Winter is the easiest season for concealing your carry gun. The layers you need to wear to stay warm also do a great job of concealing just about any EDC you want to carry.
Unfortunately, this also comes with a cost. The same layers that make it easy to hide your gun also make it harder to access your gun in an emergency.
Compared to just a tee shirt, most peoples' draw from under a jacket can be a second or more slower. The heavier the jacket, the greater the delay.
But, what if there were a way to work through the layers rather than against them? That's exactly what the Pass-Through Pockets enable on our Concealment Jackets and Hoodies.
The pass-through openings let you pre-stage your draw in concealment and draw your weapon in one swift motion through the pocket rather than having to lift multiple layers, find your grip, and then draw.
It makes sense in theory, but what about in practice? That's what we set out to test.
One shooter, one gun, one day, and every concealment top we make - put on the shot timer.
The gun chosen was a full size Glock 17 wearing a Surefire X300 light.
Watch the full video here with results summarized in the table below.
| Concealment Method | Draw Time |
| Baseline - Tee Shirt | 1.05s |
| Concealment Puffer Jacket | 1.01s |
| Durable Hoodie / Quarter Zip | 0.86s |
| Tactical Jacket | 0.86 |
| Sherpa Concealment Fleece | 0.85s |
| Standoff Concealment Hoodie | 0.85s |
| Zip Concealment Hoodie | 0.82s |
| Heavyweight Concealment Hoodie | 0.80s |
| Utility Bomber Jacket | 0.79s |
There's a noteworthy cluster around 0.85s with outliers landing a little faster and a little slower with the best cracking into the seven-tenths-of-a-second range. Importantly, every attempt with the pass-through pockets was quicker than the tee shirt baseline, which was already pretty rapid.
Every recorded time was a hit, which you can confirm by listening for the ping of the steel after every shot.
Drawing through a Pass-Through Pocket is a trained skill, just like any other form of advanced weapons handling. It requires some practice to get this good. However, we've found after teaching many shooters across different proficiency levels that the relative time improvement over a standard draw holds up.
Always practice new draw techniques first using an unloaded gun in a safe environment. Carefully introduce live ammunition once you have achieved consistent proficiency with dry fire. And always (always!) keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire.
Stay safe out there.
