that unique,
Riley Bowman: you know, having to set it up for you piece comes into play.
Riley Bowman: I would counter a little bit though, that one thing that just one more pro about
Riley Bowman: carrying independent exposition is that I can look down and I can see for myself, am I concealed or not?
Jacob Paulsen: How concealed is it? Sure.
Riley Bowman: Whereas you might think you're concealed when you're back here on the hip or
Riley Bowman: behind the hip, but you actually don't know.
Jacob Paulsen: Sure, sure. That's valid. That's fair. That's totally fair.
Riley Bowman: Unless you can get in front of a mirror, I suppose.
Jacob Paulsen: Another advantage of appendix carry, too, for me is vehicle.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. And the car, it's just easy to get the gut out from that position.
Jacob Paulsen: So, yes, all that's true, but you almost have to be like a concealment nerd
Jacob Paulsen: to conceal well an appendix.
Jacob Paulsen: Earlier we were talking about some bigger guys.
Jacob Paulsen: In Texas, the TechCon, and any of these events, you see all sorts of shapes
Jacob Paulsen: of people, and sometimes you see some pretty big people.
Jacob Paulsen: And those guys have even more optimization challenges.
Jacob Paulsen: I mean, and it's not that it can't be done. I mean, I think that,
Jacob Paulsen: you know, we end up spending all this time.
Jacob Paulsen: We have a whole video course on our website about holsters and concealment and carry positions.
Jacob Paulsen: But I think that in that appendix position, you have to be more geeky.
Jacob Paulsen: You have to be more nerdy. You have to be more about, you know,
Jacob Paulsen: well, yeah, but if we do the wing or this type of wedge or we change the position
Jacob Paulsen: of the wedge, what about ride height and then a little over here?
Jacob Paulsen: And how about we hike up the belt?
Jacob Paulsen: You know, let's try a higher position from the, from the pants and all this stuff. And it's like,
Jacob Paulsen: Yes, all that is true. I think anybody
Jacob Paulsen: can probably conceal pretty well in appendix, but it takes more work.
Jacob Paulsen: If you take a traditional IWB holster and you chuck it on the hip about 3,
Jacob Paulsen: 34 o'clock, probably it's just done. And that's my point.
Riley Bowman: That's fair. That's all. That's fine. Yeah, we would like to make this more
Riley Bowman: dummy-proof, you know, as dummy-proof as possible.
Riley Bowman: The idea of, you know, understanding concealment, how to do it,
Riley Bowman: how to do it for you. That's part of the reason why we're even having this discussion,
Riley Bowman: too, is talking about different carry positions.
Riley Bowman: I think right now we could still probably go on about some more things,
Riley Bowman: but let's transition and talk about some other positions.
Riley Bowman: And I think part of the way to do this, because we've sort of already,
Riley Bowman: we've focused a little bit more on appendix and we've addressed some pros.
Riley Bowman: We've talked about some cons.
Riley Bowman: And as we've done that, we've also talked mostly about cons of some of the other carry positions.
Riley Bowman: So it's probably a good place to start. and maybe highlight some of these other
Riley Bowman: positions and maybe if we could identify what the pros are of those positions.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, I think if there's a place on your body that most naturally hides a gun,
Jacob Paulsen: it's probably about 430 on the waistband.
Jacob Paulsen: That's Jacob's opinion because at the center of your back, there's this almost
Jacob Paulsen: like a concave thing going on.
Jacob Paulsen: It's not just across your back, it's flat.
Jacob Paulsen: It's right there at the spine, right there at the center of the back.
Jacob Paulsen: You tend to almost get this like inward bend and shape.
Jacob Paulsen: And so it creates this like really natural, probably the best or only position
Jacob Paulsen: for a dude who doesn't have breasts to put a gun that naturally gets hidden.
Jacob Paulsen: So that would be the first thing I'll point out.
Jacob Paulsen: I think that the major pro of putting that gun a little bit behind the hip is this kind of natural,
Jacob Paulsen: easy concealment zone where a shirt is likely to just kind of have a natural
Jacob Paulsen: gap when hanging down where a gun can get placed.
Riley Bowman: So I would say that that natural concealment zone is, there's truth to that.
Riley Bowman: And that is true, except for one critical moment, which is if you need to bend over.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, absolutely true. Yeah. You, you cannot bend over like ever.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. If you're carrying in that position, like you better be,
Jacob Paulsen: have like a big old, like a trench coat on or, I'm exaggerating,
Jacob Paulsen: but, or, or just never bend over.
Riley Bowman: I remember when I carried kind of about the 430 position, I got to a point where,
Riley Bowman: you know, if I was going to bend over, pick something up, I would basically just squat.
Jacob Paulsen: I call it the pregnant woman move.
Riley Bowman: Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: Like you basically are like reaching down like you're a pregnant woman.
Jacob Paulsen: Like you're just like, you know.
Riley Bowman: And maybe that's not like super duper out of place, but it is a little bit odd,
Riley Bowman: especially in some contexts.
Jacob Paulsen: Sure, maybe a little bit. You know. But yeah, I mean, you know,
Jacob Paulsen: if you have to retie your shoes, like you better go find a wall to stand in
Jacob Paulsen: front of you. So, yes, all that is true.
Jacob Paulsen: But, again, I think the big pro there, I think there's also a comfort thing.
Jacob Paulsen: I think it's easier to achieve a high degree of comfort back there behind the
Jacob Paulsen: hip or even right around on the hip and strong side.
Jacob Paulsen: I think those are – everything about the concealment and comfort factor are
Jacob Paulsen: easier. I think it just requires less optimization and work and holster design, all that.
Jacob Paulsen: I think it's just a little bit more of an easy button.
Riley Bowman: I think I could probably push back on some of that. I will say that,
Riley Bowman: and some of this might be how adapted you are to things too,
Riley Bowman: and I don't know how much of that is a factor.
Riley Bowman: But I remember when I used to think, you know, at 4 o'clock or whatever was...
Riley Bowman: The comfortable place to carry but uh
Riley Bowman: a few years ago i was in uh jeff gonzalez's concealed
Riley Bowman: carry instructor development course or whatever i can't
Riley Bowman: remember that what the exact title of his course was and part
Riley Bowman: of that was we had to demonstrate competency for multiple positions like kind
Riley Bowman: of all the common positions i mean he even had us i think doing some some uh
Riley Bowman: shooting from ankle holster i know we did pocket we did iwb we did uh on the
Riley Bowman: hip uh we did forward the hip we did,
Riley Bowman: you know, I think we maybe even did a little bit of cross body.
Riley Bowman: I can't remember for sure on that, but we had to do all these different positions.
Riley Bowman: And so I remember I had a holster set up to go, go inside waistband on the hip or slightly behind.
Riley Bowman: And I remember thinking years ago, this was comfortable for me.
Riley Bowman: And I only had to do it for a couple of hours one day.
