Best CCW advice you've heard

Mike5150

New member
I've got a few tips I've built up over the years from forums on how to carry better and personal experience. So what good tips have you got/heard?

Here are a few of my tips:
IWB tucked: put a phone holster in front to disguise clip and bulge
Smart Carry: used Saf T Block (or Vanguard trigger guard). let it ride as low as you can for most comfortable carry.
Ankle: Cut a sock at the ankle and slide (tube) ontop of holster so your pant can ride up without showing the holster.
Pocket: Pull gun out very close to bottom of pocket so holster catches on pocket and stays in your pocket.

Here are some categories to work with:
IWB (tucked, and untucked)
SOB
BellyBand (on waist and on torso), Smart Carry, Mercharness
Ankle
Fanny Pack
Pocket
 
The best piece of advice regarding CCW? Don't sweat it. 99% of the people you encounter haven't noticed that bulge under your shirt and the 1% who did assume it's cell or PDA.
 
Not directly related to the types of tips you provided, but more general stuff that people sometimes don't realize.

1. IWB/OWB: Untucked or Jacket: When standing or walking, stand upright and don't lean "away" from your gun side. Leaning away pulls the cover garment closer to your gun side and can "print". Leaning into your gunside will cause the garment to drape a bit more away from the body.

2. Add weight to your cover garment to facilitate the draw.

This bears a little explanation. This is good advice if especially if you live in areas that can be windy.

When you go to draw, you want to move your cover garment out of the way with your strong hand. Your weak hand may be terribly busy. Typically we sweep the strong hand back, pushing the cover garment back and slightly away from the body. If things work right, it'll gather behind your hand as you draw.

Unfortunately, wearing a lightweight Hawaiian shirt or a thin nylon windbreaker can complicate matters if there is any kind of stiff breeze. Not only can it whip the cover garment open to expose your gun, the wind can push the garment forward or against your body, hampering your ability to make a clean draw.

In nylon jackets or shirts with pockets low in the front, carry something with a bit of weight. A speedloader, extra keys, a zippo lighter, a pager, your folding knife, etc. These are about the right weights. When you sweep the garment aside, the inertia of the weighted items carries the garment well behind your gun's centerline. It'll fight that stiff breeze and keep your gun clear during the draw. It also stablizes the cover garment in breezes, making it less likely to "blow open" to reveal your CCW. With regular shirts, small "button weights" can be stitched in along the shirt's hem - do both sides so it looks even.

3. Spare Ammo: If you've learned to reload your firearm using proper techniques, then you carry spare magazines on the side opposite your firearm. This facilitates rapid reloading with the weak hand. Revolvers, however, are different. For a RH shooter, carry spare ammo on your strong side (RH side). On the belt or in a pocket. You'll use your left hand to empty the wheelgun and the right to hold the speedloader. Southpaws who load with the right hand carry the spares on the weak side. If you have another technique where you use your left hand to load, carry on the left.

4. Sharp Hammer Spur? Some pistols have sharp serrations on the hammer spur that will "bite" when carried IWB. Until you find a better hammer or buy one that's smoothed out, slide a piece of shrink-tubing over the hammer spur that's about 1/8" to 1/16" shorter than the hammer. Heat it to shrink it to fit. The resulting "padding" will reduce irritation of your side or "love handles" nicely.
 
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