What I’m Carrying Now: A VP9 and a Leatherman Juice

1. Needs a light.

2. Like the idea of a multitool but it should be carried to supplement a single blade folder that you can open with one hand. I like a half serrated blade. That’s just me.

   • Some people carry a knife as a tool and not as a weapon. The Leatherman has a knife.

     • tdiinva, a Leatherman has a knife blade? Really? Never noticed it on the three or four I own. Or on the SOG multitool in my hunt pack. Superior to the Leatherman in every way except harder to carry. Anyway, the Leatherman has a pen knife blade that is slow to deploy and of limited utility. That’s why I said it’s a good supplement. Never used a knife in a defensive setting. Hope I never have to. Seen it though. Everyone gets cut. I have used a fast to deploy, semi serrated knife to cut seatbelts a couple of times to extract victims. (Read Spyderco.) The blade on a Leatherman would have been a very poor substitute.

       • I guess you missed the main point which a lot of us don’t carry knife for self defense and the pen knife on a multitool meets our requirements. Not everybody has your ninja skills.

       • I carry either a Skeletool or Signal, both have one-handed deployable blades. For dedicated a folder, I’ve found a tanto blade with half or third serrated works best for me.
         If the object that you need to cut is already in one hand, it makes life easy to have a one-handed deployable blade in the other hand. One handed deployable always make it easier, but that’s what she said. 😉

       • tdiinva, are you obtuse; or just pretending to be? I’ll say it real slow this time. You know. So you can wrap your brain around it. I have never used a knife defensively. Ever. I have used them lots of times in a utility role. That little bitty blade on a Leatherman is good for cleaning your fingernails, but not much else. Otherwise, they’re a useful little tool. Ninja? No. Don’t own a sword. Or a little bow a few arrows. Or a blow gun. Didn’t even like kung fu movies when I was a kid. Always preferred to move thru the real world.

       • SoCal:. The MUT and the OHT are one handed.

         Gadson:. The blade on several Leatherman offerings is bigger than a pen knife. The blade on a MUT is about as long as average folder. How big of knife do you need for a daily use tool?

         I am not not being obtuse. You are being a tool. I know it’s cool to have fancy folder that you can look tactical as you use it to clean your nails.

       • tdiinva, all of my Leathmans are the original version. Don’t know about the larger versions. Find it hard to believe that their knife blade is much faster to deploy than the original. I do know this. At least one man is alive today because I deployed my Spyderco, cut his seatbelt and sent him to the hospital while EMS was waiting for fire/rescue to get there for extraction. Not Fire/Rescue’s fault. We only have one professional fire department in our county. The rest are voluntary. It was a couple of days after Christmas. The victim had empty toy boxes in the back of the truck. I had a choice. The Spyderco clipped to my pocket or the Leatherman on my duty belt. Guess which was faster?

       • Glad flag, you need some help if you can’t understand the difference between everyday carry and duty carry. Nice that you dropped the “duty belt” line. But then again, you may be the type who wears it off duty as well.

         FYI, I also carry a skeletool all the time and though I never “saved a life with it” I have cut threw stuff far tougher that a seat belt. And guess what, that thing is small enough that I ALWAYS carry it.

       • You post like you actually believe people give a shit what you think.

       • he posts like it matters. and then tells his aunts and nieces all about it over a plate of poached butthurt fish.

       • “…poached butthurt fish…”

         Wow. I haven’t seen that one before. I LOLed.

       • The only multi tool I will ever carry has to be able to deploy one handed. If I can’t do it, I don’t want it.

   • Just to be clear my post was to Mr. Flag

3. A nice believable set up. It does need a dedicated knife. Something auto if legal in your neck of the woods. Meh on a light. Depends on the environment. I have numerous handy but, seldom carry one on body.

4. Has anyone used that belly band? Most of them suck, but I’ve been looking at that one for the summer, because I hate floppy athleisure shorts carry of anything bigger than a CW380.

   • I like that the band holds the IWB holster. My VP9 does not have a mechanical safety and I carry one in the chamber so I won’t carry if I don’t have the trigger covered by something solid. The band holds in place without moving. It didn’t feel hot but when I got home from church it was a little sweaty. I was covering the entrance for both services so that was about 4 hours with no A/C.

