I don't know a single firearms trainer who has a good thing to say about those little dangly adjustment strings and toggles on the bottom of various items of cold-weather apparel. Like old-school thumb-breaks, they seem mostly to serve as a way to give yourself a racing stripe on re-holstering without technically violating Rule Three.
Besides, if you're carrying a gun on the presumption that you may actually have to, you know, use the thing, why would you want to cinch your clothes down tight where it's harder to get at the gat in the first place?
About the only garments I have that still have them are very heavy deep-winter outerwear parka-type thingies, because with those, I'm going to be going for the revolver in the outside pocket first anyway.
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Same for the dangly bits on other apparel. Especially those little tabs the Army used to put on BDU legs. Tuck the damned pants into your boots like a warrior. Generally if I find dangles on clothing, I hunt my scissors.
Let's not be dissing thumb-breaks.
On all of my clothing, I have one piece that has a dangly.
My Safari vest has a two inch long piece of chord on one particular pocket zipper.... because that's the pocket with spare magazine in it.
Aside from that, nada.
Yep, ToddG during the AFHF class pointed out a dangly pull tab on the zipper of my vest during class that I then cut away.
Just 'cause nothing had happened with it there before didn't mean it couldn't become a problem in the future. Removing it caused no issues and keeping it might have, so it was an easy decision.
When I was in Basic, my DI told all of us to take the dangly things at the bottom of our M-65's and to either put a cord lock at the very end or cut them off.
"About the only garments I have that still have them are very heavy deep-winter outerwear parka-type thingies, because with those, I'm going to be going for the revolver in the outside pocket first anyway"
Yep, I've found my S&W Model 49 is PERFECT for the "I can put my hand on my gun in my pocket without the hinky looking guy knowing" use and is a LOT quicker to access then the Sig 239 buried under my jacket.
I'm amazed more people don't do this.
Rob (Trebor)
I'm amazed more people don't do this.
We do. ;)
4 shitheads came into a laundry I alone was using at 0230. One had gone all the way to the back and checked that there was nobody in the restroom. I had stopped folding clothes and put my hand in my jacket pocket.
Slowly they realized that my hand had not shown itself since they walked thru the door and it was time to leave.
Future Mensa members!
And yet we have had two generations of field uniforms - both Lion and 5:11 - that have plenty of these cords & barrel locks.
My very old Blauer non-tactical winter and summer jackets - thirty years predating the idea of FDE, MOLLE, Oakleys & Axe spray - are in fact far more practical and safe.
It's interesting to see how some manufacturers, in their rush to be tactically fashionable, have overloaded their garments almost to the ridiculosity of the Carl Gustaf 800mm cannon. And thanks to every generation of what we now call keyboard commandoes, there will apparently always be such a market - and the smarter end if the gene pool eventually pays the smartest end exactly how to un-learn being such a dork and get back to simply practical.
It's hilarious to me that Woolrich, Carhart, & Filson simple garments are being found to be more useful...something woodsmen & farmers have known for decades.
Vaguely related, way back (1970s) I liked my [London Fog] raincoat because the coat pockets (and the zip-in winter liner) had an opening that allowed getting a hand inside without opening the coat. Handy for wallet, pens/pencils, cigarettes - and I should think a sidearm. Haven't seen this feature since...
Scissors work wonders :-) And John, a good alteration shop CAN give you a through pocket slit... Just sayin...
Nitpick: "Carl Gustaf" is a shoulder-fired 84mm recoilless rifle. "Schwerer Gustav" was the Krupp-built 80mm monster.
80mm is a monster, while 84mm is a simple shoulder-fired weapon?
Now yes, I'm being truly nitpicky. And yes, I screwed up my original post.
Way back when I was a kid, I remember reading a book of cop stories from the 1950s. One mentioned how they missed the old 1940s style long coats that had the deep pockets with a slit in them to allow access to their pistols. They talked about how they liked the fact that they could try to calm down a bad guy, without him even knowing that they already had a gun drawn on him and were ready to shoot right through the coat if necessary.
It's not a tactic that I'd ever want to resort to, but at least it would let you get off the first shot in an emergency, rather than trying to draw the gun out and then shoot. Your thoughts?
Strings and tags make about as much sense as the mittens on my snowsuit did when I was four. They had a string from each mitten across the back to keep kids from being "kittens without mittens."
You had to be a contortionist to get the mittens on, and by the time you did you had to take them off to go to the can. So you never did get to go outside.
Stranger
Never had that much problem. Either I cut them off (BDU trouser "blousing strings"), or when they are something I might concievably use , I knot them off as near to flush in the fully relaxed position as possible. Works fine, and I never have adjustment strings get pulled up and lost inside the tunnel.
Zipper pulls, OTH, shouldn't present ANY problem, so long as the don't have a huge monkey fist or open loop at the end. Knotted 550 cord gives a grip I can get with cold, numb hands in wet gloves, yet not snag on crap.
Oh, and Stranger? The problem with your Kitten Mitten Strings was that they were too short. Good idea, poor implementation -- easy enough to fix, if your parents had thought about it.
Even did that a time or two in the field with 550 cord running up my field jacket sleeves and around the back. Leave enough slack to get 'em on and off easily, and you still have gloves you can rip off with your teeth when you need more dexterity and not lose them. Likewise, when you need them, they're right there.
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