CZ 75 SP-01 Tactical, suppressor ready (Whew!)

[CowboyDan]

I had an interesting holster to make. It's a CZ 75 SP-01 Tactical Suppressor Ready. Which means it has a rail (wants to eat the leather) and really tall sights (wants to eat the leather) that have Tritium inserts (super cool in low light). Also, being a 'tactical' model, it has a decocker instead of a safety (not that the holster cares). Which, if you've never handled one, means it is very disconcerting to see the hammer fall when you hit the 'safety'. But, it handles really nice.

The beast:

Knowing that the rail would tear up the inside of the holster, I knew it would need an insert of some sort. So I decided to try my hand at some Kydex and see how that went. And because of the tall sights, I would need a stitched sight channel. So, this called for an experimental holster (throw-away). And boy was I right.

So, I started w/ the fill size 1911 pancake pattern that JLS provides for free from his website (http://www.jlsleather.com/diy/holster-patterns-diy/   THANKS!!!) and added some length in a couple of spots to accomodate the larger gun. Then molded some Kydex (about 0.080 inch thick) fairly close around the gun from just past the end of the frame to almost the top of the front panel, including the trigger guard (for retention). Turns out that molding it fairly tight was NOT a good idea, but more on that in a moment.

So then I stitched about where I thought the stitch line needed to be along the bottom of the gun (along the bottom of the rail, and around trigger guard), and wet-formed along the stitch line using the gun in the Kydex. Once that was dry, I glued the kydex in place w/ rubber cement and added two rivets (A little more on those later). Then built a really fancy sight channel insert that would hold the front & back leather panels in place and keep the sights from being damaged or damaging the holster.

The fancy sight channel was a BAD idea. Not only is it REALLY hard to stitch through 7 layers of 6/7 oz leather by hand, it didn't work near as well as I had hoped. But, it was a good try.

Once the sight channel was stitched in, I stuck the gun in and it clicked in place REALLY nicely. AWESOME retention. Turns out the retention was TOO good. I almost couldn't get it back out. Here's where that Kydex molding note comes back into the picture. Let's look at the gun:

See how the frame at the back of the rail is beveled down to the trigger guard width? Well, turns out that once the gun is in and try to remove it, the rail hits on the Kydex that is molded to that bevel. OOPS! I should have seen that coming. So, I had to make a model of the lower part of the frame, trigger guard, and grip, BUT without the bevel. This makes for a sharp corner in the Kydex, but as long as it is molded to the trigger guard, and VERY SLIGHTLY into the trigger guard, it will still hold fairly well. The addition of the leather to the Kydex once everything is assembled in essence makes the Kydex much stiffer.

Also, when molding the Kydex, make sure you add little bulges where the rivets go so that they don't make contact with the gun itself. In the area of the rail it might not be too critical, depending on the customer, but up around the trigger guard you don't want to scratch it up unnecessarily.

Since the semi-solid sight channel idea wasn't working, I tore out the sight channel stitches and tried again. This time with two pieces of about 4/5 oz on each side of the front sight and touching the top of the slide. This worked a lot better, so I decided to go with that idea.

At this point I also trimmed the sweat guard and muzzle end of the holster.

After tearing the whole holster apart, I used the stitch lines to lay out the belt slots positions and the edges by referencing the stitch lines in the JLS pattern. Then, using the experimental holster, I sketched the bottom of the holster and sweat guard. Once that was sketched, I could add smoothing lines and contours to make it look a little prettier.

Stitched w/ Tiger thread, my first time using it. I tried black around the edges and sight channel, and white on the inside portion of the belt slots.

Finish is Vinegaroon and Mop-N-Glo.

The result is what you see here.

 

Since this is based so heavily on the JLS pattern, and he was generous enough to make it available to all, I thought I should do the same with what I came up with. So I scanned in my pattern and it is attached to this post. It is a 1-to-1 scale, and I added some reference dimensions that you can use to check that it printed to the correct size.

Also, in case anyone needs dimensions for molding a mag pouch, those are also attached.

CZ_75_SP-01_18rd-Mag-dims.pdf

CZ_75_SP-01_Holster-Back-Panel.pdf

CZ_75_SP-01_Holster-Front-Panel.pdf

CZ_75_SP-01_Mag-pouch.pdf

[JLSleather]

I like whatcha did there, but you mighta had less work jus' ignorin that 1911 pattern and startin from scratch

Some o them rails should be maybe spelled R A K E.  Looks like you gotter covered, even if that was almost like WORK!

Good to see folks sharin' a pattern, too -- WAY too many folks terrified of that.

 

[bikermutt07]

That's a lot of holster for a lot of gun. Good job, and thanks for the build pointers. Thanks for the patterns as well.