In another thread a poster asked me to start a thread dedicated to appendix carry. I've mulled it over and I think it's probably a good idea, so here goes.

Appendix carry is the carry of a pistol on the front of the waistline rather than on or around the hip. It's often referred to as "appendix" carry because most carry the pistol off the center-line of their body towards the strong hand...somewhat close to where your appendix would be. The exact placement can vary from individual to individual. Some folks like to carry very close to the centerline:



Others tend to carry farther away from the centerline:




It should be noted that AIWB (Appendix Inside the Waist Band) carry is nothing new. People have been doing it for quite some time. The Milt Sparks Versa-Max holster, for example (a very popular custom holster) was originally conceived of as an appendix holster. It's been used by a lot of folks over the years because of the advantages that appendix carry brings to the table:

1. Reduction of printing –– Anyone who has tried to conceal a real handgun eventually encounters the problem of printing. AIWB dramatically reduces printing because it places the entire height of the pistol (measured from the bottom of the inserted mag to the top of the rear sight) along the widest part of your body. Hip carry places the entire height of the pistol along what is usually the narrowest profile of your body:



The skinnier you are, the more difficult it is for you to carry a gun on the hip without printing. With a good strong side holster (like the Raven Concealment Phantom) you can minimize the printing problem, but for some body types the only answer is to carry a pistol that has a very short grip like the baby Glocks or the M&P Compact pistols. With appendix carry, however, you can pack a much larger pistol without printing. As an example, I know of a fairly small federal agent (weighs about 160) who carries a full-sized railed 1911 invisibly in an AIWB holster. He would be hard pressed to carry it on the hip without printing. My personal AIWB testimony is that I've packed an HK45 with the factory mag baseplates (which are unreasonably large) AIWB without printing. That's a big gun, folks. Generally I can conceal even a really big handgun like that under just a t-shirt invisibly when carrying AIWB. I generally carry under an untucked polo shirt.

2. Retention –– It is easier to defend against a weapon grab when the weapon is in the front of your body than it is to defend against a weapon grab when the weapon is on your hip. If you hunch over you can actually use your upper torso to wedge the gun back down into the holster if someone is trying to grab it. You can maintain an aggressive posture that keeps you on your feet and gives you options. As a personal testimony, during some training this year the class worked on weapon defense and I was paired with a smaller fellow who had to defend his AIWB carried "pistol" from me. I literally had to pick the guy up off the ground and shake him up and down violently to get control of the "gun". (Blue gun) With a strong side holster I would have been able to wrest the gun from his control much more easily, but with the gun carried AIWB I had to throw him all over the place to get control of his pistol.

3. Access –– AIWB carry places the gun in a much more accessible location from practically any conceivable position. Whether you're sitting down in a vehicle with your seatbelt on or you are face down on the ground with some big dude on top of you, it's still relatively easy to access the firearm. This is one of the reasons why the MMA/Ju-Jitsu types who carry guns are fond of AIWB carry of small guns like J frames. They can access them even if they are being totally dominated by a bigger/stronger/more skilled/luckier attacker who has them on the ground. With a strong-side holster it is easier to trap the weapon so that the person carrying it can't draw the gun. I've known police officers, for instance, that have been in a side of the road wrestling match with much larger individuals who would either trap the gun by holding the officer's gun-side on the ground, or by pressing themselves onto the officer's holster to prevent the ability to draw the weapon. The solution to those situations was either to have backup arrive in a timely manner or draw a secondary weapon, screw it into the bad guy's head, and pull the trigger until he stops moving.

With the weapon in the center line of the body it is much more difficult to prevent it from being drawn. Even if you have somebody in a bear hug odds are that they can work their arms to their centerline and get the weapon out.

4. Speed –– Many find that having the weapon on the front of their waistline rather than the hip area allows them to have a faster first shot on target from the draw. It also makes clearing a closed-front concealment garment a bit easier since the weak hand doesn't have to reach as far around the body with AIWB as with strong side carry.


There is, of course, no free lunch here. AIWB has some significant advantages, but it also has a really significant disadvantage:

Death or dismemberment –– AIWB carry places the muzzle of the weapon in an area of the body where, should a round be fired, it is likely to hit either your genitals or your femoral artery. If you put a round into your femoral and don't happen to have a properly stocked blowout kit literally on your person with somebody who has been trained to at least the level of a combat lifesaver right next to you at the moment it happens, you will probably bleed out before help can arrive.

Re-read those sentences.

