The Snick has a holstory

[rednichols]

I mentioned the Snick in a post about an Andy Anderson 'open front' gunleather set. The Snick, too, was an open front of 1972, made of Kydex:

V1



V2

V3



The original version, which I've labelled V1 arbitrarily above, had an obvious weakness that the image I found happened to capture; i.e., knew about it and yet surprised to find a pic of it: the little tab into the ejection port could break.

That's OK! It's inventor never meant it to be a real holster. In '72 Jeff Cooper had instituted the 2-G holster rule for leatherslaps, and while I was visiting one of the ranges then with a friend, he introduced his solid evidence (to him) that the rule was so stupid that a plastic holster he had made in his wife's oven would meet the rule, but a quality Anderson would not.

To his chagrin even Jeff Cooper lauded the holster in his '74 book. Called The Snick for the sound it made when the pistol was drawn.

The Snick is the first Kydex holster, no apologies to Rogers' claims otherwise. Its inventor, my friend, was an aerospace engineer and Kydex was new (since 1966) created specifically to clad the interiors of aircraft and even hospitals because it can be thermoformed to suit but won't burn per se; no flame.

My friend handed his dumb idea (to him) off to a friend of his, Mike Harries, who promoted it in a brochure I'll put in the next post. The holster evolved away from the tab in the port (these were not holster makers, and you'll see that the originals were cut on a bandsaw, which creates weaknesses in the outline) into gripping the trigger guard (Audley was first, Rogers again certainly not second) and then finally (V3) only partially closing the front. This last version was quite a polished affair.

 

[rednichols]

The Snick's brochure; that's Mike Harries demonstrating it in the images:

Cooper's quote is from 1974, so the brochure is later .

Mel Tappan's book also raved about the Snick.



The last image is Rogers' copy of the Snick. Rogers wasn't part of the early revolution called leatherslaps, of the late '60s and into the '70s. But he did join up with the revolution after IPSC was formed in '76, introducing his own Kydex holsters to competition; which had the benefit of having a leather lining that did more than quiet the draw: as a laminate it strengthened the Kydex.

Late to the game, Rogers was nevertheless happy to form the USPSA with the Florida chapter of IPSC, to undercut what Cooper had accomplished with forming the latter just a few years earlier.

 

[JayCeeNC]

I never had a Snick, but had a few Rogers revolver holsters over the years.
Never could warm up to them.
Mostly sold them off to those who liked them more than I did.
That said, they were the historical forebears of the Kydex rigs of today.

 

[SG-688]

I've been searching ten + year old threads for over an hour - there's a trip down memory lane - but cannot find the discussion about who is pictured in the brochure. It was suggested that the person is not Harries but rather another person. Don't remember who.....

 

[rednichols]

I've been searching ten + year old threads for over an hour - there's a trip down memory lane - but cannot find the discussion about who is pictured in the brochure. It was suggested that the person is not Harries but rather another person. Don't remember who.....

And you never will . I knew Mike Harries personally and so that's why I said he is pictured in the brochure! The posts of his that I've found show a bit of, well, paranoia but not in the clinical sense -- ex-military types like Mike populated the sport that was largely SWPL types and included Jeff Cooper. In those days these people were called 'survivalists' and hence Mel Tappans' book was called 'Survival Guns'. Oddly they were called 'practical shooters' in Ed McGivern's time! Which was the 1930s.



Ah yes, here is his blog:

Michael On Michael - Michael Harries

Somehow within that blog is this piece, which I located outside it previously:

February 1995 - Michael's Observations - Michael Harries

Bruce died from a pulmonary embolism, according to an article about his wife ten years later who was by then a retired NRA President. Mike is clearly unaware of the cause of death in the obituary he's written. Bruce's wife makes the point in her interview that they had moved just too far from civilization for emergency services to get there in time for Bruce.

 

[crazyphil]

And you never will . I knew Mike Harries personally and so that's why I said he is pictured in the brochure! The posts of his that I've found show a bit of, well, paranoia but not in the clinical sense -- ex-military types like Mike populated the sport that was largely SWPL types and included Jeff Cooper. In those days these people were called 'survivalists' and hence Mel Tappans' book was called 'Survival Guns'. Oddly they were called 'practical shooters' in Ed McGivern's time! Which was the 1930s.

View attachment 364981

Ah yes, here is his blog:

Michael On Michael - Michael Harries

Somehow within that blog is this piece, which I located outside it previously:

February 1995 - Michael's Observations - Michael Harries

Bruce died from a pulmonary embolism, according to an article about his wife ten years later who was by then a retired NRA President. Mike is clearly unaware of the cause of death in the obituary he's written. Bruce's wife makes the point in her interview that they had moved just too far from civilization for emergency services to get there in time for Bruce.

I never knew it was called a snick, but I didn't like the sound
they made when drawing the gun. I tried Fobus and Uncle
Mike kydex holsters. They both made the snick when drawn.

Sorry to go a little off topic, but you mentioned the pumonary
embolism. I had the PE almost 24 years ago at age 60. Died
4 times. Once at home, once in the ER, and twice in the ICU.

