Posted by Derek Lee-Wo on April 10th, 2009 in Miscellaneous

I have what appears to be an unusual gun, or at least one that isn’t very popular.  It is an Uzi Eagle 9mm compact polymer handgun.  This was bought several years ago, but it is the same as the Jericho 941 Baby Eagle compact polymer or the Magnum Research Baby Eagle compact polymer.

Because it’s not a popular handgun, it has been very hard to find a holster for it.  I wanted an IWB holster.  I contacted 2 companies that seems to be recommended a lot but neither of them have a holster for my gun.  I did find 2 other companies that can custom make it, but their lead times were 5 weeks and 18 weeks respectively.

In doing some research, I found that there are actually a lot of people that make their own holsters, either out of leather, Kydex, or a combination of both.  After reading how they do it, I figured the process seemed simple enough and I could definitely make one…with some help from my wife!

Of all the holsters I found, the CrossBreed SuperTuck seemed like the one I really wanted.  All I needed was some leather, Kydex, and some screws or rivets….and a little time and patience.

I priced out all the components I needed from KnifeKits.com and found that I can get all the supplies for around $25 including the shipping charges and that would actually be enough to make 2 holsters so basically, the single holster cost would be around $13.  Here is what I ordered with links to the specific products:

• 12×12″ piece of leather
• 12×12″ sheet of Kydex, 0.06 thickness
• 12×12″ sheet of Kydex, 0.093 thickness - For the clips
• Pack of Chicago Screws

While waiting for my order to arrive, I decided to make a template for the leather portion. After doing some Google image searching, I found a nice “full-on” photo of the Supertuck.  I don’t own a Supertuck so I don’t know their actual dimensions, but I figured I can make it any size I wanted so I decided to size it exactly for my gun.  I brought the photo into Photoshop and resized it to the size I wanted and printed it out. Here is the life-sized photo and another with my gun showing that it’s just the right size.  I had quickly remove a lot of the extraneous photo around the holster thus the jagged appearance below.

This is the same printout with my gun placed on it, verifying that it’s the correct size:

I then taped this to a piece of cardboard and cut it out with an Exacto knife.  Here is the template I made and second photo showing my gun positioned on it:

The supplies came about 3 days after I ordered them and my wife and I set about making the holster.  We started by first cutting out the leather.  We were able to cut 2 holster backs from the 12×12″ leather.  This was done by first scoring the leather using the cardboard template as the guide, followed by multiple passes with an Exacto knife.  This photo shows the initial scoring:

Here you can see the first one cut out and the second out partially done:

Here is the fully cutout leather back:

The next task was to work on the Kydex form around the gun itself.  Based on the life sized photo, we cut a 4″x12″ piece of Kydex. To cut the Kydex, we scored it with an Exacto knife and then simply bent it along the score.  It snapped off cleanly.

To help for the Kydex, we needed some kindof press, but we weren’t prepared to buy one.  I bought a sleeping bag mat from Walmart for just under $6.  This is a stiff foam that is 1/2″ think.  Since I wanted about 1″ of foam,  I cut out two 12″ squares.  I also got 2 pieces of plywood, each approximately 12×12″ to serve as the bottom and top of my press.  I didn’t need to make anything permanent as I planned to simply stand on the whole thing.  I placed one sheet on the floor and prepared to make the Kydex form.

I taped a pencil to the top of the gun to ensure that I had a channel for the front sight.

I heated the Kydex in a toaster oven at 400F.  Using some cheap white cotton gloves I had, I took it out once I noticed the edges start to get a little wavy.  This only took about 1-2 minutes. At this point, the Kydex is very soft.    Working quickly, I placed the Kydex over my gun, positioning the top just where I wanted it, followed by 2 layers of the foam and the top piece of plywood and stood on it for a few minutes.  This create some great definition at the top of the gun, but it didn’t mold itself around the sides of the gun.  For this, I used a cheap heat gun my wife had and manually molded the sides.  I also spot heated the trigger area and made a indentation that would hold the gun in place by the trigger guard.

Here is the form that was produced along with pencil marks indicating where I wanted to cut:

Here is the Kydex over my gun.

A scroll saw was used to cut the Kydex.  It also turns out that the 4″ wide Kydex was a bit too wide, so I also cut about 1/2″ off the top.  Some sand paper was then used to sand the edges of the Kydex.

After carefully positioning the Kydex on the leather back, we drilled 6 holes with a 1/4″ bit through both the Kydex and the leather.  The Chicago screws from KnifeKits were 1/4″ screws which turned out to be too long for the Kydex/leather layer.  We got some neoprene washers from Home Depot ($0.83 for 4)  that we used at the back of the leather and that gave it just enough thickness so the screws could be tightened.

We also drilled 3 holes on each side for the belt clips.  This will allow for the adjustment of the cant and how high or low the holster will sit:

Here are two photos showing the gun sitting in the holster:

The guns fits snugly with a definite “snap” as it is placed in the holster.  We can hold it upside down and the gun stays put.  As a test, we also held it upside down and shook it quite vigorously and it did eventually fall out, but we’re happy that it took quite a bit for that to happen.

The next step was to make the clips.  Using the life-sized photos, we calculated how long the Kydex for the clip needed to be.  It need to be about 6″.  We cut 1″ wide strips from the 0.093 Kydex and then cut it down to 6″ each.

A small pice of wood 1 1/2″ wide and 1/4″ thick was used as a mold for the belt.

The first task, and the most difficult, was to make the small tab used for remove the clip from a belt.  Here is a photo showing that stage.  We had actually clapmed the rule to the wood below and then bent it against the table until we got the angle we were satisfied with:

The next step was to shap the Kydex around our mold:

The end of the clip where it would be attached to the leather was then cut and shaped to make it rounded.  The end is an’t rounded as I would like, but it’s the best we could have done with the tools we had.   Two holes were then drilled in each.  Between the 2 holes in the clip and the 3 in the leather, there is a lot of flexibility to adjust the cant and height.

And here are photos of the final result:

The edges of the leather needs a little attention, but in all, I am very happy with how my very first homemade holster turned out!!

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For Ray that wanted to see the back:

A close up: