Ultra thin grips for my Tokarev

Have you ever wanted thinner grips on your Tokarev? I didn't at first, Toks are pretty thin to begin with. Then I read about how someone will carry his Tok without the grips on to minimize it's width and I though "that can't be the smartest idea". Then I modified some wrap-around grips which improve the grip angle to add a beaver tail for comfort. They help tremendously with pointing and now don't bite back, but are pretty bulky overall rivaling most double stack grips. I can see the attraction to thin.

My Norinco 213's a 9mm with the mag spacer in the grip (not the mag) so carrying it without grips would quickly cause the spacer to fall out, not to mention I can't stand the standard grip angle. So after some brain storming and a little inspiration from glocktails I came up with a way to make the thinnest grips I could think of without any permanent modification or without too much work all while improving the standard grip angle. Check it out!
The answer is kydex. I've been playing around with it for several months and I've found it's very easy to work with. I started out first trying to determine how much I wanted to change the grip angle. I did that by overlaying a picture of the Tok on top of a picture of a Sig (which always fit me well) to see how much to add on the back end of the grip. Then I took the current grips off the Tok and played around with paper mockups. Here's a download of the template I used (in pdf). Once I got a mockup that looked right I traced it out on a sheet of the thinnest kydex I could find (not sure of the exact measurement). Because it's so thin it makes it that much easier to cut it out. I don't own a band saw so I had to use scissors and a couple sharp knives to carve out the hard parts. The next part was to do the final fitting to the gun (very small sharp knives help with this part the most). There were a few places I made adjustments to that aren't on the template. Once cut, then I used a heat gun to fold it into place and fit snugly on the gun. Then I took some sandpaper and smoothed out all the edges. I was surprised at how it almost snapped into place, but it did slide around a bit. That's where using a Hogue Hand-All Jr. comes into play. I had one laying around that had been trimmed a bit to fit a different gun. In my attempts to get it on I tore it and had to do a bit more trimming than I originally wanted, but in the end I like it all the same. One day I may pick up an unmolested Hand-All Jr. to replace it, but for now it works well keeping the kydex in place and telling my hand where all my fingers should go.




It feels great in the hand now. I think I got the angle just about perfect. Even my wife thinks it grips better now than with the thicker grips. The reason I didn't add a tail to it is because I think the only reason I was getting nipped with the wider grips is because the width plus the adjusted grip angle pushed the web of my hand up. I'm pretty sure that because these are so thin my hand won't intrude into the hammer area. For a concealed carry gun these are perhaps the best grips that I can think of for a Tokarev.

Appendix Carry: Homemade Holster for a Kahr PM9

First a little background:

I've had my little PM9 for a while now and it's been great as a pocket gun with the homemade pocket holster I made for it. The problem is I carry so much stuff in my pockets that sometimes the bug can't go with me and I just stick with my primary. Then a couple weeks ago I went to Florida for a family vacation and decided to bring my wife's snub nose .38 special. It's adorned with Barami Hip Grips so that it can simply be slid into the waistline sans holster. This was my first extended session of appendix carry with any firearm and it wasn't as intolerable as it would seem.

The ease at simply stuffing the gun in my waistband at the easily accessible 1:00-2:00 o'clock position and heading out without worrying about tucking or the gun sliding down my pants all without having to wear a belt was a revelation. In Florida my attire was always ultra casual with a t-shirt and shorts which is ideal for "stuff & go", but at home about 94.8% of the time I'm in pants with a tucked in shirt. The hip grips aren't tuckable and besides the snub stays with the wife. That leaves me with my PM9 and an idea.

About Appendix Carry:

Appendix carry isn't nearly as widely used as strong side carry for a number of reasons. First, it requires a gun with a very short barrel and grip, both as thin as possible. In front of your hip, if your gun has too long a barrel it'll jab your leg like crazy when you sit down. Trust me, it's not fun. Some guns that could work are: Kahr's subcompacts, any of Kel-tec's line, the Walther PPS, Taurus' subcompacts, J-frame sized snubs, and probably any 3" 1911. Some folks can get away using double stack subcompacts like the Glock 26, but they're significantly thicker. Second, not everyone's body type will work with a gun in that position. This is not to say that you can't have a gut if you want to appendix carry, but if it's spilling over your belt then it definitely won't be comfortable. Lastly, there is the common fear (mostly among men) that appendix carry places the weapon dangerously close to the family jewels. My belief is that with the right weapon, holster and proper training (ie muzzle control, finger placement, etc.) appendix carry is no more dangerous than any other form of carry.

