Thursday, April 17, 2008

Crossbreed SuperTuck: Long-Term Review

In my original review I outlined my initial impressions of Crossbreed's SuperTuck holster. At that time I had worn the holster for a few weeks. As of today it has been over 8 months since I started wearing my SuperTuck daily with my Sig P239. I wanted to give people a longer term review to know what they can expect with owning one of Crossbreed's holsters.

Here's a brief recap (for more detail read my original review). This is a Crossbreed SuperTuck Deluxe IWB (inside the waistband) tuckable holster using V-clips (velcro clips) molded for a Sig P239 in 9mm. It is constructed with a large leather backing and a stiff piece of molded kydex to cover the firearm. The strong points this holster offers are it's adjustability, comfort, concealability and a very reasonable price.

Clothing Wear:
You might be wondering why I'm starting off with 'Clothing Wear' as my first section. The reason is to help explain the pictures you'll see for those who only care about pictures (you know who you are). Below you'll see what I mean by clothing wear. This is something that won't show up until extended wear with the same pair of pants.

The circled area is where the muzzle of my P239 has rubbed a spot on my Wrangler cargo pants (my favorite for looks & utility and yes I am carrying in that picture). It's not the best picture of it, but I think it shows what can happen. I've got a navy pair of Old Navy pants where it's worn an actual hole (I think my wife threw those away because of it). I found those pair of pants here's a picture showing how bad the wear is.Now why did I get this wear? Well one reason is because I carry at about 4:30 so when I sit (which I sit a lot for work) causes my gun to press against whatever chair I'm in. By the way that is in no way uncomfortable. I can go 14+ hours carrying this way without any discomfort. If I carried at closer to 3:00 I most likely wouldn't get this wear. Unfortunately, because of my luv handles that is not the most comfortable position. Another reason why my pants wear this way is due to the open muzzle design of the SuperTuck. A closed muzzle design would typically mute the somewhat hard edges of my firearm and cause less abrasion to my pants. Below you can see my solution to this problem.


I picked up a bag of scrap leather from the local Tandy Leather and used a larger section to trim up and cover the exposed muzzle. Then I used a leather punch and two chicago screws to fasten it to the holster leather backing. I've only done this just recently so I don't know if this is solve it long term, though feeling it through the pants there is a noticeable improvement at that spot. The great thing about this mod is that the only permanent thing I had to do to the main holster itself was punch two small holes.

Durability:
Here is a picture of the holster very shortly after I received it.

And here is a picture of my holster as it is over 8 months later including all the mods that I have done.
You can see that the leather has aged to a nice tan color. It has picked up some indentions from the gun and has developed a comfortable curve where it has conformed to my waist, but otherwise has held up very well. You will notice that I did trim a bit of the leather to aid a full grip. The clips which I initially worried about the velcro peeling off have weathered hundreds of on/off transitions without any indication of peeling or fraying. They work great for support and concealment though the velcro part is much longer than my 1.5" belt so I have to be careful when I first put it on so that it doesn't poke out the bottom of the belt and become visible. It's not a big deal and I haven't had to trim them at all.* The kydex section doesn't show any wear at all. It still holds the gun loosely until I have my belt tightened, but I have never had any fear that my gun would fall out. Overall, I can see this holster lasting many years without much additional wear than what it already has on it.
*Edit - got my new velcro lined belt from Crossbreed and it included new clips with it which are of the same design, but are sized just right for the belt and are totally hidden when tucked now.



Gun Wear:
The Nitron finish on Sig's aren't known to be anything close to Glock's Tennifer finish and below it shows.
Because of the loose fit of the kydex, the gun does have a little room to shift and that shifting has caused some finish wear on the slide. You can't tell from this picture, but just to the left of the pin behind the extractor on the rolled edge the blued finish has been polished all the way off. On the muzzle end of the gun this is also some wear where the front of the slide contacts the leather. Now I'm no gun snob and I realize that an EDC gun will get holster wear so this kind of wear on this kind of finish is acceptable to me. Now if I had a hard chromed slide and the holster was able to chew through that finish then I'd be upset. I'm actually thinking about refinishing the slide in the future (maybe hard chrome, maybe NP3, maybe try to find a super tough black finish). This particular P239 was made in 1996 and has seen about a solid year's worth of daily carry IWB. Before that it mostly sat in it's case. I'm glad that I can give it some use.

Conclusion:
The SuperTuck is a really good holster with only a couple tweaks away from being truely great. In it's role as a tuckable IWB concealment holster I can't imagine anything more comfortable and if you want to CCW 24/7; sitting, standing, driving, bending, twisting, turning, squatting and plain living then you can't go wrong with Crossbreed's SuperTuck. If you must keep the finish of your gun perfect then get it hard chromed or some other ultra tough finish because standard blue finishes will wear with use (no getting around that) and this holster like all others will wear that finish over time. The tweaks I made with my holster are simple & effective and in my mind only reflect what works for me. YMMV ("Your Mileage May Vary")