Thanks to the generosity of The Tactical Professor, I have been able to spend some time with the Galco Walkabout for small revolvers. Here is a quick review based on living with it for the last week or so.
Shown with 5-Shot Speed Loader
Ambidextrous ability
Historically, holsters with on-board spare ammo storage are the laughing stock of serious gun people the world over. If you want to feel discomfort, get a tactical codpiece and try to go about your day with it. It’s terrible (for me) and I simply can’t use one. See the T-Rex Arms Sidecar for proof.
Why is anyone buying 20″ wide rigid appendix holsters?
The mission of my J-frame is being a clip and go, around the house, errand run, simple to carry gun. The limited capacity warrants having a backup ammo supply nearby. Given the size, weight, and geometry of the J-frame, it could be feasible and comfortable. The cylinder leaves a perfectly matched cylindrical void just outside of the holster that would fit a speed loader perfectly. I was pleased to see something like this existed in the Galco Walkabout.
The Pros
The fact that this concept exists is a pro. Googling wouldn’t yield any other holsters that attempted this concept, so I was glad that there was at least one. The holster does what a good holster should do. It protects the trigger, it stays put on the belt, allows a full firing grip, and the mouth of the holster contains a wire that keeps it open when drawn.
The holster is comfortable suede and has the hardware to mount for either hand, as well as whatever cant you desire, including a negative cant for cross draw applications if that’s your thing. I set it up for zero cant to wear AIWB.
The Cons
I think if there were a few things done differently, this would be a must own. Here’s my gripes.
The belt clip is trash. I think the quick fix to make this thing 10x better is to swap the clip for a Discreet Carry Concepts spring steel clip. This is my biggest gripe.
It only accepts HKS and 5-star speed loaders. No Safariland or Jetload or anything like that.
The ride height of the speedloader sits exactly in-line with the cylinder of the gun. It makes sense from a space-saving standpoint, but means you have to reach into your pants to grasp the loader. I’d like to see it ride higher, closer to above the belt line.
The retention snap will get you killed in the streets. I have it clipped out of the way because when I tried using the retention snaps, the grip of the speed-loader gets hung up in the suede and is guaranteed to make you bobble the reload. Also, when you unsnap it, occasionally the loader comes out with the strap, flinging the loader into the ether. I have several ideas to fix this, but I’ll keep them to myself for now.
Death in the streets. (colorized, 2019)
I think an enterprising kydex maker or leather worker could optimize this idea and make a very workable solution (holla at ya boy). But in the meantime this is the only game in town.
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After 14 years of study, I’ve got my mind made up that the ideal carry gun, for me, is a double action only pistol of some flavor. Since most of what we do with our guns is simply live with and around them, and when we do need our guns it’s rarely a shooting problem and more of a people management problem, I choose a Double Action Only pistol. The inherent mechanical safety increase (though perhaps marginal) afforded by the longer heavier trigger is enough that I’ve completely moved to DAO guns for defensive purposes. Any difficulties in managing the trigger can be overcome with deliberate practice, so no worries there.
Since I gave my mom my 442, I’ve had a hole in my collection that I’ve been meaning to fill. I decided I wanted a ‘shooter’ J-frame. Not quite an underwear gun, but an easy to carry small framed revolver. It would be carried in a belt/pocket/ankle-holster, with less emphasis on lightweight, and more emphasis on ‘performance’.
I also know that centennial model Smiths are some of the best selling guns in the country, so there’s a lot of people who secretly carry one daily while they argue on the internet about why a Glock 19 is the best carry gun. It’s OK, I won’t tell anyone.
The amount of worthless information about small revolvers is staggering. Just visit YouTube for endless hollow reviews and misinformation. I felt like I owed it to the community to make something useful about little revolvers.
The Test-Bed
What would my ideal ‘fighting J-frame’ look like? I am not a Smith&Wesson aficionado by any means. I don’t have the depth of knowledge or patience to wait for the perfect vintage snub to come up on gun broker. Nor do I have the wallet to pay the wild prices people ask for used revolvers. So my Hot-Rod would have to be a current catalog item.
After much late night bourbon fueled research, I decided that the steel framed, 2″ barrel, pinned front sight 640 model in .357 would be a suitable choice. I came upon a great deal on a local forum and jumped at it.
