Anytime a new pistol is released to the market and it begins to sell, there’s usually a frenzied attempt to locate a holster for it. Sometimes it takes some time for holster makers to “jump on the bandwagon” and start producing holsters for the new models. To fully understand why it can take some time for this process to occur, it makes sense to understand what occurs in the background first.
Here’s a quick overview on the process:
Holsters are not molded off a real version of a pistol. They are actually molded and produced off an exact duplicate of the pistol done in aluminum, steel, or composite. When a new pistol is released to the public, the companies who produce the aluminum molds have to first acquire one of the pistols. They then take a 3D scan of the handgun, and make an exact duplicate using high end CNC machines.
Once this process is completed and the molds are available for purchase, holster companies come in and purchase the mold of the new handgun they plan to start using. They typically “tool up” and begin the process of adding this new gun model to all the holsters that they offer.
This process can take anywhere from 2 months to 12 months, depending on the holster maker and how fast they can proceed. In the case of larger companies who work off a production line approach (think Galco, Don Hume, DeSantis), this process can take some time. Smaller custom holster makers have an advantage here as they can typically acquire the new mold and get holsters for the new pistol to the market much faster than the larger production makers.
Interestingly enough, many of the larger handgun manufacturers will send out a sample of a new pistol being released to the mold making vendors well before the pistol is released so that they can get started on the mold and get those molds in the hands of holster makers just as the new pistol hits the market. Who wants to buy a newly released pistol and then has to wait 2 months before anyone is making a holster for it?