The pros to appendix carry are significant. You have quick easy access with optional access with your weak hand if necessary. It takes less shoulder articulation to draw from your centerline than from past the 3 o'clock position strong side. It is also much easier to draw while seated from this position when driving. If for some reason your strong hand has become disabled you can still reach your firearm with your weak hand. For concealed carry purposes, you have constant awareness of your gun's concealment. It's much easier to lessen the chance of being "made" because of inadvertent exposure with the gun directly in front of you than to your side or behind you. If being able to tuck in your shirt is a requirement than that always adds an additional layer difficulty to quickly accessing and drawing. The solution is simple; practice, practice, practice.

My Homemade Appendix Holster:

A few months back I bought a few sheets of kydex to play with. I'd seen a couple tutorials online showing how easy it was to form it and I thought I'd try my hand at it. At the time I had a Kel-tec P3AT and tried making a holster for it. My attempt was mildly successful in that it could hold the gun and protect the trigger when worn, but it was very rough and totally uncomfortable. I sold that gun and tossed the holster in a box. My next pocket gun purchase was my PM9 and when I thought about trying out appendix carry I dug out that first kydex try and realizing that there might be enough kydex there to reform it around the PM9 I figured why not try.
Kydex is cool stuff and short of cutting it into shreds it gives you multiple tries to reshape it however you want. I wanted the kydex to cover fairly high on both sides of the slide, not only as a sweat shield against my skin, but also to ease reholstering. Many other kydex designs like to trim it low on the belt side and if the whole holster is worn low on the waist sometimes the pants or belt will slightly cover the holster opening. My Crossbreed can do that at times as you'll see in the video below. I also used a separate clip so that a shirt can be tucked over the gun. You might recognize the clip, it's actually scavenged from a Comp-Tac CTAC holster that came with the PM9 from the previous owner. It's a 1.25" clip which works great since it almost completely hides behind my 1.5" belt. The extra holes drilled into it are from experimenting with different clips & attachments at different times. The design is kind of a cross between the Comp-Tac's 2 O'clock and the Ehud Appendix Carry Holster. With a gun as light as the PM9 there's no worries about the single clip attachment being sufficient to support the weight. I've worn this holster in workout shorts and as long as I tighten the drawstring I haven't had any problems with the holster pulling out on the draw. Having a single attachment point in this position also helps in that the gun has a little bit of leeway to rotate when sitting down or twisting which helps in the comfort department.

Speaking about comfort, which is probably at the top of the list of desirable traits, this holster ranks a solid 7.5 out of 10. I rounded off all the edges I could, but because kydex is so stiff it can still poke at times. Unlike my Crossbreed which can at many times be forgotten when being worn, you can always remember you're wearing this holster. That's really not a bad thing, but it could be more comfortable. I could see a leather version having more give, except it could never be as thin as kydex and unless it had a reinforced mouth (more thickness) it would quickly collapse after the draw.
As you can see in these pictures concealment is quite good. Even from the side because of the tucked in shirt and small size of the gun there's no discernible bulge. At times the bottom part of the clip may peek under the belt, but it's not very noticeable and easily overlooked (you can see it in the video below).
Below I included a short video showing both this holster and my Crossbreed SuperTuck in use. Appendix carry is good way to carry your primary or even your bug. Give it a try.

My Chinese Russian - Modified Grips

I happened upon this pistol one day at a LGS (local gun store) for $99. Yeah, I know - Can you believe that it stayed there for about a week before I came to my senses (and got the wife's thumbs up) and snatched it up. Part of the reason for my delay was because I knew absolutely nothing about it. After a little research I found out this was a Norinco 213 in 9mm which is a chinese made version of the russian Tokarev in a much more common caliber than the original 7.62 x 25. It was in decent condition with just a little freckling of rust and came with 3 mags. One of the first things I noticed after handling it was that in point shooting it would aim way low because of the odd grip angle. It was nice and flat though, flatter in fact than my Sig P239 in 9mm. Here's what it looked like when I first got it.This is just a random picture of a 213 I found, but it's exactly what mine looked like right down to the tacked on safety. Original Tokarev's weren't designed with a safety as they utilized the half-cock notch and were carried either half-cocked with one in the chamber or chamber empty and racked when needed. You'll notice the nice flat rear sight. It's perfect for hooking a belt to chamber a round. My example has the odd issue of not easily being racked with the hammer down. With the hammer thumbed back it racks very easily. It's not much of an issue for me since this is more of a fun range gun than one that I'll carry. For that purpose it works. It's more accurate (for me) than my Sig which I attribute to the nice single action trigger, longer sight radius and fine sights.

