|
Forum Rules | Firearms Safety | Firearms Photos | Links | Library | Lost Password | Email Changes |
Register | FAQ | Calendar | Search | Today's Posts | Mark Forums Read |
|
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
September 17, 2017, 04:42 PM | #26 |
Senior Member
Join Date: January 27, 2008
Posts: 2,199
|
As with most things, it solves some problems and causes others.
Drop-let holsters get the firearm away from chest and belt-mounted gear. Thus, it is less likely to snag on the draw. If worn WAY down the leg, it can be drawn from a seated position (like in a vehicle). There are problems too... Running with a drop leg is less than pleasant. It gets worse the lower you wear the holster. Further, if you wear it very low, it causes problems with the draw stroke, as you have to lean over to draw! A "mid-ride" holster that puts the grip even with or just below the belt is often a good compromise. |
September 17, 2017, 09:08 PM | #27 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: January 10, 2011
Location: Wyoming
Posts: 647
|
Quote:
I joined the Army when I was 18 and chose Ft Carson, CO as my preferred duty station in large part to see the "west". Luckily for me I spent my entire 4 year (minus the first 5 months at Ft Knox for training) in Colorado. I spent nearly every free weekend of that 3.5 years driving around Colorado and nearby states to visit places that L'Amour had mentioned in his books. Towns, ghost towns, passes, mountains, rivers. In a few cases hotels/saloons that were still operating in the 1970's. You name it I would pick one and go there. I would read and re-read passages and study maps for weeks to pinpoint a spot where William Tell Sackett or some other character had camped/recovered from a gunfight/hidden from the crooked sheriff, etc., then go and camp as close to that spot as I could reasonably estimate. So, short story long, yes I'm aware he wrote fiction, and yes I was being facetious in my post. But not the part about Tye Sackett; if he hadn't tied down his holster he'd have died in a gunfight, and there would have been less novels. |
|
September 18, 2017, 03:12 AM | #28 |
Senior Member
Join Date: March 2, 2017
Posts: 1,868
|
You guy's just don't get it. It's like a caution or yield sign!
|
September 18, 2017, 06:52 AM | #29 | ||
Junior member
Join Date: July 26, 2001
Location: midwest
Posts: 2,374
|
Quote:
Quote:
|
||
September 18, 2017, 07:03 AM | #30 |
Senior Member
Join Date: May 16, 2012
Location: ME
Posts: 771
|
|
September 18, 2017, 08:53 AM | #31 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: June 16, 2008
Location: Wyoming
Posts: 11,061
|
Quote:
Having carried a heavy revolver (Model 28 Smith) 10-12 hours a day for 20 years, I can tell you a loose belt, down on the hip would give you hip pain you wouldnt believe. No real gunman would carry a heavy revolver like that. I want my duty belt tight, around the waste. As to the drop leg military carry you have today, I can't say much about. In my 25 years in the Military (Regular Army and NG) I carried a pistol (M1911a1) a lot. In peace time it was in a tanker style shoulder holster. When I carried one as a grunt in Vietnam it was on my ruck.
__________________
Kraig Stuart CPT USAR Ret USAMU Sniper School Distinguished Rifle Badge 1071 |
|
September 18, 2017, 11:32 AM | #32 |
Senior Member
Join Date: February 13, 2002
Location: Canada
Posts: 12,453
|
"...Gunfighters have been wearing them..." Only in Hollywood. Arvo Ojala invented the Hollywood Fast Draw Holster in the mid 50's.
And "with legs straight" is correct.
__________________
Spelling and grammar count! |
September 18, 2017, 02:27 PM | #33 |
Member In Memoriam
Join Date: March 17, 1999
Posts: 24,383
|
I have carried a gun a lot, and ridden a horse a little (OK, as little as possible - it beats walking) and it seems to me that people who did both did not carry the gun so it would fall out of the holster when mounting the horse. Tying the holster down adds more problems as do various straps, loops, and thongs (no, not that kind)*.
