Students have a bad habit of forgetting gear — ear protection, glasses, ball caps, holsters, ammo and sometimes even their guns. I usually can’t help them with the gun part, but most of the time the others I have covered.

Holsters are usually a high-dollar item and do tend to take up some space in my range bag. I found a solution to the holster problem — Fobus paddle holsters.

Virtually indestructible, comfortable, secure and easy on the wallet, I found out about Fobus a bunch of years ago while doing Simunition training.

While playing bad guy the instructor gave me a Fobus paddle holster to use. It was so comfortable, I forgot I was carrying the monster Beretta 92F. When I found out how inexpensive it was, I bought several of them.

As the years progressed, I have amassed a small collection of holsters and magazine pouches. I prefer the paddles, because sometimes students forget belts too. Paddles have gotten a bad rap in the past because they were easily pulled out of the pants.

I once watched a detective draw the entire holster with gun still inside out of his pants and point it at a bad guy. Not funny at the time, but when things cooled down I had a lot of fun laughing at him. The Fobus paddle is very difficult to take off. Sometime they even require the user to drop-trou to get them off. That’s not actually a bad thing.

There's more from Sammy Reese in the Nov/Dec issue...

• Solution Man
• Toss Up

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