For the entire month of March, we ran our 2nd rendition of The Best Holster In The History Of Ever poll, and the results are now in! This year over 58,000 votes were logged. This exceeded our previous survey back in 2014 which had just over 20,000 votes.
The questions this year were simple, and allowed us to generate a lot of great data. Here is what we asked:
1) What holster(s) have you owned?
2) What holster(s) have you actually used on a regular basis?
3) What holster is the most comfortable?
4) What holster is the best bang for your buck?
5) Which holster companies have seen your repeat business?
The first two questions allowed us to generate a Utilization Rate for each holster company, meaning we can see which holsters are actively used by the people who own them.
The Results Are Split Up Into Three Categories
To make this as fair as possible, we’ve split up the results into three separate categories, based on the number of votes received:
> 1,000 Votes (11 holster companies)
250 – 999 Votes (13 holster companies)
1 – 249 Votes (14 holster companies)
This allows the holster companies with smaller social media followings to have separate results from those with massive followings, as well as trying to remove any bias that could be incorporated into those holster companies with lower voting numbers.
58,115 VOTES from 16,813 VOTERS
Yikes! That’s nearly 40,000 better than the first time we ran this survey!
There were two main differences with the 2016 survey verses the 2014 survey:
- In 2014, users were able to vote once per day during the 30 day voting process, and were only allowed to select one holster company for each vote.
- In 2016, users were able to vote just once during the 30 day voting process, but were allowed to select multiple holster companies for question 1 (which holsters they’ve owned).
For the entire survey this year, a total of 16,813 voters turned up.
Voters were allowed to choose the ‘Other’ option for holsters that were not on the list. The total number of ‘other’ votes was 2,929. Any holsters mentioned in an ‘other’ vote, that were already on the list, were added to the total for that holster company. Many of the ‘other’ votes were comprised of written votes such as:
- Homemade holster
- Friend made me a holster
- I forgot the name
- Blank
For these ‘other’ votes, no stats were used.
Now for the results! The following will give the TOP 3 holster companies for each category (as well as for each voting category, as outlined above) starting with Utilization Rate, followed by Comfort Rate, then Best Bang For Buck Rate, and finally Repeat Business Rate.
To find the Utilization Rate, we looked at two numbers for each holster company: The number owned vs the number actually used. With these figures, we came up with the following Utilization Rates, based on the three category splits as described above.
UTILIZATION RATE RESULTS (greater than 1,000 votes)
#1 ALIEN GEAR HOLSTERS
OWNED: 12,233
USED: 11,511
UTILIZATION RATE: 94.10%
#2 WHITE HAT HOLSTER
OWNED: 1,992
USED: 1,860
UTILIZATION RATE: 93.37%
#3 CROSSBREED HOLSTERS
OWNED: 3,420
USED: 2,266
UTILIZATION RATE: 66.26%
UTILIZATION RATE RESULTS (250 – 999 votes)
#1 N82 TACTICAL
OWNED: 722
USED: 435
UTILIZATION RATE: 60.25%
#2 StealthGearUSA
OWNED: 612
USED: 360
UTILIZATION RATE: 58.82%
#3 G-Code Holsters
OWNED: 429
USED: 230
UTILIZATION RATE: 53.61%
UTILIZATION RATE RESULTS (1 – 249 votes)
#1 SQUARED AWAY CUSTOMS
OWNED: 67
USED: 50
UTILIZATION RATE: 74.36%
#2 ACCELERATED-SOLUTIONS
OWNED: 62
USED: 42
UTILIZATION RATE: 67.74%
#3 Theis Holsters
OWNED: 101
USED: 55
UTILIZATION RATE: 54.46%
The next survey question asked voters to choose the most comfortable holster that they’ve owned, out of the selections they made in question 1. When dividing these two numbers, we are given the Comfort Rate.
