Homemade kydex mag pouches
As some of you might know, I've been getting into shooting competitions lately and I needed some pouches for a glock that I'm borrowing. Being the cheap bastard that I am, I decided to make some. 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.
I started out by cutting the kydex with a hacksaw and a razor blade. The razor blade is used to score the surface and breaking it apart. A belt sander cleaned up the edges nicely.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i...-sGtvbSD-L.jpg
In my first attempt, I just formed everything by hand, which worked ok, but a jig is much better for making nice crisp lines.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i...-qvN32q7-L.jpg
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.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i...-C9Q48Vj-L.jpg
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.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i...-zjRB7tG-L.jpg
Step three was to form the bottom mag stop, again with a heat gun.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i...-4cxwnsK-L.jpg
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.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i...-dLzHSnw-L.jpg
And here's the finished product:
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i...-tv92BkN-L.jpg
Here you can see the walls are at slight angles to help with mag retention.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i...-v54qktc-L.jpg
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i...-4kvdpLB-L.jpg
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i...-T7jDz4V-L.jpg
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.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i...-WHqxM5s-L.jpg
Total cost is about $6-$10 per 12"x12" sheet of kydex, depending on thickness and where you get it. I can get 5 pouches out of one sheet. For this project I used 0.093" thick kydex, but now I hear 0.125" would be better for this application. I guess the belt loops are the weak point.
Re: Homemade kydex mag pouches
Very slick. I've always liked Kydex and have wanted to get into it. I've seen a lot of neat mag holders, flashlight holders, knife, tool, the list goes on and on. Maybe one of these days.
Let us know how they hold up and if you update your design.
Re: Homemade kydex mag pouches
Looks real good. Me and my buddy Stuart (brunswickstu on here) have been tossing around the idea of making some kydex holsters.
Re: Homemade kydex mag pouches
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.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i...-p2wbSn8-L.jpg
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i...-DnnRL6C-L.jpg
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i...-vggmgpw-L.jpg
By the way, I'd recommend thicker than 0.093" thick kydex for a holster.