Retention on railed guns

[fortenberryshel]

Does anyone have holsters for railed guns loose retention? Seems the rail may abraid the inside of the holster, what is everyone else doing. Thanks

[Hags]

I've done several glocks, 1911s, etc with the lower rail. Heck, my Springfield has one and that holster is worn a lot, and shows little signs of wear. When I wet mold them, I move them in and out several times. It loosens them up around the lower rail (I hope that's what you are talking about) and I see no signs of significant abrasion. I get most of my retention from the trigger guard, ejection port, and sweat guard.

[JLSleather]

DONT mold the leather down into the rails... you are correct that these will abrade the leather.  And its not necessary anyway.  Create your "retention" somewhere else - NOT on the rails.

As a rule, I like most of the 'retention' to be in the lower part of a holster (so you don't have to "fight" it all the way out).  Which is usually right where the rail is   So, this has to be the exception to the rule on "bottom" retention.  But then, it might already BE an exception, since you're making a holster for a gun with a rail that doesn't carry anything.  I mean, seems like a guy with a railed pistol might also have a light or a laser ... but not always the case.

These Sig P320's have pretty aggressive rails.  So I "block" the rails before molding the holster.  You can do this with about anything -- including tape as long as you have tape that wont leave any residue.   This creates CLEARANCE for the rails (the holster isn't actually down on them when you remove the tape (or whatever you used).  And in these cases, the slide is pretty tall and more than enough to create retention on the holster.

[fortenberryshel]

Thanks for the replies, I think I will slip a 1913 rail cover(thin as I can find) on ,cut to length and give it a try. I have a order for a 5 inch 1911 rail gun pancake, I will post some pictures when complete.

[Gunfitters]

JL Sleather is right.  Where as other leather artisans wet form or wet mold, holster makers block and bone. You can’t block against something that isn’t there. For example, on Beretta M9’s they have an open frame top. But we want something hard to block against to create the sight track. I’ll put packing tape on the area, fill in the open space with hot glue, then form the sight track. Then I’ll cover the glue with tape. Now when I bock and bone the area, it stays blocked since it had something to block against. Then pull off the track, and save it for the next Beretta. In your case you could fill the rail voids, then tape and block/bone. Now days I supposed you could laser scan a sight area or rail and 3D print a  block filler. Good thing is your boning tight. Set a close stitch line, bone tight, and the piece will break draw off the barrel without boning into the rail sections.