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Hey ladies, Dene Adams has a holster solution for you

SHOT Show 2019 has helped me find a holster solution for the ladies in my life, Dene Adams a company making holsters for the ladies. Men – show this article to your gal. With the right holster, maybe she’ll want to start carrying concealed after all.

Founded on a Legacy, Holsters Made for Women

Founded on the legacy of Anna’s grandfather, Dene Adams supplies creative solutions for concealed carry with women in mind (and now a new line for men.)

Anna Taylor of Dene Adams has a passion for what she does and it shows in her creativity and enthusiasm for her products. Anna calls her holster creations a “compression concealed carry holster for women.” Anna’s innovation and design efforts allow women to carry concealed comfortably without a change in wardrobe.

I teach a basic pistol course for civilians and a question that I am frequently asked is from the ladies. “What holster options do you have for us women? I don’t want to wear a belt, I want to keep my pretty outfits.”

I usually show the ladies in my class a collection of holsters that I have that work for me. Kydex, leather, and even some plastic that are mostly OWB hip carry and some IWB appendix carry. These holsters work for me but I’m a big fella at 6’6″. I always wear a belt and usually a loose shirt that easily conceals even a large frame pistol. My girth helps with the concealment.

My big fella holster solutions don’t always work for the ladies.

Solutions by Anna

Instead of listening to a big dumb guy tell you why these holsters work and make me awkwardly talk about things like “the ladies,” “boob sweat,” “smoothing the back fat,” and stuff like that; how about you listen to Anna tell you about it.

Can you teach an old Glock new tricks with Talon Grips?

I may have amassed a decent collection of pistols over the years, but without exception, I keep coming back to my good old Gen 3 Glock 19 for everyday-carry. Like just about every firearm I own, I’ve done a bit of work to it to make it unique, but aside from a few internal doodads, a set of TRUGLO TFX night sights, and some aesthetic touches, this pistol still looks and feels a lot like it did when it came from the factory.

My love for this pistol aside, that’s sort of the problem.

While later model Glocks have a more abrasive grip (though still not quite to my liking), these old Generation 3 pistols come with grips that feel fine… until your hands are slick. Add a bit of sweat, water, or (if you’re in a fight for your life) blood, and you can’t help but start to worry about how effectively you can grab at your piece. This isn’t too big an issue for slow and steady target shooting at the range, but a rapid draw from an IWB concealed carry holster can get tricky when your hands are slipping around on the pistol.

The obvious (and cheapest) solution to this dilemma is to stipple the grips of your Glock using either a dremel tool, a soldering iron, or both. I’ve seen this done very effectively, and in some cases, in beautiful ways — but I lack the artistic talent and coordination required to make mine look good, and as embarrassing as it is to admit, I love this old gun too much to feel comfortable hacking away at it like that. So what does one do when you need to add grip to your Glock, but you’re too much of a coward to pull the trigger on stippling?

You use a stick on solution.

Talon Grips offers a variety of stick-on solutions for a number of different weapons, but despite the variety, the application process is pretty much the same for all of them. Start by giving your pistol grip a good cleaning with the included alcohol swab, then simply wrap the grip around the handle of your pistol like a sticker. The grip has a fair amount of stick to it, but it’s forgiving — you can peel off portions and reapply them if you didn’t get your alignment quite right on the first pass.

Once it’s stuck on, you’ll need a hair dryer or heat gun to melt the grips into place. Heat the grips until they’re hot, but not too hot to touch with your bare hands. Then, press down firmly on the Talon Grips using your fingers to help the slightly-melted material seep in and adhere to all the nooks and crannies of the pistol. I repeated that process four times before calling it quits.

What you’re left with is a pretty damn good looking (and grippy) result that I’m certain will make me feel more confident on the draw. My only pressing concern is how long these grips will last through frequent use and the formidable humidity of these Georgia summers. After I’ve had a chance to beat the living hell out of these grips for a while, I’ll bring this pistol back into the office for round two of this review, focused on the durability and longevity of Talon’s grips.

Op-Ed: So why exactly do you need so many guns?