COMFORT RATE RESULTS (greater than 1,000 votes)
#1 ALIEN GEAR HOLSTERS
OWNED: 12,233
MOST COMFORTABLE: 10,725
COMFORT RATE: 87.67%
#2 WHITE HAT HOLSTER
OWNED: 1,992
MOST COMFORTABLE: 1,666
COMFORT RATE: 83.63%
#3 CROSSBREED HOLSTERS
OWNED: 3,420
MOST COMFORTABLE: 1,291
COMFORT RATE: 37.75%
COMFORT RATE RESULTS (250 – 999 votes)
#1 StealthGearUSA
OWNED: 612
MOST COMFORTABLE: 259
COMFORT RATE: 42.32%
#2 N82 Tactical
OWNED: 722
MOST COMFORTABLE: 243
COMFORT RATE: 33.66%
#3 G-Code Holsters
OWNED: 429
MOST COMFORTABLE: 65
COMFORT RATE: 15.15%
COMFORT RATE RESULTS (1 – 249 votes)
#1 SQUARED AWAY CUSTOMS
OWNED: 67
MOST COMFORTABLE: 46
COMFORT RATE: 68.66%
#2 ACCELERATED-SOLUTIONS
OWNED: 62
MOST COMFORTABLE: 37
COMFORT RATE: 59.68%
#3 Vedder
OWNED: 63
MOST COMFORTABLE: 19
COMFORT RATE: 30.16%
Next, we asked voters to tell us which holster purchase was the Best Bang for their Buck. Allowed just one selection, the following numbers were generated.
BEST BANG FOR BUCK RATE RESULTS (greater than 1,000 votes)
#1 ALIEN GEAR HOLSTERS
OWNED: 12,233
BEST BANG FOR BUCK: 11,162
BEST BANG FOR BUCK RATE: 91.24%
#2 WHITE HAT HOLSTER
OWNED: 1,992
BEST BANG FOR BUCK: 1,644
BEST BANG FOR BUCK RATE: 82.53%
#3 CROSSBREED HOLSTERS
OWNED: 3,420
BEST BANG FOR BUCK: 1,109
BEST BANG FOR BUCK RATE: 32.43%
BEST BANG FOR BUCK RATE RESULTS (250 – 999 votes)
#1 StealthGearUSA
OWNED: 612
BEST BANG FOR BUCK: 177
BEST BANG FOR BUCK RATE: 28.92%
#2 N82 Tactical
OWNED: 722
BEST BANG FOR BUCK: 171
BEST BANG FOR BUCK RATE: 23.68%
#3 Raw Dog Tactical
OWNED: 480
BEST BANG FOR BUCK: 65
BEST BANG FOR BUCK RATE: 13.54%
BEST BANG FOR BUCK RATE RESULTS (1 – 249 votes)
#1 Vedder
OWNED: 63
BEST BANG FOR BUCK: 45
BEST BANG FOR BUCK RATE: 71.43%
#2 Squared Away Customs
OWNED: 67
BEST BANG FOR BUCK: 47
BEST BANG FOR BUCK RATE: 70.15%
#3 Accelerated-Solutions
OWNED: 62
BEST BANG FOR BUCK: 40
BEST BANG FOR BUCK RATE: 64.52%
The last question in the survey, allowing just one vote, asked the users which companies have seen repeat business from them. The results are as follows:
REPEAT BUSINESS RATE RESULTS (greater than 1,000 votes)
#1 ALIEN GEAR HOLSTERS
OWNED: 12,233
REPEAT BUSINESS: 10,210
REPEAT BUSINESS RATE: 83.46%
#2 WHITE HAT HOLSTER
OWNED: 1,992
REPEAT BUSINESS: 1,602
REPEAT BUSINESS RATE: 80.42%
#3 CROSSBREED HOLSTERS
OWNED: 3,420
REPEAT BUSINESS: 1,457
REPEAT BUSINESS RATE: 42.60%
REPEAT BUSINESS RATE RESULTS (250 – 999 votes)
#1 StealthGearUSA
OWNED: 612
REPEAT BUSINESS: 255
REPEAT BUSINESS RATE: 41.67%
#2 G-Code Holsters
OWNED: 429
REPEAT BUSINESS: 166
REPEAT BUSINESS RATE: 38.69%
#3 N82 Tactical
OWNED: 722
REPEAT BUSINESS: 262
REPEAT BUSINESS RATE: 36.29%
REPEAT BUSINESS RATE RESULTS (1 – 249 votes)
#1 Squared Away Customs
OWNED: 67
REPEAT BUSINESS: 51
REPEAT BUSINESS RATE: 76.12%
#2 Accelerated-Solutions
OWNED: 62
REPEAT BUSINESS: 35
REPEAT BUSINESS RATE: 56.45%
#3 Trex Arms
OWNED: 51
REPEAT BUSINESS: 17
REPEAT BUSINESS RATE: 33.33%
While we always want to find out the best, it’s also notable to mention who trailed in last place. For each category, we’re only going to look at holster companies that received over 1,000 votes. For a full list of results, click here.
