The Cry Havoc Gear X-Rig

Excellent Quality Meets Outstanding Customer Service.

A note on appendix carry: It’s not for everyone, regardless of holster. If you’ve got a bit of a tactical muffin top, appendix carry isn’t for you. Keep reading though, because Cry Havoc Gear’s quality and customer service extends throughout their product line.

A note on customer service and lead times: People often whine about long lead times and how a company doesn’t respond to messages fast enough. The fact of the matter is, when a business is successful, they can quickly outgrow the resources at hand and won’t be able to produce products fast enough to meet demand and your email will get lost among the hundred’s of other emails received that day. That’s the nature of making a quality product and not being willing to sacrifice quality just to meet demand.

I’ve been shopping for an appendix style holster for quite some time, and I’ve looked through the brands that have name recognition, G-Code, Raven Concealment, Bravo Concealment, etc. However, I never pulled the trigger because I couldn’t find a company that offered a holster for my firearm or they didn’t hit that perfect combination of good reviews, decent price and an acceptable lead time. Then I stumbled across Cry Havoc Gear and their X-Rig.

The X-Rig is constructed of a single sheet of 0.080”, thermoformed Kydex. It has two, heavy-duty nylon overhooks secured with Melonite-coated, steel hardware. The X-Rig is offered in a myriad of color combinations in either plain Kydex or wrapped in 500D Cordura nylon. My specific model is wrapped in Multicam Cordura. It can be adjusted for retention and ride-height. You are also able to tuck your shirt in while wearing this holster.

Everything they have done constructing this holster, they’ve done with durability in mind.  Lesser quality holsters will use Kydex to form their belt loops or overhooks. Belt loops  made of Kydex can break under a number of conditions, even when drawing the firearm under stress; the worst possible moment to have a gear failure. The nylon overhooks used on the X-Rig are thicker than Kydex, more flexible than Kydex and retain their shape. This means they will not break under stress and you won’t have to worry about the hooks loosening over time after repeated donning and doffing. The Melonite coating on the steel hardware is the same coating that Smith and Wesson use to coat their M&P line of firearms; you’ll never have to worry about the X-Rig’s hardware rusting out, even after years of use and abuse. The Cordura wrap is attached with an industrial adhesive from 3M. It is also applied to the Kydex before it is themorformed. This insures the wrap is perfectly formed to the holster and won’t bubble or peel.

The fit and finish on the X-Rig is excellent. A good indicator as to the quality of a Kydex is how finished the edges are. The edges are cut straight and symmetrically with nice angles at the corners. They are also sanded smooth and well polished with no sanding or tooling marks. The thermoforming is also very well done and it’s obvious that they’ve paid great attention to detail. The firearm locks into place with a positive “click”, and with the retention properly adjusted, it finds a perfect balance between and smooth, fast draw and solid retention of the firearm. I’ve put my P226 in the holster and shook it upside down pretty vigorously without the firearm falling out, I even ran a few blocks without it coming loose.

The cut of the holster leaves a small sweat shield to protect your skin from your firearm and to protect your firearm from the sweat and oils on your skin. Unlike other holsters I’ve tried, the X-Rig is cut perfectly to allow me to get a full firing grip on the gun while still providing complete protection of the trigger guard.

At first glance, I was concerned that the nylon wrap would start to peel away at the edges, particularly around the muzzle end of the holster after repeated donning and offing. However, it’s now been a few weeks of wearing the X-Rig every day, donning and doffing multiple times a day, and the wrap has held up just fine. If that changes after the publishing of this review, I will update it accordingly.

Donning and doffing is simple; just slide the holster into place and the shape of the overhooks lets them guide themselves right over the belt. Once the hooks have cleared the belt, thanks to the properties of the nylon, the hooks snap right back into shape and lock onto the belt. To remove, simply lift up the bottom end of the clips and pull until they clear the belt.

My only complaint about the holster is that I wish the clips were a little longer, with more holes, to allow for greater adjustment of ride height. The way the clips are now, the ride height is almost perfect. Being a shorter guy trying to appendix carry a full-size firearm, I’d like it to ride a little higher so that barrel doesn’t dig into me as much when I’m seated.

At the time of this writing, Cry Havoc Gear’s lead time is right around 4 weeks, much better than G-Code’s 8 weeks. However, as stated above, as word spreads about the company and orders start pouring in, lead time may increase. That’s the nature of running a small business. The X-Rig is priced very competitively at $49.99 for the plain Kydex, certain patterns and the Cordura wrap will incur an additional charge.

Not offered with the X-Rig but available for purchase separately, is an injection molded strut, or wing, that can be attached to the grip side of the holster to really drive the pistol grip into your body thus increasing concealment. The strut can be seen on this holster.

Their customer service is like none I’ve ever experienced. The owner is very polite and answered my emails within hours. Even on social media, any direct message I sent to Cry Havoc Gear was replied to within hours. Again, as noted above, if business really takes off for these guys, their response time might increase as orders and emails come in faster than they can reply. As of right now, they seem to be staffed well enough to provide outstanding customer service and produce a quality product within a reasonable amount of time.

There was one minor hiccup in the ordering process, however, but the way they handled it really speaks to their customer service. I received an email stating that my holster was going to ship at the end of the week. About a week went by after I received the email and I still hadn’t gotten a tracking number. I emailed the company and it turned out there was some sort of mix up and my order hadn’t been shipped yet. The owner went into the shop that night, within a few hours of my emailing them, insured my order was ready to go, and shipped it himself that night.

There was another mix up which caused my holster to spend two extra days sitting at the USPS processing center in Indianapolis, but that’s obviously not Cry Havoc’s fault. A government run organization screwing something up; color me shocked. While the shipping was free, I’d be happy to pay for shipping if they would use UPS.

The X-Rig is a great holster, I’m in love with mine. It offers the perfect combination of great quality and workmanship, competitive pricing and a reasonable lead time. It’s comfortable and supports my full-sized P226 with ease. It certainly gives any of the better known companies a run for their money. Ultimately, what separates the X-Rig from the G-Code Incog is the Incog’s belt clip design and placement. However, it’s not worth the extra $20 and 8 week lead time for such a minor difference; especially since if you really wanted to, you could order just the Incog clips and use them with the X-Rig.  So if you are in the market for an appendix carry holster, I implore you to take a look at Cry Havoc Gear’s X-Rig. They have an X-Rig for all the popular firearms and they’ll even do custom work if they don’t offer a holster for your firearm. The Cry Havoc Gear X-Rig is such a great value and they treat every customer like a VIP.

Check out Cry Havoc Gear’s website and be sure to tell them Liberty Defense Concepts sent you.