Car Mount: Velcro Vs. Screws

I come across several products on the web advertising simple velcro mounting to something. Maybe it is velcro to a seat belt or velcro to the inside of your safe, or velcro to your car. So when we think about making it easy to mount your gun in your car, of course we consider velcro as an alternative. The other alternative that we really don't see much outside of the car audio field is the traditional screw, washer, nut combination. The third alternative is the use of sharp screws, coarse thread screws that just screw into the panel without having to remove it first.

We're here to make all of our lives safer through making it more feasible to always safely carry your pistol. So we decided we couldn't go any further with our new mounts until we tested each alternative. Below you will find the results of these tests conducted over a one week period.

We took professional grade velcro strapping, the kind that is velcro on one side and sticky on the other. The sticky side doesn't stick well to leather, so we stitched the velcro to the holster. On the car, the sticky side started off just fine against a hard plastic panel on the center console of the car's interior by the driver's right knee. We were in the dead of summer in Austin, Texas, inside a black car with black interior. The car was parked outside during work hours and in a garage at night. Some other details include a five mile commute, so rather limited driving time and limited vibrations. The holster carried a Kimber 1911 .45 caliber handgun with a full magazine.

The first day went fine, the holster didn't move around at all. The second day was very much like the first, I didn't notice any movement in the holster and began to wonder if this was going to work, I started to feel some optimism. The morning of the fourth day I went out to the car and was surprised to see that the top of the velcro glue side had come loose from the car panel, kind of like it peeled away. The next couple days showed more sagging and less sticking, and a gooey residue left on the car panel.

My goal here isn't to provide scientific evidence of the performance of velcro when used to hold a handgun holster in a car. Rather I'm illustrating a one time experiment that we did here at Texas Custom Holsters to help us decide if we should pursue velcro as a mounting option for the holsters that we sell. We came to the conclusion that if you pop-rivet or otherwise secure the velcro to the car panel then it is strong enough to hold the holster just fine, the velcro doesn't fail, rather the glue holding the velcro in place fails over time, especially in hot, humid areas.

We concluded then that since holes are required in the car panel for velcro that we should focus our efforts on using screws with appropriate hardware and take velcro out of the equation. That is the holster that you're able to buy from us today complete with a mounting kit and holds the holster and your gun firmly in place in all driving conditions.