- I'm Sarah from PHLster and today we're going to talk about
how to use the poke and check method
to get better concealment.
You might be familiar with this technique already
from adjusting your enigma
but you can also use it to improve your concealment
with a regular belt holster as well.
Poke and check is exactly as simple as it sounds.
You just push on the gun, poke it,
and check what effect it has.
The goal is to eliminate any printing,
which is when the outline of your gun
shows through your clothing,
and to get to your Maximum Concealment Potential.
That's when you get the exact right balance
of adjustments to get the best possible concealment
you can get with that gun.
This video assumes you've already found your
concealment sweet spot,
which is the ideal spot on your body for the gun.
You want to find your sweet spot first
because you'll need different adjustments
for different positions on the body.
So you don't want to go all the way through your adjustments
only to realize you're not in the quite the right spot.
We've got a whole separate video
for finding your sweet spot,
so be sure to check that one out if you haven't already.
Once you've found your sweet spot put your gun on
and make note of any printing or trouble spots.
For example, you can see that right now
the grip of my gun is printing.
So to do the poke and check,
I push in on any areas of printing
and then I observe what happens.
So you can see if I push the grip of my gun in like this,
if I could just get a little more grip rotation
I'd have way better concealment.
And now you can see here my slide is printing.
If I could just get the slide to tuck in more
I'd get better concealment.
By using the poke and check method to move the gun
I can make the gun conform to the ideal spot on my body.
So think of it like you're moving
the gun freely in 3D space.
Once you know exactly where it needs to be
you can use the concealment mechanics to make it stay there.
Concealment mechanics are a set of basic physics principles
that help us move the gun on the body
and keep it where we want it,
while maintaining stability and access to the grip.
So for example, I know from the poke and check method
that pressing in on my slide gives me better concealment,
but I can't stand there and press in on my slide all day
and I don't want to just put something over my slide
to keep it pressed in because then I wouldn't
be able to draw the gun.
So the concealment mechanics are the physics principles
we apply to the holster shell
to influence the position of the gun
without restricting access to it.
There are three main tools in our toolbox here
and those are wings, wedges, and belt pressure.
Belt pressure is really the foundation of everything.
Without pressure on the outer face of the gun,
there's obviously nothing holding the gun
to the body at all and- (gun thumping)
it'll just fall off.
Using a belt or an enigma over the holster shell
gives us pressure over the face of the holster
that pulls the gun in towards the body.
But belt pressure all by itself is a really coarse tool
and we can actually use the other concealment tools
to control and to sculpt that pressure
and direct the gun to move it
exactly where we want it to stay.
A wing is a device that goes on the holster
and makes the grip of the gun rotate in towards the body.
So it rotates the gun, mostly in this plane.
A wedge goes between the holster and the body
and it has a little more complicated effect.
The most basic thing it does
is tuck the top of the gun in towards the body.
So it moves the gun, mostly in this plane.
But, depending on your body shape
and where you place the wedge,
it can give you very precise control
over the position of the gun.
We've got a whole separate video on wedges
so you can check that one out too.
So those three tools together
are the basic building blocks of good concealment.
Okay, back to the poke and check.
You can see that when I push my grip in
it reduces printing in that area,
but take a look at the other effects it has too.
When I push the grip in the bottom of the gun goes out
and there's a little bit of a gap there
between my body and the gun.
So let's actually look at that in reverse.
By controlling the position of the muzzle of the gun,
I can change where I want the grip to go
without blocking access to the grip.
So if the poke and check tells me
I need a little more grip tuck,
I can place a muzzle wedge behind my gun
to fill in the gap there
and then when I tighten my belt over the whole thing
the belt pressure is sculpted around the wing and the wedge
and it makes my grip tuck more.
So between belt pressure, wedges and wings,
we can remove any trouble spots
that are causing the gun to print.
But what if I don't have any major trouble spots?
What if the entire thickness of the gun is the problem?
So what if it's basically adding bulk to the waistline
or creating a shelf where the top of my shirt
hits the gun here and kind of creates this little ledge.
Now what?
Well in that case the best solution
is to fine tune your sweet spot if you can,
if you have room to do that.
If you can get the gun off of your peaks
and into your valleys,
like we talk about in the sweet spot video,
that helps minimize the perception of extra bulk.
But aside from that,
the thickness of the gun is pretty much a constant
so the only real way to change that
is to carry a thinner gun or to tighten the belt
to the point where the gun actually starts to squish
into your soft tissue,
which works but it's not really the greatest solution.
Overly tight belts can actually be painful
and they can be bad for your health.
Plus it's just physics that if you tighten your belt enough
to squish the gun in then the amount of belt pressure
that's going to take is going to actually give you muffin top.
So either way, you're going to have to dress around something.
You got to kind of pick and choose.
You can use the poke and check method
to experiment with your wing and your wedge
and get to your maximum concealment potential with the gun.
That's when your concealment is maxed out
and it can't get any better with that particular gun.
So you'll know when you're at
your maximum concealment potential
because every time you try to make a change in one area,
you can't really get it better
without sacrificing another area.
All of the changes that we're making are related
and they all work together.
Concealment is kind of a balancing act
and when you start to experiment with it
you'll find the best balance point for your body.
For example, my magazine is printing slightly here
but when I press in to make it tuck more
I start to lose concealment in other areas.
It's a balancing act so I have to choose
which effect is most important
for my overall concealment goals
and that can change from person to person
and even from outfit to outfit.
The nice thing though, is that the poke and check
allows you to be adaptable because you can self-assess
and improve your concealment pretty much any time.
It just takes a couple minutes.
The last thing to cover here is realistic expectations.
Remember that your gun prints when it encounters
the outer envelope of your clothing.
If it's completely within the empty space
between your clothing and your body it's concealed.
If it hits the clothing envelope it's going to print.
That means if you're at your maximum concealment potential
and you've wrung every last drop of concealment
out of that gun and it still prints,
then the only real option
is to increase the envelope of your clothing.
You can do that by making tweaks to your wardrobe,
and if you do, I'd recommend checking out
the YouTube channel, Armed and Styled.
She's got some really helpful videos on things like
how fabric choices affect concealment
for both men and women.
Quick review, poke your gun, check the effect,
and use the concealment mechanics
to get your gun to stay where you want it.
If you want more concealment tips
check out the PHLster website at phlsterholsters.com.