A Brief History of AIWB

As mentioned before, AIWB is probably the original on-body carry method. Shove your pistol into your sash and away you go. That changed when Americans started riding horses and since the influence of “the West” (and of course other influences as well) is still alive and well, we have stuck with strong side carry. There is obviously more to it than that, but for our purposes, it will do. And it did do for many years. AIWB was still used, but it was often how people would carry guns without holsters, a very common practice even up to the 1980s. With the advent of IPSC and then USPSA, strong side carry became dominant (though outside the waistband appendix’ish carry was popular in the early days) and that carried over to duty holsters and concealment holsters alike.

In the mid-1990s, I was introduced to AIWB by a friend and early mentor. We used it exclusively for deeper carry with smaller guns like the G26. It was great when out biking, but not great for much else. We used Don Hume holsters that had been modified to take Alessi Talon clips.

In the late 90s, I was working my first LE job and had Jim Murnak make me a custom AIWB holster for my duty G19. It had a slight reverse cant and carried and concealed well. I did not normally work in plain clothes but was occasionally asked to do so, and my AIWB holster allowed me to wear my vest and still have good access to my gun. I never found strong side IWB to work well for me when wearing concealable body armor. AIWB also allowed me to stand with my thumb hooked over the backstrap of my Glock and look like I was just hanging out. This made for a fast draw that wasn’t telegraphed. Given the neighborhood I was working in, I’m sure most people realized I was a cop but it worked well enough.

After September 11th, I moved to a federal agency where I continued to carry AIWB with my Sig 228. Even in a suit, it worked for me. I met TLG around this time and he introduced me to IDPA competition which necessitated my use of a strong side rig. Soon after, I was accepted onto our full-time tactical team, which saw me wearing a thigh rig much of the time but a belt rig other times, plus off-duty carry. I went back to strong side IWB for much of my use as it allowed what I saw as an easier transition from suits to soft clothes to tac gear to competition.

And now we get to the modern AIWB. In 2008 TLG became interested in carrying AIWB. I don’t remember why, but another friend of ours was also carrying AIWB around the same time. The two of us had been extolling its virtues for some time and I guess TLG wanted to try it out. We talked it over quite a bit and experimented with some popular IWB holsters. I was switching from a Sig 229 to a G22 at the time and nothing worked very well with that big gun. TLG was carrying a full-size M&P, IIRC. So, we started collaborating with a well-respected leather holster maker. He made some promising prototypes for us but was never able to follow through. The idea of tucking the butt in was first developed with these early prototypes, and the first muzzle wedge, sewn into the body of the holster, was also created. I believe that TLG came up with the muzzle wedge and I came up with the “butt tuck”, but it has been a while.

TLG then had the idea to have a Kydex holster’s belt loop molded at the angle we would want to help tuck the butt of the gun better. This brought Rich Schaefer of Custom Carry Concepts into the project. Rich was a great guy to work with. He not only followed through on everything, but he also had the rare ability to understand what we told him over the phone and make it a reality. Having worked with many holster makers and knife makers over the years, I have found that very few can accurately translate an idea into physical reality. That may be unfair but Rich could do it.

That first holster (the Looper) worked ok but was not strong enough and in short order, the belt loop would crack. Not a flaw of Rich’s doing, you simply can’t bend a belt loop that much and subject it to all-day carrying and shooting stress and expect it to hold up. I then came up with the idea of molding the trigger guard to provide pressure on the butt of the gun. Rich understood and executed the first prototype perfectly. It was for a 1911 and it worked great. TLG quickly named it the Shaggy, a name he used to call me when my hair was anything longer than high and tight.

The Shaggy was really the first fully functional, durable modern AIWB holster. It was strong and simple in design, though it took a bit of doing to make correctly at the time. I happily used it for years, and it spawned a new generation of Kydex holster makers, some of whom gave credit and some who did not. It is not my preferred holster these days, but I still know many people who prefer that style to any other. As with many things holster-related, it comes down to specific body shapes and preferences.

At SHOT show 2009 (I think) TLG was talking to John Ralston of 5 Shot Leather. TLG told John that he needed to talk to me about a holster design and so after dragging me over to where they were, we started work on what was to become the SME. It was the first holster to use a wing to push the butt into the wearer’s side. It carried just high enough for me to get a full firing grip on the gun and as such, I didn’t really need a muzzle wedge. In fact, none of my personal holsters used a muzzle wedge except for the very first ones we designed with that failed leather maker.

After the SME hit the market, larger Kydex holster companies took note of the wing and started producing molded versions for use on their Kydex holsters. At about the same time, people started raising the height of their holsters to allow for a faster draw and more comfort. This in turn necessitated a return to the muzzle wedge and that is basically where we are today.

There are versions of the Shaggy available today, as well as what I would call “Kydex SMEs.” And of course, the original SME is still available as well. Every AIWB holster available today uses the concepts pioneered in these early holsters. Some have added their own spin, but most just use the proven formula. An interesting offshoot is the holster/mag pouch combo. These have some flaws for sure, but if you can conceal them, they can be a nice option. I have come to favor them in many ways, but for pure concealment, a stand-alone holster is usually best.

An interesting development that came about with the combo holsters is that for the first time in holster history, we have very functional clips for attaching the holster to the belt. When I was coming up, clips were verboten and would not hold up to hard use. The Alessi Talon was a partial exception, but only partially. Now we have injection molded clips as well as steel clips that can hold on under the roughest circumstances likely to be encountered by a concealment holster.

Also, Kydex holsters today are generally made to a much higher standard than they used to be. Gone are the days of hand molding a Kydex holster and having to reheat and rebend parts of it to get it right. With these improvements comes higher cost, and a modern top of the line Kydex holster now costs what a good leather holster costs. However, my Kydex holsters no longer need replacing every year, and they seem to hold up as well as anything I’ve ever used. Pretty exciting times for gun carriers.

There are of course a lot of details I have left out, so maybe we will fill in some of the blanks down the road. Coming up, we will look at some of the current holsters and best practices.