After the legislation finally moved through the Wisconsin Government, I was very excited to finally obtain my concealed carry permit.  Responsible gun owners in Wisconsin were at the whim of a political process that was many years coming.  We watched anxiously as the bill that Dave Zien introduced was rangled and subjected to all sorts of policial games.  It was a totally insane process, causing the bill to be delayed and eventually vetoed by Jim Doyle.

A republican Governor, House and Senate finally produced an environment conducive to getting this legislation passed. Well it did pass and thousands of responsible gun owners were granted the right to carry a weapon for their own protection and safety.  I mailed my permit anxiously on the first day.  About 3 weeks later I got my permit in the mail.  Now, we are 3 months into concealed carry in Wisconsin and there have been no shoot-outs, no road rage turned into Gun battles.

Here is my permit.  I was very excited to finally get this.  I had a few questions to answer before I could actually put this into use.  While I had qualified for this permit based on the Hunter Safety training that I had taken over 20 years ago, I did not have any training that actually applied to carrying a concealed weapon.

My Wife, has not taken Hunter Safety so she needed to take a class.  We signed up for a course offered by our local police department.  They are still offering this class. Register for it here.

This class was really great it was 6 hours long, included some of the legal aspects of concealed carry, police interactions, and carrying safely.  The best part of the training was situational training using Simunition pistols in the police training facility.  This was worth the $100 (for residents) price of the class.  It really made me think and consider what would happen if I actually needed to use my weapon in self defense.

One thing that I had researched and consider greatly was what holster I would need to purchase for my full size pistol an FNX-9.  I am a bigger guy and I figured that it would be difficult to find one that would work well for me.  I purchased a cheap inside waistband holster from Uncle Mike’s at my local gun shop.  Wearing that thing for about 10 minutes told me that it was not going to cut it.  My instructor was wearing a Crossbreed Supertuck Deluxe in my police training.  I had also heard great things about these on many different forums.

These holsters are ugly as sin but guess what, you can’t see it because it is inside your pants.  They are comfortable as can be having 24 ounces of steel and polymer strapped to your hip.  I paid the extra $15 dollars to have mine made out of horse hide because it is supposed to be able to tolerate wetness better.  We all know how steamy Wisconsin summers can get and I did not want to have to buy a different holster for summer.

I will update this review after a few weeks to keep tabs on how the holster is breaking in.  I do need to get a pistol belt, thick leather, helps to hold it in place better.  I have been wearing suspenders and they do a great job of holding up the trousers.  I wear them underneath my button down shirts and this setup is perfect for CCW because the shirt hides what little of the gun is visible.