Milt Sparks is a custom handgun leather-works company that has been making great stuff since at least the ’70s. Perhaps their most famous model is the Summer Special, a fairly minimal leather holster that’s just the holster and a couple of good belt loops on the outside. The 2nd model of it has changeable loops for different belt sizes. It has the usual features of a quality IWB holster such as a steel band around most of the circumference so that it won’t collapse when you remove the gun. Particularly nice features are rough side out with some smooth leather added on the inside above your belt (protecting the safety in a 1911), it’s entirely comfortable in the summer against your skin. With a good belt the whole affair feels solid and reliable, I’ve been very happy with the ones I’ve carried my 5 and 4 inch barrel 1911s in.
One very nice thing about this model is that the company does mostly custom work and if you place an order you will wait months … BUT they’ve made a selection of this design for a few of the most popular gun types for Brownell’s to keep in stock: 1911s in 3 barrel lengths and Glock Models 17/22, 19/23 and 26/27.
Their single magazine holder for a single stack 1911 magazine is also very nice.
By: Harold Ancell
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The “Mistakenly Put My 870 Away In a Wet Gun Case After The Season” test.I was horrified to see how pitetd it was when I pulled it out in June. After I got over how ugly it was, I decided to see how long an 870 could go without so much as a wipe-down before failing.And the answer to that is 5 hunting seasons.Five hard seasons, with gun exposed to mud, grime, outboard motor fuel, lint, trash and honeybun crumbs. In all that time, I never ran a brush through it, never even wiped it down. The most I did was hold it under whatever water I was standing in and work the action a few times to rinse out the grit and unburnt powder that sometimes collected in the trigger group. It never kept the gun from firing, but you could feel it in the trigger pull, or when it got really dirty, when you ran the slide.On opening day of the 5th season, after maybe 7 cases of steel and lead shot, it failed to eject a plastic-cased Activ shell, and I had to disassemble the gun and ram out the fired hull with a cleaning rod. I fully cleaned it standing in 3 feet of river water right then, put my cleaning kit away in my blind bag, and went back to hunting.Hasn’t even hiccuped since.