Riley Bowman: And I was like, Ooh, I don't like this. And one of
Riley Bowman: the reasons why is because of where the pressure from my belt was being applied
Riley Bowman: and it was just like it's just really kind of torquing that that holster into
Riley Bowman: my hip and it i did not like it and i was like wow i used to think that was
Riley Bowman: comfortable and i no longer do so i don't know where that where that factors maybe.
Jacob Paulsen: It's very jacob specific right maybe there's plenty of people out there and
Jacob Paulsen: say no man i slapped on my first appendix holster and i just thought it just
Jacob Paulsen: disappeared was so comfortable um and and so so maybe i'm talking more about
Jacob Paulsen: my own personal experience.
Jacob Paulsen: But certainly that has been true for me. For me, forward to the hip,
Jacob Paulsen: the concealment and the comfort have been more difficult to,
Jacob Paulsen: they just require more nerdiness, more geeking out, more experimentation,
Jacob Paulsen: more adjustments, more quality gear.
Riley Bowman: Okay. Well, and that's where, again, we established this in the beginning of
Riley Bowman: the episode that this stuff is going to be different and unique for each person too. Sure.
Riley Bowman: Right? Like different people are going to find different things that work for
Riley Bowman: them or that are more comfortable for them.
Riley Bowman: The caveat I would add to this part of this discussion is that just because
Riley Bowman: something isn't comfortable right now doesn't mean that it can't be if you aren't
Riley Bowman: a little more patient with it or try tweaking some things.
Riley Bowman: Because it's very easy. So, like, for instance, I know there's going to be some
Riley Bowman: people out there watching or listening.
Riley Bowman: And some of you I know just simply do not care. And you probably get the sense
Riley Bowman: that we are pushing people towards more like appendix carry.
Riley Bowman: I don't necessarily intend for that to be the case. However,
Riley Bowman: there is a reason why I carry where I carry.
Riley Bowman: And I think it's a similar reason why you carry in the same way, much the same way today.
Riley Bowman: And it's because we feel like the advantages outweigh the disadvantages in most contexts.
Riley Bowman: But uh uh for it's
Riley Bowman: very easy for someone to go you know to slap a holster on the
Riley Bowman: appendix position and be like oh i don't like that and just
Riley Bowman: disregard it um and that was that was me
Riley Bowman: in the beginning but knowing what i know now i know
Riley Bowman: that there were certain things i needed to kind of tweak different belt different
Riley Bowman: you know make make a slight changes as far as where where it's carried and one
Riley Bowman: of the biggest things for me honestly when i first figured this out was because
Riley Bowman: my earliest appendix carry holsters were all made too short.
Riley Bowman: They were all too short.
Jacob Paulsen: So you are a tall person.
Riley Bowman: Sure, sure. But I think this is true of most people. Like if you take a standard P365.
Jacob Paulsen: It's going to be exaggerated the taller you are.
Riley Bowman: Oh, no, that's true. But if you take a standard P365 and make a holster to match
Riley Bowman: the length of that, which is a very popular concealed carry gun.
Riley Bowman: Yes. Very, very popular.
Riley Bowman: If you make a holster that length, almost no matter who you are,
Riley Bowman: it's going to be less comfortable and conceal less.
Riley Bowman: Yeah that's like you need a little bit more length
Riley Bowman: and it's hard it's hard to say how much more that's going to be where it's specific
Riley Bowman: to the person but almost anybody's going to struggle with a p365 length holster
Riley Bowman: is you want something a little bit longer in some cases like me i really like
Riley Bowman: things long and that has changed my world well.
Jacob Paulsen: I think that's kind of placed to the point i was trying to make earlier like
Jacob Paulsen: more optimization more experimentation yep i don't think it's not worth it i'm
Jacob Paulsen: just think that knowing that going into it
Riley Bowman: Can help can you think of any like real solid like other than say if we want
Riley Bowman: to say comfort could be one of those things that's true but any real like solid
Riley Bowman: pros uh for on the hip like let's say three o'clock carrie.
Jacob Paulsen: Um, nope.
Riley Bowman: Okay. I would go back to what you said earlier in the episode and that there
Riley Bowman: may be times where by nature of what you're dressed, you know, in, okay. Sure.
Riley Bowman: A suit or something going to church.
Riley Bowman: Right. That's why I choose to carry there. You know, you got to,
Riley Bowman: you have your shirt tucked and like there are some deep concealment ways of carrying in the front.
Jacob Paulsen: Of the hip. Sure. They're going
Jacob Paulsen: to slow down my speed to get to that gun compared to putting it on my hip.
Riley Bowman: I will give that as a pro. Yeah, absolutely. but it's hard for me to,
Riley Bowman: to start really coming up with some, some would argue that it's safer to carry
Riley Bowman: on the hip than appendix.
Riley Bowman: Um, and that could definitely be argued. Okay. I would push back on that.
Riley Bowman: Um, again, because of some of the reasons we pointed out earlier,
Riley Bowman: but it could be argued and some would say, well, this is the way I've done it
Riley Bowman: for 30 years and therefore I'm going to stick with what I've known for 30 years
Riley Bowman: and I'm pretty good at it.
Riley Bowman: And I'd say, that's fine. That that's, that's okay. That's cool too.
Riley Bowman: Um, But as far as really truly identifiable advantages, in addition to,
Riley Bowman: say, comfort, if that's what it is for you,
Riley Bowman: I struggle to come up with really unique advantages of carrying on.
Riley Bowman: And I would add to that, or behind the hip, Kerry. Yep.
Jacob Paulsen: Yep. I mean, one of the biggest concerns I have is we start going around the
Jacob Paulsen: back of the hip, and I feel like we need to bury this hatchet and move on.
Jacob Paulsen: So I'm sorry. Let's do it. I'm sorry I keep doing this.
Riley Bowman: Let's go there now.
Jacob Paulsen: But one of the biggest concerns I have is just retention. We've seen too many
Jacob Paulsen: news stories where someone comes up behind somebody and takes their gun off of them.
Riley Bowman: Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: That's like in the front of my body is where I have dexterity,
Jacob Paulsen: is where my hands are, where I can see the threat coming. Right. So anyway.
Riley Bowman: Well, so this is – I don't want to dwell there too long, but when we talk about
Riley Bowman: retention, okay, so I've had an argument with someone before where they're like,
Riley Bowman: well, I have better retention when it's behind my hip.
Riley Bowman: And because their, their, their, their mindset with that, we're like where their
Riley Bowman: mind is at is they're thinking about when they have an identified threat in front of them.
Jacob Paulsen: Oh, okay. Okay.
Riley Bowman: So like, all right, that's fair because if I can keep my threat here,
Riley Bowman: then this is bladed away or, or I can blade it away or I can blade it away even
Riley Bowman: further when it's on my hip or behind my hip.
Riley Bowman: But the problem is we don't always have our threat directly in front of us.
Jacob Paulsen: Or even visible at all.
Riley Bowman: Right. So, and so what, to what you, I just present that as an alternative,
Riley Bowman: like, well, there is a context where you could argue the retention piece,
Riley Bowman: but I think that is a limited context.
