Falco's Leather Roto-Shoulder Holster

In rural Ohio, where jackets are in season most of the year, and with long drives to get to and fro, a shoulder holster is the best option for my EDC. Although shoulder holsters are not as popular as hip holsters, almost everyone drives, and when they do it’s in a seated position. Having to pull your pistol from a shoulder holster is much faster and less impeded than drawing from a hip holster especially when the seatbelt is fastened.

I’ve now been carrying my Smith & Wesson 6909 with the Leather Roto-Shoulder Holster (model D120), from Falco Holsters, most days for two years. I’m a big fan of Smith & Wesson, and although the S&W series of double-single handguns is now out of production, they can still compete with the more popular CCW handguns made today and can be had at a reasonable price despite the rise of the collectability of these handguns. I prefer the 6909 model, in particular, because it’s both compact and lightweight, compared to the full-size models like 5906.

The Leather Roto-Shoulder Holster from Falco Holsters comes with many options and available for a plethora of makes and models, so you can most likely get one for whatever you carry. Options include leather and stitching color, letter and even image embossing, and of course more importantly, accommodations for optics, raised sights, extended magazines, and allowing left-handed drawing.

The construction is quite good, with all Falco holsters being handmade in Slovakia, with this particular model being made with Italian leather - what feels like calfskin. The leather is tough where it needs to be, in the holster and magazine pouch, and supple where it should be, on the webbing and harness. Falco’s website notes that your holster may need “break in liquid.” Although I didn’t need any, I only applied a standard leather conditioner as I would to all my leather products. The buttons on the holster and magazine pouch however did need some breaking in.

My 6909 holds the standard 12-round magazine, which I leave in the gun, but I opted for the larger magazine pouch to hold the 15-round magazine, which I would recommend, as with the 15-round pouch it can also hold the shorter 12-round magazine, and only leaves you with an extra inch or two at the top of the pouch. I load two 17-round Mec-Gar (Mec-Gar.com) magazines for the pouch. Mec-Gar offers 17-round magazines for S&W that are the same length as the S&W 15-round magazines and are made in Italy. Both fit just fine in the pouch designed for the 15-rounders, which gives me a total of 46 rounds all in all in the holster. Another nice feature is that the magazine pouch can be easily detached from the shoulder rig and has slots on the back that allow you to attach it on a belt. This gives you an option if you feel like switching to an inside-the-pants holster or traditional belt holster, which I sometimes do depending on weather and/or what I am wearing.

As far as drawing the handgun, this holster has a rotary feature that allows the pistol to rotate easily to a more horizontal position (hence the “Roto” name), which aids in smooth removal. This feature is activated after disconnecting a leather thumb break, and the holster rotates via a bolt and nut. Although it has worked well, the one issue is that as you remove the gun over and over, the bolt becomes very loose and must be retightened. You actually want this bolt to be loose so that the holster rotates freely, but then you risk losing the bolt if it “walks” out. Possibly, a solution would be to apply Loctite to the bolt and unscrew it until you get the desired level of friction and then let it dry.

In spite of all the customization options, Falco doesn’t offer stainless steel or brass fasteners for the holster and instead uses plastic to fix the holster and magazine pouch to the harness. While the plastic feels high-quality and matches the black leather, I would much rather have stainless steel, and the plastic fastenings which were most likely a weight or cost-saving measure don’t match with the expectation I’d have for a product handmade in Slovakia with Italian leather. Whatever the increase in cost would be, it would only be a drop in the bucket as the holster already costs upwards of $259 (plus options).

Overall, I really do like my Falco holster. It’s held up as expected for something made of real leather. I really appreciate that their products are still made in Europe and to a high quality. It does look very sharp.

For more information, please visit www.FalcoHolsters.com

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