The primary danger zone with AIWB carry is when you are holstering or reholstering the weapon...especially if you are on the range practicing. The number of unintentional discharges that have occurred during holstering are legion. An example was posted on ARFCOM a while back:



With strong side carry generally the wounds from an unintentional discharge of a weapon while holstering are usually minor and easily survivable. Unfortunately because of where the muzzle is going with AIWB carry the consequences of an unintentional discharge will probably be much more serious.

This, of course, begs the question of why gunshots happen during reholstering in the first place. It's very tempting to insist that the people who have ended up with a discharge while attempting to reholster are drooling morons, and that since you are presumably not a drooling moron it's not really something you have to concern yourself with.

That is a ridiculous mindset.

The people who have had an unintentional discharge are people. There isn't a single person reading this that is immune to being human. (If you're a cyborg, feel free to ignore me) I'm willing to bet that every single person who is reading this has at some point in their lives left their keys in the car or locked themselves out of the house, or they've forgotten something important, or they've run a stop sign because they weren't paying attention, or they've missed a turn, etc. The simple truth is that human beings are easily distracted and are prone to complacency. We get stupid with dangerous stuff on a regular basis and if you think that you're incapable of getting stupid (or just plain unlucky) when there's a gun in your hand then you are kidding yourself and it is only a matter of time before you fuck up.

Compounding the human factor is the popularity of striker-fired carry guns that have a 5-7 pound trigger and no manual safety. Whether anyone wishes to acknowledge it or not, these weapons have a very narrow margin for error. I'm sure somebody's knickers are going to be twisted up by that statement, but it's the objective truth. That doesn't mean the gun is "unsafe" or that it's unfit for carry...it's simply an acknowledgement of the simple reality that if you fuck up with a gun like a Glock or an M&P (and I own, carry, and use both) you will probably end up firing a shot when you don't mean to. It's not just trigger fingers that set them off, either. I know of several documented cases where law enforcement officers have ended up with a discharge because the thumb snap from their departmentally mandated holster or the drawstrings from their departmentally mandated jacket or the lanyard from their departmentally mandated flashlight has ended up in the trigger guard of their weapon as they attempted to reholster. I've personally narrowly avoided a loud noise because of a flashlight lanyard that worked its way into the trigger guard of my M&P as I attempted to reholster during a low-light class.

If you combine a carry method that has drastic consequences if you have a bad day with a weapon that has the narrowest margin of error when it comes to reholstering, then you are setting yourself up for disaster.

Pistols that have a hammer or a manual safety offer a much larger margin of error when it comes to reholstering. A hammer-fired pistol, for instance, allows you to place your thumb on the back of the hammer. When done properly this prevents the weapon from firing. With proper technique you can literally put your full body weight on the trigger of the weapon and the hammer will not nove even with all that force applied. I don't recommend running out and trying it because there's a significant chance you'll break your gun. An instructor friend of mine demonstrated this with an HK45 and he managed to bend the trigger bar without the hammer moving a single iota. If you are carrying appendix and Murphy visits you as you are reholstering and your shirt bunches inside the trigger guard of your weapon, the end result will be that you just reholster your shirt if you have your thumb on the hammer keeping it from moving. With a striker-fired weapon you can end up with a discharge in either your genitals or your femoral artery.

This is the big reason why I've switched from the M&P (a pistol I like quite a bit) to an H&K P30 with the LEM system. I spend a lot of time on the range training and I try to do as much as I can from the carry gear I use every day. I decided that the odds were going to catch up with me one day and that I would need to abandon AIWB altogether or buy a gun that allowed me to train with greater safety. Since I've grown to love the benefits of AIWB I made the decision to switch to a new gun.

This safety concern is my primary reason for starting this discussion. I see a lot of discussion out there that seems to assume that all pistols are equal from a safety standpoint, and that's just not true. No handgun is guaranteed to be "safe" if an idiot is handling it, but that doesn't change the reality that some handguns do offer a wider margin of error than others. In training I've also seen countless individuals who seem to think they are required to reholster the pistol like they are trying to drive it through the earth's crust or with severely inappropriate speed because they think a fast draw means throwing the gun back in the holster as fast as possible. Combine all of that with the growing popularity of AIWB and there's a significant chance that in the relatively near future somebody is going to fuck up and kill themselves because they didn't stop for a minute and rationally think through the potential downsides to their gear. Some will inevitably be dismissive because they know better than everybody else and because it won't happen to them....but at least the sane people who are willing to think about things rationally might have their eyes opened to something they hadn't considered before.

So that there is no misunderstanding here, I'll say this as plainly as possible:

I DO NOT advise carrying a striker-fired pistol with no manual safety AIWB. I don't advise AIWB carry at all until you've given it as much consideration as you would give the decision to pick up a live cobra. If you ultimately make the decision to try AIWB, I strongly encourage doing so with a weapon that has a hammer you can block or a reliable manual safety.