As the gun debate continues to rage in this country, the social media conversation has been dominated by memes and straw man arguments bandied about by the most hard headed among both groups — with gun control and gun rights advocates both circling their proverbial wagons and congratulating one another on the new and witty ways they can agree amongst themselves.

A fortified position is intended to weather enemy contact, otherwise there’s no need for it, but when it comes to politics, we prefer our positions fortified and our opposition nowhere to be found. We don’t want to hear what they have to say, to engage with their line of thinking, or to acknowledge any merit or even humanity behind their concerns.

You can be a gun guy or not. You can believe in freedom or not. You can want to save the children or not.

From the outside looking in, it probably looks awfully silly, but to be honest, I couldn’t tell you for sure — because I’m a gun guy, and as such, I can’t help but view this topic through the skewed lens of a stakeholder. When someone that’s never touched a firearm and couldn’t be bothered to learn how they function proposes a law that makes no sense and would save no lives, I see it met with fanfare in Left-leaning outlets and I’ll admit it, I get angry.

But to be honest, I get frustrated with people on my side of the debate as well — when they make suggestions I find equally difficult to stomach. I remember the teachers I had in school and I know a lot of teachers now. I’ve got no doubt that there are plenty of educators in the country that own firearms, but most of the ones I know from my old stomping ground of liberal New England are just as scared of guns as they are of shooters. It’s not because they’re idiots, it’s because they see guns in the same way they see Great White Sharks or the Ebola Virus — a dangerous abstract they prefer to keep within the confines of their television sets. My comfort with firearms wasn’t bred into me; it developed as a result of years of proximity, training and use. I see a gun as a tool because, in my lifetime, that’s precisely what they’ve been to me — but to someone that’s never been near one, all they have to go on are the ridiculous things you see in the press.

Which brings me to the subject of this piece: why do some gun owners choose to own lots of guns and why is the press so afraid of them?

*Headline image from Scientific American*

The “research” cited in that article claimed people bought more guns under Obama because of racism, rather than because people feared he’d pursue more strict gun legislation. I guess that’s why they used the word “suggest,” because “I made this part up” doesn’t work as well in a headline.

I get the basic idea here: guns are scary, so more guns are scarier — but the logic doesn’t really survive past the anti-gun curb appeal. While I’m reluctant to advertise how many guns of whatever type I own, it’s safe to say that I own more than your average gun owner and way more than your average gun control advocate would prefer. I purchased them all legally, keep them stored safely and securely, I have a license to carry awarded by my state of residence, and I’ve not only received quite a bit of training in how to handle my firearms, I continually seek more.

As far as guns go, I’m a pretty responsible American. So, why are multiple-gun owners like me so often characterized as some sort of domestic terrorist deserving of an episode of Hoarders?

I’m not trying to beat up on my left-leaning friends and family. You’re entitled to your opinion, as I am to mine, but from where I stand, my list of firearms isn’t all that different from any of the hobbies I see proudly touted by plenty of liberal folks.

I come from a racing background, and although there are lots of types of racing, many of the people in the industry carry their passion for cars and speed over into their personal lives. Souped-up daily drivers are a common facet among car guys and girls — from Roots type superchargers on classic domestics to chrome plated turbochargers on modern imports, America has long had a love affair with working on your own car, improving its performance — and yup — even racing illegally.

On average in this country, 40,000 people die in car accidents every year — but as a country, we don’t paint mechanics and car enthusiasts as murderers of children or crackpot conspiracy theorists preparing to overthrow the government. We just see them as people with a passion.

I’m not going to judge you for your souped-up Subaru Impreza, even though you’re much more likely to kill an innocent person with it than I am with any of my firearms.

Maybe it’s a money thing. It’s fair to say that I’ve invested more into my firearms than I have into other parts of my life, and one could argue that only a “crazy person” would devote so much of their disposable income to a singular interest. After all, reasonable Americans only do that with sound investments like Beanie Babies or smart phones.

