What? You mean I shouldn't have ran out and bought an M&P9 with threaded barrel and an X-300 followed by a RCS Phantom just because Travis and Chris used them? Say it ain't so!
What? You mean I shouldn't have ran out and bought an M&P9 with threaded barrel and an X-300 followed by a RCS Phantom just because Travis and Chris used them? Say it ain't so!
I've been guilty of buying based on cool. Not necessarily what was in the latest Magpul DVD but for a little CDI.
When I bought my G30 I got the GTS with the G21 length barrel set up to take the disposable suppressors. Do I need that capability on a carry gun?Not oftenis it cool to have? Yes. Do I lose anything with regards its capability as a carry gun? No.
With the 2.5" Smith M66 I scored today for SSR I lose a litte functinality in a division I won't shoot much but it just looks so cool
Welcome to Africa, bring a hardhat.
Buying what's functional? A 3rd Gen 9mm Glock isn't the coolest gun on the market, and it sits pretty firmly in the median price range of mainstream handguns, but is a solid choice from a functional perspective.Originally Posted by turbolag23
Not gonna lie. Might have influenced my decision to buy one. 5,000 rds later, My shooting with an M&P9 influenced my decision to carry it. Grant at GandRTactical just happened to have a few RCS Phantom MD cut holsters in his shop and I bought one to try it out, not because I wanted to be "like Chris or Travis", nor did I plan to carry this way. I just happened to be at surefire a few weeks before and picked up an X300 along with a few other things. Now I'm an M&P armorer with a lot more rounds downrange and I carry an M&P because I shoot it well and have a good understanding of the gun itself. I happen to carry an X300 as a back-up light (E2DLED primary) with my M&P9 in an RCS Phantom MD cut. I shoot suppressed about 10% of the time as well (though not out of the m&p9 yet, don't have a barrel), so, theoretically, it's possible I'll get my holster opened up for a threaded barrel at some point.What? You mean I shouldn't have ran out and bought an M&P9 with threaded barrel and an X-300 followed by a RCS Phantom just because Travis and Chris used them? Say it ain't so!
Fanboy?
Maybe? I'd like to think that I arrived at the conclusion of carrying an M&P9 with a light in an RCS holster on my own, not necessarily because someone else does it. But in the end I'm sure that watching someone "cool" do it first helped reaffirm decisions I made.
The big difference in the whole 1911/milt sparks vs todays "tacticool" stuff is practicality. It's no longer "cool" to buy nice stuff because it's nice, ie: milt sparks. It's "cool" to buy something practical. I'd like to think that I'm just practical on my own; trying to buy the gear that works the best every time with the least amount of effort, and not necessarily trying to be "cool."
Ah, but back in the time frame to which I referred, people didn't buy this stuff because it was "nice" but because it was practical. There was no good kydex. There was no bad kydex, either. Your choices for a CCW holster were good leather, bad leather, or bad nylon.
Sparks didn't build its reputation based on "pretty" or "nice", but by building a holster that wouldn't turn into a sweat-soaked pancake with unraveling stitching after a summer or two of use. Same with the whole "custom 1911" thing; it wasn't that long ago really that if you wanted to CCW a service-sized weapon that would function reliably with hollowpoints and stand up to hard use, your choices were a customized 1911... or a revolver. That didn't really change until the latter half of the '80s. The Cool Guys back then were using this stuff for a reason, too.
"I" think this all comes down to a few points
1. Fire Arms Developement, what's good today vs back in the previous decades
2. TRAINING vs the uninformed (more so the willingness of the informed to train instead of thinking I'm good to go)
3. Open mind...the idea to accept concepts of tools and methods at face value and not the end all be all as stated by media. Man up and try it and make your own determination.
Take this how you will I am not a uber experienced shooter nor do I claim to be, but these are my observations through my own path of enlightenment.
Golan 40sw to PT145 to SA 1911 to XD9sc/XD45c to HK P30LS
I guess I have always thought (perhaps wrongly) that milt sparks wants to sell you a beautiful peace of horsehide or shark, alligator, whatever. Quality made, of course. I own some Don Hume holsters that are just as functional as they were 10 years ago when I bought them. While I realize that Milt Sparks is all about quality, I thought them to be "custom" quality instead of "practical" (ie: my shit still works as good as when I bought it 10 years ago, double, triple stitching or not, but I didn't pay an outrageous price for it) quality.
I know I carried a Galco Summer Comfort daily for about three years and replaced it when the snaps broke and, while it was still serviceable and the stitching had held up, it was noticeably more worn and pliable. Conversely, the horse VM-2 I'm currently using could probably be sold as new with a bit of shoe polish, despite three years of daily use, so drinking this particular Koolaid wasn't too hard... Especially when the Sparks isn't that much more expensive than the equivalent Galco or Bianchi, which in turn aren't much more costly than DeSantis's Mexican goat leather...
(Sorry... Didn't mean to ramble. I just get flashbacks to all the times that I tried to convince the customer who'd just dropped eight bills on a heater that maybe it deserved a better home than Fobus or Uncle Mike's...)
Damn, I was just kidding. I don't own anything but HK, personally. But glad it worked out.
I didn't take any offense. Personally I thought it was a bit quirky how it worked out. I am honestly a bit curious as to how much those things eventually effect our decisions, but by no means did I watch a magpul video and hop on the internet and order anything.
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