Why Hybrid Holsters Are Less Comfortable Than They Look

A "hybrid" holster is an inside-the-waistband holster which consists of a soft, unformed backer material (usually leather) and a half-shell Kydex outer portion molded to the shape of the pistol. The soft material is the portion which interacts with the body, and the idea is that they're supposed to be more comfortable because they aren't hard plastic and the leather conforms to you.

But the reason that you're reading this post is because you're having the opposite experience. It's sweaty, uncomfortable, and it doesn't conceal particularly well for you. You're not alone. I have seen this countless times in my 15 years of making holsters and helping people to carry more invisibly and comfortably.

I'm going to skip past the litany of other known problems with hybrid holsters (frequent breakage, unsafe re-holstering, poor retention) and just stick to the topics of comfort and concealment.

Why aren't hybrid holsters as comfortable as they look?

The simplest answer here: temperature and moisture management. This is also known as skin microclimate, and the best practices for this are widely known in medical and outdoor communities. Managing the condition of skin is critical to patient well-being during long hospital stays. And in hiking and backpacking contexts, moisture management and friction mitigation are essential to making it down the trail and back again.

Skin needs to be dry and it needs to be able to breathe. When it isn't dry and breathing, it's far more susceptible to damage from friction and pressure points. The large soft backer of a hybrid holster, which is supposed to reduce the acute pressure points of the pistol, stifles skin. The smooth grain side of the leather contacts the gun, and the rougher flesh side contacts the body. With a pound or more of gun hanging off that leather backer, the stifled sweaty skin is in contact with the rough flesh side of the leather and the effects of friction are amplified.

You can deep dive on this topic in our video here:

Why do hybrid holsters conceal poorly for you?

They said that the holster conformed to your body. That should make it really low profile and concealable, right? Close, but not exactly. What matters is that the pistol conforms to your body.

At PHLster, we teach a system called Concealment Mechanics. Concealment Mechanics describes fundamental tools and principles for making your pistol disappear under your clothing. We built this system on years of designing holsters, helping people conceal, teaching classes, making custom holsters at our shop for in-person customers, and sharing information and conversations with all of our peers in the holster-making space.

While the leather back of a hybrid holster might wrap around the curve of your body, it does nothing to pull the gun inward, to make it take up less overall space between your clothing and your torso. The grip keeps sticking out because there's no leverage or structure pushing it closer to your body.

Why adding a wing doesn't fix it

Some hybrid holster makers have figured this out and have started adding wings to their holsters. (A holster wing uses belt pressure to rotate the pistol grip into you, so it doesn't stick out and print through your shirt.) But they didn't take something very important into account.

That big soft backer of the hybrid holster acts like a snowshoe. It might be soft enough to curve around you, but it's stiff enough to resist the effect of the wing. The strategy they're using to create comfort directly conflicts with all of the modern and proven tools currently in use to create concealment.

The holster wing won't work as well because the holster shell can't move independently of the backer, which means the pistol won't rotate as much when the wing applies rotational pressure. And even if they were two entirely separate pieces, the backer pad doesn't have nearly enough "squish" to allow the gun to really conform to the body. The hybrid holster backer is working at cross-purposes with Concealment Mechanics.

You don't have to buy anything new

As always, you don't have to buy anything new to solve your comfort and concealment issues. At PHLster, holsters are only half of what we make. The other half is education to help you improve your experience of concealed carry. We want to help you maximize your all-day comfort and carry invisibly using skills, not gear.

Dive into our Concealment Mechanics resources, make use of the holster collection you already have, and experiment. You'll be so much better informed about what works for you and why. Your next holster won't be purchased with guesswork and you won't have to cross your fingers that it does what you want.

If you have questions or want help dialing in your setup, come visit us in the PHLster Concealment Workshop on Facebook. Our team and our community will help you figure out what's actually going on and what to do about it.

About the author: Jon Hauptman, owner of PHLster. 15 years of holster making and design experience.