First I want to be clear, this belly band was not bought for me but for my beautiful bride, it is what she wanted. It was recommended and modeled for her and other ladies at a firearms class for ladies (Thank you Well Armed Woman and Stacy Bright). I also had heard, on different podcasts, ladies talking about using it and liking it. It is one holster in a collection for them, as seems to be with the case of ladies. Different clothes, different carry gear.
I have tried a different inside the pants band in the past but is was not for me. It is too soft to protect the trigger and there is no way to easily holster the weapon for practice or in the real world.
What I liked about the Crossbreed one is that you get a molded holster for your pistol, that way you can holster the pistol easier and have more confident in the trigger being protected. #NoNakedTriggers
Last August 2018 I hurt my shoulder and in April of 2019 finally had repair surgery. It was on my right arm, and even though I am a “lefty”, I am right eye dominant and thus carry on my right side.
Before you say “yeah but…” About a decade ago I had shoulder surgery on my left shoulder, up until then I had carried left handed. While still in a sling I attended a TAC-1 class at APT Academy. It was there that I found out I was very accurate with only my right hand, that is when I became a believer in shooting with your dominant eye, not dominant hand. You do what you will.
Knowing the surgery would put my right arm out of commission, I went to dig out my old left hand holsters. To my surprise, I only had a left hand thigh rig. That is when I remembered I had given all my Glock left hand holsters to a friend. As for the others? I have no idea.
Knowing I like to test equipment, and since my present to my wife of the belly ban was still sitting in its packaging from Christmas, I ordered left hand holster for a Glock 43. I kept waiting for a “deal” and ended up not ordering it until a couple of days before my surgery. I was hoping to have some practice with it both on and off the range before the surgery. No such luck, which was my fault.
For the first couple of days I stayed at home, it was a weekend and my bride had to be the sole on body armed person in the home. I did keep the G43 near me, just not on me with the meds and pain I felt it was wiser to be a last resort if there was an “issue”.
On with the story…
The great idea of a modular system is that you can get the correct holster for your specific gun and can’t it in the way that best suits your need.
The belly band is a flexible… with Velcro for attaching it when you wrap around yourself and more Velcro in the middle for positioning the weapon. It also includes a small side pouch / pocket that Velcro’s close. The spare magazine in the image is sitting on top of it.
You can store anything small you want there, money, tools or in my case a spare magazine. It is not a quick way to get to a magazine, in fact it is slow and loud, yet you still have the opportunity to have a spare magazine.
There is plenty of Velcro for holster placement and for attaching the band together.
As for the holster, the weapon retention is just right. I can jump, lay on the ground, on my back and move around and the pistol has never come loose from the holster.
I have gone to one Steel challenge, and handgun practice with my PFT or by myself a couple of times. This is where I ran into “issues”. This is not a competition rig or designed for quick draw, that should be obvious. What I ran into is the holster moved up with the gun 2 to 6 inches with each draw.
The image below is holstered, before drawing the gun.
Below is how far the band went up on the 1st draw of the pistol.
After placing the pistol back in the holster and NOT moving the band, this is where it went up to with the 2nd draw.
I have tried wearing the band with the holster at the 8, 9 and 10 o’clock positions in my pants like an IWB holster, as well as up on the belly above my waist in those positions. None were good for me.
The waist level lasted only until I moved around, sat in the car, got up and down and the band would migrate up until it was above my hips.
Before getting in the car.
After getting in and out of the car.
After a week plus of experimenting, I found the dreaded appendix carry was the best way for me to keep band movement / migration up to a minimum.
When I pee or have to take a “reading brake” the band had to be moved up or taken off, for me. I am not one who likes taking off my holster. With my Crossbreed supertuck or Ares holsters I can keep them on the waist of my pants and do my business. With the band, if I move it up across my belly, I have issues going to the restroom. If I move it all the way up to my ribcage, where the full band is on the ribs, then I have no “going” issues. This is uncomfortable with the butt of the Glock sticking into my man boob. My only other choice is to take the band off completely. In public this means I have to have a private stall, no urinals, and then put it back on with all the added Velcro noise, and bumping around in the stall to get it back on. This of course is very difficult since the band is flexible. The weight of the gun causes it to twist and turn leaving me with the fear that the pistil will fall out of the holster and slide out under the stall for public view. It is just a bad situation.
At eight weeks out of surgery I still could not reach behind me with my right arm. Putting the band on is painful and time consuming. I cannot just swing or toss it around me and even if I could, the aforementioned bathroom issues would make it darn near impossible for me in a stall.
When I go in for physical therapy (PT), I am finding that I have to go into a stall, remove the holster and then after PT I am just leaving it in my backpack until I get home for the reasons mentioned above.
At 88 days out from surgery I went back to wearing my Supertuck or Ares OWB holsters. Even though I have an extremely difficult time drawing from them (I still have issues from the surgery, apparently things did not go so well) I am way more comfortable carrying my gun this way. After all the first word in Concealed carry is concealed.
My take is that the Crossbreed Modular belly band is not for me, my build and the way I carry.
Until we meet again, keep your booger hook off the bang switch until on target and ready to fire.