In the first post we learned that Don got his Christmas present only because his lady insisted Tucker get it done in time to put it under the tree.

Here’s the continuation of Don’s thoughtful review of his HF1 rig:

“I am an anally retentive, detail-inspecting, quality-discerning nut-case.  I’ve gone over every single millimeter of this rig and here’s what I’ve found:

MATERIAL:

The leather is absolutely first quality.  I won’t go into laborious detail about Tucker’s leather tanning processes, but I’ve never seen anything better and I’m a fanatic about good leather.  I’ve never seen leather construction so thick, yet so incredibly supple… but that only goes for the belt.  The HF-1 holster is a work of engineering art, in terms of its rigidity and form.  Stiff and absolutely defiant to deformation; no cheesy metal, or plastic inserts here.  There are simply no better quality materials, or methods used in the holster industry.

THE AESTHETICS:

The tooling and stamping on the set is flawless.  Every single cut is continuous and contiguous.  There is not a single mismatch, overrun, or alignment issue anywhere on any of the three pieces.  The equidistance of the flare stamping is a revelation of Tucker’s attention to detail. 

The dying of each piece is uniform.  It does not appear to be vat dyed (which I prefer), but vat dying tends to soften leather too much (as it involves agitating) and, at least in a holster rig, could compromise fit and function.  The (if it is) surface dying, really is flawless and again, very consistent.

The, now trademark-white stitching is also amazingly well blended.  To look at this rig, you’d swear he never reset the needle.  I can find not a single stitch stop, restart, or tie off.  It takes years to hone real skill on a Bostich machine (assumption)…  Tucker has put in some time here!

OK, suffice to say, the build quality of this rig… has no equal.

Now for the fun stuff!

To be continued…..see the next blog post.