My new custom rig!

[Kid Carson]

Well...my pair of Rodeos with their walnut grips are not here yet. I would expect them pretty soon though. In the meantime to keep myself occupied I have been doing research on gun leather. I read everything I could. Looked at countless pictures. Finally, I felt it was time to get moving on getting a really nice one made for my new guns soon to arrive.

I came across some very nice things that were said about Yoder Custom Leather here in the Philadelphia region.

http://www.yodercustomleather.com/

Dennis Yoder, SASS & NRA Life Member, has been handcrafting beautiful gun leather for over 30 years. He has been written up in a number of popular gun magazines. I visited his shop in Hamburg, PA. All I can say is that he makes some of the most beautiful leather products I have ever seen. The thickness and quality of the leather is amazing. He uses leather that is twice as thick as I have seen some lesser quality rigs made from. His hand tooling is detailed and exacting. His selection of high quality brass & nickel plated brass buckles, Montana conchos, belt styles and holster styles was great. Even the little rounded nickel grommets he uses are fine quality with amazing detail to them. He also makes amazing leather canteens, ammo buckets, knife sheaths, etc etc. The vegetable tanned leather looks incredible too. The colors are really true works of art.

What I was most impressed by though was how helpful and patient he was with my neverending questions and close inspection of his display items. I tried on a bunch of his belts and handled a lot of his holsters. Also, looking over all his conchos and leather color choices. He worked with me step by step and was friendly and helpful the whole time.

I finally settled on a 2 1/2" dark brown leather cartridge belt with 18 .45 cartridge loops, NT tooling, suede lined, and a nickel plated brass buckle. On that belt will be left & right strong side dark brown Boot Hill holsters with his NT tooling, 2" drop, 8 degree muzzle forward cant, and one Montana true historic antique domed silver concho with brass berrys on each holster. Each holster will be custom fitted for my 4 3/4" Rodeos and also have some custom measurements I requested.

This is pretty much exactly what they will look like:



I think this is gonna work & look great with my new Rodeos. I can't wait to get my hands on the rig and guns. I'll post some pics of all of them once they arrive.

Kid Carson

[RRio]

It would appear that your outfit is coming along nicely!

I recently upgraded my rig. For the past 6 years I have been using an "Old Peublo" cross-draw rig. Nice enough rig, but I was really getting tired of doing the "Crossdraw Shuffle".
Just in the past 3 weeks I bought a Long Hunter Rig from Kirkpatrick Leather, right here through the Cas City Merchantile. The holsters fit my USFAs perfectly and the whole rig feels as though I have been using it all along.

[Kid Carson]

I was looking at that Long Hunter rig when I was doing my research. Seems very similar to the rig I ended up going with except for the belt. Mine is not tapered, is 2 1/2", and has cartridge loops. They both seem like real fine rigs and solid choices. I just really liked finding someone local with a lot of experience to work with that could make exactly what I was looking for and who I could personally talk to if I ever had any issues or modifications needed.

Hopefully I'll get the phone call soon to tell me my USFAs are in and waiting to be picked up.