Riley Bowman: And to your point, we have, we have seen video, we have covered stories on the
Riley Bowman: podcast before where someone is standing in line shopping at the gas station,
Riley Bowman: the convenience store or some other context,
Riley Bowman: a McDonald's, that one comes to mind where someone just comes right up behind
Riley Bowman: them and just i'll take that thank you very much thank you for the donation we've.
Jacob Paulsen: Even seen it less frequently we've even seen a couple of those as cops people
Jacob Paulsen: coming up behind a cop and trying to take the cops gun oh yeah totally um so
Jacob Paulsen: yeah it's you know i don't like that idea yeah
Riley Bowman: All right so the further back we get you know i i would say in my mind and i'm
Riley Bowman: not saying i'm totally correct here okay you're welcome to disagree or argue
Riley Bowman: with me but to me like the The two primary positions that I find acceptable
Riley Bowman: are forward of the hip, appendix style,
Riley Bowman: or strong side on the hip.
Riley Bowman: I would say, and this goes back to like what Dan Brady said earlier in the episode,
Riley Bowman: you know, anything between four and eight o'clock.
Riley Bowman: And we have to, maybe we should have made this clarification earlier in the episode.
Riley Bowman: We are primarily talking about one side of the body here. Why?
Riley Bowman: Because we're both right-handed.
Riley Bowman: Please, if you are left-handed, take everything we are talking about and just
Riley Bowman: simply flip it, mirror it, mirror image it.
Riley Bowman: Okay. So if we're saying 12 to 130 or something for appendix carry,
Riley Bowman: for you, it's 12 to, you know, 1030 or whatever. Right.
Riley Bowman: So just mirror image, all that. But Dan, you know, pointed out,
Riley Bowman: you know, between four and eight o'clock, which would be the mirror image of
Riley Bowman: that on the left side, is not ideal.
Riley Bowman: And I would basically stand on that flag as well and say, I agree that I don't
Riley Bowman: like anything, you know, from hips on back.
Riley Bowman: So let's talk real quick about small of back. and what people normally mean
Riley Bowman: when they say small back, they mean they're carrying in that kind of more flat
Riley Bowman: or concave portion of the back.
Riley Bowman: You could say six o'clock, but honestly, anywhere that's near the spine,
Riley Bowman: I think could potentially have this issue.
Riley Bowman: And our number one concern is that, you know, carrying in that small back location
Riley Bowman: is the potential for injury.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, yep, don't take a rock side, don't take a gun guy to know that you put
Jacob Paulsen: something directly near or next to your spine and tailbone, you're asking for trouble.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, and we're not just talking about falling on it.
Jacob Paulsen: No, no, no, just sitting with it there.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, over time, that can definitely have an impact on the health of your spine.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, so we were talking about this before we started recording.
Jacob Paulsen: When people say small to back, I think that they're generally referring to kind
Jacob Paulsen: of the whole zone, as Dan Brady referred to, right?
Jacob Paulsen: So, you know, this idea of anything that kind of passed the 4 o'clock for right
Jacob Paulsen: hand or anything past, call it the 5 o'clock, or excuse me.
Jacob Paulsen: 8 o'clock. Yeah, the 8 o'clock or 7 o'clock for the lefty. Yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: That's the term, small to the back, I think, broadly speaking, is for that whole area.
Jacob Paulsen: But I think for me, when I hear small to the back, I think more medically,
Jacob Paulsen: we're talking about the core center.
Jacob Paulsen: And so that's definitely a problem for me. That's just a super dangerous,
Jacob Paulsen: screw up your body kind of thing.
Jacob Paulsen: So I think, though, the term I've been using more recently is I'll call it just traditional IWB.
Jacob Paulsen: So when I say traditional IWB…
Riley Bowman: That definitely has to be defined.
Jacob Paulsen: Yes. Because, I mean, I don't know that I made this up. I might have heard from
Jacob Paulsen: somebody else, but I don't know that it's caught on real hot yet.
Jacob Paulsen: So when I say traditional IWB,
Jacob Paulsen: I'm really talking about for a right-handed person, that 4, 435 o'clock.
Jacob Paulsen: Maybe as much as 530, but kind of that region between the hip and the tailbone.
Jacob Paulsen: That's neither the hip or the tailbone for a right-handed person.
Jacob Paulsen: Or for a left-handed person, whatever that would be, something like seven to
Jacob Paulsen: eight or something like that.
Jacob Paulsen: So that's when I say, when I think, when some people say small back in my head,
Jacob Paulsen: I think, oh, you probably mean traditional IWB, but that's Jacob being Amelia
Jacob Paulsen: Bedelia and a little bit literal.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, I don't know on that, but I understand what you mean by traditional small
Riley Bowman: back is generally strong side behind hip.
Jacob Paulsen: Yes. That's how I think of it. Behind the hip, but not all the way to center.
Riley Bowman: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I can get on board with that.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. So that's what I describe that as traditional IWB.
Jacob Paulsen: That's Jacob's adopted language that I think I probably picked up from somebody else.
Riley Bowman: I don't think it's entirely. Like, I think that's, I've heard that used in a
Riley Bowman: number of places. Yeah. So I think that makes sense.
Jacob Paulsen: And we tend to see a specific kind of style holster in that position.
Jacob Paulsen: We tend to see a lot of hybrid, tons of hybrid holsters.
Jacob Paulsen: So for those not following hybrid, you know, some sort of backer material,
Jacob Paulsen: whether that's leather or, you know, something crappier, some synthetic or nylon
Jacob Paulsen: or whatever it is. Neoprene. Neoprene. Oh, my gosh.
Jacob Paulsen: And then usually some sort of plastic or kydex shell attached to that.
Jacob Paulsen: So that's what we mean by hybrid.
Riley Bowman: We're not necessarily here to, you know, break down pros and cons of different holster styles.
Jacob Paulsen: No, but that tends to be the style.
Riley Bowman: But hybrid holsters are not our recommendation.
Jacob Paulsen: Generally speaking, no. But they are very common in that position. Yes.
Jacob Paulsen: And one of the reasons is because you tend back there to need two separate clips.
Jacob Paulsen: And for those to be offset with greater width, that can be really valuable.
Riley Bowman: Yeah. And where that's become very popular is people thinking,
Riley Bowman: okay, the backer material of the holster is going to be the comfort part of it.
Riley Bowman: And that then we want the Kydex portion to retain the shape and form of the
Riley Bowman: gun so that it properly fits and hopefully retains and stuff like that.
Riley Bowman: What we generally find, though, with those designs is even if that's the design
Riley Bowman: intent, they still struggle to actually succeed at doing that where they retain the gun well.
Riley Bowman: The gun is carried with good retention.
Riley Bowman: I just said retention, but that it fits the gun well. retention consideration
Riley Bowman: yeah safety yeah so anyway we're not going to necessarily you know go into that
Riley Bowman: rabbit hole we're talking about too specifically on holsters it's really just
Riley Bowman: about more about positions,
Riley Bowman: Well, let's hit a couple other things. Let's talk about some other positions.
