Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Best way to carry pistol?

I would add - Nobody needs a handgun, until they need it very badly

Agree.

Open carry while backpacking is a little off-putting to most everyone else on the trail. In a perfect world we’d have constitutional carry everywhere.

"Open carry while backpacking is a little off-putting to most everyone else on the trail" - depends where you are, certainly not in Alaska but possible on the Appalachian. I have found that it's often easy to cover up a pistol when passing others on the trail with your hand, piece of clothing or closing a shirt or jacket over it but I really don't care.

That hasn't been my experience in this area. I think we all come with a "vibe". Much is subconscious and outside our control. Some of that vibe is whether you're comfortable with what you're doing. It may be that you are uncomfortable enough "packing openly" around people that you're putting off a vibe that makes them uncomfortable. I'm so used to it, it's comfortable, so I don't make others uncomfortable. .. or something like that. I'm certain it is as much about how we present ourselves as what we carry when we do it.

So .. I don't worry 'bout my pistol nor how people react to it when I'm hiking. When it comes to how to carry a pistol on a pack, for me it's about what is practical, comfortable, and accessible. Most options work for me for a half day. Toward the end of a long day even the best seem to get a bit .. wearing. I don't have a perfect answer even where concealment isn't a consideration.

One of the good things about the North Cascades is we encounter few humans.

Canadians appear wider-eyed when viewing carried firearms. Have on occasion. seen them with the proverbial bells and whistles.

Last time I went backpacking. Two or three years ago. I came out of the woods onto a road at the same time and place two campers were walking. We chatted a bit and they made mention of that fact I was carrying a gun. It didn't seem to bother them, and they were much more interested in my ancient external frame pack. Apparently no longer used except by old fools like me.

They did seem to get a bit nervous when after the conversation, the noticed the second gun I had on me.

Even NYC folks should know what a NY reload is :-)

With a pack frame, I'd have a cross draw holster done that could be mounted low on a shoulder strap. Most likely a custom build. With most of one's load on one's hips and a waist belt, that's a no-go location.

As to using the old pack frames - Have you ever tried to put a full elk quarter into the typical bag? With 10 feet of line, it's a simple carry on my old Sierra frames.

I agree. So put one mount on your right hip belt of your pack and a second mount on your pant's belt (under your pack's hip belt) at the same location. Take your pack off, click the holster onto your pants, exact same location.

M10mm some people don't understand , common sense is a lost art

44, yes it is.

With all the extra straps and doo dads attached to your bodies, some of you guys are beginning to look a little like the gimp from Pulp Fiction.

I'm with you. I don't like all the stuff handing all over my chest. And for the front chest fanny pack people (and I've done it), it almost always comes off in camp. You're not wearing your bino harness, or GPS, and everything else in the front chest pack while in camp, so if your gun is in there, it's not on you either.

If that was under my pack belt, it would dig into my waist or hips something fierce as soon as the pack belt was tightened.

Solid idea, but I am not sure it'd be so solid in practice.

Bullsh*t.

This is what I’m thinking about going to if I switch to 10mm. I’d keep the pants belt receiver in pack lid and use it only when in camp or breaking down a critter.

Absolutely.
And for the holster plus chest pouch plus backpack folks, at some point while having to add or remove three sets of straps to don or doff a top layer, one starts to feel a little like a rented mule being harnessed onto a plow. When that feeling comes around I know it's time to leave a bunch of that excess stuff at home.

With my old frame pack (Kelty Tioga II) the shoulder strap and belt attach to the frame at the sides, the belt doesn't wrap clear around. This leaves a void of sorts where the belt doesn't ride against the body. I have used that space for a handgun .. short super blackhawk. If I remember right, my oldest pack frame / meat frame is set up the same way. For exactly the reasons you mention, that carry location does not work with my internal frame packs nor possibly with a friend's newer external frame which has a "full contact" wrap around belt.

Tom

Haven't tried it myself, but this looked like a possibility, for me anyway. May drop the pistol just far enough under the pack belt to be out of the way, but not halfway down your thigh like the typical "tactical" leg holsters. They have chest holsters as well, but I generally have binoculars and a range finder there.

https://gunfightersinc.com/shop/micro-aggression-thigh-panel/

Thought you might have found the holy grail there. Still might be an option except for the leg tie. Leg ties are good for not very active duty roles. Running with one on doesn't work and after hiking all day with that thing around my upper thigh I guarantee I'm going to have blisters where I shouldn't. Might work if the dropleg straps were rigid so you could pull the gun out without the holster coming up with the gun. It's a good start though, I like the idea of a dropped holster.

I ordered one with a Ronin OWB holster for the XDM10. Will give it a shot and see how it does.