Hi Justin:
When I started to buy gun leather more than 30 years ago, hand boned leather wasn't very common. Back then most people wanted hand tooled leather. What you saw was a lot of lined hand tooled stuff. You had to do some real shopping to find working gun leather intended for defensive purposes. That is when I became a fan of makers like the late Chic Gaylord and Milt Sparks. They went against the mass market and developed some fine working leather.
Today, you have to be careful. I see a lot of production gun leather with fine detail, that you know wasn't created by hand boneing. Also, many police agencies require some kind of retention device. It pays to be a smart consumer.
The two holsters that I pictured above from Ron Graham was derived from a new design that he calls the Gun Fighter. That design evolved and was intended to meet certain LEO specifications. By using the tension screw he was able to eliminate the thumb break or an internal retention device. What I like about the design is that he used additional tension screws to allow the shooter to literally "lock" the holster to the belt. The design is also unsual in that the end users--the LEO's themselves--participated in the design and evaluation process.
But sometimes hand boning may cause excessive holster wear. For example, I'm not keen on having the ejection port detailed on a holster since it actually causes the ejection port to scrape against the leather causing premature wear. Some custom makers will fill the ejection port with some kind of clay or epoxy to avoid the problem.
But, I sort of weird. I'm a confirmed holster junkie. I've always been attracted to new designs. I'm always looking for a better way to carry a firearm. I wasted a lot of money over the years, but I did learn alot along the way.