That is the reason, I suspect, why the low-slung holster was unheard of until the advent of the "new" movie cowboy around 1950. Ojala and others were showmen and stuntmen, and trained a generation of actors in their techniques, which were for show, not the real world. Earlier movie Westerns featured at least some actors who really were old timers (e.g., the real Tom Mix) and they show a wholly different style. FWIW, the only actor I thought carried a gun like he knew how to use it was John Wayne, and he carried it high behind the right hip. *Doesn't have to be a horse. I knew a man who had carried a Ruger .44 (old type) full up in a low slung holster; all was fine until he forgot to set the hammer loop when he got into his pickup truck. The gun fell out of the holster, landed on the hammer, and put a slug up through his inner thigh, barely missing some sensitive places. He still walked with a limp when I knew him years later. Jim |
September 18, 2017, 06:40 PM | #34 | ||
Junior member
Join Date: May 16, 2008
Posts: 9,995
|
Quote:
Quote:
Studios don't buy new props for every movie. The old studios had their own prop departments and now they rent them from the same sources. In the 1920s someone had a bunch of these holsters made up for a movie and they got recycled in movies for the next 20 years or so, at least in what the extras were using. The buscadero rig pre-dates its advent in western movies and was not uncommon in the southwest at the time it showed up in movies. Most popular, how common, etc., fine, argue it. Hollywood did not think it up in 1950 or even 1920. Straight leg correct... When someone with their legs straight wins even a local service rifle match I'll be on board with that correct(mostly) Straight legged is due to a number of compromises. One of the major negatives then was the same as today. You can't conceal it. Most were concealing their firearms then as now. Last edited by johnwilliamson062; September 18, 2017 at 06:45 PM. |
||
September 18, 2017, 07:13 PM | #35 |
Junior member
Join Date: May 16, 2008
Posts: 9,995
|
Wyatt Earp Dodge City ~1890 Not a buscadero, but low slanting down from left to right.
Frank Smith and Wyatt Earp didn't use buscadero rigs, but both wore pistols low with a strong slant of the belt to achieve a similar effect. The position they carry at is not far off from where I have my thigh rig when I have used it(rare). You can see others in these photos: http://www.cascity.com/forumhall/ind...?topic=20372.0 https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...act=mrc&uact=8 All photos which pre-date hollywood westerns. Furthermore, although very few hear wear body armor on a daily basis, from photos I have seen plenty of members, some commenting here, come with organic bulk far exceeding a plate carrier and could well benefit from a thigh rig Last edited by johnwilliamson062; September 18, 2017 at 07:19 PM. |
September 18, 2017, 08:52 PM | #36 |
Senior Member
Join Date: September 19, 2000
Posts: 1,082
|
Actually, I thought that the "culprit" of the modern drop-leg holster was the rappelling harness. You know, SWAT types coming down the side of the building, needing to cap someone through the window or whatnot.
Body armor could be a partial excuse, although most modern set-up's I have seen are integrated with molle attachments and the like. A more reasonable cross-draw seems to be more widely available.....the need for the drop-leg seems to be diminishing. Except for mall ninjas and reenactors. |
September 18, 2017, 08:54 PM | #37 | |||||
Staff
Join Date: November 23, 2005
Location: California - San Francisco
Posts: 9,471
|
Quote:
Perry Owens is wearing his handgun cross-draw low on his body on a belt under a cartridge belt holding cartridges for the single shot rifle he is holding in his right hand. One possible inference from that arrangement is that he considers access to the rifle cartridges a priority and is wearing his handgun low to make the rifle cartridges handier. Quote:
Quote:
In this series of photos, almost all the handguns are being carried crossdraw at waist level. Even when the gun is worn slightly low, the butt of the gun is about midline, or a bit higher, on the forearm when the arm is hanging straight down. Also, in general in the 19th Century (and roughly the first half of the 20th Century) men's trousers were worn higher on the torso than they are today.
