katsass

Shooter; FWIW from the grumpy old man. This is my basic holster for smaller wheelguns. Pretty simple and easily modified from a strong side to a crossdraw with a slight mod to the pattern. As to a safety strap, if I ever do include one, I would (almost always) use a thumb break ..... the tip of a strap such as you include has the ability to be inadvertently released by a jacket tail or even reaching into a pocket. I would also round the toe, as square-ish corners do not fare well in the long run .... and definitely keep it open as you will collect more lint etc. when carried in the 11:00 position, and because NOBODY ever cleans out the toe of a closed toe holster. Mike

Well Nick, I can't tell you for sure wheather or not USMC Black has a brown under-tone. I can surmise that if so, they may be attempting to achieve the unique black color of the dress shoes of the Marine Corps from 'back when'. As I recall, a Marine recruit was (in my time) issued BROWN dress shoes, and, with black Lincoln shoe polish, was told to "make that footgear black". The result was a very distinctive tone of black, highly polished dress shoes. Obviously, (unfortunately?) the Marine Corps no longer issues brown shoes. Mike

Denster's right ....... nothing except that you got a holster that's hotter than a couple of squirrels trying to make whoopee in a wool sock. Mike

I've not had many in the category you describe, BUT, I have had some that were made to the customer's desire/description that I didn't want to deliver because I didn't like the result. Foe example ......... this holster was made as the customer described, even though I tried to talk him into a much lighter tone to the body of the holster so that the cattle brands would show to a greater degree. I personally dislike the damned thing ...... but my customer is happy as a clam. Mike

The BIGGUNDOCTOR and I are about in the same kind of territory, he's about 300 miles north and east of me but we both are in the desert southwest. It's a little after 6:00am here and running at about 76 degrees right now, on its way to 105 or so. By mid day it'll be at least 150 on the surface of the sand. I will generally just sit my holster on a cardboard box a foot or so off the ground and let 'er go for a little ...... turn it over once and within an hour or so it's done. Winter time I use the box and small space heater. Mike

OK Guy, you are on the right track. You make a front and a back piece ....... one, (the back piece) a mirror image of the other. (the design as drawn looks good) Determine 1/2 the thickness of the gun; add to that figure 1/2 the thickness of the leather used. You then draw your stitch line that distance from the outline of the gun already on your pattern. That will be your stitching line. You will also need to stitch around the 'wings' after they are glued together and dressed to a good shape and finish. Use a good quality of contact cement. Hope this gives you a bit of a hand ....from the grumpy old man. Mike

A beautiful design, very well executed. Mike

Well, here are a couple of holsters that might fit into that category........Mike

Well Ray, this brought back a few memories. In fact I never built a 'holster' for such a gun, but did design a holster of sorts, for the modifications I did to a few Rem. 870s at that time. Way back, (well before the ATF started getting excited with law enforcement's "specially designed" weapons) I was given the job of modifying some shotguns to be specifically used by our entry teams in high risk situations. At the time we had a number of Rem. 870's with the old pistol grip and steel top-folding stock. (IMO, one of the worst ideas and least functional systems to come down the pike) In them, I found that the pistol grip was at a very uncomfortable angle in actual use with the stock in the folded position, and that the top-folding stock, when deployed, was downright useless when attempting to fire the gun from the shoulder....it actually could be injurious to the shooter! My ultimate solution was to chop the barrel to 1" in front of the barrel retaining nut, install a specially designed 'hand guard' (I designed it and had six of them, built by a 'maverick' Harley shop for a case of beer) between the standard mag tube and the retaining nut, (so as to not allow the off hand slip past the barrel muzzle in rapid fire) chop 2 1/2" off the standard walnut butt-stock and refit a new magnum recoil pad to it. A very short but controllable shooter that was easily fired from the hip or shoulder. The proposed holster was reminiscent of the old tube style civil war carbine rigs, but it was felt that it was superfluous. Wish that I had had enough sense to photograph the rigs back then. Mike

Ray: Again you have done an exemplary job. I personally stay away from shoulder rigs. After trying out a number of them during my days as a LEO I gave up wearing them and/or building them because I never found one that 'wore well' on me. It looks like yours is perfect for your customer. Mike