One thing that I still had a problem with was that t-square grip angle. While perusing a pawn shop I ran into another Norinco 213 that had what are called Tokagypt grips which wrap-around the back strap and give a fuller more natural grip angle by adding a palm swell. I liked the way they felt so I went on the hunt for similar ones for mine. Unfortunately, China is unable to import their firearms into the US anymore so parts like grips aren't that easy to fine. Fortunately for me they are sold in Canada through www.marstar.ca. The cool thing is that Marstar sells some different versions of the Tokarev so I had a choice of grips. I chose the grips for their M-201C. Here's a picture of how they look on the 213.
The grips are designed for a version of the Tokarev without the laynard loop so I had to utilize my dremel skills and gouge out a notch in the grips for the loop. It worked and they help the grip angle significantly! Now can I be happy...well there's always room for improvement. I fixed the grip angle now the problem I have is hammer bite. The new grips push the web of my hand up high enough now for the hammer to occasionally nip it. Zastava has fixed this issue on the Tokarev versions that they produce by adding a beaver tail.
Now there's no easy way for me to add a beaver tail to my 213 so I had to get creative. I came up with an idea and decided to go for it. Here's the end result.



I'm a big fan of JB Weld and have used it a number of times before to fix things. I thought I could find some similar epoxy-like putty to mold on the back of the grips. After hitting up a number of modeller's forums I decided to order some Kneadatite "green stuff" and "brown stuff".(You'll notice that the safety was removed and is in the container with the "brown stuff")

I decided to just use the "brown stuff" since it's a bit harder than the more flexible "green stuff". It's really neat stuff to work with and adhered tightly to the grips. When I fitted the grips to the gun originally and carved out a notch for the lanyard loop I carved a bit too deep and came through the outside a bit so I decided to cover it up with some of the "brown stuff". Next I sanded it flush.

Originally, I was going to just use some auto paint to blend everything together, but while at Home Depot I saw this stuff. It's worked great and offers a rubbery grip which should allow a solid grip even with sweaty hands. I'd actually gotten this idea from someone who posted in one of the many forums I read who dipped his Barami Hip Grips in the stuff. I think I may even use this stuff on some revolver grips I have.

All in all, I really like how this turned out.

A Little Old School - Dan Wesson .357 Magnum

My background in guns is fairly recent - adding up to only a handful of years. I've always seen myself as a semi-auto kind of guy. I like the quick action, large capacity and slim design. The kid in me always screams 'NEAT' when I handle one. Most of my collection of handguns have been semi's with the only revolvers being my wife's guns. I've always liked the look of her Ruger SP101, though it never 'spoke' to me the way my semi's have. Her little & light Charter Arms .38 is so convenient to tuck into pants. It's hard not to ignore their place in the gun world. Easy to load (read - no pinching fingers loading a magazine), simple to maintain (worn springs are much less an issue), quick pointing & intuitive in shooting (no flying brass to bounce off your head or drop into your shirt). All these things I've appreciated, but they never really captured my interest. To be honest we probably would never owned a revolver if my wife hadn't picked one for herself.

Now why would I go out and buy a revolver for myself? Well, all the above came into the decision plus I felt we had a need for one. I'm constantly reviewing our home protection needs and though I know that the weapon of choice for HD is a shotgun I decided (at least for now) to hold off on that purchase. Here are my reasons for doing that. A shotgun is truly an intimidating weapon. Do I think I can handle one, of course. Do I think my wife can handle one, sure. But, neither of us have ever shot one. I'm of the mindset that if you're going to use a weapon you'd better practice with it. I don't make it to the range nearly as often as I'd like and living in the burbs like we do we're limited with the number of ranges available to us. None of those ranges (all indoor) allow shotguns so our chances of being able to practice with a shotgun would be very infrequent.

So long story short, I decided a medium/large frame revolver would fit the role as a trusty HD weapon. Since my wife's Ruger is a 357mag, I figured to keep ammo simple and stick with the same caliber. It's a known man stopper and in a larger heavier revolver would be much easier to shoot. So once that decision was made I switched into my research mode to find one that met the requirements, was fairly inexpensive (we're not wealthy) and that caught my fancy.
That's how I came across Dan Wesson revolvers. These are innovatively designed and largely under appreciated in the gun world. They are overly built strong revolvers of modular design that allow fast switching of barrels to larger or shorter lengths. You can see that their cylinder latch is located in front of the cylinder on the crane instead of behind the cylinder which was done partly for strength and partly to keep the trigger mechanism simple. About that trigger, it's different than any revolver I've ever felt. It has both a lighter & shorter (much shorter) stroke than my wife's SP101 which aids in it's outstanding accuracy.