Riley Bowman: All right. So what about cross draw?
Riley Bowman: This comes up quite often when people are like, you know, I spend a lot of time
Riley Bowman: seated. I'm driving a truck, whatever. And, you know, like that seems like that's
Riley Bowman: going to work better for me sort of thing.
Jacob Paulsen: So I think you could use cross draw to refer to a waistband position.
Jacob Paulsen: So I'm right-handed. I'm putting my gun over at 8 or 9 o'clock or something like that.
Riley Bowman: 8 or 9.
Jacob Paulsen: That's a surprise stretch. 9 or 10 o'clock.
Riley Bowman: You're thinking probably, yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: I'm just struggling with the clock in my head. I have a hard time switching
Jacob Paulsen: things. So if I'm right-handed, I'm thinking like 9 or 10 o'clock.
Jacob Paulsen: So I think that's cross-draw, right? I'm reaching across my body to get it.
Jacob Paulsen: But I think you could also throw a shoulder holster in the category of cross-draw,
Jacob Paulsen: where I'm also reaching across my body.
Jacob Paulsen: The difference is instead of getting it from my waistband, I'm reaching up and
Jacob Paulsen: getting it from underneath my arm.
Riley Bowman: I think typically we would separate those two as being simply shoulder carry versus cross-draw.
Riley Bowman: When I hear cross-draw, I mean, my understanding and what I've seen described
Riley Bowman: is on the waist. but across the center line of the body.
Jacob Paulsen: For me, they're kind of one of the same in some respects. Again,
Jacob Paulsen: I'm Amelia Batilia, right?
Jacob Paulsen: So the words cross-draw, the inference is that I'm crossing across my body to draw the gun.
Jacob Paulsen: So anyway, but that said, to your point.
Jacob Paulsen: Yes, we do see this popular for, vehicle is the answer.
Jacob Paulsen: Like when you ask somebody about cross-draw, it's always like,
Jacob Paulsen: yeah, but I drive a lot, I'm in the car a lot.
Jacob Paulsen: And to me, this is just utterly silly and ridiculous. I do not understand.
Riley Bowman: Well, I think it's silly when you point out that there are other viable positions
Riley Bowman: that are just as effective or fast.
Jacob Paulsen: And way faster and probably safer because the big issue we see on cross draw
Jacob Paulsen: is the extreme, extreme,
Jacob Paulsen: the challenge or difficulty that it is to draw and present the gun to target
Jacob Paulsen: without muzzling yourself or others is much higher.
Jacob Paulsen: I mean, it's just tough. And it's definitely slower. The distance to travel is higher.
Riley Bowman: It's not just like in the case of if I was, you know, we talked about distance
Riley Bowman: of travel when we were talking about strong side hip or behind hip carry.
Riley Bowman: There's that piece, but at least your dominant hand is starting on that side.
Riley Bowman: But with cross draw, you got to cover a longer distance to get to the gun and
Riley Bowman: you got to cover a long distance to come to the target.
Riley Bowman: It's sort of like doubly less efficient than, you know, if you were just carrying
Riley Bowman: on your hip, for instance. And so that's what I would point out with that is
Riley Bowman: that it is not efficient at all if you measure it by that standard.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. In fact, imagine just for a second seated in a car for all you cross-draw
Jacob Paulsen: people. I would love to understand.
Jacob Paulsen: How you draw the gun cross-draw without muzzling either your legs or the innocent
Jacob Paulsen: people on the outside of the car.
Riley Bowman: Or your arm.
Jacob Paulsen: Or your arm.
Riley Bowman: So, because like imagine, like I'm seated right now, if I just came straight
Riley Bowman: out of a cross-draw holster, I would come right across my arm.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, and you flag anyone to the driver's side of the car. Yeah.
Riley Bowman: So the proper technique with cross draw style draws, including shoulder holster,
Riley Bowman: including coming from, say, like some of these becoming popular again,
Riley Bowman: fanny packs or chest style packs that are kind of like a fanny pack,
Riley Bowman: but maybe more like a sling pack type,
Riley Bowman: but worn across the front of the body, is that you're supposed to get that support
Riley Bowman: hand arm and up and hand up so that you are eliminating that from being in the
Riley Bowman: line of the muzzle as you're coming out of those types of holsters.
Jacob Paulsen: And then orient the gun to the ground as quickly as you can and then swing it,
Jacob Paulsen: still point at the gun without muzzling.
Jacob Paulsen: If you're standing, it's not that hard. But if you're sitting,
Jacob Paulsen: we've got to swing out in front of our legs.
Jacob Paulsen: So anyway, everything about it sounds like crazy to me.
Riley Bowman: None of this makes sense. Yeah, it doesn't make sense when I think you think of it this way.
Riley Bowman: It's like, okay, so it's a very limited use case, at least how it's presented.
Riley Bowman: It a lot of times well i spend a lot of time seated or driving or
Riley Bowman: whatever okay so it's very very limited and uh
Riley Bowman: niche in its application and you know
Riley Bowman: purpose but uh you know
Riley Bowman: and then it requires all this extra work and things to do to actually properly
Riley Bowman: deploy the gun which increases or decreases the efficiency in deploying the
Riley Bowman: gun um here's the other question i would ask to that Jacob is what do you never
Riley Bowman: actually get out of your vehicle and then what yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: I mean right
Jacob Paulsen: It doesn't make sense to me to, I mean, maybe there are people out there who
Jacob Paulsen: truly spend more time in a vehicle than out of it.
Riley Bowman: Well, that's certainly true. Right?
Jacob Paulsen: So if that's the case, I suppose. Truck driving professions.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, yeah. Then you're like, hey, I'm going to optimize for the thing I do the most.
Jacob Paulsen: And then the thing I do less is sacrifice to some degree.
Jacob Paulsen: That's a potentially viable argument.
Jacob Paulsen: But to your point, it really comes down to, but are there better options?
Jacob Paulsen: Are there options that are better across the board? And I think you and I feel that there is.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, and another way to evaluate that, though, is where is my greatest risk?
Riley Bowman: Yes, you may spend more of your time in the vehicle, but could it be argued
Riley Bowman: that you're at greater risk?
Riley Bowman: Even though you spend less time in these places, but just historically speaking,
Riley Bowman: when we look at the data, whatever we want to call the data,
Riley Bowman: but just even looking at videos involving self-defense situations,
Riley Bowman: people are most vulnerable and most likely to be, become a victim at least outside
Riley Bowman: of the home in transitional spaces.
Riley Bowman: We're talking when they're moving between vehicle and somewhere else or vice versa.
Jacob Paulsen: Parking lots where they're getting in and out of the car.
Riley Bowman: So I would just take that into consideration if that's something you're trying to evaluate. Okay.
