Bolt Vanderhuge

Both holsters show some nice clean work. I am not seeing any sight channels on them. This may be ok for Glocks and others that have very low profile front sights. It would not be good for many other guns, however. I would recommend adding in sight channels to your future builds.

Very nice rig.

Amazing work.

Looking forward to seeing your next revision.

Here is a holster with ostrich leg. This has a good amount of detail molding/boning. This should give an idea what is possible with good veg tan under the exotic. I shoot for roughly 1-2 oz thinner veg tan, depending on the exotic thickness, than my non exotic holsters. This one look like it might be the same color ostrich leg as yours.

Ostrich leg is easily molded when laminated on veg tan leather. You may not have a thick enough layer of veg tan to hold the molding. You could try a smooth lining with veg tan instead of the suede. This will provide a thicker piece of leather and can hold molding better.

Instead of water use Neatsfoot oil to wet form it. You will want a generous amount of NF on the flap enough that is will remain soft in the bend area. After the NF has soaked thru all the fibers you can start forming it to the bend you want. When straight there will still be a little bit of leather that bunches up but it does not look as bad nor does it creat any long term cracks that tend to form over time when water is used to wet form it.

That is some great work.

That looks very nice. How was it working with stingray?

Like I said earlier just sand it down the tiny amount. This is a very fixable issue.

Ok I measured a few more. Mold gun is 1.544" (39.22mm). Para officer 1.543". 4" Springfield 1.534". 5" Colt 1.530". Colt Defender 1.520". Ruger commander 1.530. 5" STI 1.510. Dan Wesson CCO (the earlier gun) 1.524". A second DW CCO 1.525. DW Guardian 1.531". DW vbob 1.522". 5" Sig 1.515". Sig commander 1.515". Rock Island commander 1.507". My other 2 officers have tri-topped slides from the factory so they have different slide top dimensions. But even so, they do not wiggle in my holsters. The transition lines from the slide top to the sides is still in the same place so it still has a contoured feature on the top and bottom of the gun that matches close enough to that of the mold gun. But then again my mold gun is the same size as the gun at the top of the size range from the 13 I measured. Yours measures 1.563" so it is a slightly larger difference. It is 0.056" taller than my shortest one and 0.20" taller than my talest one.

I just measured mine at the front of the dust cover and mine vs the same 1911 as earlier. The mold is 0.02" bigger. Not sure if you are aware of this but 1911s vary by similar tiny amounts due to the multitude of different manufacturers. 0.060" is only 1/16". Take some sandpaper to the underside of the dust cover and sand it down to meet you needs. It shouldn't take much time at all.

So it is a penny too tall, is what you are saying? Build a test holster and try a real 1911 in it. See if you are ok with the fit or not. Maybe the one you got has issues.

I have no problem with my RIA Cooks mold gun. Like I said earlier, it works perfectly for my officer sized 1911s. Take some calipers and measure it. What is the slide width and any other dimensions that you think might be off? I just measured the slide width of mine and it was 23.40mm. I then measured one of my 1911s and it was 23.40 as well. That is and exact match for my mold gun vs real ones.

Yes it is the RIA. It is the correct size for a 3.5" officer 1911.