   • The alien gear one is solid because it utilizes their IWB holster and clips. If you are going to belly band, this one is the 1% of them worth getting. I have the Cloak Tuck 3.5, and have given thought to getting a belly band for it. I rarely use it, and when I do, I still IWB right around the 3 o clock (I will never carry any further back that that) but the belly band makes sense if you are looking for comfort in something without a belt (which I also rarely do especially because my gym is at home). Just don’t invest in that goofy “modular” version of their holster. It’s terrible and bulky.

   • I picked up a ComfortTac Ultimate Belly Band. That is surprising is just how well it works with a CW9. the fake leather reinforcement for the retention strap snap is extended to cover the trigger. The retention strap is elastic and can manually slid over the top of the pistol without messing with the snap. It is still bulkier than the slim IWB holster, but the belly band conceals better and I don’t need a belt. The thought of a kydex insert for belly band, would have me shopping for shorts with belt loops and just using a IWB.

   • I ordered both, their pretty cheap, and one is on Amazon with their return policy. I have a couple of different cloak tucks, 1.0-3.0? and CW380, LC9s, Hellcat, P365XL, Bersa BP9CC, and G43X, so one of them should be the right size. The Kahr is teeny tiny, and the Sig, Bersa, and Glock are all about the same size.

5. Mmmmm HK love, the rough kind.

   Also, AlienGear makes a bellyband? Learn so.ething every day. A review on this stat. Looking at you JWT, after the mini epic on the MCX yesterday.

   How many rodents does this thing hold!? Inquiring minds and all that.

6. I too, recommend a light. YMMV.

   I like the VP9…just hate HK.

   I like the P30 a little better….but I still like a hammer gun once in a while.

   The question really is…..do you home carry?

   Martha Washington wants to know.

7. I just do not get the wristwatch anymore.

   Before the smart phone, I always wore a watch. Started with Timex. A relative gave me a Seiko V ACTUS for a present, wore that for a while. Wore Timex Indiglow for a while. Never owned a Casio. For sometime I went back to a sweep second hand in a Swiss Army Watch, very basic, served my needs taking vitals as an EMT.

   But with all that behind me just got tired of two timepieces. Watch and phone? And phone is synched to the atomic clock signals via the cell tower and network services?

   Never was into jewelry, so, wristwatches are in the box now, in the closet. Some pocket watches too.

   • So what happens when your battery goes flat?

     I am sure you need t hr e precision of an atomic clock. There are a lot of watches that sync to the A-Clock.

     • With all the opportunities around me t plug in and charge the phone, it runs out maybe once every couple of years.

       Nope, don’t need Atomic Accuracy. But it’s a nice to have feature. Like the bayonet for my Mossberg 590A1.

   • Excellent question.
     My cell phone replaced my watch several years ago too. Then I got a job that requires frequent time checks. I got tired of pulling out the big smart phone out of the pocket so frequently. Wrist watch is more convenient.
     Ymmv. Carry on.

     • Yes, I can see how that would happen.

   • I wear a smart watch. So much nicer than pulling my phone out. Also, if my hands are dirty, I’d rather not be touching all over my screen unless I have to.

     I don’t understand the battery issue that tdiinva mentioned. Some people just cannot keep their shit charged. Get a vehicle charger and charge it every time you drive. Most have fast charging so it doesn’t take long. I can go from like 70% to full in a 20ish minute trip. My watch battery life is not the greatest, but if you turn off all the bullshit health app crap, the always on screen, sensors, and the function that turns it on automatically (I have to press the side button for mine unless it’s a notification), then you should get a couple days or at least until the end of the night. It certainly is much better just glancing at the watch quickly to see if I even need to bother getting my phone out, especially if I am driving (but it’s mounted and charging anyways). I can read a text real quick or at least glance at my watch without really taking my eyes off the road.

     I think Samsung is coming out with a new gen watch this year, so if you ever thought about it, you should try it. I’ll bet someone like you would enjoy it. I never thought I would, and I don’t see myself wearing any other kind of watch ever again.

     • Lots of people rarely close all the applications on their phone and instead leave like 20 running in the background.

       Depending on what apps they are this can severely reduce battery life even when you’re not using the phone much.

       • I don’t just close them, I delete the junky ones they include with the phone.

