I am, by nature, a cynical creature. Decades in law enforcement and the gun-writing racket will do that to a man.
So, when the folks at Remora Holsters first claimed they had a line of inside-the-waistband (IWB) gear that stayed perfectly in place without clips, loops, harnesses, rivets, heavy-duty welds, or an act of Congress, my immediate response was a deeply profound, Hoosier-grade snort of derision.
How, pray tell, is a piece of gear supposed to anchor a chunk of lethal machinery inside your waistband using nothing but gravity and good intentions? It felt like a blatant disregard for the laws of both physics and sensible gun carriage. Naturally, I had to prove them wrong.
To set up the ultimate failure test, I donned a pair of old, loose-fitting drawstring workout shorts. No belt, no structure—just flimsy nylon and disbelief. I shoved my trusty .38 Special snubby into the Remora holster, tucked the whole package inside my waistband, and whistled for Ivy, my miniature Australian Shepherd.
We set out for a brisk one-mile march. For the first two blocks, I engaged in what I call “the furtive touch”—the subtle, but highly noticeable to observant bystanders, paranoid pat-down every concealed carrier does when they’re convinced their blaster is slipping down their pant leg.
Yet, it wasn’t slipping. By block four, I had mostly stopped touching it. By the time we crossed the one-mile mark, my pants were still up, the .38 was exactly where I left it, and the dog was entirely unimpressed by my brewing crisis of punctured assumptions.
The Remora simply refused to budge.
The secret turns out to be a highly tactile, rubberized polymer outer skin. It acts like a microscopic non-slip mesh, grabbing hold of fabric or skin the second it’s compressed inside your waistband.
To really push my luck, I wore it through a full day of real-world “migration tests”:
The Clinic Test: Sitting on paper-lined exam tables and getting jabbed with a round of vaccinations ahead of a brand-new, pending grandchild.
The Muck Market: Navigating the crowded, humid aisles of a local plant nursery, lifting flats of petunias and buttercups to fix up my water garden.
The Marshmallow Couch: The only time the rig shifted even half an inch was when I sank into my living room couch—a piece of furniture so soft it practically requires a winch to escape from. I don’t blame the holster for that one.
I even threw their matching accessory sleeve into the mix for a spare speed strip, and it pulled off the exact same friction-lock sorcery. The mag/speed strip pulls out smoothly, but the sleeve stays put.
Look, everything has limits. I wouldn’t try to pack a six-inch Colt Python this way, and it’s probably not the rig you want to wear to a Navy SEAL PT test. But for a lightweight snubby or a small automatic? It completely cracked the code. As it turns out, sometimes the best piece of carry hardware is no hardware at all.
I wrote up a detailed breakdown of the testing, the physics behind the grip, and how it stacks up against my old favorite DeSantis pocket holsters over at GUNS Magazine.
Drop by Gunsmagazine.com to read the full article and see the rig in action!
What say you? Have you ever trusted a clipless friction holster, or do you strictly stick to steel and kydex? Let’s talk about it in the comments.
I do have a "Sticky" holster for my 38 snubby as well and use it a lot but mostly in the pocket. I can't wait to try this one in a waste band now...