Jacob Paulsen: Pocket so i personally have
Jacob Paulsen: uh little to no experience with pocket carries not
Jacob Paulsen: something i've ever personally done um but i think
Jacob Paulsen: it's potentially viable i think it requires a handful of things it requires
Jacob Paulsen: me not you know having an available pocket that doesn't have other stuff in
Jacob Paulsen: it so i need an available empty pocket i need a style of pocket that i can actually
Jacob Paulsen: reach my hand into with some speed so like a traditional like dress pant there's
Jacob Paulsen: like what i'll call a vertical cut pocket I think is a little bit more challenging
Jacob Paulsen: than like I'm wearing jeans right now that have a horizontal cut pocket.
Jacob Paulsen: So reaching down into my horizontal pocket with some degree of speed is easier
Jacob Paulsen: than doing it at a curve at an angle on a vertical cut.
Jacob Paulsen: So like those are some initial thoughts. It's just like I need an available
Jacob Paulsen: pocket that's empty that's got nothing else in it that I can put the gun in.
Jacob Paulsen: Different types of pants are going to make it easier or harder to do.
Jacob Paulsen: I think it's – one of the biggest advantages people talk about with pocket carry
Jacob Paulsen: is this idea of the surreptitious draw, right? I can stick my hands in my pockets.
Jacob Paulsen: That does not look shady or weird or unusual.
Jacob Paulsen: It allows me to get my hand on the grip of the gun and then from there have a very fast deployment.
Jacob Paulsen: Super true. But from – if you're ambushed, if it's like I just need to get my
Jacob Paulsen: gun now fast, there's no question.
Jacob Paulsen: It's slower, brutally slower. And not only brutally slower, but I think your
Jacob Paulsen: error rate is much higher.
Jacob Paulsen: Now, again, I don't have a lot of personal experience, but it's both my belief
Jacob Paulsen: from what I've observed and from just sort of kind of a logical standpoint that
Jacob Paulsen: it's harder to consistently get a fast grip acquisition on that gun.
Riley Bowman: I agree. I think that that is the key is that pocket carry is probably the fastest
Riley Bowman: way to deploy a gun if you can start with your hand on the gun.
Riley Bowman: If you cannot, then it is not fast at all.
Riley Bowman: And so, you know, and so people will think, well, you know, if I'm in a situation
Riley Bowman: where it seems a little sketchy, I'll just put my hand in my pocket.
Riley Bowman: But what if you are suddenly approached and you just don't have the time,
Riley Bowman: like maybe you even have your hand in your pocket, but all of a sudden there's
Riley Bowman: a gun in your face. And dude's like, show me your hands.
Riley Bowman: And you're sitting there looking at it like, well, now is not the go time.
Riley Bowman: Now is not my opportunity to go. What else are you going to do?
Riley Bowman: I mean, if you don't comply, you might get shot.
Riley Bowman: So hand's going to come out of the pocket, let's say. Well, now what,
Riley Bowman: right? Now you're disadvantaged.
Riley Bowman: So it's just some, this is why we're bringing these up and why we're discussing
Riley Bowman: it, because these are the kind of things you need to be thinking about.
Riley Bowman: Because I know of a number of people I've seen talk about and argue for the
Riley Bowman: veracity of a pocket, you know, setup.
Riley Bowman: And there's a time and place, I think, for it, especially if it's like a backup gun.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, I was wondering if you were to say that. Because I think the pocket carry
Jacob Paulsen: seems to be a go-to move for a secondary gun.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, I think especially for your offhand, for your support hand,
Riley Bowman: it's pretty popular, including in the law enforcement space.
Riley Bowman: They'll have their duty gun, and they'll have a backup gun that's set up so
Riley Bowman: they can reach with their support hand in case the primary hand goes down for any particular reason.
Riley Bowman: So it has viability, but I think it's a very niche thing and not ideal as a primary gun option.
Riley Bowman: One more thing to consider is that most of the guns that are going to work in
Riley Bowman: a pocket you know setup are not what i would consider to be a fighting handgun yep.
Jacob Paulsen: That's where i was going to go next is just we're talking about having to carry a very small
Riley Bowman: Gun small gun short sight radius almost certainly not going to have an optic
Riley Bowman: on it so that negates you know just may it really truly means you're going to
Riley Bowman: have a small gun with a short sight radius it's harder to shoot with.
Jacob Paulsen: Lower ammo capacity
Riley Bowman: Lower capacity more recoil less accurate,
Riley Bowman: So, there you go. Ankle. Let's hit on that really fast.
Jacob Paulsen: Ankle. So, we carry on the inside of our support leg.
Riley Bowman: Typically.
Jacob Paulsen: Typically. So, if I'm right-handed, they'd be on the inside of my left leg.
Jacob Paulsen: This prevents me, inside prevents me from running it into things and objects.
Jacob Paulsen: On support leg, inside means that I can reach it with my dominant hand more efficiently.
Jacob Paulsen: So, I think the major downside, similar to pocket, we have to have a relatively small gun.
Jacob Paulsen: Unless you've got some mad baggy pants. But I think for an average person with
Jacob Paulsen: what would be deemed reasonable bagginess level of pant, you probably need a
Jacob Paulsen: pretty small gun to pull this off.
Jacob Paulsen: You also have some other potential challenges, the biggest one being ease of access.
Jacob Paulsen: So it's just slower, a lot slower. Way slower. Not only is it slower,
Jacob Paulsen: but I think that it also requires being stationary.
Jacob Paulsen: So if it's in my pocket if it's in my cross draw holster if it's in my shoulder holster,
Jacob Paulsen: if it's in my appendix holster if it's in my hip holster I can draw while running
Jacob Paulsen: away or seeking cover or moving to cover but if it's in my ankle holster I have
Jacob Paulsen: to move then draw there's
Riley Bowman: No getting off the X.
Jacob Paulsen: No, you're not and there's really kind of three studied, accepted,
Jacob Paulsen: taught ways to draw from an ankle holster one is to basically take a knee So
Jacob Paulsen: go down to a knee and grab it.
Jacob Paulsen: The second is to, and this is the least really viable, but I'll just,
Jacob Paulsen: because I've seen it, that is to balance on one foot.
Jacob Paulsen: And the third is to fall on your back on purpose.
Jacob Paulsen: So these three tend to be like the considered viable ways to deploy a gun from an ankle rig.
Jacob Paulsen: None of them put you in a very good position if you're facing an immediate threat.
Jacob Paulsen: Like you don't want to be down on one knee. You don't want to be on your back
Jacob Paulsen: on purpose and really dangling on one, you know, balancing on one foot.
Jacob Paulsen: That's just ridiculous that's just crazy stuff yeah but I've seen it on surveillance videos so
Jacob Paulsen: Everything about it is a compromised and challenging method of access for an ankle rig.
Jacob Paulsen: That said, I know some people who carry an ankle rig, and it legitimately is
Jacob Paulsen: the best option for them because of what they have to wear, their uniform,
Jacob Paulsen: their tool belt, whatever the thing is, that basically makes anything on the waistband non-viable.
Riley Bowman: Yeah. Yeah, I agree with all of that. Again, I put the ankle holster in a backup category.