Fortunately for me they got the clot busting drugs into me in
time. They put a Greenfield filter in my vena cava to catch any
clots coming up from the lower extremities. But a clot got ahead
of them so they had to go down through my neck and place a
second filter at the top of the vena cava.

I've been asked if I saw the light at the end of the tunnel.
No, I saw a guy wearing his red long handled underwear,
holding a pitchfork, standing beside a camp fire. I said to
myself I don't want to go here.

 

[rednichols]

I never knew it was called a snick, but I didn't like the sound
they made when drawing the gun. I tried Fobus and Uncle
Mike kydex holsters. They both made the snick when drawn.

Sorry to go a little off topic, but you mentioned the pumonary
embolism. I had the PE almost 24 years ago at age 60. Died
4 times. Once at home, once in the ER, and twice in the ICU.

Fortunately for me they got the clot busting drugs into me in
time. They put a Greenfield filter in my vena cava to catch any
clots coming up from the lower extremities. But a clot got ahead
of them so they had to go down through my neck and place a
second filter at the top of the vena cava.

I've been asked if I saw the light at the end of the tunnel.
No, I saw a guy wearing his red long handled underwear,
holding a pitchfork, standing beside a camp fire. I said to
myself I don't want to go here.

We all know you're not going 'there', Phil. Crazy, and Lucky, you are; but 'no pitchforks for you'!

 

[SG-688]

"Snick" ??? From the noise of mine, it should have been called the CLACK.

With the gen 2 at least, the draw worked as well, and more quietly, with moving forward enough to release the trigger guard and then up and out the top - like some revolver security holsters.

The magazine pouches were terrific.

An old photo. I think that's a Laka magazine with a Pachmayr pad.

 

[crazyphil]

"Snick" ??? From the noise of mine, it should have been called the CLACK.

With the gen 2 at least, the draw worked as well, and more quietly, with moving forward enough to release the trigger guard and then up and out the top - like some revolver security holsters.

The magazine pouches were terrific.

An old photo. I think that's a Laka magazine with a Pachmayr pad.

I agree. "Snick" is a bit of an understatement for the sound
made when the gun is pulled. CLACK is better. SNAP is the
way I would characterize it. It is a sound we definately don't
need to hear when stalking a bad guy in the dark.

 

[rednichols]

"Snick" ??? From the noise of mine, it should have been called the CLACK.

With the gen 2 at least, the draw worked as well, and more quietly, with moving forward enough to release the trigger guard and then up and out the top - like some revolver security holsters.

The magazine pouches were terrific.

An old photo. I think that's a Laka magazine with a Pachmayr pad.

Very good . Yours, though, is the third gen version with the big spring-loaded closure that snapped shut behind the pistol; recall that the first gen was a complete open front and only the little tab in the port (which in at least one case I've read popped into the guard and fired the pistol) made the noise. So 'snick!'.

Gee, it was humbling to read about Cooper and his 1950s leatherslaps at Old Miner's Days in Big Bear city. This was a big family event that happened to include the leather slaps (usually spelled in newspapers with two words, Jeff used one in his articles) and included the oldies we've all heard of including one image of Ray Chapman in a pre-Stingray Corvette complete with the obligatory pretty girl(s).

I mean, when the first was held in 1956 I was only 6! When I joined the movement in '70 I thought I was at some sort of cutting edge. I knew Cooper only during his heyday, which was the 1970s; some knew him only as a very old man but these old images show a very young WWII and Korea Marines vet in his thirties, making it all happen.

 

[SG-688]

The Corvette

Also recommended: Eldon Carl writing about the old days at his Top Gun Motorcycles web site.

 

[rednichols]

Also recommended: Eldon Carl writing about the old days at his Top Gun Motorcycles web site.

Indeed, the pic of Ray in his 'Vette and two pretty girls. Ray aged really well over the years; I knew him only in the '70s and '80s, that pic is from the '50s, and he looked the same (and a bachelor until '80, met a girl much his junior who was working the first Bianchi Cup and, understandably, married her). Gee, the stories I could tell about the goings on behind the scenes just at the Cup; imagine if one accumulated all the tales from the first leatherslap of '56 until the final B Cup (whenever that will be).

 

[rock n roll kid]

well .....

quick as a snick !

 

[rednichols]

We do now have the definitive date of introduction for the Snick, and therefore the first Kydex holster: 1970. A re-read of a 1981 article by Mike Harries, who took on the Snick when Bud Watson tired of it (Mike's words), confirms my own recollection that the Snick was created for Cooper's Mountain Man holster rule introduced 1970. That predates Rogers' claim of being first in '72.

We know why Bud used Kydex -- as an aerospace engineer he had some (it was created for aircraft interiors and is also used as wall cladding in hospitals) -- but have to wonder why Rogers chose it when ABS was readily available. ABS is also a wall cladding but Kydex was chosen for aircraft because it doesn't burn; instead it simply melts. Unlikely to have been a pre-condition for a holster.

In his interviews Rogers makes much of seeing a need for a more secure holster than was available in leather; but in reality he was a plastics man and simply didn't know how to work in leather.