So let's say to this point you've been informed about the benefits of AIWB and you now have a healthy enough respect for the integrity of your wedding tackle and your femoral artery that you've decided you'll use a handgun with a larger margin of error as your AIWB handgun...what holster do you use?

That's somewhat tricky.

AIWB is 75% about finding the right holster. There are lots of holsters out there marketed as "appendix" holsters that really aren't. A lot of them are just other holsters with a neutral cant and a belt loop, which presents severe comfort problems because they have too much material on the underside of the gun, which just makes the holster dig into your anatomy in an unpleasant way. A really well engineered holster makes AIWB comfortable and practical. For examples of "well engineered" holsters, look at the Custom Carry Concepts "Shaggy" or the Garrity In-Victus. The other 25% of AIWB is finding where exactly on the wasitline it works for you. There is a "sweet spot" which takes experimentation to locate. The difference between carrying with perfect comfort and a truly miserable experience can be as little as 1/2 an inch difference in placement on the waistline. Using a pistol that has a relatively short length (measured from the rear-most part of the slide to the front-most) helps as well. I've found the CCC "Shaggy" holster to be quite comfortable. I'm currently carrying my P30 in a CCC "Looper" holster I bummed from a friend because rich at CCC is still swamped with orders and hasn't shipped my P30 "Shaggy" holster yet. Even with the older Looper holster the P30 rides AIWB in perfect comfort all day.

Hopefully all of that is enough to at least get an intelligent conversation going about AIWB. I'm not crusading for AIWB here. I personally like it quite a bit, but that doesn't mean it is an ideal method of carry for everybody. To be perfectly honest, I don't advise people to carry AIWB because of the big nasty risk that's there when it comes time to reholster. I've taken steps to minimize that risk (not only a hammer-fired gun, but also a reholster technique that ensures a fired round won't hit me in the johnson or the femoral) but even those are not a guarantee. I would only recommend it for people with a lot of skill and experience.

...which in and of itself can turn it into something the "cool kids" do and therefore results in imitation without understanding. Thus I'll say again: IF you fuck up with AIWB, you will die. So the "cool kid" nonsense should be nipped in the bud.

...and I want to stress this at the outset: That's a perfectly OK decision. There's absolutely nothing wrong with looking at AIWB and deciding that it exceeds your personal limits in regards to safety.

It does seem like AIWB would be a pain in the balls, but when you position the holster properly it falls along the crease between your lower torso and your leg...a sort of natural pocket. You'll certainly feel the gun, but it's not so hideously uncomfortable that you can't stand it....and it's not going to print when you're bent over like you'd get with a strong side holster.

Actually the skinnier you are generally the better it works for you. As I said, successful AIWB is 75% about the holster and 25% about where you place it. A good AIWB holster (and most labeled as AIWB in my experience are not good) positioned properly generally works well for all sorts of body types. The first time I tried AIWB I thought it was the most uncomfortable thing I'd ever seen, but that's because the holster I was using sucked. Once I tried a good holster I found out what all the fuss was about.

No, it's not hyperbole. It's the truth. Go out and do some googling. Find out how many articles there are about police officers discharging weapons when they attempted to reholster. It happens a lot. Earlier this year an instructor friend of mine had a student shoot himself in the leg when he was reholstering after a drill.

It happens. I posted a picture that came from this site where it happened, for crying out loud.

It's better than nothing. The thumb safety on the M&P blocks rear-ward movement of the trigger. If it's engaged then it should prevent problems. I would advise keeping upward pressure on the safety during the reholstering process just to ensure it doesn't get bumped off-safe.

The grip safety of the XD would seem to be an advantage, but only if you were sure you were absolutely clear of it when the weapon was going back into the holster. In my experience most people maintain their firing grip for a long enough period of time that it wouldn't be much help. If you get your thumb on the back of the slide it should be enough to clear the grip safety.



I'm not the guy in the picture, but on my waist I carry my P30, a Cold Steel Baveheart, two spare mags and a cell phone....and nobody knows it. Whether I'm walking around or behind a desk or in a car it works fine. Buckling the belt on the side rather than at the front helps as well.

Needs to move? Wtf does that mean?

 

...and there are some schools of thought that hold drawing a fixed blade knife and using it is to be preferred at certain ranges/in certain circumstances.

I carry a fixed blade in a similar fashion after looking around and noticing how many serious grappling/empty hands/ECQC experts carry small fixed blades that way.



I'm carrying most of what's pictured in that picture (again, not me) right now as I type this. I'm perfectly comfortable.