Riley Bowman: Worst case scenario, I want to have a second option and maybe a pocket's not
Riley Bowman: an option for whatever reason.
Riley Bowman: Ankle could be one of those backup options.
Jacob Paulsen: If we had a doctor here, they would warn that putting a bunch of weight on one
Jacob Paulsen: foot around an ankle and not having a counterweight on the other one is also
Jacob Paulsen: probably going to scrub your back.
Jacob Paulsen: Now, again, with ankle care, we do tend to see much smaller,
Jacob Paulsen: lighter guns, less ammo. So maybe it's less of a concern, but for whatever that's
Jacob Paulsen: worth, you know, a counterweight is probably advisable from a medical perspective.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, but over time, things can be cumulative. You know, even an ounce or two,
Riley Bowman: you know, it may not seem like much for a single step, but you multiply that
Riley Bowman: over thousands of steps.
Riley Bowman: Sure. Over time, it can make a difference for sure.
Riley Bowman: One more thing to consider. I mean, you touched on, you know, pants.
Riley Bowman: You just have to be a lot more discerning about the pants
Riley Bowman: you are pairing with that holster and
Riley Bowman: gun uh and whether they're going to actually work
Riley Bowman: or not to get them up and over the gun reliably consistently without getting
Riley Bowman: you know hung up somewhere uh and i've i've i've experimented you know with
Riley Bowman: ankle carry here and there some some of it just to get familiar with it just
Riley Bowman: to be like hey how does this work um i've got a couple of uh decent ankle holsters uh in fact uh uh,
Riley Bowman: wilderness tactical makes one i think it's the renegade renegade it's great
Riley Bowman: great holster i've got one of those uh and it you know it's if you're going
Riley Bowman: to do that it's one i would recommend,
Riley Bowman: and so i've worn and experimented with that and it is still i mean it's just
Riley Bowman: i've experimented and then i've moved on in life because it's like sure this sucks i.
Jacob Paulsen: Think that uh i actually have a really nice video that has not yet been edited
Jacob Paulsen: it's just like on the list of things to be edited from the revolver roundup
Jacob Paulsen: at gun site with chuck haggard talking about ankle carry and demonstrating and
Jacob Paulsen: talking about the mechanisms, methods.
Jacob Paulsen: So that's going to go in the members area. So for those of you who are Guardian
Jacob Paulsen: Nation members, you should watch for that.
Jacob Paulsen: I've been trying to catch up to that list of things I need to put in there.
Jacob Paulsen: But anyway, it's really solid.
Jacob Paulsen: But there is an argument specifically in the ankle, I think,
Jacob Paulsen: for a revolver because of the shape of the gun.
Jacob Paulsen: So that rounded, almost at a bladed angle grip conceals significantly better
Jacob Paulsen: under the pant leg like that.
Jacob Paulsen: Than a traditional semi-automatic that's more of like a L-shape thing.
Riley Bowman: So, anyway, for whatever that is. 100%. And that's what I've most recently experimented with.
Riley Bowman: I, at one time, tried like an LCP, which worked okay, but definitely a J-frame-sized
Riley Bowman: revolver is the way to go, I think, for ankle setup.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. And we could make the same market for pocket carrying.
Jacob Paulsen: I should have mentioned it then, too.
Riley Bowman: True. True as well. Yep. Let's hit on, I think, probably there's some other things we could do.
Riley Bowman: But you know, we've been going for a while already and we, we need to wrap this
Riley Bowman: up probably sooner rather than later. But, uh,
Riley Bowman: off-body carry or pouches, bags, slings, fanny packs, et cetera.
Riley Bowman: Let's just lump all those into that category, if you will. What do you think?
Jacob Paulsen: We got three comments on off-body carry. So the first one is that I think all
Jacob Paulsen: of us have to consider as a potentially viable option we might have to use.
Jacob Paulsen: If you go to the gym regularly, you have gym shorts.
Jacob Paulsen: Some of you live near the beach, you go to the beach regularly.
Jacob Paulsen: There's just situations where it's going to be the only viable way for you to have a gun.
Jacob Paulsen: So I don't think you should dismiss it. I think you should say,
Jacob Paulsen: hey, there might be times in life I have to off-body carry.
Jacob Paulsen: So that's my first thought. The second thought is that off-body carry is not
Jacob Paulsen: as good as on-body carry.
Jacob Paulsen: I think there's no world where anyone's going to convince me that carrying that
Jacob Paulsen: gun in some sort of bag, pouch, whatever, is as good as carrying it on my body.
Jacob Paulsen: You can't sell that to me. So I'm not saying you shouldn't do it or it's not
Jacob Paulsen: viable. just that it's not as good.
Jacob Paulsen: Now, if that's the option that's available to you or the only way you think
Jacob Paulsen: you're going to really do this with any regularity or something, then cool, do it.
Jacob Paulsen: But it's not as good. So bear that in mind.
Jacob Paulsen: We could get into the whys and maybe I'll let you touch on that.
Jacob Paulsen: But here's my third thought.
Jacob Paulsen: My third thought is that in order to do it safely, you have to take all our
Jacob Paulsen: normal kind of holster rules, and you can go find that episode,
Jacob Paulsen: and you have to apply kind of, I'll call it three incremental considerations
Jacob Paulsen: in order to achieve the rules.
Jacob Paulsen: The first incremental consideration, you have to have a dedicated pocket in the bag.
Jacob Paulsen: So the slim bag, the fanny pack, the backpack, the purse, whatever it is,
Jacob Paulsen: we can't have a gun bounce around with keys and chapsticks. So it has to be a dedicated pocket.
Jacob Paulsen: Second, we still have to deploy a pocket holster. So the bag itself cannot be the holster.
Jacob Paulsen: We're going to have to put the gun in a holster and that holster is going to go in the pocket.
Jacob Paulsen: So some sort of pocket style holster is still going to be necessary.
Jacob Paulsen: And third, that that pocket style holster is going to have to be somehow affixed
Jacob Paulsen: in this dedicated pocket of the bag so as to present the gun in a consistent
Jacob Paulsen: way every time so that, you know, we don't reach in there one day and like, we're right.
Jacob Paulsen: Crap. Like the guns flipped over and twisted around or something.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, I mean, so the common designs we see now and like what I see being very
Riley Bowman: much popularized are kind of these, I don't know what the official term is.
Riley Bowman: I mean, fanny packs kind of started becoming, you know, an in thing again,
Riley Bowman: and they certainly fall into this category. But more and more,
Riley Bowman: we're seeing these, you know, little shoulder or sling bags, you know? Yeah.
Riley Bowman: And it's basically like a sling bag that is worn on the front of the chest.
