12 Holster Use
Many have never used a holster as most clubs do not allow drawing from the holster for safety reasons. You can practice with an unloaded firearm at home, or meet with your club authorities and discuss the issue with them. Learning to draw at a match is not a good idea. Part of this range exercise will be in drilling the draw, but regular practice is required to maintain the skills.
The purpose of this section is to outline the mechanics of a good draw and things to avoid. Best of all, you can practice the draw with an unloaded gun (or loaded with dummy ammunition for proper weight) in your home safely.
12.1 The Draw
Your reach down to the gun should be smooth and accurate. You don’t need to smash down onto the gun, but you also don’t want to waste effort getting there.
On reaching the gun, operate any retention device. Usually this is done easily with a press of the thumb into the back of the holster's strap, but learn how your holster works and practice.
The important concern is to get a good grip while the gun is still in the holster. You do not want to fumble with the gun. Before you apply any upward movement, set your hand high on the grip and securely in the notch created by the thumb and forefinger.
Now, you don’t want to ‘GRAB’ the gun with your whole hand, but rather use the middle and ring fingers to hold onto the gun. This action keeps the index finger relaxed and less likely to invade the trigger guard by accident. Your pinky can ‘go along for the ride’ but you don’t want too much pressure there or the gun will start to twist in your hand as it clears the holster. Likewise, you do not want to exert too much pressure with the thumb as this too will rotate the pistol in your hand.
The draw should push your elbow straight back, not off to the side. By going straight back, you keep the muzzle away from your body and prepare for the next motion.
The draw should be practiced slowly until your hand falls naturally to the gun with a good grip. Many people will find that they need to adjust or even replace a holster that isn’t providing an easy grip. Just about every shooter has a large collection of holsters that don’t quite work, or for various types of dress. Ask a shooter who uses a similar firearm to yours to try holsters they might have.
12.2 Presentation
Once the pistol is clear of the holster, you want to start pivoting your arm to bring the muzzle downrange.
With the elbow back, you can rotate at the shoulder and the gun both points down range as well as begins its climb to your eye.
If your gun has a thumb safety, this is the time to ‘snick’ it off. You want the safety off as soon as the gun is pointed in a safe direction in case you need to use it before reaching your full shooting stance. While in IDPA, this is unlikely to happen, it’s a good habit to get used to so you don’t find a ‘safe’ gun in a close encounter on the street.
At this same time, your support hand should be about in front of your belly a little below the pistol and cupped to catch your other hand as it appears.
You want to meet your hands no more than a foot in front of the body so that the support hand fingers cup the entire front of the shooting hand.
From here, you press out and up making your arms straight and bringing the sight up to your eye. Do not drop your body to the gun. Focus on the target and then bring the sights into that alignment.
Watch those thumbs. Both thumbs should be on one side of the gun and resting so that they are not going to operate any control by accident, and do not ride on the slide which might cause a misfeed. Due to the large number of hand and gun sizes, there isn’t a real hard and fast rule as to what is the best location.
As your arms reach full extension, you should feel your hands locking in on the gun. The support hand will be pulling back a little. You will need to practice this so that you get a good solid grip, but don’t turn the gun in your hands as they gain tension.
For most shooters, having both arms out straight is usually the best position. There are others, but require practice to master as they use dynamic forces to maintain the alignment.
The gun should naturally come up level. If not, more practice, or a gun with a different angle grip, or perhaps even different grips can help make that initial alignment almost perfect. It is usually better if the gun comes up slightly high than slightly low so that you can quickly see the front sight.
Defensive pistol sights should be fairly open in nature, rugged, and easy to see. All kinds of options exist that you can explore. Just remember it has to be some kind of notch in the back and some kind of post in the front. I do not recommend the highly adjustable target sights as they are usually too precise to quickly get a good sight picture. Combat or fixed sights are usually much quicker and at the ranges we shoot, just as accurate.
Shift the focus onto the front sight so that it covers the place you were just looking at on the target and place your finger on the trigger. Dry fire into a mirror using your own chest as a target is good practice. When the gun goes click, remember how the sights were aligned and where the bullet might have gone. On the range, replace your chest with the IDPA target and use real ammunition.
12.3 Reholster
The key to reholstering is not to point the gun at yourself in the process. Far too often I see shooters cant the pistol so that the barrel is pointed at their leg in an attempt to angle it into the holster.
If the holster will not stay open enough to fit the gun into without prying it open, or using your hand, it isn’t a good holster for IDPA. You should be able to holster with just one hand.
One method that is fairly easy and safe is to keep the pistol pointed down range and move it down over the holster. Then, drag the underside of the barrel or dustcover over the holster opening. When the muzzle comes into the holster pocket, a simple rotation so that the muzzle now points to the ground and a push will seat it in the holster.
With practice you should be able to reholster safely with one hand and not have to look at the holster.
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