If it conceals a gun, you can keep your man card. Here we discuss the pros and cons of fanny pack concealed carry.
The struggle is real: Comfortable everyday carry of a completely concealed handgun can be difficult. It’s not so difficult in the cooler months, when a vest or jacket makes sense, but it’s sure a pain during the summer when temperatures pass the 90-degree mark. I’ve always been an inside the pants (IWB) kind of guy, but during a recent hot weather vacation, I decided to give the fanny pack a try.
Some consider carrying a handgun in a fanny pack as off-body carry, but I think that description better applies to a purse or handbag. With the fanny pack, you’re essentially just strapping on a holster just as you would with a gun belt. The main difference is that you’re carrying in the open but doing so incognito. It’s a very convenient and comfortable method of carry, but as with any carry technique it has its pros and cons.
The Pros
One real advantage is convenience. For instance, we were shopping in one store, and I wanted to try on some clothes. When I stepped into the changing room, it was much easier to deal with the fanny pack than it would’ve been to deal with an IWB holster. Similarly, handing the gun off to your partner—for whatever reason might occur—is so much easier. You might need to step inside a building with a “no guns” warning. Of course, you could ignore the sign and break the law, but with the fanny pack, handing your gun off to your wife or partner for a moment is easy.
Some fanny packs are on the large side, which will allow for you to easily carry other practical items such as your cell phone or wallet, or even more tactical implements like a reload or a tourniquet. If you’re in public and using your fanny pack to access common items like sunglasses, your passport, ChapStick or whatever, it sort of softens the look as well.
Aside from being an extremely comfortable way to carry a concealed handgun, what I really appreciated about the fanny pack is how adaptable it makes you. For example, if you’re playing Putt-Putt golf, you can just rotate the pack to your backside and it’s out of the way. Or, maybe, if you’re playing nine holes while your wife enjoys the spa, you can just unhook the fanny pack and lay it on the dash of the golf cart. Also, if you’re enjoying a playful evening on the beach or some sort of carnival ride with the family, it keeps your handgun hidden and perfectly secure. It also makes trips to the men’s room a bit less complicated.
The Cons
I think one of the first hurdles a man must overcome with fanny pack carry is how he feels it’ll reflect on his manhood. This, of course, could be a regional thing, but I know that here in the hills of West Virginia, a man wearing a fanny pack might raise an eyebrow or two. If you’re a bit insecure with your masculinity, you might feel awkward with a purse-like thing strapped around your waist.
And, of course, you additionally place yourself in a situation where others might assume you’re carrying a gun. If you’re legally carrying, I’m not sure this is really a bad thing. During our vacation in a state with constitutional carry, I wore my fanny pack every day and never noticed anyone giving me the stink eye. (My wife and I have noticed that in touristy locales, fanny packs are much more common.) In fact, on more than one occasion my wife and I walked by cops on patrol, and they never gave me a second look.
Maybe the biggest problem with the fanny pack carry is that it slows presentation; a fanny pack is just not as fast to draw from as a holster is. To see how much this can slow the draw/engagement process, I conducted a test. Using a Sig P365 and a Barranti Summer Classic IWB holster worn on my strong side hip and hidden under a T-shirt, my average for 10 attempts to draw and get a hit on a torso target at 10 yards was 1.66 seconds. I started the drill with my support hand on my shirt.
I then ran the same drill—starting with my support hand on the pack—using a Galco Fastrax Pac Waistpack. My average engagement time was 1.92 seconds. Granted, I’ve practiced a good deal with the fanny pack, but I’ve been drawing from an IWB strong side holster for most of my life. With the IWB holster, I was about 14 percent faster, though I suspect with additional fanny pack practice, I could probably cut another tenth of a second, or about 4 percent, off my fanny pack draw speed. But I know I’ll never get as fast as I am from a concealed IWB holster.
Training is Key
If you decide you want to sometimes or all the time carry in a fanny pack, you should dedicate a lot of time to becoming familiar with its operation. Train with it on the range. Some fanny packs provide nothing more than a pocket for your handgun to rest inside. Others, like the Galco Fastrax Pac Waistpack, are a bit different. When you unzip this pack, there’s a separate string you can pull that rotates the holster the gun is resting in 45 degrees, from horizontal to vertical. This simplifies the draw stroke … but it’s also a separate and unusual act that must be practiced.
I’m not convinced a fanny-pack carry is the best way to carry a concealed handgun all the time. But after several months working with a fanny pack in extremely hot conditions, I’m positively sure that there are instances when it can be a real asset to your overall self-protection plan.
Yeah, I get it: For a country boy, you might look a bit out of place wearing a purse around your waist or shoulder. On the other hand, a fanny pack can prevent embarrassing carry exposure moments. It’s also a way for you to more comfortably carry when other methods are not so convenient.
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the October 2024 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.
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