*And I was mad about having to make payments on my phone.*

I’ve always been budget minded when it comes to my hobbies, and firearms are no different. I’ve never put my family in a difficult position financially because of a purchase, I discuss the guns I buy with my wife beforehand and, if I’m honest, you might be hard pressed to know that I’m the sort of guy with a lot of guns even if you took a tour of my house. Having a “collection” of firearms isn’t different than having a “collection” of anything pricey, and at least for me, it’s proven to be a much less expensive hobby than my days spent pulling horsepower out of engine bays. I didn’t set out to have a bunch of guns, I just like to tinker, and it’s cheaper to tinker with my Glock or AK than it is to throw parts at a race car.

Nobody has ever criticized me for having a lot of sockets and wrenches. I’ve never been called a child-killer while driving my old nitrous injected Mustang GT or my brother’s Dodge Viper. If I told you I liked to unwind by having a beer and bolting parts to my wife’s Honda, you’d smile and nod, but if I say I’m going to have a beer and throw a new buttstock on my AR-15, people start acting like it’s because I’ve got plans to climb a clock tower.

I carried a rifle in the Marine Corps. I carried a rifle hunting in the hills of Vermont. To me, a rifle is no different than a hammer – it’s a tool with a purpose, and I take pride in taking good care of my tools. And just like tools, different firearms are better suited for different jobs, and as such, I’ve got more than one. You’d be hard pressed to find a pit mechanic that only owns one wrench.

Listen, I’m not saying guns aren’t dangerous, nor am I saying that this nation doesn’t have any issues with firearms that we need to talk about. All I’m saying is that the debate about firearms often simmers down into ad hominem attacks that presuppose gun owners and criminals are a part of the same social group. I’m sure there’s some crossover in that Venn diagram, but for the most part, people that own a number of firearms are able to because of their financial stability, responsible behavior, and a passion for the craftsmanship and function they find in their tools.

It seems like people on the Left can’t quite agree about how they feel about guns — one will tell you that “no one wants to take your guns” while another tweets about prying them from our “cold dead hands.” Politicians will use the phrase “common sense guns legislation,” then support a bill aimed at banning scary guns because they’re scary. That’s okay — conservatives don’t agree on everything either — but just like we can all agree that no one wants to see more children killed, can’t we also agree that, with at least one gun in over a third of all American households, most gun owners aren’t the bad guys you’re looking for.

So, let’s stop pretending that they are.

Image courtesy of the author

Choosing between the AR-15 and the AK-47

The debate between AK-47s and AR-15s is perhaps a bit more civil than the digital spats between the likes of Glock fanboys and 1911 historians in your Facebook newsfeed, but there are certainly some similarities. Arguments about stopping power, reliability, and accuracy get touted about by both sides in such generalized and exaggerated ways that one could be forgiven for thinking no AK platform in the world has ever malfunctioned and every AR-15 is a sniper rifle. Of course, the fact of the matter is, both platforms are made by a variety of manufacturers and in a variety of different set ups; some more reliable, more accurate, or more affordable than others.

I’ve gone on record in the past as saying the warring factions of the firearm world, like the automotive one, miss the forest for the trees when ranting at one another in forums and on Twitter. There are lots of great, budget friendly 1911 platforms available out there, and there are lots of solid shooting Glocks out there too. There’s nothing wrong with having a preference, but in our modern upvote/downvote culture, we seem to think liking one thing means having to hate the other… as though the solid reliability of your Glock in some way diminishes the accuracy of its competition in the 1911 camp. In truth, they can both be great guns, and if you’re not able to see that… you may be being guided by the team dynamic, rather than the facts.

I bought my AR-15 years ago at Wal-Mart along with a six pack of beer and a few hundred rounds of ammunition. At the time, it bore a striking resemblance the rifle my father carried in Vietnam, but there was no denying the familiar comfort that set in as a slung it over my shoulder and found my hands settling on the pistol grip in the same way I spent so many hours standing around in uniform. It was like visiting my old home town and finding everything just where it had been.

To this day, I still get that same sense of coming home when I hang that rifle over my shoulders. It’s changed a bit since that day years ago, and now looks and acts a lot more like the rifle Uncle Sam loaned me. Each time I remove it from the safe and do my usual tinkering or maintenance, I feel a connection to a younger me – one that saw a rifle as a companion as much as a tool.

Still seems like a totally normal way to spend an afternoon to me.

