Kitchen Kydex mag pouches

[reiko1078]

made two mag pouches today with this thread for inpiration. used a Roto-Zip to cut the plastic. left the edges kind of rough but nothing about 45 seconds with a palm sander couldnt fix. thanks alot for the idea

I <3 Kydex!

[reiko1078]

oh and btw. this low cost option is allowing me to shoot in my first local match this sunday instead of having to wait a few more weeks to be able to afford mass produced mag holders. thanks again

[CDRODA396]

Just another great example of how a need, a little time and some ingenuity can produce amazing results! Now if I had just seen this two months ago!

[sasquatch981]

Can you post the spec and dimensions on the single stack pouches. Those are awesome.

Also, since you already have the dimensions of the pieces you use, try contacting a local "water jet, or laser cutter" and see if you have one in town or near by. I had a local guy cut me some Lexan for a project I was building for .22 Black Dog Magazine loader. I know it is outsourcing, but sometimes the nice gentlemen with business cards can do part of your work for you much better, faster, and more efficient than you. That leaves you the easy part of just forming them.

[coyote4x4]

To the OP, thanks for posting this; it gave me a good starting point and the basic layout. I needed some pouches for a glock that I'm borrowing to use for steel matches and didn't want to go buy any. Keep in mind, I am very new to both kydex and organized shooting matches so I don't know if this is the best design or if something could be improved. Let me know if you have any suggestions to make these better.

The first thing I did was copy the OP's design and try to mold it by hand around the mag and it worked ok but I knew there was a better way. Then I grabbed some wood I had laying around and made some jigs.

Having only a razor and a hacksaw, any inside cuts were tricky so I did away with the two little hooks at the belt loop and instead went with a single large hook.

After cutting out the piece, the first step was to form the main body. The whole piece was thrown in the toaster oven and heated up.

Step two was to form the belt clip with a heat gun. This step was easily done without an exterior jig; just an interior wedge was need to form the loop.

Step three was to form the bottom mag stop, again with a heat gun.

The final step was to form the small hook in the belt loop. It's a little hard to see what's going on in the picture but I used a thin piece of cardboard to insulate the rest of the mag pouch from the heat gun.

And here's the finished product:

[coyote4x4]

Here you can see the walls are at slight angles to help with mag retention.

Here you can see my first two attempts. The left one was the first one. I found it didn't pinch the mag hard enough so a loaded mag would easily slide out. I then came up with the bright idea of using a bike inner tube to help with retention, which did work. Then I decided to try to make the inner jig/form slightly smaller and the overall height of the pouch 3/8" longer to help with the grip. That worked and the result is the middle one pictured. Another thing I noticed was the original design resulted in mags that were very close to my body and a little hard to grab in the heat of the moment so I wanted to space it out a little. All of those lessons learned culminated in iteration 3, the one pictured on the right.

Attached is the drawing I ended up with. Note the drawing is not 1:1 scale. And to any pro cad jockeys out there, I do realize the dimensioning is redundant, but it makes it much easier to actually fabricate things.

Glock Mag pouch dwg - Sheet1.pdf

Edited June 29, 2010 by coyote4x4

[LINC]

They look really good. I tried doing it by wrapping it around mag and holding it with poor results also. I'm gonna make a jig like yours to use and try that. Thanks.

[coyote4x4]

A jig is definitely the way to go, especially the inner one because it makes for nice sharp edges. Also note that it's sized slightly smaller than the mag and the sides are angled in so the kydex pinches the mag harder.

I got to try them out last night and they worked really well. Next time I'm going to use 0.125" thick kydex because these seem a little flimsy.

Edited July 1, 2010 by coyote4x4

[AzYooper]

coyote4x4, thanks for posting the step by step pictures of you process. You could have just shown the jig and some of us would just stare at it confused for quite a while.

[Garrett]

Those look really nice. I had made some mag pouches for subgun mags some years ago. They're not pretty, but they are functional. I'd needed something longer than the standard pistol-length pouches.

[JWR]

Great post! Here's another good link with a lot of information on making holsters/sheaths with kydex. Currently deployed but when I get home I'm gonna look into making a press and ordering some rivets and put that old toaster oven and heat gun in the garage to good use.