Riley Bowman: Uh and so by the way i'm going to include chest rigs
Riley Bowman: or chest holsters as part of this um even
Riley Bowman: though those are maybe not necessarily truly off body and
Riley Bowman: when we say off body understand we're we're classifying it
Riley Bowman: as off body even if it's still on your
Riley Bowman: body it's just referring to the method of carry on body
Riley Bowman: meaning it is physically attached to you and typically
Riley Bowman: your waistband your clothes or it's in a pocket
Riley Bowman: you know like we just talked about a moment ago about pocket holsters okay
Riley Bowman: where you know a an off-body option
Riley Bowman: is something that is a standalone item
Riley Bowman: that is slung over or worn on you
Riley Bowman: and not necessarily a part of your clothing or
Riley Bowman: waist band your belt that kind of thing and so the thing that's become really
Riley Bowman: popularized in the last year or so are these kind of these little sling bags
Riley Bowman: are worn on the front and typically they have a dedicated pouch and maybe like
Riley Bowman: a pole tab that you're going to grab and rip open. And that seems like it works pretty well.
Riley Bowman: You know, you grab that tab, it opens up, and you got your gun positioned there,
Riley Bowman: typically on a holster that's mounted inside that pouch using a hook and loop. Okay.
Riley Bowman: And that, I think, as a concept works pretty good as far as how it's set up
Riley Bowman: safely so that all those things you were just talking about are accomplished
Riley Bowman: so that you have a safe holster and a safe setup that's dedicated for that purpose
Riley Bowman: It's not getting mixed up,
Riley Bowman: it's not moving around or becoming
Riley Bowman: compromised in some way, whether that's safety-wise or draw stroke-wise.
Riley Bowman: But now let's switch you know kind of flip that around into the other
Riley Bowman: category of there the challenge of this is that you
Riley Bowman: have a draw that is akin to a cross draw
Riley Bowman: so all the same things apply we talked about you're gonna have to get your support
Riley Bowman: hand and arm up and out of the way you may need to be mindful of who is around
Riley Bowman: you especially to the side of you so a lot of times what you see is people in
Riley Bowman: fact jeff gonzalez was teaching a block specifically about this topic attack on this last weekend.
Riley Bowman: And so, and I've seen this taught by others and the, the, generally the,
Riley Bowman: the best practice is if you were going to draw from one of those bags or a fanny
Riley Bowman: pack or whatever, is that you turn your body essentially sideways to your threat,
Riley Bowman: where the gun's going to go.
Riley Bowman: You orient yourself to the side so that when you draw and come out,
Riley Bowman: it's pointing that direction.
Riley Bowman: Okay. So imagine I'm right-handed. And so I'm going to come out from this setup
Riley Bowman: with my right hand, so I'm turning my body so that my right hand and arm is
Riley Bowman: already oriented towards the general area of my target.
Riley Bowman: That's fine. But, you know, these are extra steps. This is extra time.
Riley Bowman: I might not have the option to turn my body for whatever reason.
Riley Bowman: And so those are all considerations that need to be, you know, taken into account.
Riley Bowman: And frankly, it's just not that fast. the
Riley Bowman: best case scenario i've seen and i have done some i
Riley Bowman: i've actually gone on like instagram is a
Riley Bowman: really popular place to find these kinds of things because this is
Riley Bowman: where i see these types of products marketed pretty successfully is um
Riley Bowman: so i've gone on there and just kind of like did a little
Riley Bowman: stop you know super informal test but close enough and
Riley Bowman: the best case scenario i've seen from people
Riley Bowman: that are well practiced drawing from these off body carry
Riley Bowman: solutions best case when they are like
Riley Bowman: absolutely on point is maybe two seconds to get
Riley Bowman: a shot off yeah and and and and that's that's best case so the the reality is
Riley Bowman: more like two and a half three seconds and now we're in the slow poke territory
Riley Bowman: okay where it's like well i had a one one and a half two second problem to solve
Riley Bowman: and that's just not going to get solved uh,
Riley Bowman: but acceptably to me with a three-second draw.
Jacob Paulsen: And we've also seen the myth of shooting from within the bag through the bag
Jacob Paulsen: has been pretty debunked.
Jacob Paulsen: If that's your plan, I think that you're in for some big trouble as well.
Riley Bowman: Well, I shouldn't say none, but the common popularized solutions,
Riley Bowman: again, I'm seeing marketed right now, they're not the setup where you're shooting through the bag.
Riley Bowman: They are intended to be ripped open and you draw the gun out.
Jacob Paulsen: I was speaking broadly about off-body guns.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, I get that. I'm just saying what I'm seeing that's popular right now,
Riley Bowman: I'm speaking to that specifically because you may be watching or listening to
Riley Bowman: this and maybe you've seen some of those ads and things. I'm speaking to that specifically.
Jacob Paulsen: I think the last thing that we have to say about Off-Body Carry is just that
Jacob Paulsen: you also have to make some habit-related changes because what you do with that
Jacob Paulsen: bag, right? There's a gun in there.
Jacob Paulsen: So now, whereas before it might have been okay to set your fanny pack,
Jacob Paulsen: your purse, or your backpack down on the floor,
Jacob Paulsen: in your living room or on the counter in the kitchen or wherever that might
Jacob Paulsen: have been normal, underneath your desk at work, now all of a sudden there's a gun in that bag.
Jacob Paulsen: Maybe none of those options are acceptable anymore. So how am I going to change
Jacob Paulsen: habits and rebuild what I'm doing with this bag?
Riley Bowman: It's easy to think and believe that, no, I'm safe and I'm going to have safe
Riley Bowman: practices and I'm going to be on top of that 100% of the time.
Riley Bowman: But we live in a world where it's really easy to get distracted.
Riley Bowman: It's really easy for something to come up and you
Riley Bowman: get pulled away and even just for a second things are unsecured one
Riley Bowman: final note there is that the bag the pouch
Riley Bowman: whatever the purse etc may very well be the target the targeted item that that
Riley Bowman: person that's threatening you accosting you robbing you that they are trying
Riley Bowman: to get from you and in that way those in those situations your hand is being
Riley Bowman: forced if you are going to defend yourself,
Riley Bowman: Then the time to do that is now, and that may not be the most opportune time.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, it's problematic at best. It really is.
Riley Bowman: We could probably find a number of things more to discuss about even that topic
Riley Bowman: and any number of things.
Riley Bowman: But we've been going at this for a little more than an hour and a half. It's a longer episode.
Riley Bowman: No big surprise because this is a big topic. We could break up some of the things
Riley Bowman: we've talked about today into smaller episodes, and maybe we'll do so at some point down the road.
Riley Bowman: Because i do think we could explore some of these things further but i don't
Riley Bowman: know what else anything um anything we've missed anything that's obvious.
Jacob Paulsen: I guess i just want to disclaim kind of some broad level disclaimer here i i
Jacob Paulsen: had dinner not that long ago earlier was that this year no it was october's
Jacob Paulsen: it was last year in october with a with a friend who's a former firefighter and uh
Jacob Paulsen: And he's physically got some challenges. Like he's getting older,
Jacob Paulsen: deals with some back issues.
Jacob Paulsen: And he came into the restaurant with his wife and sat down at the table.
Jacob Paulsen: And he was carrying what I would only describe as like a 1985 Franklin day planner.
