Horse Vs Cow Leather

[glockanator]

I have a gentleman interested in having a holster made from.horse leather. I haven't had a chance to play around with horse so I am a little nervous to tell him I can do the order. Any suggestions on working with horse? Pros cons? Anything helps. Thanks

[Ferg]

Extremely beautiful when finished. Very tight grain and texture. You can carve it but it needs extra casing time. I like it best with no carving. Just something real special about the leather and where it came from.

ferg

I have a gentleman interested in having a holster made from.horse leather. I haven't had a chance to play around with horse so I am a little nervous to tell him I can do the order. Any suggestions on working with horse? Pros cons? Anything helps. Thanks

[chiefjason]

It seems to be more dense. Lighter horsehide is as stiff as heavier leather from my few dealing with it. But it squeaks sometimes. And that just drives me nuts. More than half of the horsehide stuff I have made squeaks. And most of the guys I know that have horsehide stuff have some that squeaks.

[TwinOaks]

A good conditioning will help with the squeaks as well as rubbing the leather to buff off whatever is coating it. To me, it is just denser, but it might be the tanning process too. It almost feels hot stuffed....but not because of the way it takes water. I recently made myself a holster, left it natural, and it squeaks. The one I made for a friend was lined w/ 4oz cow and it DOESN'T squeak. That makes me think the squeak is the gun rubbing on the holster, and not just the hide itself squeaking. Maybe it was the dye....I guess a few experiments are in order.

As to using it.....LOVE it. If I could, I'd use it exclusively, but it typically isn't available in large (double shoulder or bigger) sizes.

[Lobo]

Within the past few months there have been a couple of threads on using horsehide for holsters and belts. A quick search should turn up several posts on this subject that you may find helpful.