Atomic Nerds

So, a while back Dennis over at Dragon Leatherworks asked me if I’d review his newest offering, the Talon holster aimed at the 1911 platform.

If you’re like me and lazy about clicking links to older stuff, the short version was “This is a pretty slick holster,” and “damn it’s tight though,” and “now I need a 1911 I’m not sentimental about.” The first point stands, the latter two have been fixed.

The shown 1911-specific Talon has been seeing a fair bit more use than just one weekend. For reasons I’ll move on to in a moment, I’ve picked up a nice Springfield, and have been toting that around for the last two months, give or take a little. It seemed only fair to revisit this and note that over that time, yes it did loosen up to much more acceptable levels without giving up significant retention. It’s still snug enough that the angles and leverages of drawing from an OWB holster hitch up my pants some, but the wedgie-tastic Chippendale yank is gone and done with. The belt loops also loosened up enough to where I can just slide it around for adjustment just like any other holster.

Wear and finish, I’ll let the above image speak. I’m not a particularly graceful individual, and so far the Talon has taken whatever I’ve dished out without starting to look rode-hard and put up wet.

Now, as I said this was something of a swap going to a 1911 OWB instead of my trusty CZ-75 (mostly) IWB. That’s because since I’m corrosive, said CZ is off living with our pet gunsmith for a refinish and a few other touches. Since the gun is going to come back looking actually pretty, instead of like a europellet-spewing boat anchor, and I was pleased with the original Talon, I decided it might be a nice thing to have a holster that actually looks good to go with the gun. I asked Dennis if it would be possible to do a Talon for the CZ, and in a demonstration of awesome for a small businessman with overhead to watch and similar, he said “Sure!” and went and added a whole new gun’s worth of configuration to his holster line just ’cause I asked nice.

Pardon my French since I’m trying to be vaguely professional here, but that’s fuckin’ awesome.

Anyway, since the goal here again is to actually look good rather than get super-ninja ¡XEWATER! tactical, and since the 1911 model hadn’t been worn quite long enough to loosen the belt loops yet, I opted to trick it out a little.

How could I of all people resist a stingray inlay? This one came just about perfect out of the box. The retention was just where it needed to be, but this time I didn’t have to do any steam-it-in-the-shower tricks to make it let go of my gun without a fight. The belt tunnels instead of just the plain slit are also a huge improvement, and help add a good bit of extra stability, as if the original was somehow lacking in that department. The stitching is, again, excellent, and even now I remain impressed with how stiff and sturdy this holster is for such thin leather. I was hoping to have a nice glamor shot with the refinished CZ in this spiff piece of slickness, but apparently some idiot poured blueing solution into the nickel tank, so a bit of delay has occured. Either way, my opinion is that the holster is good looking enough even without being filled, and if you want an attractive dress holster that works exactly like a holster should, this is it.

Why are you still here? Go buy your own. And I guess he has other styles too if you’re a weirdo or something, but just go buy one.

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