My AK-47, however, was the product of a chance meeting and a good deal. I had fired a few AK-47 platforms before, but not extensively, and in contrast to the AR I bought years ago, it was my unfamiliarity, rather than history with the platform, that prompted me to buy it. I looked forward to the challenge of learning how it functions, how to care for it, and of course, how to mess with it until it was uniquely my own. A new project, I told myself, and nothing more.

I was wrong. I love the damn thing.

While I left to serve in the Marine Corps, my older brother continued working in racing, eventually finding himself behind the wheel in a number of races before starting his own business. His budgets are bigger and interests are different, but his approach to cars is very much like my approach to guns: tailor each to a purpose, and you could always use one more. I spent some time driving and then shooting with him recently, and I realized that the AK and AR platforms are similar to two of his cars: the Dodge Charger Hellcat and the Dodge Viper SRT-10.

At first glance, I don’t see why you’d need both. At 505 and 707 horsepower respectively, they’re both scary fast, plenty loud, draw a crowd and rarely turn up on the losing side of a race. To the uninitiated, one certainly seems enough… but when you look more closely, you see that each is designed for variations within that “go fast” purpose. The Viper will tear the Hellcat to pieces in the twisties, the Hellcat will roar to victory in a drag race.

It’s all about picking the right tool for the job, but if the job is just going out to have some fun, it’s all about picking the one that best suits your preferences.

My AR-15 feels like a precision weapon. It’s crisp, light enough, it talks to me through its behavior and, if I’m honest, occasionally gets in moods. The rifle exudes the confidence we’ve developed together: I know I can hit a target at 500 yards with iron sights with my AR because I’ve done it plenty of times. It’s hard not to develop an attachment to something like that.

In contrast to the AR, my American made RAS-47 feels like a tractor. It clunks and clinks as it releases rounds with little more recoil, but a noticeable difference in tone from the barrel, as it’s simple mechanics lumber away inside the pressed steel body. When I run and gun with the AR, I feel like a precision instrument. When I do the same with the AK, I feel like I’m throwing hammers at the target – and I freakin’ love it.

These two rifles, while similar in purpose, vary widely when it comes to execution. The AR, like a Viper, gives you a sense of confidence and poise. The AK, like a Hellcat, gives you this sense of primordial power: like that concrete wall doesn’t mean shit to me, I’ll just go straight through it.

One could argue that there are distinct advantages to each platform, and by and large, there are – but with so much variety on the market, your reliability and accuracy (often the two biggest talking points involved in this debate) are really just a matter of your budget. Both platforms are capable of being incredibly accurate as well as reliable.

Picking a favorite, then, really comes down to shooter’s preference. Some will be drawn to the comfort of the familiar, others will succumb to the allure of simplicity and cheap ammo… but the fact of the matter is, neither is a bad choice.

My recommendation? Get them both if you can. You never know when you might be in the mood to throw some hammers..

Images courtesy of the author

Radian Raptor Limited Edition charging handle in MultiCam Black

Today I’m doing a quick review on the new Radian Raptor Limited Edition Multicam Black charging handle and ambidextrous safety selector. Radian put this limited edition bundle out at a higher price point than their other Raptor charging handles to support the 2nd amendment in Oregon. All proceeds went to organizing the Defend the 2nd Rally event held in Salem last month and additional proceeds will go towards future events.

The Radian Raptor charging handle has ambidextrous controls for charging with either the right or left hand and comes with a matching ambidextrous safety selector that can be manipulated with the thumb or finger. The cool part about the Talon safety switch is you can choose to install it with the 45-degree short throw or standard 90-degree configuration.

Kelin Ray is a Corrections Officer in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest specializing in man tracking and is a member of the Inmate Recovery Team. He is a former Field Artilleryman in the Washington Army National Guard and served in Iraq as a gunner for convoy security operations. In his free you can find him Tactical Live Action Role Playing with his friends as Batman.

Black Rifle Coffee Company | Labor Day Sale, Up to 30% off!

Black Rifle Coffee Company Labor Day sale. Up to 30% Off Site Wide Favorites! Click on the following photos to be directed to the sales pages. Use coupon code LABORDAY for 10% off storewide, including marked down products.