July 4 is the traditional occasion to show off BBQ guns. The rest of the summer, most people prefer to carry discreetly, and often that means wearing pocket pistols. A great variety of small revolvers and autoloaders, such as the Ceracoated PF9 above, fit in a typical pocket of shorts or slacks.
Holsters help to break up outline of the handgun, making pocket carry very hard to detect. A person sensing trouble can even get a comfortable firing grip before removing the hand from the pocket. Unfortunately, while the weapon and the relaxed hand can both fit through the narrow pocket opening, the firing grip is a lot wider. Drawing a pocket pistol quickly can be difficult: it’s the “monkey fist” problem. The size limitations on the subcompacts turns out to be more the size of your hand and less the gun dimensions.
At the NRA show, I saw CCW Breakaways and looked into their idea. The concept turned out to be quite simple: when you draw energetically, two snaps come undone and the pocket opening nearly doubles for easy firearm deployment. The snaps are not visible until forced open. The pockets are reinforced and supplied with thin but fairly rigid plastic inserts to obscure the shape of the gun. I got a few for myself and some for my friends. It definitely sped up the pistol deployment.
Ceracoat has definitely grown on me. Tennessee in the summer is humid enough to make blued guns an iffy option. I am also not a huge fan of bright stainless due to glare. Non-glare protective finishes, of which Ceracoat is one, are quite nice to have. Tan is my favorite because it stays cooler in the sunlight, yet blends in fairly well with the vegetation around here.
I bought a pair of these in black. In San Antonio, TX, I found the material too heavy especially with the large pocket areas and around the waist. Quite hot, in a hot and humid environment. Also the black ones faded quickly and looked old after only a few washings in cold water. Perhaps they have corrected this by now. I ended up giving mine away to a homeless shelter.
Do the snaps create pressure points under the belt?
No, they do not. I just brought three pairs to my friend and he sat the rest of the evening wearing the jeans with a PT145 in the pocket. The gun wasn’t visible to us and he said he could hardly feel it due to good internal padding. Pocket dimensions are adjustable.