How To Conceal: Concealment Mechanics

The foundation of safe concealed carry is the holster. Whatever else the holster does, it HAS to meet three minimum safety requirements first, before you even consider putting a loaded gun into it.

It's up to you as the consumer to evaluate which holsters are safe. Just because someone will take your money doesn't mean they're selling a good product. There are a lot of dangerous holsters on the market, and it's up to you to protect yourself. Never accept "it works for me," especially not from random people on the Internet. Invest a few minutes learning the basic holster safety requirements, and you'll be able to evaluate for yourself whether a product is safe.

Remember, test your gear HARD. Find the failure points before they find you!

Safe Holster Requirements

• Full trigger protection
  • Rigid enough that the trigger CANNOT be manipulated from the outside
• Retention through a FULL range of motion
  • Retain the gun in the holster
  • Retain the holster in a consistent position on the body
• Safe reholstering
  • MUST be able to reholster without sweeping (pointing the gun) any part of the body
  • A safe mechanism for one-handed reholstering is STRONGLY recommended – the best way to accomplish this is with an unobstructed, rigid mouth, so the holster does not collapse when the gun is drawn

When you draw or holster the gun, make sure not to sweep (point it at) any part of your body at any time during the process. Reholstering the gun is an especially dangerous time, so use caution. Step back with your strong side leg, tilt your hips so that the holster angles away from your squishy bits, and LOOK the gun slowly, carefully, and deliberately back into the holster. One advantage of appendix carry is that the holster is visible (for most body types), which allows you to check it for obstructions while you reholster.

Reholstering is not a race, so make sure to give yourself enough time to STOP the motion if something is wrong. If you rush the gun back into the holster, your reaction time is not fast enough to stop if a drawstring or a wrinkle of t-shirt wraps around your trigger. Slow down, be deliberate, and give yourself enough time to think and respond.

Comfort is the foundation of concealed carry success. While carrying a gun will never be as comfortable as NOT carrying one, it's crucial to consider comfort from the very beginning of your concealed carry journey.

The first step is to find your body's comfort boundaries. Those are the areas where you can place your holster without interfering with your movement or causing pain. That's what allows you to sit down comfortably while appendix carrying your gun, and do all your normal daily activities, like driving, bending, squatting, or running.

As you'll see in the video below, comfort boundaries are unique to each person, but they're easy to find with a little practice. Pro tip: Find your comfort boundaries when you're sitting down first!

 Once you know which carry positions are in-bounds and which are out-of-bounds for your body type, then you can move on to the next section.

There are three basic steps to get invisible concealment on any body type:

• Find your Sweet Spot
• Get the grip (handle) of your gun to rotate toward your body
• Get the grip of the gun to tuck into your body

These are the foundation Concealment Mechanics that will help you get started. We'll go into a lot more detail on each part of this, but this video is a great overview of all the skills you'll need to get started concealing a firearm.

Your concealment Sweet Spot simply means the best spot on your body to conceal your gun. The ideal carry position will be different for everyone, depending on body type and wardrobe.

Imagine your body as a landscape: you want to avoid placing the gun on a peak, and instead place it into a valley, where your clothing can drape around it.

When you're getting started, it's normal to feel like you're all peaks, no valleys. Everyone feels that way at first! But rest assured, you don't have to find a perfectly flat spot on your body to conceal the gun -- all you need is an area that is relatively flatter than the areas around it. An area where your clothing drapes relatively more, allowing for an envelope of empty space between the clothing and your body. Remember, if your clothes are tight or clingy enough to touch your body without a gun, adding a gun in that spot will definitely print. So look for a valley with some natural clothing drape.

To find your own concealment Sweet Spot, start by looking down at your body, then looking from the side. Mirrors and cell phone recordings are your friend!

If you're struggling with this step, make sure your gun isn't too big for your Sweet Spot by calculating your Concealment Percentage.

This video outlines six of the most common appendix carry mistakes and how to solve them.

Once you've found your Sweet Spot, the next step is to make your gun lay as flat as possible against your body. The more it sticks out, the more your clothing will get hung up and look unnatural - this is called printing. When the gun is tucked in tight against your body, your clothing can flow around it, reducing printing and giving you better concealment.

The goal is to get to your Maximum Concealment Potential: that's when you have the gun in your sweet spot, with all your concealment mechanics fully maxed out to give you the best possible concealment with that firearm. When you're at your MCP, you have the most freedom to wear what you want, rather than having to dress around a gun that's poorly concealed.

So how do you know what holster features you need to get to your MCP? That's where the Poke and Check comes in. Put on your holstered gun, and look to see any areas of printing. If you see any places where the gun isn't tight to your body, POKE them! For example, if your grip is printing, press in on it. Observe how the gun rotates horizontally, or tucks vertically, to get closer to your body. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This insight tells you what holster features you will need to get better concealment.

You'll learn about holster features in the next sections, but first, watch the video below to see the Poke and Check in action.

Holster wings convert belt pressure into grip rotation (see how in the Poke and Check video above). A wing is basically a lever that attaches to your holster, and it helps your grip to rotate closer to your body, which reduces grip printing. You'll hear them called wings, concealment wings, claws, concealment claws, or other creative names that holster manufacturers sometimes make up out of thin air. Not all wings are created equal, and some have varying levels of effectiveness and durability, but they all do the same basic task -- rotating the grip inwards.

