I have been tasked with research of a duty holster for my department. We will be switching from an uncle mikes slimline. Originally we had been switching to the serpa but after a test period the higher ups are fearful of AD’s. I am looking for research and statistics of the serpa and accidental discharges vs. the safariland style holsters, and any other hard data I can come up with.  Thanks.

Safariland.

Serpa is a uuuuge liability.


Retention Holsters

Hard Data

Safari-land for sure. They have a ton of configurations as well.

Yes I have no doubt that the safariland is the better option I just need research that supports that and reasoning as to why many departments chose one over the other

Serpa's are cheap garbage.  Demonstrate breaking one off a duty belt to get your point across.

Safariland is what I have on my belt right now.

There are youtube videos of guys ripping the Serpas right off the belt. The thing breaks right at the screws. There are videos of debris getting into the detent too.

This locks up the holster and you CAN NOT get the weapon out without tools.

Edit to add:  If you have a Serpa Duty Holster, put it on and twist the gun from rear to front.  Thw weapon will come right out without you touching the hood or trigger guard lock.

I agree the safariland is the better holster. I myself switched from the serpa, but mostly because I wanted better options for a WML.

There are literally thousands of people using the serpa on a daily basis in my agency. If there was a real problem with AD/ND's they would have been pulled from service here. I think it largely comes down to training.

It does sound like there are real quality concerns. However, on an old phone I had pictures of an agent involved in a vehicle accident. The photos clearly showed the holster still on the belt and the pistol still in it's place. The polymer frame completely broke near the trigger guard and the gun was in 2 pieces.

Email NTOA.

I think they keep a list of departments and agencies that have banned the use of the Serpa and serpa-style holsters.

You already have your answer if your admin is "fearful". Their liability concerns should be enough to cement the decision to go with Safariland. What were the requirements that your agency wanted in a holster? Level III, hood, able to use a light, can be used by uniformed officers on duty belt as well as drop leg style for special ops/k9.....? If the admin is already looking for disqualifiers for a specific piece of equipment then it sounds as if they are likely to play a numbers game in the fact that if you can find 10 examples with 50.1% supporting one side of the issue then that's what they are going to choose. Do your own test and eval on all of the holsters that meet your agencies specific needs/wants. Most equipment supply companies that we dealt with will let you have some test samples.  See what feed back you get from the end users and go from there.

For uniformed duty holster the standard is a level III Safariland. Period.

There is a reason you will see so many departments have banned the Serpa. Most training facilities (Including FLETC) have banned the use of the serpa holsters. Not sure why you would even consider it?

This is a classic example of police administration imaginary "liability." There is absolutely no reason the policy cannot read "Officers will use a quality leather/plastic/elephant hide duty holster appropriate to their issued weapon with at least one retention device in plain/basketweave/sharkskin/cheetah print finish."

There is no liability issue that is solved by forcing people to use certain equipment. Holsters do not require "testing and eval for needs and wants", they simply hold handguns on belts, as long as they accomplish that they are working as intended. Officers need to be trained in weapon retention techniques at the academy. There is no reason to mandate level 87 plastic holsters with the stupid fat roll shield and extra doodads.

Spend all this effort on "testing and evaluating new wonder holsters" training patrol officers in retaining their handgun and positioning backup guns/knives to defend themselves against a gun takeaway.

It doesn't matter if you're wearing a single snap leather holster on a 6 inch swivel or a Safariland whatever-the-fuck, if someone is trying to take it away from you and you lack the skill to retain it you are going to get shot in the face with your own gun.

If an officer is injured while using issued gear that has a clear track record of being inferior, a litigator will soon teach you the meaning of liability.  Unfortunately the taxpayer pays the penalty in the end. 

Trust the fact that there are very few taxpayers that want the upstairs pencil pushers to choose inferior equipment based on lower pricing.

I place the "issued" in red to be clear that it is required gear with no personal substitutions allowed.

Just because a good portion of the firearms enthusiast community hates the Serpa does not mean someone will win a lawsuit because their department gave them a Serpa.

Many of the negatives about the Serpa also apply to the new Safarilands(jam some pebbles into the ALS mechanism and let me know what happens). You can break Safariland holsters as well, they are just a tad tougher than Serpas.

The Serpa is a holster in common use by many large organizations that carry firearms professionally. Make no mistake, is a shitty product, like many things made by BLACKHAWK!, but it is not a serious liability to civil suit that an organization makes you carry one as a condition of employment.

The fact is there is no standard regulatory body for holster manufacturing. The "Level whatever" bullshit is a Safariland marketing strategy, not a universally adopted formal standard.

Further, winning such a lawsuit requires far more than a "clear track record of being inferior." Using equipment that is inferior to other, more expensive equipment, is NOT a liability issue, if it were no business or organization could ever get anything done, they would be constantly in court unless they bankrupted themselves providing top of the line everything to employees.

