Tim Schmidt

	Concealed Carry magazine By Tim Schmidt Volume 01 Issue 05

Introduction

I'm one of those guys who is on the seemingly never ending search for the perfect concealed carry holster. Will I ever find it? I don't know. It's a heck of a lot of fun trying, though. One of our newest advertisers asked me to do a review on one of their holsters. I said, "Sure, no problem". Now you're probably thinking, "Oh great, you guys are just going to do some puff piece on one of your advertiser's products". That couldn't be further from the truth. I warned them that if they gave me a piece of crap to review, that's what I'd tell our readers. The product in question is the "Closing Argument" by High Noon Holsters. The "Closing Argument" is High Noon's version of a stealthy "In the Waist Band" (IWB) holster. They custom-make these and each holster is molded around the gun it is designed for.

First Impression

Taking the "Closing Argument" holster out of its package, my ﬁrst impression was very positive. This holster was obviously made by someone who was not only talented, but also who cared a lot about what they did. The cowhide was very thick and the stitches were ﬂawless. I'll get more into the mechanical and functional details later on in this article. As I mentioned before, this holster was custom molded for my Glock 36. I've found that some custom molded holsters are not all that "custom molded". High Noon's closing argument is not one of them. My gun ﬁt perfectly.

Construction & Technical Details

This is a very high quality holster. The cowhide is approximately 1/8" thick, with the smooth side on the inside allowing for an easier draw. The leather molding aspect of the holster is outstanding. As you can see in the picture on the bottom left, there is a distinct imprint of the slide serrations and slide release on the tall, body-side tab. This leather tab is constructed of two layers of leather with some sort of plastic sandwiched in between to provide some extra stiffness I personally think this tab is a great idea as it protects your gun from your gut and your gut from your gun. There is a hard rubber sight guide that is stitched into the holster. This allows for a guaranteed snag-free draw. There is a rubber retention grommet towards the bottom of the holster that presses against the forward part of the frame. This just might be my favorite feature of this holster. This little grommet does a fantastic job of keeping my gun in place. You can literally hold the holster upside down and the gun won't come out. There is a long leather extension that connects the holster to the spring steel belt clip. This extension is anchored firmly to the bottom of the holster at a slight forward angle. This extension allows you to tuck your shirt in over the holster a full 4.5 inches below the top of your belt. I've seen some "tuckable" holsters that only allow about 1.5 inches of tuck. Come on who wants to tuck their shirt in that much? If you reach up to scratch your head, your shirt will come out! The folks at High Noon apparently like to tuck their shirts in as deep as I do. As I mentioned in my "first impression" section, the stitching on this holster looked really nice. Very even, consistent and quite attractive. The high stress areas were triple stitched and the low stress areas had a simple, clean single stitch. The exposed edges of the holster appeared to be burnt and varnished which gave almost a bullnosed effect. This piece of gear is a nice blend of form and function.

Conceal-ability

This holster gets an "A" in conceal-ability. With your shirt out, you can't see a thing. With your shirt tucked, all you see is the spring steel belt clip. This clip measures exactly 2-1/4" high by 1-1/4" wide and has a non-glare black finish. Some might say that the belt clip is too big. I like it. I like how it isn't just barely hooked onto your belt; it is locked onto your belt. In fact, it is a little difficult it get off. If you ever had to draw your weapon from this rig, you can rest assured that the holster would stay put.

Weapon Access

Weapon access is great with this holster. If you wear this holster with your shirt out, I can't think of a faster concealed carry configuration. Even with your shirt tucked in, weapon access is still pretty good. You just grab and lift your shirt with your weak hand and draw your gun.




		1. Shirt is tucked over Closing Augment And Glock 36.



		3. Grab Gun.




		2. Grab shirt and lift.



				4. Gun clears holster.

One-Week Test Results

In order to provide the most accurate review of this holster, I decided to wear it for a week. My current secondary concealed carry holster is an IWB model of similar design to the High Noon "Closing Argument", so I didn't think it would be out of line to make the substitution. The nice thing about the "Closing Argument" is the leather extension that allows you to tuck your shirt in on top of the holster and gun. The steel clip that I mentioned before does a great job locking onto my 1.5" wide Carhart belt. You could easily fit a 2" wide belt through the clip. I sit at a computer most of the day and I found the holster to be very comfortable. The only challenge I found was when I bent over to tie my shoes in the morning. I leaned over and the holster was smartly jammed into my groin. Oops. I stood up and found that if I bent over at the waist or simply went to one knee I could successfully complete the task. Other than my little shoe incident, the "Closing Argument" was a joy to wear. It held my Glock 36 very securely. I never had to re-adjust the position of the holster or gun.

Conclusion & Summary

In summary, I liked this holster. I liked it because it was high quality, reasonably priced, very functional and also pretty good looking. High Noon will custom fit almost any current production pistol. Their web site lists over 100 models of pistols that they will fit the "Closing Argument" for. The folks I talked to at High Noon were very friendly, so you can probably expect some pretty good customer service.