[ampleworks]

Anyone made any pouches for Pmags? I'm thinking about making a double one (mags side by side).

[latech15]

great job guys. These are way better than the ones I made. I heated up the sheet in the oven and formed it around the mag by hand and then massaged it with the heat gun. They are not all pretty and identical like yours. I used the blade tek locking systems with mine too. it added a bit to the individual cost, but attaches firmly to the belt and still allows me to move them easily if need be.

[triplesinglestack]

for everytone that has not yet quite embraced the metric system, I coverted all the measurements from the template to inches as follows:

10mm=.3937

50mm=1.968

120mm=4.724

35mm=1.378

17mm=.669

54mm=2.126

108mm=4.252

47mm=1.850

57mm=2.244

105mm=4.133

35mm=1.378

Jason

[jeffsoward]

I took Coyote4x4's design and did some single stack holders. I love them! Thank you guys for the idea!

I made a jig up like Coyote4x4 but I also made a sheet metal template of the flat so that I could scribe the kydex without destroying the template and all pieces would be uniform.

I started with a scrollsaw on the first couple of test units. I found the scrollsaw to be very tedious and some of the cutlines weren't straight and true so I moved over to the bandsaw and it took about a minute each to cut out. Rounded the corners on the sander and hit the edges with some 180 grit sandpaper.

The forming was all done with a heat gun. The wife wouldn't let me use the oven, but the heat gun worked out well since I could hit specific areas rather than the whole piece getting soft. I over-bent the side tab to add tension to retain the mag.

I'm gonna use them this weekend at a match.

[coyote4x4]

Nice.

Do you have dimensions for your single stack template?

Do you think the large belt loop is too floppy? I used mine for 1 steel match so far and thought they were stable, although they did slide around easily on the belt. One of these days I'll get a CR belt and put velcro on the belt loop to take care of that.

On an unrelated note, I did a heat experiment today with one of my "factory seconds". I left it on the front seat of the car all day today in the hot arizona sun to see if the bends would relax and they did not. It was about 112F today. Next I'll leave one right on the dash in direct sun.

[jeffsoward]

Nice.

Do you have dimensions for your single stack template?

Do you think the large belt loop is too floppy? I used mine for 1 steel match so far and thought they were stable, although they did slide around easily on the belt. One of these days I'll get a CR belt and put velcro on the belt loop to take care of that.

I can email you an autocad file of it with dims if you want. I attached the PDF.

I did mine out of .093 kydex and they fit snug. I did the loops right at 1.5" to fit my belt. I'm a fatboy so it went on and did not move. The increased angle at the top of the loop really helps out. the mag doesn't stick out too far, but it makes the mag rest outside my love handle

Mine are not floppy at all (so far). I'm gonna test them at a match on Sunday. range report will follow.

single stack dims.pdf

[coyote4x4]

Nah, the pdf is fine. I don't even have a 1911 yet but I know I will someday!

[jeffsoward]

shot USPSA this morning using 5 of the mag holders and I must say that they were AWESOME!!!

I'm really happy with my 7 dollars worth of mag holders.

[coyote4x4]

I finished the 2nd part of my heat test today which involved leaving some bent up kydex on the dash of my car in the arizona heat all day. The plastic itself is fine, but it did unfold. I don't know what the temps were inside but when I walked out at the end of the day it was 109F outside.

So, don't leave your kydex holsters on the dash.

[coyote4x4]

I finally picked up a glock of my own, but didn't own any holsters that would fit it. Luckily I had one extra sheet of kydex laying around so I made one. Sorry, no detailed pictures this time because I was in a hurry to make it and I didn't know how I was going to go about making it until I started.

By the way, I'd recommend thicker than 0.093" thick kydex for a holster.

[gunther]

Has anyone made any shotgun shell caddies with kydex?

[DyNo!]

Has anyone made any shotgun shell caddies with kydex?

Yes - they're not done though. I will be putting a one piece spring (A curved piece of kydex) between the shells and the holder to keep the shells from flying out:

The holder will be bolted in and the bolts will also serve as the belt loop. I'll be putting rubber spacers in my M14 holders soon.

[VoodooDaddy]

Thanks for the inspirations

[Singlestack]

Thanks for the inspirations

Nice job!