Alright. I got my smartcarry in the mail today (thanks CoNate!).
Let me say that i think this is a great holster
, at least for me.
First: my setup
I am a medium tall skinny female. I dont tend to wear girly cloths a lot so i dont have any super tight pants or shirts, but i picked some of my tighter things for the pics so that you could see it better.
My gun in the kimber aegis. a 3" 1911. so keep that in mind. It is a fairly thin gun (single stack) with a fairly short barrel. this smartcarry is size: small. here is a picture of the smartcarry with my gun:
I am going to start with my normal (ish) cloths - jeans and a tshit, i picked a pair of jeans that were not too loose, fit just about right. and a normal fitting tshirt. with this setup i can wear my IWB, but i would have to be careful. especially bending down, etc. i print slightly with this shirt because it is old and worn- thin. Here is a picture of my pants with shirt lifted up some:
you can see that there is a LITTLE printing (red arrow). but i had to force it to do that. as you can see below, with my tshirt over it like it would be, you would never know:
I can bend over, sit down, hug everyone, take my shirt off (not that i would do that) or whatever i want to and nobody would ever know.
I also had no comfort issues sitting down, standing, or anything else. more comfortable than my iwb (which is very comfy)
Next i decided to try on some cloths that wouldnt work as well. I grabbed a pair of tight fitting black dress pants. As you can see, it does print at the butt of the gun:
but with a normal (thin) dress shirt on, theres still no problem:
i couldnt get away with my iwb with that shirt on normally.
my final test was a pair of very very thin shorts and and the skimpiest tank top i own:
as you can see, with this combo there is still some printing, but i could still get away with it. there is NO way i could carry with this shirt no matter what other type of holster i had. shorts are too short for any kind of thigh holster. shirt is way to tight and short for iwb, shoulder, belly, etc.
So as you can see, although it is not perfect and free from printing, its WAY better concealment than anything else i have ever used.
a few more notes:
-a thicker double stacked gun (XDsc for example) would print more do to thickness, but not by a ton.
-a longer barreled gun (4"+) would hit the crotch of my pants. but remember these are tightish girl pants. any guy pants that wouldnt be a problem.
-the thicker the pant material the better. (duh)
- i dont have any dresses/skirts here, so i couldnt try that out, but i know what the results would be. with a thicker skirt (denim, etc), it would be just fine. with a thinner skirt it would print. but you could easily pull it off if you have a shirt/sweater - skirt combo. only thing i can think of that it wouldnt work for is a thin dress.
- i hear a lot that these only work for guys with big stomaches. well. im a girl with no stomach, and it works great.
so i will be keeping this one for sure.