__________________
"It is long been a principle of ours that one is no more armed because he has possession of a firearm than he is a musician because he owns a piano. There is no point in having a gun if you are not capable of using it skillfully." -- Jeff Cooper |
|||||
September 18, 2017, 10:27 PM | #38 | ||
Junior member
Join Date: May 16, 2008
Posts: 9,995
|
Quote:
It may not technically be a buscadero, unless you are arguing a cross-draw can't be a buscadero. My understanding is the buscadero aspect is the fashion in which the belt drops with a loop. There are cross-draw buscaderos marketed and they are certainly shown in popular culture. The buscadero/Hollywood argument is somewhat of a tangent. The picture isn't clear enough but it is pretty close and exactly what type of holster it is is somewhat irrelevant as the core of this is whether they were worn low or not. Exactly how they got low is somewhat irrelevant. Wearing the pants high can only go one way. If that is the explanation for why those pistols appear to hang low then the other pistols you linked must be up really really high. Why were some wearing their pistols 3-4 inches higher than we do today? The way I am suggesting a modern take be worn is close to: https://spetzgear.com/COLOR-HOLSTER-DROPLEG-LIGHT Maybe an inch or two lower depending where your hand falls at your side. A couple inches lower than what one usually finds belt/hip holsters. Just low enough that attachment at the belt only is going to leave it flopping quite a bit. NOT as low or close to the knee as one can get it, which is commonly seen, but I am not advocating. I don't know what is going on here. Quote:
Last edited by johnwilliamson062; September 18, 2017 at 10:36 PM. |
||
September 19, 2017, 12:45 AM | #39 | ||||
Staff
Join Date: November 23, 2005
Location: California - San Francisco
Posts: 9,471
|
Quote:
It appears to me that Owens is trading ease of access to his handgun for easier accommodation of other gear. That's the same reason that today military and LEOs use thigh holsters -- to accommodate other gear like body armor, equipment laden vests, mountaineering tackle, etc. Back in post 4 you implied that gunfighter carried their handguns law because it was a more efficient way to manage a handgun. That doesn't seem to be the case with Owens. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
__________________
"It is long been a principle of ours that one is no more armed because he has possession of a firearm than he is a musician because he owns a piano. There is no point in having a gun if you are not capable of using it skillfully." -- Jeff Cooper |
||||
September 19, 2017, 07:29 AM | #40 | ||
Staff
Join Date: June 8, 2008
Posts: 4,022
|
Quote:
The guns are worn at or near hip level, far above the knees, with the grips level with or higher than the groin. They may appear low, but only be because the pants are worn so high in the pictures. Quote:
Here's an example. But we digress. The original question was about the use of modern leg/thigh holsters. https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....SR240,320_.jpgIf any such thing ever existed in the "old west", it was far from common. |
||
September 19, 2017, 08:22 AM | #41 |
Senior Member
Join Date: August 19, 2008
Posts: 227
|
Thigh rigs that are worn just below the waist work well. If they are lower, then they are not ideal. Here is a good video about tactical/duty holsters by a USAF SO guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXFVe-2yXhY |
September 19, 2017, 06:41 PM | #42 |
Senior Member
Join Date: April 6, 2013
Posts: 456
|
Ok this is a good answer a few posts above. Its ideal for a driver or someone who works primarily from a vehicle...i.e. armored car guard. Someone who might need to draw from a vehicle.
|
September 20, 2017, 11:57 PM | #43 |
Staff
Join Date: November 23, 2005
Location: California - San Francisco
Posts: 9,471
|
The OP has his answer.
__________________
"It is long been a principle of ours that one is no more armed because he has possession of a firearm than he is a musician because he owns a piano. There is no point in having a gun if you are not capable of using it skillfully." -- Jeff Cooper |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
|
|