Worst Utilization Rate:
Uncle Mike’s, 30.04%; Fobus Holsters, 30.63%; Blackhawk, 41.59%
Worst Comfort Rate:
Uncle Mike’s, 1.01%; Fobus Holsters, 1.67%; Blackhawk, 2.11%
Worst Best Bang For Buck Rate:
Uncle Mike’s, 1.80%; Fobus Holsters, 2.26%; Blackhawk, 2.38%
Worst Repeat Business Rate:
Uncle Mike’s, 14.36%; Fobus Holstesr, 15.93%; DeSantis Holsters, 19.88%
Total Voters: 16,813
Total Votes for holsters owned: 58,115
Total Votes for holsters used: 32,157
Average number of holsters ever owned by voters: 3.46
Of the average number of 3.46 holsters owned, 1.80 holsters are actually used. This means that roughly 1/2 of all holsters owned are not used. Bummer! Which leads us to…
While we don’t have average holster prices for each holster company in the survey, we’ll throw out a number that seems reasonable.
From the data collected, we know that 58,115 holsters were purchased by 16,813 people surveyed. Of those 58,115 holsters, only 32,157 were reported as being actually used by the owners. That means we have 25,928 unused holsters.
Since the spectrum of holster prices is so great, we’ll use a number that seems fair: $50 per holster.
When we multiply $50 by 25,928 unused holsters, we have a total of $1,296,400 wasted.
On average, this means that each person wasted $77.11 on holsters that they don’t use.
For contrast, we’ll use a few other average holster prices:
$40 average holster price: $1,037,120 total wasted, $61.69 wasted per person
$50 average holster price: $1,296,400 total wasted, $77.11 wasted per person
$60 average holster price: $1,555,680 total wasted, $92.53 wasted per person
Of course we don’t know how many of those people sold their unused holsters or returned them, but we’ll assume that the majority of people have their unused holsters sitting in a drawer somewhere… like the rest of us.
But let’s not stop there…
If we want to get really crazy, we can come up with an estimate of money wasted on holsters across the entire US population with active concealed carry permits. According to a recently published paper by John Lott Jr. of the Crime Prevention Research Center, an estimated 12,802,740 US Citizens possess concealed carry permits. Of course this doesn’t mean that every single permit holder owns even one holster, however the number may be offset by the number of people who carry concealed in states that do not require a permit to carry. Regardless, let’s just cut the number in half to determine our results.
Assuming that those (half) nearly 6.4 million permit holders went through a similar holster-buying process as those who took our survey, we can project, at a $50 average holster price, that;
Average of 3.46 holsters owned x 6,400,000 permit holders = 22,144,000 holsters purchased.
Average of 1.66 holsters not used (3.46 – 1.80) = 10,624,000 holsters unused.
10,624,000 unused holsters x average price of $50 per holster = $531,200,000 wasted money across the US on unused holsters.
Who knows how close or far off that number is, but it sure is interesting to think about.
For a full list of results, including all statistics, click here.
Thank you to everyone who participated, and for helping us make this year’s survey a huge success! We’ll do it all again next year, and hope to see you again!