If the equipment has a known, documented safety hazard that can present itself during use as directed, and you continue to mandate the use of that equipment despite having such knowledge, you are treading in dangerous waters. For example, the Ford PIU carbon monoxide issues.

The fact that I can go make youtube videos of me breaking Serpa holsters is not a documented safety issue. There is NO holster that cannot be damaged, manipulated, or made to malfunction. Serpas accomplish the basic function of all duty holsters, which is to keep the gun on the belt and in a position you can draw it 99.99% of the time. Serpas are probably superior to a great many duty holsters in common usage and manufacture, especially some of the Safariland budget shit sold under the Bianchi line.

This holster issue is fake news made up bullshit "liability." A favorite pastime of police administrators EVERYWHERE is seeing "liability" around every corner and using it as an excuse to make agonizingly long and involved policies surrounding THINGS THAT DON'T MATTER.

If you want to talk a taxpayer liability issue I guarantee you that 99 out of 100 departments that allow or issue the Serpa have a vehicle pursuit policy that exposes the taxpayers to far more liability from a single bad incident than 15 Serpas breaking in a grappling match.

Our department specifically forbids Serpa holsters after an officer fired off a round drawing at the range and shot his leg.

Using the trigger finger for other things than pulling the trigger leads to bad things.

Safariland ALS is the way of the world now.

So I'm guessing that your agency never had an issued with certain style holsters getting stuck on the seat belt lock while trying to exit rapidly or being damaged by the center radio console that goes all the way back to the cage between the front seats for right handed officers while in patrol vehicles. Or that certain style holsters had the grip of the gun angled and pinched between the door panel and seat back for lefties to the point that they could not draw the weapon while in the vehicle. Buying a piece of equipment that has to work as designed and intended along side other mandatory equipment without testing it first, like a holster, is comparable to buying a new car without test driving it. So you can say that a car is a car, so every dept should use say a Chevy Spark for marked units because they simply need to transport the officers to the calls and work as intended.

Both agencies I have worked for had the common sense to understand that not every piece of equipment works for every person the same way and allowed the grown adult humans they employed to purchase and use a holster that matched their preference, so long as the item was made by a reputable supplier of law enforcement gear.

But maybe they should have let the range nerds who haven't sat in a patrol car in over a decade "T&E" everything and decide what everybody has to use

Im partial to the Safariland 070

Safariland hands down best duty holsters

Can you list a few agencies that issue a Serpa?

Last I checked, not a single Police/Sheriff department with over a few hundred officers, or ANY Federal agency issued the Serpa...?

Thanks for all your replies. The serpa is now banned in my department and we will be going with either safariland 6365 or 7365. Any input on these models?

The 7365 is part of their 7TS series. Made of a lighter weight plastic that's injection molded. It flexes a bit and just feels cheap. It is also cheaper in price.

The 6365 is made of a single piece of kydex that is wrapped around a form and held closed with screws and nuts. Its a tank... It is pretty much the modern standard for level III holsters. But cost more than the 7TS series holsters.

I have used a 6365 or one of the similar models for the past 7 or 8 years. With practice, its almost as fast as a level II holster, but with significantly more grab protection. Sub one second draws are easily done with practice.

Absolutely.

Let me preface this with I am not defending the Serpa, it is a fucking garbage product.

When I was in the army Serpas were almost universal in usage.

Ventura, CA Police(100+ officers) mandated the use of Serpas for anyone not on the SWAT team as of 2013. Don't know if they still do. Oxnard, CA police(200+) and Ventura County Sheriff's Office(950+) authorized it as an option.

Seattle, WA Police(1200+) allows use of the Serpa.

LAPD, Dallas, and FLETC to my knowledge have banned them. Which is funny cause LAPD still allows single thumb snap swivel holsters.

The point I am making is holster selection, even if that holster is a Serpa, is largely a non-issue and a personal comfort issue that needs to be decided by the guy carrying the gun, as long he isn't using a holster made of sewn together quilts or something. There is some logic in banning Serpas by name, but if you look at it by actual numbers, which is all that matters in military/police operations, it literally does not matter. The fact that Tex Grebner and 10 other retards shot themselves while using Serpas is irrelevant to the military's purchasing decisions for a cheap holster to hold a secondary for thousands of soldiers that will never use it.

As for police departments? Sure, ban Serpas. But absolutely do not waste time, money, and brainpower "Testing and evaluating" handgun holsters as though this is some one size fits all solution like deciding which vehicle you want to buy to replace the Crown Vic. It's a fucking holster. It holds a gun on your belt. Make a policy that says "Officers will use a holster from a major manufacturer in good condition that fits their firearm. Except Serpas. They blow." It's fine. Police departments need to stop micromanaging every fucking thing out this misplaced terror of "OMG THE LIABILITY."

