ProV2: Ten Years in the Making

Ten years ago, we released the PHLster Classic holster. It was our first holster with a molded-in organic wedge shape. Before that, we had produced foam wedges for our holsters and seen plenty of molded-in and bolt-on designs. Most of them were angular. Our main consideration was that the body itself isn’t angular, so the holster’s shape needed to reflect that.

Comfort and concealment, after all, come from conforming the gun and holster to your body. To get the fit we wanted, the holster needed to be body-shaped.

At the time, we vacuum formed our holsters from sheets of Kydex. That placed a natural limit on how far we could move away from the gun’s shape. The hot plastic formed around a mold that defined the holster’s interior. Enough of that interior needed to contact the pistol to maintain proper fit and retention. Those requirements limited what we could do with the exterior. The Classic reflected the technical limit of what we could achieve with that process.

In 2020, we released the PHLster Pro. One of the main lessons from the Classic was that the more specific the molded-in shape, the fewer people it fit perfectly. The holster needed an organic shape, but that shape also needed to be general and neutral.

The ideal shape against the body was probably something like a kidney bean or a used bar of soap: a smooth, sleek blob with a cavity to fit the gun.

By then, we were compression forming our holsters, but we still faced many of the same limits of forming plastic sheets. We turned as much of the Pro into that smooth blob as we could. Significant portions still needed to follow the gun’s shape for the holster to work correctly. We concentrated the rounded surfaces around common comfort problem areas, while providing a little wedge effect to help tuck the gun inward.

Neither holster, however, was everything we knew was possible. There was a clear end-state, just out of our practical reach. We were limited by the resources available to our little company. So, we had to be strategic and patient.

Following the release of the PHLster Enigma, we could finally take our first big step toward making that ergonomic vision a reality. We used our popular Floodlight inside-the-waistband (IWB) holster as the proving ground for designs we wanted to bring to the rest of the lineup.

In 2023, we introduced ComfortScape® on the Floodlight2. We modeled a smooth, continuous organic shape across the holster’s exterior. But shape was only part of the problem. It's easy to conflate comfort with softness. However, when wearing a piece of equipment in contact with the body all day, skin condition is a primary vector for discomfort. Specifically, temperature and moisture. A broad, uninterrupted slab of plastic against the body could stifle the skin and trap heat and moisture. And when the skin is hot, damp, and subject to pressure points and friction, discomfort increases rapidly, along with the risk of skin damage.

So we cut channels into that organic shape, leaving a series of rounded ribs. Those ribs maintained the overall contour while creating space for sweat to escape from the contact surfaces and air to circulate. The goal was to get the benefit of the smooth shape while reducing the buildup of heat and moisture against the skin.

It worked. Really well.

Despite being a BIG holster for duty-sized pistols with large lights like the TLR-1 and X300 attached, the Floodlight2 with ComfortScape® was surprisingly comfortable to wear all day.

We had proved that we could maintain the correct interior contact points for a secure fit while making the exterior substantially more organic. And it was clear, even early in development, that ComfortScape® needed to reach the rest of our belt holster lineup.

In 2024, a tremendous opportunity came along. Working with our manufacturing partners at Henry Holsters, we helped recruit a team of designers into the Henry Holsters organization whose work we had admired for years.

With Sean Fisher, Eric Rice, and Matt Babika on board, the project gained decades of holster design and injection molding experience. This Wrecking Crew had helped one of our favorite industry-leading brands create some of the most successful, innovative, and recognizable concealed carry holsters of the previous fifteen years.

With that team in place, we could finally sink our teeth into ProV2 and bring to life a product we had envisioned for years.

Injection molding gave us the freedom we’d been working toward. We could design the interior to maintain precise pistol fit and retention, while giving the exterior the smooth, neutral contours we wanted against the body. We could finally carry that approach through the whole holster.

Two years of prototyping, development, testing, and mold-making later, here we are. All while developing and releasing the V2 Enigma upgrades, the WedgeRx family, and Enigma Micro.

ProV2 brings together everything we’ve learned from making custom holsters and teaching concealment and ergonomics to concealed carriers. It combines proven PHLster technology with almost a century of combined holster design and production experience.

The result is the most ergonomic, most comfortable, and best-concealing belt holster we’ve ever produced. Every body-contact surface of ProV2 is smooth and rounded. The ComfortScape® contours not only dramatically improve all-day comfort, but also gently and neutrally help the holster wing rotate the pistol grip inward better, without creating uncomfortable or aggravating ergonomic conflicts. And the precision fit interior of the ProV2 retains the crisp and reliable retention you've come to expect from all of our holsters.

From everyone on the PHLster team, we hope you enjoy ProV2 as much as we do. We’re excited to bring you more advanced concealed carry solutions and technology in 2027 and beyond.

About the author: Jon Hauptman, owner of PHLster. 16 years of holster making and design experience.