Carrying a handgun while wearing a pack.

[WeekendWarrior]

I put mine on my hip belt. I have a 2" piece of webbing on my hipbelt pad my normal open carry holster clips to like a belt. When I take the pack off, I put the pistol on my pants. I do wish my bino harness could handle a holster though.

 

[ID Mtn Man]

Big vote goes out to Black's Creek Guide Gear Raptor Chest Pack. USA made, high quality, family owned company. One of the very best $150 purchases I've made.

I'm quite puzzled on how people still carry 1911's these days. The gun is fundamentally designed to work with 230 gr FMJ pills and requires modification to use hollow-points or flat nose rounds. It was designed for a failure rate unacceptable with today's modern standards. They are finnicky with non-ball ammo, picky with magazines, need to be "broken in," and require tuning to get close to the same reliability. There are so many other options out there for guns that will eat up any kind of defensive ammo without tinkering and replacing OEM parts. If you're one of those guys who carries a "45 because there ain't a 46," then I might point out that there is still help for you in any number of lighter, more reliable, higher capacity designs. Glock, HK, Walther, even S&W or Springfield all make striker fired guns that will do more for less.

Personally, I'd rather have something built like a bic-lighter that's going to go off every time I touch the angry lever than carry around a piece of exaggerated history. Pick is Black's Creek Harness with G29 10 mm.

 

[warboar21]

Big vote goes out to Black's Creek Guide Gear Raptor Chest Pack. USA made, high quality, family owned company. One of the very best $150 purchases I've made.

I'm quite puzzled on how people still carry 1911's these days. The gun is fundamentally designed to work with 230 gr FMJ pills and requires modification to use hollow-points or flat nose rounds. It was designed for a failure rate unacceptable with today's modern standards. They are finnicky with non-ball ammo, picky with magazines, need to be "broken in," and require tuning to get close to the same reliability. There are so many other options out there for guns that will eat up any kind of defensive ammo without tinkering and replacing OEM parts. If you're one of those guys who carries a "45 because there ain't a 46," then I might point out that there is still help for you in any number of lighter, more reliable, higher capacity designs. Glock, HK, Walther, even S&W or Springfield all make striker fired guns that will do more for less.

Personally, I'd rather have something built like a bic-lighter that's going to go off every time I touch the angry lever than carry around a piece of exaggerated history. Pick is Black's Creek Harness with G29 10 mm.

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I don't know what 45's you've been shooting in the past. If you were having problems with anything other than ball ammo it would lead me to believe they were lower budget 45s. Neither one of my 45s nor my 10mm 1911s suffer from shooting any defensive style round. They shoot truncated cone, HP, ball, and wide flat nose bullets just fine. I do not have reliability issues of any kind with any of them.
I do have a friend that has a cheap no name brand 1911 that is a GI copy that will only shoot FMJ ammo. The old adage comes to mind "You get what you pay for"

With all that said I carry several different types of handguns when hiking or hunting. I recently added my third 10mm (Glock model 40) to the mix and am carrying it in a Gunfighters INC Kenai chest holster. Best way to carry a handgun while carrying a pack in my opinion.

 

[Deleted member 115360]

Look at the eberlestock nose gunner bino harness. I use one, and I love it, even though I have rare occasion to carry a sidearm. It slides into a slot in the bino harness and you'll honestly forget that it is there. Sorry if this has been mentioned previously, I'm too lazy to read 6 pages of responses to see if it has been.

 

[P7M13]

Wanna have fun?
Go to REI, sample many back packs, and ask the person assisting you, where do you think I should put my gun holster?
[edit to add]
While I prefer full sized binos, I found the weight/bulk wasn't worth it when loading out. I use a pair of 8x that fit in the palm of may hand or coat pocket.
Whatever holster you may select, practice with it. It may look and feel great, but as I have found, the ergonomics to access and draw may be quite unexpected. I won't wear kydex in the woods or mountains. Anything that is not fastened or secured properly *will* be knocked out of your pack.
I still use my snapped hip holster for my full size 1911 frame. When I sample a pack, I think about how it will ride with my holster. Too low, I don't buy. [/edit]

 

[Str8shooter1]

Anyone know of any holders for a G29 with laser/light? My viridian C5 light is always turning on...

 

[Northerngos]

For me, a chest rig is ideal. A belt or shoulder strap holster means you need to transfer the gun to a different holster every time you take your pack off (the meat eater crew found themselves caught flat footed in a grizzly charge for this exact reason). I am 5'8 and hanging a holster under a bino harness is way too much vertical space. I also find that putting a holster in front of the bino harness is too front heavy. I hunt with a Bowen classic arms nimrod in 475 linebaugh, or a Bowen redhawk-anaconda conversion so either are decently heavy guns, but my binoculars aren't light either (swaro 10x50s). Depending on what weapon vs binos I'd want the heavier item against your chest. In my case this also keeps the kydex holster from rattling on branches etc and doesn't impede silent bino, wind checker, or rangefinder use. I couldn't find a holster that fit my needs, didn't want leather as it holds moisture so rough made a kydex holster and used the fittings from one of my Clark fork leather setups. (Very nice chest rigs but again leather, and hard to have made in abnormal gun configs). I coupled it with a kuiu bino harness. The little leather tabs bind the holster to the fittings on the bino harness to keep everything together. Takes a couple of seconds to uncouple if I want the gun under a coat or if I'm taking the binos off. I found it worked well, was quiet, had good retention, and drained well. Something similar would be good with a 1911 and I'm sure you can find something ready made that would couple with the back of a bino holster. Something to consider also with chest rigs is to make sure the straps/holster doesn't come up behind the grip at all. If they do it can make a one movement weapon pull difficult.