All I will ever use is Safariland.  Both my duty belts are set up with them.  Serpa is ok for an off duty concealed carry holster if you are well trained with it, but that is it.  They are minimum retention holsters only.

sorry horse, more beating inbound

The issue isn't training. There is video where various people drew with the serpa. Freeze framing the video, most were unconsciously stuffing their finger into the trigger guard for a short period of time. There's a video clip of some high speed dude, trying to show the holster is safe, and CLEARLY stuffed for at least a second.

It's human factors engineering. That holster sets users up for failure.

The entire US Army circa 2014

The USMC

The entire Swiss Army in 2016

Nassau County PD just west of NYC has issued the Serpa since 2009. 2000+ officer agency. And FWIW no NDs in nearly a decade of use. None.

And just a statement of fact as I’m not advocating or shilling for Blackhawk. It’s just the agency’s issue holster.

Between a non-firing holster practice session and six courses of fire a cop will draw his/her gun 110-120(we’ll say 115 avg)times a day. Multiply that times 1500+ Patrol cops a year. That's minimally 172,000 draws a year. And multiply that times 9 years (2009-2018 = 1,552,500 draws. Now include specialty units like SWAT, ESU, K-9 who train weekly and do many more weapon presentations than line cops per training session. Than add in the numerous cops who carry Serpas as off duty and have done so for years and have to qualify with their off duty gun and off duty holster. Then add the Firearms Instructors....That's hundreds and hundreds of thousands of draws without any issue whatsoever.

So where’s the bloodbath?

And yeah, while there have been zero stuck guns, and no rock has locked a gun in the holster there were screw issues. It was generally attributed to POs using the short screws while adding the spacer instead of the included long screws. Or the screws weren’t properly tightened in the first place.

I will agree that the design is less than stellar, however having used one for over 10 years without an issue I can attribute to training properly with it when used.   bottom line, keep finger off trigger with any holster.

Removed

Nassau did have a recruit shoot himself a few years ago while using a serpa

The Army now issues safariland holsters...

And I forgot about NCPD, and yes, they have had multiple ND's directly attributed to the serpa. No idea why they still issue it (probably cheapest) but they have had issues.

Investigation showed not attributed to the holster.

Nope. Absolute BS.

OK, so the BSO guys I was training with a couple months ago were all full of shit when they were telling us of the failures the department has had with the holsters... gotcha...

Not getting snippy. I stand by my previous posts regardless of what bad rumors, scuttlebutt or stories get around. I see BSO every Wednesday night. If there’s a gear issue the FIs are generally the first to hear about it. And it’s persistent and not getting the traction it deserves it’s pushed by the FIs to get it fixed.

Respectfully...

First you said “multiple NDs” and now you’re saying “failures.” Which was it? The former is BS. The latter is true regarding the short screw/spacer issues I mentioned above. In one incident a PO exited his vehicle and his holster spun down being held on by only one(short) screw to the mounting plate. In another incident a POs gun was “ripped” off the mounting plate as he ran past the open door of his RMP. Again, short screw issue. There were other similar incidents, all with the same reason.

Speaking to the five senior FTU guys yesterday, all there since well before the switch to .40 and Serpa holsters, no one knows of any ND attributable to a Serpa holster since starting their issue in ‘09. Much less “multiple” occurrences. Frankly it’s absurd. So maybe you want to talk to those guys again to get some clarification.

Yes sir, that makes perfect sense.   Most issues outside of completely unsafe designs can be worked through with training.   I don't believe the SERPA is the best design, but it certainly is not the worst.  Firearm selection combined with holster design plus training or lack thereof is what determines the outcome.

I'd say 7 series. Nothing wrong with the 6 series at all, it's a tested and proven holster. I personally prefer the 7 because there is no lining on the inside to hold moisture, dirt, etc, and that results in a much faster draw at least for me. When I used to have the 6 series that suede like liner would bind with the gun sometimes and make it a pain in the ass to draw. I work for a very large agency and haven't heard of or seen either break. A poster below your initial comment mentioned durability of the two. I'm not a small dude and have landed on the holster quite a bit and regularly put my full weight on it because I climb under cars and stuff quite a bit. It's held up extremely well and there are many videos of torture testing the holster. In any which case my agency actually authorizes both so that might be an option as well. the ALS and SLS mechanisms as well as all mounting options are common between the 6 and 7 series so it's not like you're locked into either and it makes it easy to adopt both. My agency authorized the 7 while issuing the 6 then eventually started issuing both and let the officer decide which to use.

I bought a 7360 for my P320 when my department switched last year.  The gun felt very sloppy inside the holster and had some up and down movement when you ran.  I swapped it back out to a 6360.  Much more solid holster in my opinion.

ETA:  Not sure how the non light bearing holsters feel as far as slop as I don’t carry without a light.  Also I’ve seen some issues where the 7 series holsters are breaking.