Tectus Boots are now available through Amazon. Click on the pictures to go directly to the listing!
Tectus Boots Are Now Available on Amazon!
Category: Concealed Carry
Creating Tectus Boots With Built In Holsters – Part 3
Going to a gun show looking for a new holster isn’t as fun as going to a gun show looking for a new gun, but it’s still better than not going to a gun show. There are always a lot of people selling holsters at gun shows so It didn’t take long to find a holster that would be perfect for attaching to my boot.
A few days later I took one of my boots and the holster to a shoe cobbler and asked him to sew it on. He said it wouldn’t work. He told me that he had tried to do the same thing for other people and they always came back and had him take it off because it was so uncomfortable. “When you put a big piece of metal into a holster attached to a boot, that part of the boot becomes flat and rubs your leg or ankle.” Of course, I asked him to do it anyway. It couldn’t be that bad.
He was right. It was that bad. I had him put the holster on the side of a pair of leather lace up boots and they were impossible to wear now. Every step hurt. Luckily, he only charged me $7 so I didn’t feel too bad about cutting the holster off. I went back to the same cobbler with a pair of cowboy boots and he said it would do the same thing. This time I believed him.
I had seen some pictures of ankle holsters on that laced into the boot laces so there had to be a way to make it work. I had never sewn anything before except a random button or two. I started with a hand sewer I got at Hobby Lobby. I didn’t know what I was doing but it didn’t take long to figure out that a hand sewer from Hobby Lobby wasn’t going to cut it so I went to Ebay looking for another way.
For $200 I go this Chinese hand crank leather sewing machine:
I promptly used this $200 machine to put holes in all my boots. Nothing seemed to work. I bought every different kind of holster I could find for my revolver and for my semiautomatic. I couldn’t even get the little ones to work. A couple of times I made it out of the house wearing one but after a little while it hurt so bad I had to put the gun back in the car. I ran out of boots and started buying them from Ebay so I had a cheap way to experiment. No matter how I attached the holster it didn’t work.
I was putting my old ankle holster on after one more failed attempt and another ruined pair of boots and I wondered how it could wrap around my leg and still stay comfortable with the pistol in it. The gun didn’t rub my leg and it stayed comfortable most of the time until it slid down on my ankle. Then I noticed it.
My Eureka moment! The holster was only attached to the band and it was attached so the band could bend around my leg and the holster could stay straight and didn’t have to bend. Now all I had to do was duplicate that on my boots.
Creating Tectus Boots With Built In Holsters – Part 2
The one holster that seemed like the best option to go from the office to the job site and stay comfortable no matter what I was doing, was my ankle holster. I decided to look around for a lighter pistol for an ankle holster.
I really didn’t want to give up my 45 but there just aren’t any 45 pistol options that were light enough for an ankle holster. But at least I had a good excuse to go to gun stores and gun shows whenever I got a chance. This was about 1999 and there were a lot of concealed carry options, not many seemed like they would be a good fit for what I wanted.
I couldn’t go to that many gun shows and gun stores and not buy some guns. Not all of them were suitable for concealed carry, and an ankle holster was out of the question.
Holster options for concealing a Ruger Super Redhawk in 44 Magnum are limited to shoulder rigs. I don’t know how Dirty Harry did it. I didn’t even try to find a holster for the Professional Ordnance Carbon 15… I finally settled on a Smith and Wesson .38 special revolver. It was small and extremely light and the .38 Special round packs a lot of punch. The pistol was so light that I didn’t really like shooting it because after 10 or 15 rounds, my hand hurt.
There were a lot of holster options for it and I tried a few different options until I found one that I liked and was comfortable enough to wear all day. It was a “fur” lined band that wrapped around my leg and fastened with Velcro. I was happy with my new pistol and holster combination but there was still one problem: it was impossible to stop the holster from sliding down my leg when I wore dress shoes or any shoe that had a low top. I was constantly having to re adjust it, but at least I was back to having a pistol with me all the time again.
The .38 special and ankle holster option for concealed carry worked so well that I never left the house without it. I was wearing it at least 10 to 12 hours every day. It took a while but eventually I started to notice the same problem with my Achilles tendon that I had before. It was like wearing a brace 12 hours a day. It was even worse when I had my boots on. When I wear boots, I always wear lace up leather work boots that are at least 8 or 9 inches tall. When I wrapped my ankle holster around my boot it was almost like wearing a cast.
Then one sunny afternoon I was heading out for a motorcycle ride and as I was putting my ankle holster on, I thought to myself that it would be nice to just have a holster on the side of my boot instead of having to strap one on. I wasn’t really sure how it would work but as I thought about it occurred to me that I could just buy a holster and have someone attach It to my boot. Now I had another excuse to go to gun shows…
Creating Tectus Boots With Built-in Holsters Part 1
There are a lot of ways to carry a concealed pistol. Everyone has their favorite pistol and carry holster, and their own reasons for using that holster and weapon. I have had a concealed carry permit for close to twenty years and I have tried a lot of different holsters. Inside The Waistband, Outside The Waistband, Belt holsters, Pocket carry holsters and even a Fanny Pack type holster. (As silly as it sounds, the Fanny Pack Holster was not as bad as it would seem, as long as you didn’t mind wearing a fanny pack)…
Of course the holster you carry and where you carry depends on a lot of things and the biggest factor is usually personal preference. Sometimes you might have to adjust your preference to your situation. I have almost always worked in an office setting so I had a few options. If I wanted to wear a suit jacket all day I could carry almost any holster rig I wanted and not worry about people seeing it. Once in a while I was able to not work in the office and get out where the work happens and depending on the weather, I might have on just a T-shirt and jeans which limited my holster options.
My favorite pistol caliber is .45 ACP. I am not sure when it became my favorite, but I like the idea of that big fat slug heading down range. I qualified with a 9 millimeter in USMC Law Enforcement School but I always come back to the 45. Carrying a full size 45 in a concealed holster usually requires some bulky clothing like a jacket or a sweatshirt. That’s just not an option in 80 plus degree weather. The 45 pistol I bought to carry was a Kimber Ultra Carry. There are plenty of holster options for compact 45s, paddle holsters, IWB holsters, OWB holsters and ankle holsters. They all have their pros and cons, depending on your point of view.
I settled on an ankle holster from a brand name holster company. The main reason I settled for the ankle holster was comfort. I didn’t get poked in the side or back when I got in and out of a truck or piece of equipment (the Bobcat was the worst). I could spend hours sitting on a bull dozer and not have to worry about my pistol poking me the entire time. I know “carrying a gun isn’t supposed to be comfortable, it’s supposed to be comforting” but I still want it to be comfortable.
The ankle holster worked for a while but then even that started to get uncomfortable. The pistol only weighed about 2 pounds loaded, but sometimes it felt like it got heavier and heavier as the day went on. Then I noticed that because the holster wrapped around my leg, it was like wearing a brace all day and my Achilles tendon started hurting. I had look around for another option…
Video of man with CCDW permit saving Florida Deputy
Cell phone video released today shows a citizen saving a deputy’s life in Florida back in November by shooting the suspect.
Story: http://bit.ly/2ntHOzO