Dan Wesson has changed hands several times over the course of time, most recently being acquired by CZ-USA so though parts aren't nearly as bountiful as they are for S&W's or Ruger's they can be found. I contacted CZ and they even have new barrels that can be purchased in all kinds of sizes from 2.5" - 10". I don't know how well I'd be able to hold it with a 10" barrel, but it's cool you can get them new from them. If you really search, I've heard you can even find 15" barrels that had been made in decades past.

So anyway, I found this revolver for sale locally and jumped on it. It's a Model 14 with a 4" barrel sporting large rubber target grips. I just found this out recently, but the difference between a Model 14 & 15 is that the 14 doesn't have adjustable sights. It didn't include the barrel wrench which is used to swap out barrels and adjust cylinder gap, but it did include this Bianchi holster. The holster originally had a snap on it, but I cut it off and refinished it so it would have an open top. The gun has it's share of wear on it (I might try re-bluing it for kicks), but it works like a dream and even though it doesn't have adjustable rear sights it hits point of aim for me.


I know this blog is called Hidden Defense and most likely I won't be trying to CCW this revolver, but I have thought about it and in the future may work on a couple holster designs to see how they work. I am looking into replacing the over large grips with smaller ones and maybe I'll splurge and get the 2.5" barrel to turn it into a snubby.

This in one revolver that makes that kid in me scream 'NEAT'!

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")

Modifying my Kahr PM9 pocket holster

I've been using my royal blue binder pocket holster for my PM9 for a while now. It's been working, but there is always room for improvement.

Areas of Improvement
- Doesn't always fit the pocket right because of how the bottom is cut.
- In tight pockets it prints the grip a little.
- In really wide pockets it tends to tilt forward making drawing a bit harder.

Now, how do we "fix" these issues? Then I came up with an idea. I trimmed up the original holster I was using, cutting off the tail that hooks the pocket. Then I stuck on the loop side of velcro to the holster. Next I cut up a piece of leather to create an anti-print pad. To that pad I stuck on the hook side of velcro. Now I have a holster that's adjustable for the angle of the anti-print pad. I can also now create other anti-print pads with different bottom cuts to fit different pockets better and easily attach them to the holster.

Here are some pictures.




I'm looking forward to experimenting with it and getting some first hand experience with it.

Hip Grip/Mexican Carry Trigger Holster

Do you ever get an idea in your head that keeps you up at night? That's what happened to me last night. It's an idea that I'm surprised noone's ever thought of before.

Here's some background before I get into the actual idea. A few weeks ago I became friends with Michael, the husband of one of my wife's friends. We were visiting at their house when the conversation turned towards guns. Turns out Michael's an enthusiast like myself, though more old school than new school. By old school I mean revolvers, 45's & leather vs. plastic guns & kydex holsters. He was fascinated by my Crossbreed Holster since his leather IWB for his Springer 1911 isn't the most comfortable and doesn't conceal well. Anyways back to the idea. Michael also carries a hammerless 357 snubbie tucked into his pants using the tried and true Barami Hip Grip. Now I've owned a Charter Arms 38 snubbie I'd gotten for my wife since last summer, but never really tried to carry it and using a hip grip intrigued me. So I went out and got one. It works as advertised, but it's a little disconcerting that there's nothing covering the trigger guard like in an actual holster. I know people have carried like this for decades. It's been termed "Mexican Carry" which is basically carrying a handgun tucked behind a belt sans a holster. There are lots of different carry clips available to help with this very useful way to carry. That's when it hit me.

I'd read about a knife holster several weeks back when I was researching neck knives. The holster could also be used with the knife in the pocket. When the knife is put into play and pulled out of the pocket a chain or cord tied to the holster and attached to a belt loop would catch the holster and uncover the knife blade so that it can do it's work while safely clearing the pocket. Why can't a similar "trigger holster" be made for those of us who decide to mexican carry. Here's what I've come up with:

This prototype was created with a scrap of kydex that I had laying around along with a chicago screw and an extra shoe string.

These are the features of my trigger holster:

- Safely covers the trigger guard while the gun is inside the pants

- Adds no bulk to the width of the gun

- Weighs very little

- Pops off once the gun clears the pants allowing access to the trigger

- Adjustable length string (allows for a longer or shorter length depending on if the gun is worn appendix or behind the hip)

- Tension screw allows adjustable tightness

- Can simply stay attached to the gun during storage

Here is a video showing how the trigger holster is worn and used (this is only the first day that I've worn a revolver using a hip grip so my draw definitely needs some improvement) :

http://youtube.com/watch?v=mww-DQBbtfc

I have only made one for a J-frame sized 38, but this idea can easily carry over to any number of handguns that can be stuffed inside the waistband.