Congrats Ray, and well deserved. Mike

I have never inlaid anything like a medal in a holster, but I have inlaid some holsters with arrowheads like this.......if interested PM or e-mail me. Also, (the best resource) you could contact Dave Cole (DCKNIVES) on this forum. He has inlaid almost anything that can be inlaid and has more experience than I. Mike

Well LOBO, you done good.......nothing better than one of the true classics. Just as your M-10, my M-64 S&W stayed home, even if the holster went on it's way. Mike

What I have done is cook down a LOT of the green hull (over the unripe shell) in water. It smells almost like a fruit being boiled for jam. It takes quite a bit ......5 pounds of hulls or so, but it does make a nice water based stain. I'm thinking of working in some crushed walnut hull to darken the stuff even more. I may just sit some of that out in a jar of water (like making 'sun tea') and see what happens. Mike

Looks darned good...but, try to stay away from those square corners....they go downhill pretty quickly. Radius them . JMHO Mike

Your holster looks pretty good, but I got a bit lost and stopped looking when you made the comment about adding in a bunch of oil and conditioner to obtain a 'supple' holster. I work hard at making sure that my holsters are as firm as I can possibly make them. As soon as a holster becomes soft and supple, it's useless IMHO. Mike

Well Sixer, like you say, it ain't something I'd wear BUT you done good! Off hand, I can't think of any other way to go. Good Job. Mike

Nobody does inlay work any better than Dave does...I'd listen to his suggestion. Mike

Well sarge, a close friend of mine (for over 50 years) and ex-partner has often suggested that we jot down our memories and thoughts as 'old time' LEO's and write a book.. Way back when things were different and we had the ability to act as the situation demanded and the boss figured that he hired us to take care of things as we saw fit.. That usually comes up when both of us have been consuming enough 'adult beverages' to really not give a #$%%^&*T. The kids nowadays have no #$%&^%ing idea,. what with all the backup in the wold twenty seconds away. My thoughts and ideas on leather work are just those of an amateur that has had a bit of succcess butchering some cow skins over a period of time.........Had/have a close friend (another LEO) that got tagged at fairly close range by a 12 ga. sawed off shotgun...full of bird-shot.....about a week after I built a holster for his new Colt Python at the request of his wife. It scared the #$%&^&%t out of the bad guy when he got back up and started to cap rounds back with blood running down from his upper body. He still keeps his old shooter in that holster...made circa 1970 or so. I think my thoughts may not fit with the PC current ideas. Mike

As 5rawhide says, if it's stitched it's glued and vicy versy. I learned to stitch from a WWI Cavalry soldier to stitch, and if it's worth gluing, it's worth stitchging. Mike . c i

OK Sarge....hope Ma didn't get too upset trying to remove the shoe polish from the towel. Something to think about.... Tandy's Super Sheen costs somewhere around $5.00 for 4 oz. If you go to the local grocery store and spend about the same amount for a quart of Mop and Glo (floor cleaner/polish), you'll have more leather finish than you can ever use. Mix the stuff 50/50 with water and use just as Super Sheen. I've been using it for years. It actually is about the same stuff...an acrylic finish which penetrates the leather and does a pretty good job of sealing the leather. As to the little compressor, most airbrushes are set to use about 40PSI so I wouldn't let that pancake compressor go to full blast of around 100 PSI. Check to see if it has a regulator on it or figure out a bleed-off to keep the pressure down. Mike

Luke, the leather is just the import double shoulder from Springfield Leather. The color is a mix that I worked out to approximate what my memory says is what the old 'Russet' leather looked like, from way back when. Denster, thanks, basically, that is what I was trying for. Mike

Just finished this cross draw rig up....for the 1910 vitage Colt SAA pictured. Pretty plain,,,,as the customer wanted. Just a bit of stitching to perk it up a little. Mike

Gotta agree.......and for us southpaws, there ain't any levers, buttons or safety's to mess with.

Yeppers, that be the sort of thing I'm talking about....however, these are a bunch nicer than some that I've seen. There are a few out there that are really kind of nasty looking. Mike