All Your Eggs in One Basket

If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound? If you haven’t experienced a failure does it mean it doesn’t exist?

Set your own criterion

People ask me all the time what equipment I use, what holster or firearm. I don’t always like to answer in a straight forward manner, I would rather them create their own criterion and do their own research. Everything I use goes through a rigid vetting process, something I learned long ago. If my life or the life of my family or a teammate is on the line, I’m not messing around. You want gear that will fight for you, never something you have to fight.

Known failure points

Part of our curriculum has us studying failure points, then finding solutions or work around to these failure points. In our Concealed Carry class we have discovered quite a few, these are not failures we see once in a blue moon. These are failures we see repeated several times. Having completed a year where we did boat load of these classes we have learned so much about gear. The contingencies we developed to resolve these failures ensure you have a fighting chance. A chance to still work the problem even if you are not starting off on the best foot. I think many folks take for granted their experiences as being the sole existence in the universe and refuse to see these failures.

Eliminate the problem

Once we identify a failure point we go through a risk mitigation matrix to figure out the best resolution. One of the easiest ways to resolve is eliminating the failure point. It usually is the first consideration, in other words can we resolve this failure by removing the circumstances or equipment. A good example is a drop free magazine that fails to drop free. We see this happen very often, like in every class. We took some time to study the problem, what was really causing it and could we resolve it by attacking the root cause. We discovered there were so many variables we could not account for all of them so we had to press on. Next, we looked at stripping the empty magazine before obtaining the loaded magazine. If you strip the empty magazine you eliminate the problem from ever happening. There is no way you can have an empty magazine blocking the insertion of the loaded one if it is not there.

Working from a deficit

A quick retort was it took too much time, but in the grand scheme of things it really doesn’t. It gives the impression of increased time allotment because it does require some reprogramming. Another issue we have seen is the use of belt clips to secure the holster to the body. We have commented in previous classes how they should be avoided. It is not because we don’t like them, it is because it is a known failure point. I love hearing comments on how it has “never” happened to them. Does this mean it hasn’t or can’t happen is the real question. Something we have seen more recently is moving from two clips to a single clip to secure your primary holster.

Ignorance is bliss

I personally think this is a bad idea, it puts all your eggs in one basket. We have had to create a contingency, holster failure, for this situation. We didn’t make it up, it was developed in response to seeing this failure occurring too many times to be ignored. I don’t care if you use metal or plastic clip, it is still not as secure as fixed loops or soft loops. Then reduce the security even more by going to a single clip and you are asking for serious trouble. I like how some are modifying and altering their holsters, it is a good sign of evolution. Hell, I have several with single clips, but they are for my backup, not my primary.

Everything works until it doesn’t. A holster failure contingency is something we teach, but not something you want to experience. Especially since it can be avoided.