Jacob Paulsen: Like that's what it looked like to me. Some of you might be like, that's a thick iPad.
Jacob Paulsen: But, you know, my generation looks like a day planner. And we sit down and he
Jacob Paulsen: sets it on the table next to him.
Jacob Paulsen: And uh as we you know have a conversation we're talking about eventually we
Jacob Paulsen: get get to it and he explains like that's his gun you know so he that's how
Jacob Paulsen: he chooses to carry his gun and it means he's had to make some changes to his
Jacob Paulsen: habits you know where where he can set this down and where he takes what's he
Jacob Paulsen: going to do with that in the car like all this stuff like there's all these
Jacob Paulsen: considerations he's had to work through uh to feel like he can do that by in a viable and safe way
Jacob Paulsen: But that's what he does because to him it's
Jacob Paulsen: the best option yeah um and it means that
Jacob Paulsen: he's had to do some practice right he's had to do some dry fire he's had to
Jacob Paulsen: um you know clear that gun and barrel block it trust me this guy's got a barrel
Jacob Paulsen: block and he's had to work you know what would it look like for me to draw from
Jacob Paulsen: this when i'm seated when i'm carrying it when i'm walking whatever the thing
Jacob Paulsen: is and so i think that's that's my main message today is this idea of like
Jacob Paulsen: It's all good. Like, do you. But I think you need to recognize the potential
Jacob Paulsen: downsides. You need to listen to feedback.
Jacob Paulsen: One more, then I'll be done. When we were in Dallas, you had a student in one
Jacob Paulsen: of your classes who was quite proficient with his gun.
Jacob Paulsen: Not his first rodeo gun school. Quite proficient.
Jacob Paulsen: And he had really good safety mechanics relative to his deployment of the gun, his draw, and things.
Jacob Paulsen: But he was carrying his holster at about 4 o'clock, just in that spot where
Jacob Paulsen: we could debate if it's behind the hip or if it's on the hip.
Jacob Paulsen: And every time he went to reholster that gun, he muzzled himself just slightly.
Jacob Paulsen: But enough that you could bleed out from this for sure.
Jacob Paulsen: And so I took him aside during a break, and I said, hey, just FYI,
Jacob Paulsen: this is what you're doing.
Jacob Paulsen: You have great finger discipline. So, you know, I'm not crazy concerned,
Jacob Paulsen: but we'd really like to not point the gun at ourselves. And this is something you need to work on.
Jacob Paulsen: And it really stuck out to me.
Jacob Paulsen: The reason it really sticks out to me, and I'm sharing this,
Jacob Paulsen: is because this is a person who is not a newbie.
Jacob Paulsen: If this had been a beginner, you know, who went out and bought a holster,
Jacob Paulsen: got their concealed carry permit, it'd be like, yeah, we see this all the time.
Jacob Paulsen: Let's talk about this, you know, kind of thing. And we do see that all the time.
Jacob Paulsen: But this is a person whose holster was worn, who has probably, I'm guessing,
Jacob Paulsen: shoots thousands of rounds a year and was at a very expensive and hard to get
Jacob Paulsen: into on occasion training conference and knew what they were doing and knew
Jacob Paulsen: how to run that gun at a high level of performance. So...
Jacob Paulsen: We, we, we need to do the best we can and we need to explore all the options
Jacob Paulsen: available to us and, and take the, the insights and, and figure it out.
Riley Bowman: Yeah. Lots of things to consider. And I hope, you know, again,
Riley Bowman: the primary purpose of today's episode was to give you a lot of this food for thought.
Riley Bowman: This, it's a lot of information. It's a lot of context.
Riley Bowman: It's a lot of things that you got to kind of boil down and put into your own
Riley Bowman: little world, whatever that is, and start kind of weighing the different options out.
Riley Bowman: You know, what makes the most sense for me based on what I do,
Riley Bowman: where I go, what I dress in, you know, all these things, what I carry, et cetera, et cetera.
Riley Bowman: And as best as you can, my recommendation would be to weigh all those things
Riley Bowman: out and be as objective as possible.
Riley Bowman: Not everything is possible to be objective with, but if you kind of come down
Riley Bowman: to, well, there's this or there's that, then I would probably recommend that
Riley Bowman: you spend some time in dry fire.
Riley Bowman: And potentially at a live fire range actually putting things
Riley Bowman: to the test because what i what we also observe and
Riley Bowman: and you sometimes see that even at like a training conference
Riley Bowman: like we were at just this last weekend where someone does
Riley Bowman: a thing that they think works and maybe it works normally but as
Riley Bowman: soon as you start putting a little bit of pressure and stress on them things
Riley Bowman: start kind of falling apart yeah uh and it's like wow normally my draw is like
Riley Bowman: it's good it's on point you know and i'm really struggling well it might be
Riley Bowman: that might alone might be something that's a good encouragement for you to maybe
Riley Bowman: look at some other options or solutions,
Riley Bowman: or maybe you just got to go back to the drawing board and really work and drill
Riley Bowman: the thing that, you know,
Riley Bowman: wasn't going so well for you in that, you know, higher stress situation.
Riley Bowman: But anyway, hope this is helpful for you, that you're able to evaluate for yourself
Riley Bowman: what's the right answer for you about where you choose to carry your gun.
Riley Bowman: We appreciate you for joining us in this episode today.
Riley Bowman: And a reminder of today's episode of sponsors, KSG Armory Holsters,
Riley Bowman: ksgarmory.com also our membership program guardianation, guardianation.com.
Riley Bowman: And we appreciate all your support with everything we do here at concealedcarry.com.
Riley Bowman: Please like, share, subscribe, send out to, you know, your friends,
Riley Bowman: your family, or like-minded individuals, the podcast, and any of our social
Riley Bowman: media and other properties and things that we do.
Riley Bowman: Try to put out as good a content as we can. And we appreciate you sharing and
Riley Bowman: commenting and interacting with that content where possible as it helps get
Riley Bowman: it out to more people. Any final words, Jacob?
Riley Bowman: Nope. so with that a reminder to train right train often and train safe so you can.
Jacob Paulsen: Fight hard fight fast and fight true
Riley Bowman: Take care,
Riley Bowman: A reminder that laws vary from place to place, and we encourage listeners to
Riley Bowman: seek local legal advice to understand applicable laws.
Riley Bowman: Concealed Carry, Inc., its brands and properties, and the Concealed Carry podcast
Riley Bowman: is not a legal service, nor are we attorneys at law.
Riley Bowman: We make our best faith effort to share Concealed Carry-related insights and
Riley Bowman: information about firearm-related incidents and the laws pertaining,
Riley Bowman: based on our own understanding and experience.
Riley Bowman: But things can be different where you live, or laws may have changed by the
Riley Bowman: time you listen to this. We cannot be held liable for your actions based on
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Riley Bowman: Please exercise care with all things pertaining to firearm use,
Riley Bowman: concealed carry, and always practice following basic firearm safety rules.
Riley Bowman: More information about safety can be found at concealedcarry.com forward slash safety. Thank you.