I’d seen a young man’s video content on YouTube. I call him a young man, but I believe he said he’d been carrying concealed for more than fifteen years – most people are “young” from my perspective.
His favorite carry gun appears to be GI-type steel five-inch 1911 pistols in 45-caliber. I find his content interesting because he brings up things I’d not thought of. The question of carrying a GI 45 auto concealed in his home state of Florida raised questions.
In response, he showed a battered, worn-out hybrid inside-the-waist holster. It consisted of a large sheet of cow-hide to which a kydex pouch had been attached. In addition, two steel clips, reminiscent of IWB clips from the 1960s-1970s, were attached at the extreme forward edge- and trailing edge of the cowhide sheet.
Think a “pancake” worn inside the waist.
He said that having the weight spread out fore-and-aft was helpful; his trousers didn’t sag so badly from concentrated weight in one place and the rig didn’t move – there was no place for it to go.
I remember when CrossBreed Holsters started. Mark Craighead was a fan of the hybrid IWB concept and made the SuperTuck popular starting in 2005. It took only a few years until the concept spread and companies all over were producing kydex-hide hybrid IWB holsters. Some improved the concept by using synthetic materials to make the rigs even more comfortable. A number of examples had superior belt attachment arrangements.
I’ve carried that way, with guns from the original S&W Shield to the GLOCK 19, to a GLOCK 20 (that one in the Comp-Tac MTAC IWB (-- still in production), an interesting take on the “spread belt attachment IWB” arrangement).
Try to find a similar holster in most catalogs now. What happened?
I reached out to a marketing professional who works for a large holster company. He mentioned “a confluence of events that caused the precipitous drop in sales for hybrid IWBs.”
Among these was the rise in popularity of “appendix” (front of the hip) carry. That calls for synthetics with outboard stabilization devices (“wings” or “claws”). A number of people hide large “double-stack poly pistols adorned with huge (flashlights) and (optics)” in those holsters.
No less an authority than Caleb Giddings of Taurus recently made a social media post about that very issue. Carrying his personally-owned, slightly modified Taurus TX9 duty-size pistol in a Galco Summer Comfort IWB on the strong side, he said he’d forgotten how comfortable that carry mode was – when he compared it to front-of-the-hip carry.
My source noted that a number of “influencers” had expressed extreme dislike of hybrid IWB holsters, some alleging they were “dangerous.” If the “shield” of leather behind the upper part of the gun folded over, there was some fear it’d get into the trigger guard. I didn’t test every type of gun against every permutation of hybrid IWB holster – I didn’t have access – but when I tested against what I carried, it wasn’t an issue.
Finally, there are ebbs and flows in the market. What was old and discarded as outdated sometimes comes back into fashion. Sometimes one doesn’t live long enough to see it happen.
Hybrids weren’t my favorite in the holster department. Natural materials are nice from an aesthetics viewpoint. That said, I’ve put a lot of miles on hybrid IWB holsters over a lot of years now. The reason is that it simply works.
My source at the holster company said that “they will pry my (hybrid IWB holster product name redacted) from my cold, dead fingers.”
I concur. I found a couple of designs on closeout, one at GT Distributors and took advantage of the savings. At my age, I may never use them. The holsters I have are working fine.
If you want an IWB that spreads the load out over some space between front and rear belt attachments, you can still go to CrossBreed (for some gun fits) or Comp-Tac. An elegant solution can be found at Simply Rugged Holsters.
Their Cumberland - Leather Concealed Carry Holster is a pancake design with a reinforced mouth, metal clips to attach to the belt and an open bottom to allow ash & trash to fall through. It’s of the general format of the hybrids in terms of weight distribution on the belt.
Likewise, any of their pancake OWB designs can be cut for IWB straps, which are sold with attachment screws. The DEFCON 4 is one example and is provided with Inside-The-Waistband (IWB) straps.
If the need is there, the market finds a way.
— Rich Grassi