Galco Miami Classic Old and New

[imschur]

Back when S&W released their first 40 S&W the model 4006 I was in line to get the new wonder pistol. Along with that I needed a holster to carry it. Being left handed, no internet and poor I wound up getting the Galco Miami Classic shoulder holster. It turned out to be a pretty good way to carry the heavy bastard. The 4006 and I did not get along and it became to date the only gun I have ever removed from my collection. The holster was moth balled for 2 decades. Fast forward to last year. For a bunch of reasons I decided to hang up my trusty Para P12 in favor of the Gen 4 Glock 22. As part of the switch I once again needed a shoulder holster. I had initially planned a custom holster but the little woman wanted to buy it for me for Xmas with one stipulation, it had to be something she could order and get under the tree. I said what the hell. I will try the Galco Miami Classic once again.

Since that time I have used the holster without issue and think it's a decent value for an off the shelf holster. Well the other day I was looking for something in the basement and i decided to look in my now garbage bag full of moth balled holsters and I happened upon my original Miami Classic. I was struck by a few things. The leather on the holster was substantially thicker and much more rigid. The offside mag pouches we even thicker. The current model is thinner, smoother almost suede like rather than the coarse thick leather of the original. The other big difference was the shoulder straps were thinner on my original model not by much but thinner none the less.

Now here's the thing you might think that the differences were for for cost savings in 2012 and that may be the case but the positive is the holster is easier to use, no tug of war getting spare mags out. The straps are not stretching at connection points and snaps as was the case with my original model.

All in all I am pretty pleased and consider this an improved product.

[planeflyer21]

I wore a no-name shoulder holster for a couple of years.  I'm surprised they aren't more popular.

The big caveats are WATCH YOUR MUZZLE when drawing and reholstering and (IMO) they work best when there is enough weight of extra mags/speedloaders to counterbalance the pistol.

Jon

[392heminut]

The 4006 and I did not get along and it became to date the only gun I have ever removed from my collection.

<lmao> I can certainly relate to that, those guns were crap! When our department hired a retired NMSP Captain as chief his first act was to buy and issue 4006 Smiths to everyone. I was the dept. firearms instructor and armorer and found that pretty much immediately qualification scores dropped and officers that had no problem qualifying in the past now had problems. We also had malfunction problems and the ergonomics of the gun sucked. The chief was fired 14 months later (for other reasons) and we talked his replacement into getting us HK USP pistols. Everyone's scores went back up, malfunctions pretty much went away and the officers had a lot more confidence in their sidearm. If someone GAVE me a 4006 I would get rid of it!

[imschur]

Let me say that I love S&W firearms however that 4006 was dinner plate accurate at 25 yards. The magazines kept saying the ammo needed to improve LOL. Then the gun on two occasions sent parts flying at me. One was the rear sight. I forget the other. It was happy day when I traded it for my P12 back when Para was good too LOL