By Jim Shepherdand the Outdoor Wire: Deciding to carry a firearm isn’t a choice that ends when you get your necessary paperwork and select your firearm. In fact, those steps are only the beginning of what I’ve discovered is a constant cycle of decision-making.For example, will you carry inside or outside your waistband? In your pocket? How about a shoulder holster? Utility pack? Will the way you choose to carry your handgun change with the seasons? After all, that shoulder holster might work great under a jacket or coat, but summertime temperatures don’t lend themselves to a cover garment (that’s a vest or jacket if you’re not into “gun speak”).
With all those decisions made, you might move along quite contentedly until you go to the range or take one of the defensive pistol classes taught by our own Tiger McKee or another qualified instructor. At that point, you might find that the theoretical bumps up against the practical.
It happened to me.
After several years of not carrying, I met all the legal requirements, picked up my faithful Smith & Wesson J-frame and the leather holster in which it had ridden successfully for more years that I could recall from my gun safe, and realized several things had changed.
First, that supple little leather holster had apparently mummified. Instead of a malleable piece of soft leather, I had a stiff, hard and generally useless piece of junk.
At that point, I picked up a couple of holsters; one in leather; the other Kydex. Both worked great and, depending on where I was going that day, I found them to be perfect when switching between labor-intensive work (Kydex) and more formal occasions (leather).
Unfortunately, my now-renewed rig also overlooked a simple fact of life: as I’d gotten older, my eyes definitely lacked the visual acuity of the old days.
In fact, I realized that my lack of speed in picking up that all-important front sight could cause me serious harm-or worse- in an armed confrontation. As my friend Ed Head says, “if you don’t solve your problem quickly, your problem may solve you.”
With a new leather holster, big dot front sight and laser grips, the J-frame is once again a viable concealed carry option for the author’s aging eyes. Jim Shepherd photo.
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For me, a solution was nothing more complicated than slipping on a set of Crimson Trace grips, adjusting the laser to my natural point of aim at 5 yards and dry-fire practice that included actually drawing the firearm from a variety of positions while wearing a variety of business and casual clothing.
The choices, however, didn’t end there. Life, after all, isn’t a one-size-fits-all situation.
Sometimes, the five-shot revolver simply didn’t fit the situation.
In warmer weather, weight and concealment became an issue. So, I decided to buy one of the high-quality pocket pistols available today. Having attended a Ruger training event, I went with one of their LCP pistols in .380.
With a small pocket holster, it slipped easily into a trouser or jacket pocket-complete with spare magazine- without “printing” (more gun speak for leaving an outline in your trouser pocket that screams gun to anyone who happens to look at your pants).
And for those situations when even the small LCP wasn’t acceptable, a North American Arms revolver in .22 was dropped into a shirt pocket.
Sometimes I’ve carried more than one of the options. In a few rare instances, I’ve carried all of them. Since I’m not a policeman, never played on on TV, and don’t ever plan to get into another gunfight, I prefer never to be in a situation where I’d need them all. In today’s world, however, the belt-and-suspender option doesn’t seem so excessive.
But this trio of choices didn’t offer much promise for accuracy. Small guns are infamous for poor to nonexistent sights.
Again, a problem with my compact carry solutions. And the challenges compounded nearly every time I thought I’d found a solution. When I equipped the LCP with an add-on laser, the pocket holster didn’t fit. So I needed a solution that wouldn’t prevent using the pocket holster.
An option when a laser won’t fit your holster is a sidemount unit. This LaserLyte unit isn’t as instinctive a grip mounted unit, but it gets rounds on target quickly.
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In this case, a LaserLyte sideplate unit worked for me. Small enough to allow me to use my existing holster, it is bright enough to give me a quick red dot that gets my tiny firearm on target in a hurry. It’s not for precision shooting, but neither is the pocket pistol. The nickname “belly guns” says all that’s needed about their optimal range.
By now, you’re getting the point – there’s just no one-size-fits-all solution.
Over the years, I’ve carried everything from the tiny North American Arms .22 revolvers in shirt pockets to full-sized 1911s in shoulder holsters. There have been J-frames inside my waistband, fastened to my ankle and carried horizontally in the small of my back, along with full-sized revolvers. Heck, I’ve even carried double barreled derringers in .22 magnum and .44 Special.
But the basic challenge – quickly getting rounds into the target, has never changed. In this special edition, you’ll see options for holsters, and sights to help you see -and shoot-better. We have several choices, but there are more options than we could ever cover, even in a single-topic special edition.
In bright daylight, for example, a simple big dot on the business end of a compact handgun is a solution that never needs batteries, has no on-off switch, and is always at the end of the barrel.
In the dark, however, you need a light.
And the choices today will make your head spin.
Tiny lights with blazingly high outputs all the way up to big units that can be used as lights, weapons, or hammers without breaking.
High-tech polymer, aluminum, titanium, or stainless steel tubes are also options, as is the choice of traditional bulb or LED.
Here are two evolutions of my carry rig. At the top, the new rig, an M&P pistol with Crimson Trace lasergrips and CT’s new LightGuard 100 lumen front-mounted flashlight. With a Galco holster, I have a light/laser combination in a single package. Below that, is the original concealed carry outfit: a small revolver in a belt holster, reloads in speed strips or speedloaders in a pocket, along with a small high-output flashlight. Jim Shepherd photos.
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Don’t get me started on how best to choose between AAA, AA, CR123, or other power source. I have all the various sizes, but I keep coming back to the idea that concealed carry should be more about “conceal” than “carry”. I generally default to the smallest options I think will work.
I also happen to subscribe to the same theory of lights as I do with handguns: whatever you have when you find yourself in a critical situation is the right choice. It might not be ideal, but needing either means the situation’s already less than ideal.
Options are not the problem when it comes to lights and/or sights. Here are options that include (clockwise from the top) a Ruger LCP with a big-dot front sight and a small laser unit, a Colt 1911 Rail Gun with a Viridian Green Laser/light combination, a Smith&Wesson M&P with Crimson Trace Grips and the Light Guard flashlight, and a compact revolver with laser trips and a big dot front sight. All of them are practical, but none of them work in ever concealed carry situation.
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One word of concern: with a light on a firearm, you’re never just pointing a light at something. You’re pointing a gun with a light on it. The light/gun combination isn’t for everyone. If you consider that option, get some specialized training you carry the combination.
Shooting, as most of us practice it, is more a recreational activity than a lifestyle change. I really enjoy taking non-shooters to the range and watching their expressions change after they overcome an initial nervousness about “guns”. Multi-time world champion competition shooter Rob Leatham once told me “I’ve never had anyone tell me they didn’t have fun at the range” -and, as usual, he’s dead on target.
When you make that personal decision to go to concealed carry, you realize just how casual your shooting experiences have generally been: put gun in range bag, add ammo, eye and ear protection, a gun rug and targets and head out.
Carrying your gun on your person changes that thought process. If it doesn’t, you owe it to everyone around you not to be carrying a gun.
Shooting is a wonderful pastime; concealed carry, however, is a serious business.