The Upgrades
The ability to customize and tune j-frames is well known. The aftermarket accessories market is chock full. You can find the perfect stocks (grips) to fit your hand and optimize trigger reach, find springs and firing pins to drastically improve smoothness and weight of the trigger and maintain reliable primer ignition, frame plugs if you don’t want to deal with the internal lock, and there’s even front sights for the pinned front sight models. So, here’s a list of the upgrades I have planned, and the reasoning for them:
Apex Spring/Firing Pin kit
Altamont ‘combat’ grips
Front Sight for pinned j-frame
ZBK J-Frame holster (place holder photo)
APEX TACTICAL Duty/Carry Spring kit – $22 A popular kit from a well known brand. Includes the mainspring, trigger return spring, extended firing pin and firing pin spring. It reduces the weight of the trigger press by about 3.0 lbs and makes the gun immediately more shootable. Always test fire your chosen ammo to guarantee reliable ignition.
Trijicon tritium front sight – $70 It was between this and an XS big dot. I decided for a slightly smaller front sight to maintain the ability for precise aiming beyond 10 yards. The white ring should help at speed, and the tritium will buy a little low light sighting ability.
Altamont “combat” grips for J-frame – $55 – Since this isn’t intended as a pocket gun, I decided to go with the slightly-longer-than-boot-grip sized combat trips from Altamont. They are highly recommended by people I trust, and they look great.
Instead of throwing all these on the gun and reporting back that they ‘feel good’ and ‘smooth things out’ and I talk about ‘shootability’, I want to answer a more important question. Are the upgrades worth the cost?
“How can you determine this?” you ask. Science!
Specifically, I’m going to create a testing protocol that consists of four well known tests that provide certain data about shooting. I’ll gather data with the gun in its stock configuration, then make one change, and redo the testing. Any increase (or decrease) in performance will be readily apparent. I will also shoot the tests with other revolvers, small autos, and even larger autos to be able to quantify performance across platforms.
How To Quantify Performance?
I wanted to look at several aspects of ‘good shooting’ when it comes to my testing. I’m interested in pure accuracy, without the pressure of time. Pure speed, without a strict pressure of accuracy. Lastly, a blend of speed and accuracy. I wanted to use targets that I could print on my printer. I also wanted to keep the total round count under 50 rounds because j-frames can beat you up. Here’s what I decided on.
Test 1:
Pure Accuracy Test – 10 shots @15yds on a B8, no time limit
Test 2:
“5 yard Roundup” 5 Yds, B8 repair center
four strings of fire, each with a time limit of 2.5 seconds.
Scoring is by the rings on the target for the ten shots, equaling a possible 100 points. Hits off of the ten-inch repair center minus ten each. Late hits are five points are deducted per late shot.
String 1: One Shot From the Holster (I used muzzle on table, support hand high on chest. Copying hand position of the draw since my range doesn’t allow holster work)
String 2: Four Shots From the Ready
String 3: Three Shots From Strong-Hand-Only Ready
String 4: Two Shots From Support-Hand-Only Ready
Test 3:
“HITS SUPER SNUB TEST” – B8 repair center, all shot from low readyH
10 Yards – 5 shots in 8 seconds. Two hands
5 Yards – 5 shots in 5 seconds. Two hands
3 Yards – 5 shots in 3 seconds. Strong hand only.
Test 4:
Pure Speed – Snubbie Bill Drill: 5 shots, 5 yards, on full piece of paper
Of course there are intangibles and things I can’t easily quantify with scored targets and a timer. There are also environmental and lighting conditions that I can’t reproduce on the range. There is limited time and ammunition for me to do multiple tests with the same configuration. I am only one person, so I can’t get several shooters to shoot the tests with each configuration. However, I believe this is a good quantitative way to see if an upgrade is actually buying performance, and approximately how much. Thanks for following along. More soon.
If you find value in my ramblings, please subscribe, share, and shop through our amazon affiliate link. Or consider a small donation through PayPal.
I’ve been outfitting my new Ruger LCR for carry, and I wanted to install a clip to allow easy carry around the house. ClipDraw doesn’t make a custom LCR clip, but they do make a universal revolver clip that uses 3M adhesive tape and a screw together mount.
I’m a big fan of this style of ‘holster’ for small double action revolvers and small DAO pistols. I do NOT recommend them on anything resembling a Glock’s SFA trigger.
I snapped some photos and will outline the simple install.
Clean the surfaces with an alcohol prep to remove crud.
Confirm where you want to install the clip, and trim the adhesive strip so it fits in the available space on the frame of the gun. Take care to keep it on a single flat surface so it bonds well with the steel mount.
Firmly press the mount onto the adhesive at the desired location. If you have a weird application, like trying to work around a crimson trace laser for instance, you can trim the parts as desired. Since that wasn’t needed here I just simply mounted.
Note there are three threaded holes. This allows two positions of the clip that grabs the belt, for some fine tuning of ride height. This gives a bit of control over getting a full firing grip vs more deep concealment. Screw the screws and away you go.
