Leather Goods: Selecting the Right Backer For Your Holster

Our leather is king.
 

Making the best holster on the market means doing a lot of little things other companies don’t. To make premium finished goods, we start with top quality components.

Whether it’s our belt buckles or our Kydex pockets, our belt clips or our leather backers, we guarantee our products are greater than the sum of their parts – and that’s saying a lot!

To start, we’d like to share more about the premium leather used in each and every holster we handcraft.

Breaking it Down

Whether you’re considering our classic SuperTuck IWB Holster or the new Reckoning Holster in OWB, you have options! The three quality types of leather to choose from when building out your custom CrossBreed Holster are black cowhide, Horsehide, and our Founder’s Series Leather.

Which one is right for you? Let’s take a look at what each one has to offer!

The Reckoning Holster is shown (from left to right) in Founder’s Series, Black Cowhide, and Horsehide leather.

Premium Black Leather Cowhide

Tanned exclusively for CrossBreed Holsters, our Black Cowhide is a vegetable tanned, drum dyed, 10-12 ounce top grain leather. The Drum dying process allows the black dye to penetrate all the way through the leather for colorfastness, so it won’t rub off on you when you wear your holster.

First, the hides are cut to the desired shape that best supports each pistol’s needs. Then, the cutouts are beveled to ensure maximum comfort and sealed with a leather conditioner to ensure it will last a lifetime.

The Black Cowhide’s superior quality is the key to offering great stability combined with extreme comfort.

Premium Horsehide

Our horsehide is made from the extremely sought-after Horween Leather, the only horse hide tannery in the United States. Horsehide is a very dense, tight grain leather that allows for a much thinner holster with the same increased stiffness and retention.

Though horsehide is moisture resistant and not waterproof, this leather will hold up better to high moisture environments better than cowhide because of its density. We recommend horsehide to people living in very hot humid climates or those who perspire heavily.

Horsehide does take a bit longer to break in than the cowhide options due to its tighter grain, but once that break-in period is over the horse will conform to the shape of your body and stay in that shape.

Founder’s Series 

We created our Founder’s Series to not only honor the legacy of CrossBreed’s founder Mark Craighead but to also give you the most comfortable carry of any leather-backed holster we offer. Founder’s is 100% vegetable-tanned leather using no dyes or lacquers. The hides then have natural oils and tallows applied under pressure, giving each hide and each piece a unique and distinctive appearance. The natural oils accent the grain and structure of each piece, resulting in a beautiful piece of leather that will withstand moisture, sweat, and environmental conditions.

To honor Mark Craighead’s legacy, the CrossBreed Founder’s Series leather is stamped with his signature and logo along with a simple cross to symbolize his faith and devotion.

Maintaining Your Leather

Although all of our leather hybrid holsters are treated with leather conditioner before they leave the shop, it may be necessary to condition the leather over the life of the holster.

The conditioner should contain gentle ingredients and needs to be applied only to the gun side of the leather with a minimalist approach. The backside of the leather will be conditioned with the natural body oils from your skin and no further treatment is needed. If you need to clean the leather of your holster, saddle soap is recommended, followed by leather conditioner after the holster has fully dried.

Putting it All Together

In addition to the various leather options described above, we also have several Kydex colors to choose from as well; Black, Flat Dark Earth (FDE), OD Green, Sniper Grey, and Tiffany Blue.

Here’s how they look together:

Whichever combination of leather and Kydex you choose, all of our holsters come with an unbeatable Lifetime Guarantee. After your two-week-try-it-free period is over, you can rest assured knowing that we will repair or replace your holster as long as you own it if it fails you in any way under normal use.

Superior Hybrid Holsters

Now that you know all about your leather options, head over to our website to build your own handcrafted holster today!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jenn Jacques is a fierce 2A  defender, concealed carry advocate, fishing enthusiast, avid hiker, hunter, and an all-around great gal with a gun. As a former Private Detective, Jenn put those skills to good use, fighting for gun rights in her home state of Wisconsin before becoming the first female editor of a 2A/Gun News site and moving on to become a publication writer, popular multi-media guest, and respected news expert.

Jacques has completed hundreds of hours of firearms training including USCCA’s Street Encounters and Low Light/No Light Training, she is a graduate of the Gunsite Academy, and was named a S.A.F.E. Summer Local Champion of Firearm Safety by NSSF’s Project ChildSafe.

A staple in the firearms industry since 2009, Jenn is proud of her professional accomplishments and to be raising her three children with her husband John who is also an avid hunter, 2A supporter, and an amazing father.

You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or shooting at any number of gun ranges across this great country.

 

    

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©MTC Holsters, LLC and CrossBreed Holsters Blog, 2020.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jenn Jacques and the CrossBreed Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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