       • Dude:

         I recently picked up a Google Pixel 3a XL, and I was coming from a “more expensive” Samsung S8… the Google phone at it’s max price point is far superior in every way, especially the camera (which is the real reason I want a decent phone, even though I rarely use it). I was shocked how little junk the google phone had. A couple apps maybe. I had to spend DAYS going through everything on my Samsung to disable background data and all that junk. Admittedly, I use google chrome most times, Gmail, and have a YouTube account (not for commenting or anything though) as well as YouTube TV, and I use Google Maps. All I did was enter my info and all my stuff was synched. The whole phone set up and customized in a couple hours, went through every single app including system apps and disabled background data and the massive notifications that come with smart phones in that same time frame. I was seriously impressed. I know my privacy is probably being sold to the kings in somalia, but really the only time I use encrypted services are for boog stuff and downloading anyways.

       • I had to give my ex a powerpoint style class on why her phone was always dying, and to stay off it while driving. I hope she’s back to using it like before I met her and her phone dies while she is trying to text while driving then drives off a cliff. What a waste of time. The relationship and the help with her lack of understanding technology. You’d think for a 29 year old she’d know more than me… being 35. Nope. She was batshit crazy… Didn’t realize it until I was knee deep. Puts the phone into airplane mode at night so the signal doesn’t give her cancer, unplugs the router at night, no microwave oven… for real. I mean, I get it, but dayum, doing that shit isn’t going to change it when you carry your phone in your pocket all day and the cell phone tower outside your window runs 24/7…

         Now when I go on a date I like to play “lets answer 100 questions to see if we should have another date”. And yes, some of those questions refer to electronics and battery life lol.

         Happily,
         Single Forever

   • It’s a lot quicker and easier to check a watch than to pull out a phone.

     It’s also a lot easier to maintain situational awareness and be ready to act… it boggles my mind on the occasion I see a cop on a stop pull out their phone and play with the lockscreen to get the time for a citation.

     Not the sort of thing that matters 99% of the time. Mostly it’s just easier to check than getting out a phone.

8. I’d recomend a dedicated light, not the cell phone’s light, maybe something with more than 100 lumens, can be turned on easly one-handed with an easy to find button, nothing requiring fine motor skills to turn on. As for a knife, used as a tool, one hand deployable blade makes it easy when the object to cut is already in the other hand. That belly band looks comfy, but I’m not familiar with how the spare mag carrier attaches. Thanks for sharing your EDC.

   • The mag carrier is from my shoulder holster and was in my pocket. I believe Alien gear makes one that clips on the belly band but I don’t have one yet.

9. That’s a big bitch to IWB.

   Also, this is without a doubt the only belly band I can get behind.

   No lie, at the most recent blm protest where I live, some tool was OWB a belly band. And we watched him take it out of his backpack (a ruger LCP I think), drop the mag, check it, stick the mag in, not chamber a round, dawn the fucking belly band, and owb that unload gun. He was also holding and shit ton of “comms” gear, and wearing thicc ass headphones while walking around. I couldn’t make that shit up if I tried. I’m not a candid picture kind of guy, and I don’t record during these things (for obvious reasons), but seeing the amount of nylon OWB holsters and their locations in Montana on people pretty much daily makes me want to be and just start it’s own social media page called “OWB Cringe – The Montana Chapter”. I could also do the same with vehicles on the road here, and the way people park. Love Montana, but dayum.

   • Ah nylon, the Walmart special. One small benefit to them is that many have a retention strap. Not great but it could buy some time if someone goes for a grab compared to the excellent kydex holsters without anything but passive retention. Of course at least a well-made kydex holster won’t just rip off your belt if someone grabs them…

     • If you are gone to carry OWB, leather is the way to go. The ones with the wider belt loops will not snag and print like kydex will in a cover garment and the thumb brakes on good ones are a joy to use. And it just flat out presents a better image if you open carry. More gentleman cowboy than mall ninja.

       • +5

       • You can get belt clips for OWB kydex that does not print and holds it just as snug as a full leather holster. Or even a hybrid of both. And no, kydex vs. leather does not signify that. Maybe some people’s appearances do, but if you saw my carry OWB and the way I dress, that thought would not cross your mind. If it did, you are biased and outdated. It’s 2020 sir.

10. That post was for Mr. Flag.

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