Holy SHIT! Thanks for the video's! I have tried to no end to get my agency away from these damn holsters. We currently wear them with our H&k's...well, the Det's do anyway. We are awaiting the arrival of our new M&P' .45's and the Captain of the CID ordered these very holsters...again! When I offered an objection I was quickly shot down because 'that's what my guys are used too.' Yeap, they're used to cheap crap that'll break. Ignorance is bliss and is alive and well.
Good on him for posting that teaching point for everyone, and for not blaming his gear, even if the gear contributed to the issue. Bad confluence of events, bad result, but lucky guy all told.
"The nation that will insist on drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to have its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards." - Sir William Francis Butler
I see a lot of discussion about the SERPA holster out there on the net based on "Well I've never had that problem."
That idea misses the mark.
The bottom line is this:
Serpa holsters require the user to do something that is fundamentally a bad idea...namely applying pressure with the trigger finger toward the trigger during the drawstroke. If I wandered around teaching people to press inward with their trigger finger as they attempted to draw a handgun I'd rightly be labeled an idiot...yet some dude who knows precisely squt about handling a handgun comes up with a device on a holster that requires exactly that and it's awesome?
Sure.
It's true that this doesn't happen to everyone who uses a Serpa...but the underlying logic of the product is deeply flawed and is guaranteed to result in these sorts of incidents which happen over and over and over again. You'd figure that sooner or later the firearms community would learn to ditch bad gear rather than defend it to the hilt because it hasn't yet resulted in their own personal gunshot wound.
You mean just like the motorcycle riding community would all band together and wear full-face helmets? I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but when people ego-invest into something it can withstand any criticism. The gun community would first have to have a rather large percentage of it's members say "You know what, I was wrong about this piece of gear. It's just unsafe.". And in a community where a lot of folks see their gun knowledge as some kind of testament to their manliness, you are asking some folks to give up a lot more than their holster(in their eyes).Originally Posted by TCinVA
Best SERPA advice? I don't know the answer. What I do tell people is to buy the REGULAR CQC holster by Blackhawk if they HAVE TO have one. It doesn't have the lock, looks just as, "cool," and won't contribute to any issues anymore than a conventional holster would.
I think what was really interesting about this video is that it's also an excellent example of why your gear should be consistent. He had been training with one of the thumb drive holsters, which he even admits in the video forces you to knock the safety off when using a 1911 while the gun is still pointed in a downward direction. Then when he goes to use the SERPA, he's already knocked the safety off on the draw but forgets to push the button, which leads to the disaster we all saw. While I wouldn't recommend the SERPA, if you're going to use one I would imagine that cross-training with a different holster would be counter productive.
Good point.
If we assume he does everything else right, and doesn't use the Thumbdrive in addition, the safety is still on and he just looks stupid with his finger on the trigger.
Think for yourself. Question authority.
That being said, the concept of jamming my finger towards the trigger during the drawstroke still makes me squirm.
As it should.
I mean, somebody please name for me an instructor of any reasonable reputation that teaches applying inward pressure with the trigger finger while drawing.
***crickets***
Someone give me an equipment-independent argument for why it is a good idea to apply inward pressure with the trigger finger while drawing a handgun.
***crickets***
Divorcing the action from the equipment, it's plainly evident as a ***CENSORED*** stupid practice that's probably going to end in disaster. Thus a holster which requires an action that nobody teaches and no one can defend as a good practice just so the shooter can get the gun out seems like it would be easily weeded out as a stupid idea...the Death Star of stupid handgun holster ideas.
I have one, in a bag somewhere. Hate it, sometimes it just didn't want to release which upset the timing of my draw, causing me to release the safety to early. And then there's the whole inward pressure of the trigger finger thing. Well, at least it doesn't fit well either....
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