2:00 or "appendix carry"
Wondering if any of you ladies conceal carry at the 2:00 position? What IWB holster do you use?
I've been trying out my husband's Crossbreed at both the 5 and 2, thinking I might have a situation where the 2 is a better place, but I'll probably mainly be carrying at the 5. Just wondering if I can get away with both positions with one holster.
I carry at the 2:00 position. I am 5'6" and have a somewhat athletic woman's build.
It works great for me because part of my job is fairly physical and bending over to pick things up will make the gun print if I have it at the 5:00 position. The other parts of my job involve sitting (car or chair) and carrying at 2:00 works for that too.
Plus, after reading the following by Gabe Suarez (controversial figure, but his post seems to make a lot of sense), I settled on Appendix Carry ... mostly because of concealment issues and because of reason #4:
Immediate Advantages of Appendix Carry/IWB:
1). Protect the gun in crowded situations – One of the fears of most armed guys is going into a large crowd where you can’t keep everyone 21 feet away like they tell you at the range, you can’t keep your back to the wall like they did in the old westerns, and all manner of strangers will be bumping into and rubbing across your strong side holstered CCW pistol. With Appendix Carry, you can simply keep your arm across the holster and no one will ever know you are armed.
2). Easier covert deployment due to less arm motion in the draw - Some folks never worry about covert deployment. This is probably because they have never been in an armed robbery where any fast motions indicative of a draw would be met with gun fire.
The shoulder articulation needed to bring the hand up to the belt buckle area is considerably less, and includes less travel time, than what is needed to reach for a wallet kept in the right cheek pocket. Less motion draws less attention, and is faster.
3). Easier deployment in grappling or stalemate situations - Think of your fight starting with the bad guy knocking you down and now pummeling you on the ground. If you tell me that such a thing will never happen you must be the baddest hombre ever to strap on a gun. Me, I know it could happen. Look at the lead photo above. Could you get your pistol out?
Finding yourself in that situation, a draw from Appendix Carry will be much easier and faster, not to mention physically safer than traditional strong side carry.
4). It is faster than any other kind of carry. Don't believe it? I will prove it to you on based on physics and geometry alone....and then we'll go out on the Force On Force floor.
Try an experiment right now. Stand with your arms at your sides. Now move your “strong side” hand to the Appendix Position (just to the right of the belt buckle). Try again with what would be the cross draw position, and the strong side position. You will notice that the distance to grip is much less in appendix carry. Left handed guys, simply reverse the exercise.
A second experiment. From each one of those positions, move your hand now to the fully extended position as if you were going to shoot. Just do it one handed now for simplicity. The Appendix position is still less movement, and thus faster.
5). Unless you are extremely overweight, Appendix Carry is easier to conceal than other types of carry. Guys, my job is to produce people that can win a gunfight decisively and not to validate poor eating habits. You know those guys that fly armed on airplanes in case there is a terrorist on board? They tend toward appendix carry as well because their concealment requirements are quite high.
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So the holster that I use is a simple one: Bianchi 100 (for a Kahr MK9), and I have it tipped forward just a tad. I can conceal even wearing a T-shirt.
I originally planned on getting a custom holster once I decided where I liked wearing the gun, but this little holster works great so I haven't actively searched for an appendix holster yet.
Hope this helps!
