Officer.com Police Blogs & Podcasts

Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com

I know I promised a final review of SHOT Show “tomorrow,” and “tomorrow” was almost a week ago. As a way of compensating all of you for my procrastination, everybody gets an extra year added to their subscription (no, we don’t have subscriptions.)

One question I haven’t been able to get answered is why this trade show is “Shot Show” and not “the SHOT Show.” Is this anything like when we had to start calling “the Ukraine” just “Ukraine?” Someone has to think about these things.

Even though I’ve never been a “gun guy,” so to speak, SHOT still had a few neat toys, some of which had nothing to do with guns. A few years back, I’m told that police stuff was at one time all but outlawed at SHOT. One company got fined for putting out their law enforcement catalog at their outdoor sports booth. But now there is an entire section devoted to law enforcement, and police items turn up at the other booths far removed from the law enforcement area.

An Italian gear manufacturer called Radar 1957 displayed their new “Thunder” holster. The design intrigued me, if for no other reason that it was capable of so many adjustments. The holster is made of a Kydex-type material, and doesn’t pretend to be leather, pleather, or whatever else the faux stuff is going by these days. It has several nice security features that make the holster reasonably snatch-proof. To draw the gun, the wearer pushes down a thumbsnap, then rotates a strap that covers the hammer area forward with the same thumb. The thumb then moves to a large button or tab that has to be depressed straight down to release the gun. That may sound complicated, but it seemed a lot more natural to me than the sequence required to get my Glock out of a Safariland SS III a few years back.

To re-holster, the wearer just drops the gun back into the holster pocket–the weight of the gun is sufficient to lock it in. This is very different from Fobus-type Kydex holsters, where the gun has to be forcibly inserted into the holster until it “clicks” in order for it to be secure. The hammer shroud and thumbsnap have to be re-engaged manually.

That’s fairly innovative by itself, but the adjustments integrated into the holster got more of my attention. There are a couple of belt loops that will mount into the holster, allowing it to ride high, with the butt of the gun well above the belt, or almost as low as a tactical thigh holster. An adjustment on the body side of the holster adjusts both the angle of the gun frame relative to the vertical plane of the body (so that the butt can be pressed close in the the body or angled outward), and the horizontal distance the holster rides away from the belt. This permits one holster to be used by both men and women, since the latter often require spacers to keep the gun from pressing into the ribs or against the point of the hip. Finally, the cant of the gun will adjust from vertical to ninety degrees forward (so that the barrel would be pointed directly to the rear) to accomodate car seats and seat belts. This latter adjustment allows for a near-instant rotation to a more normal carry position, once the wearer is out of the car.

The holster is about as strong as any other on the market. Unlike some Kydex holsters that can be torn off of the belt by a reasonably determined human, tests conducted at the Polytechnic of Turin required about 159 lbs. (measured as 707 Newtons) to separate the holster from the belt loop. Although I would have expected otherwise, running the same test at -30 degrees C. (-22 F.) required another 22 lbs. (100 Newtons) to break the holster. The security features were even more durable, requiring almost 300 lbs. force (1332 Newtons) to get the gun out of the holster without releasing the security features.

I can’t help but think back to the KISS standard. Are too many adjustment options a bad thing?

I’d refer you to the manufacturer’s web site for more information, but there is apparently some secret handshake required to get in, and I don’t have it. Clicking on either the “English” or “Italiano” buttons does nothing. I got my technical information from a CD-based catalog they gave me. If you’d like to try your luck, a sales rep’s card indicates their e-mail address to be commerciale@radar1957.it.

Another gadget I had seen advertised but had never taken in at a trade show was the CoolCop. This invention of a San Jose (CA) PD sergeant is one of those simple “why didn’t I think of that?” things. An adapter attaches to the A/C vent of the patrol car. A vacuum cleaner-type hose leads from that to a nozzle that is inserted into the V-neck of the uniform shirt. It doesn’t attach–it just hangs there. If you have to bail out, do so–it will just fall off. There are adapters for most every cop car in common service. The whole thing will fit into a patrol officer’s war bag, so it’s portable from one car to another. The same company makes a number of other A/C accessories for animals, soldiers, kennels, and so on.

But far and away the greatest high-speed/low-drag item I saw at SHOT was a gadget called the VIDMIC. It’s a shoulder mic! It’s a video recorder! It’s a shoulder mic and video recording system in one unit! Outwardly, this is just a shoulder microphone/speaker like many cops have hanging from their shirt epaulet, and where that function is concerned, it works the same as any other. The difference is that this shoulder mic has a tiny video camera facing forward, and a small color LCD screen on the back. Inside is a solid-state sound and video recorder that stores its output onto a memory chip. The device will store about three hours of sound and video before the data needs to be offloaded onto a PC via an included USB cable. Rather than drain the radio battery, it has its own internal power source that recharges from a wall socket or a vehicle power outlet.

The video output is not going to thrill you. Resolution is 320×240, or about 1/4 of a standard computer display. It can be expanded to fill the display, but it gets kind of blotchy. The video you get from a cell phone camera is pretty close. However, this recorder goes where you go, out of the car, into the house, along the foot pursuit, inside the jail, etc. It may not be great video, but it’s likely to be enough to corroborate your story when someone tries to tell fibs about you.

When I saw this, I couldn’t help but think of how useful this would have been for me, working in an agency that didn’t have dash cams. I also did a lot of DUI enforcement, and getting those up-close-and-personal recordings of my “clients” would have saved me a lot of grief in court. And it’s affordable. The whole unit goes for about $500. If I was still working the street, I would have bought the floor sample before I left the show. Obviously, I didn’t get to field-test it, but if it lives up to its brochure, this one is going to be a hit.

At this writing, Earhugger Safety didn’t have the VIDMIC on their web site, but I expect that will be fixed very soon.

Finally, the night before the show ended allowed for some time for me to get together for dinner with some of the regular contributors to Officer.com who were at the show. I deal with most of the writers via the internet and phone, and there are some I’ve never met at all. These folks weren’t strangers, but it was still good to have an opportunity to break bread together. Left to right, that’s Steve Denney, John Wills, me, Frank Borelli, and Kevin Davis. That’s a thumbnail image at left, as with the others here, so clicking on it will get you the larger version.

Speaking of Frank Borelli, he has written his own after-action report on SHOT 2007.  It’s not scheduled to go live until Friday, but if you just can’t wait, you can find it here.