FWIW, every single piece of gear we use (including the pistol) can malfunction and can cause injury if used improperly. The SERPA Holster "problems" are on the same level as the Glock "KaBoom!" problems.... you can google either and find stories (some first-hand, some not) that will make you think that either piece of equipment would cause at least one death if ever allowed to go through a 2 day pistol course. Of course, that is not the case. I've had hundreds of them go through classes with no issues at all. We've had the occasional loose screw (literally) and one "blocked" button after half a day of rolling in dirt and pea gravel. The one safety issue we had with them (see below) was diagnosed as a severe case of operator error combined with poor supervision and design issues.
While you're googling, you can find my other (maybe even lengthier) explanations of why I not only
let SERPAs into my classes (
), but I actually like the holsters. They are intuitive and efficient. If used properly, they don't pose more risk than most other pieces of gear.
Proper use includes pulling the gun STRAIGHT UP out of the holster and not canting the grip/slide forward during presentation (entirely inefficient, unless you are shooting to the rear, yet many people with sloppy presentations do it.....). The one design issue I have with the SERPA is the very "speed cut" (or whatever you want to call it) that allows the rear of the top of the slide to be pushed forward during presentation on some (most) SERPA equipped holsters from BHPG.
In the first generation, the SERPA did not play well with the extended take-down lever used with the LaserMax guide rod on Glocks. We had a student fight this problem inappropriately (yanking on the gun repeatedly through several presentation drills) and shoot himself through the holster and his leg at Valhalla a few years ago. I wasn't on the range, but I watched the video. The student (Assistant Instructor for another nationally known school, Very Experienced Shooter, etc, etc) was the cause of the injury, not the gear. I believe that the lack of involvement by the instructor running the range (who clearly saw that the shooter was having trouble) was due to the profile of the shooter and I know that it affected the instructor personally after the fact. He learned a hard lesson and, in my opinion, was at least as responsible as the piece of gear. When I brought the problem to the attention of both Lasermax and BHPG, both companies responded professionally and BHPG has since changed the design to allow these two modifications to work well together.
L
In the interest of full disclosure: No, I am not sponsored by BHPG. I do get T&E samples of their stuff, as I do from several companies. I do use their stuff on my training DVDs, as I do use items (including hoslters) from several companies. They also are clothing sponsors for
The Best Defense TV Show and one of the co-hosts (Mike Janich) works for the company. He and several other employees at BHPG are friends of mine, as I have friends at other holster manufacturing companies as well.
Getting to the point of what Fatman said above... No holster is going to solve retention issues if you are not paying attention and if you can't fight in close quarters. The SERPA adds an extra level that does not require much (any, in truth) action that is incongruent with proper drawstroke... that is what makes it intuitive ("
works well with what the body does naturally in the context of fight") and efficient. You can find demos of the holster being ripped off the belt loop, but you can find that for many lightweight modern holsters. Read my last blog ("Fighting Through It") here at DRTV for a little info about the problems with presenting from a typical "retention" holsters. Lastly on this topic, and again to Fatman's anecdote, I attended the G.R.A.C.I.E. LE Grappling Instructor's course with a guy from a PD in TN who had just bought the latest/greatest Level 3 retention holster (the kind I describe in class as requiring "Grip, unsnap, push, twist, stomp you foot three times and hope" to present from) and couldn't get his presentations down after a couple days. Within a few minutes I learned how to unholster his pistol from the front with my left hand much easier than either he or I could get it out properly while wearing it!
There are scores of thousands of SERPA holsters in circulation. In the mid 90's when scores of thousands of Glocks entered US Law Enforcement use, every negligent discharge was blamed on the Glock. In time, it became obvious that it wasn't the gun that was responsible. In many cases, it was poor gun-handling habits that people "got away with" during the double action revolver days (whether it was an urban legend or not, many of us could certainly imagine a cop hanging a Glock on the hook on the men's room door!). There have also been other, less elegant and effective, designs that involved the trigger finger to release the firearm, but none have been as successful as the SERPA.
How many guns "kaboomed!' before there were Glock .40's ? How many people put rounds out negligently during presentation before there were SERPAs?
-RJP
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