While there are many different types of wings, by far the most popular is called the Modwing. Designed by Andrew Henry, the Modwing is adjustable for three levels of grip rotation, and it is ambidextrous for right and left handed holsters. Other popular wings include the Darkwing, and the Ravenwing (RCS).  

Some holster companies accomplish grip rotation with raised areas on the holster itself, either molded into the kydex, or attached as separate inserts. While not technically considered wings, these features serve the same purpose, and can be equally effective when properly designed. When you tighten your belt over these features, the belt pressure causes the gun to rotate inward, much like a wing.

A holster wedge goes under the muzzle of your gun, and it helps tilt the top of the gun toward your body, increasing grip tuck, and decreasing printing. The placement of your wedge really matters! In addition to the basic grip tuck effect, you can also shape your holster wedge to improve grip rotation, reduce optic printing, add extra keel, or solve a number of other common concealed carry problems. For a deep dive on holster wedges, read our detailed holster wedge article, and watch the Holster Wedge Master Class video below.

For many people, a holster wedge also solves one of the most common appendix carry comfort problems - the muzzle poking in and creating a painful pressure point. When you add a wedge to your holster, not only do you cushion the bottom of the muzzle, you also cause the gun to lay flatter against your body at the bottom, which reduces pressure points and leads to a much more comfortable experience.

In the photo below, note how the bottom corner of the muzzle digs into the model's pelvis. This will create a painful hotspot over time. In the wedge photo, you can see that this pressure point is eliminated because the muzzle of the gun is no longer angled into her. Adding the wedge improved both her comfort and concealment. This is especially important for bigger people. Dad bods, mom bods, and folks who have a gut will especially benefit from holster wedges.

Belt pressure is the foundation of most of the Concealment Mechanics we discuss on this page. A holster won't just magically conform to you and stay in place securely on its own. If you want it to hug tightly to your body for good concealment, it must have force applied to the outside of the holster. This force acts on the holster's concealment features (such as wings and wedges) in order to press the holster into you.

This is why so many people struggle to get good concealment with soft-sided holsters like bellybands, concealment leggings, and other concealment garments. Stretchy elastic may put pressure over the gun, but the lack of structure doesn't allow you fine control over the tilt and rotation of the holster.

The lack of structured pressure is also why holsters that clip to your clothing without a belt, such as Ulticlips and Fabriclips, don't conceal as well as they could. Clothing isn't designed to support a gun, and while you can certainly build concealment features into a beltless holster, they won't work very well without a belt. For example, if you try clipping a kydex holster with an Ulticlip to your jeans or leggings, you may find that instead of rotating the grip in, the wing merely pushes your pants out, and the gun continues to print.

As with most things about concealed carry, there are tradeoffs. Belt pressure is what gives you good concealment, but it can also cause muffin top. So it's worth reviewing all the Concealment Mechanics to make sure you're getting the best possible combination of features for your body shape. Getting your setup fully optimized will help reduce muffin top.

The Keel Principle refers to adding length (or wedge) to the bottom of your holster to extend its length. Though counterintuitive, using a longer holster can actually be much more comfortable and concealable for many body types. This is especially true if you have a bit of a belly – a bigger gut tends to push the gun's grip out more and make the muzzle dig in. Longer holsters also work better with holster wedges.

Guns with short muzzles can be top-heavy and difficult to conceal comfortably. To solve this, some holsters have extra length added to the muzzle end. If you’re carrying a longer-muzzled gun or a revolver, adding extra length may not be necessary for you, but for short semiautomatic guns, it’s often very helpful.

Note that while extra muzzle length reduces grip printing, it can increase muzzle printing, aka "gundick," which can be a concern with lower carry positions and tight fitting pants such as leggings or yoga pants. Longer holster length can also get in the way if your goal is deep carry — carrying at or below the waistband.

Instructors have an additional challenge - not only do they need to master the concealment challenges of their own body type, they also need to be a guide and reference for their students, who may have completely different body types, lifestyles, and experience levels. But fear not, the Concealment Mechanics principles give you a consistent, repeatable structure to guide your students to success. Take them through the same process: Sweet Spot, Poke and Check, grip rotation, and grip tuck. You can help them troubleshoot any issues that come up with the comfort video, gun size/body size match, and the Keel Principle.

All of the learning materials, images, and videos here are free for you to use in your classes. You may use our images and videos in your slides and powerpoint presentations. You may also print them out and hand them out to your students. We have a Concealment Mechanics ebook PDF and a Concealment Worksheet PDF that you may find helpful!

Credit is always appreciated, but not required. If you would like to include credit, please mention PHLster Holsters, or link to: https://www.phlsterholsters.com/how-to-conceal-a-gun-comfortably-and-safely

We also highly recommend joining the PHLster Concealment Workshop community on Facebook. With 35,000 members, you will see a huge variety of body types, carry positions, and interesting concealment challenges. After hanging out in the Workshop for a while, you'll develop a good eye for how to help people reach their concealment goals.

Here are some commonly used terms as they relate to concealment.