MASTERFIRE RAPID DEPLOY HOLSTER

At the last Shot Show back in January, SureFire debuted their new holster.  I saw SureFire again at the NRA Annual Meeting and they had the Masterfire on display. I spoke with Andrew of Surefire and he said they should have some for sale. One cool aspect of the NRA Annual Meeting that sets itself apart from SHOT Show, is the fact that it is open to the public and vendors are allowed to make retail sales at the show. SureFire had setup with one of their dealers and they were selling the Masterfire right then and there. They only had a handful of them so I immediately jumped at the opportunity to get one. Plus they were on sale at the NRA show. The only problem is they only had the X400UH-A-GN, the green laser weapon light. I did not want to spend $700+ for a new weapon light to use with this holster. So I ordered the X300UH-B from Surefire. For an entry level Masterfire compatible weapon light, SureFire has the polymer single cell XH15 weapon light.

 

The Masterfire Holster looks very similar to a competition race holster.  You can see it above next to my Safariland 014 and CR Speed WSM II race holsters. The Masterfire is similar to these in the fact that the holster is open and allows for a forward draw after releasing the gun from the detents of the holster.

SureFire developed this holster to interface with their weapon lights however in order to do so they had to alter the housing and create a new line of compatible weapon lights.

Old Vs. New: The Differences

Older X300U on the left. New X300UH-B on the right.

See the tall ears on the X300UH-B on the right? Those are what the Masterfire holster locks onto. The bezel end of the weapon light has also changed and has cuts on the side to index onto cam pins inside the holster.

Below you can see the tall ears are locked into the holster.

If you tried using an older X-series light, the primary locking pin has nothing to grab onto and it will not work with the Masterfire holster.

See the sloped steel protrusion below? That is the primary lock pin. By pressing the thumb release aka primary lock, the primary locking pin withdraws and you can draw the gun out.

There is a secondary locking pin on the opposite side. This actually locks the weapon light into the holster if you need level 3 retension.

Holster Controls

In order to activate the secondary lock, you flip the lever you see below the OFF/ON slider switch. It is now in the locked position. Rotating it back to the left unlocks the pin and you can draw the gun/light out of the holster by pressing the primary lock release.

The OFF/ON slider is what activates the light when the gun is drawn from the holster. When the switch is set to OFF, the weaponlight actuator is flush with the holster side wall.

When you slide the switch to ON, the actuator is rotated inward and sits right above the right hand side rocker switch of the weapon light. As you draw the weapon forward out of the holster, the activator flips the switch for you and turns the light on. If you have an X400UH, then it will activate which ever mode you have selected. So if you moved the selector on the X400UH to laser only, then when you draw the holster it will turn on the laser.

Do you see the two rocker switches on the light in the photo above? The holster is molded so that if the light is switched on, reholstering the weapon will force the rocker switches to even out and turn off the light.

The primary lock thumb release is a little short for my thumb.

But it is not an issue. SureFire included two different sized extensions. Here is the taller of the two. It makes releasing the gun from the holster much easier and faster. Of course your needs may differ from mine.

As you saw in the top photo, the Masterfire holster is compatible with the ALG Defense Six Second Mount. Since the holster interfaces with the weapon light, almost any handgun can be used as long as you can mount the light to the gun.

Depending on what gun you use, you make need the primary lock extension. See how far the X300UH sticks out past the front of my FNS9? That pushes the gun further up on the holster making the thumb release further away from my thumb.

Here you can see with the FNX-45 Tactical, I can just barely get my thumb on the bottom corner of the thumb release. If I did not have the extension installed, I would not be able to hit the thumb release unless I broke my grip from the gun.

No issues when running an M&P9 CORE.

The Canik TP9SFX works on one condition.Using a charging handle and the primary lock extension does not allow any room for my thumb to press the holster release. So either use a shorter extension or don't use the charging handle. I could put the charging handle on the opposite side of the gun to also solve this problem.

Suppressor Compatibility

The Masterfire open holster design allows for the use of suppressors 1.5" in diameter or smaller. As I had mentioned earlier in another article, there are not many options for holstering a handgun with a light and suppressor. Before the Masterfire Holster your options were limited to using a Crye Precision Gunclip holster or some custom Kydex holster. The Crye Gunclip limits you to running only a Glock pistol and while Kydex is great for customizing to your unique setup, you need a custom holster for almost each gun. The Masterfire doesn't care what gun you use.

A minor issue is the use of the SilencerCo Osprey45. The Osprey45 has issues with compatibility. Even though it will work on the ALG Six Second Mount with a weapon light or a long slide Glock, it hangs down too low and hits the Masterfire holster.

You can see  the bottom of the Osprey is touching the holster and the light below it is not properly engaged with the cam pins in the holster and will not lock into place.

To make the Masterfire work with the Osprey45 you can rotate and index the Osprey45 to the side.

There is a small issue with the Masterfire and that is its belt loop rotation adjustability.

The belt loops have two positions to orient the Masterfire holster. Here is how it is setup from factory.

If you try to rotate the belt loops to the second position, there is an incompatibility with the thumb release.  See how the belt loop paddle touches the thumb release? I cannot unlock the gun from the holster since the thumb release will not move like this.

 The second position of holes is actually for the left handed version of the Masterfire that SureFire plans on making soon.

The Masterfire holster is a great option for those who want a universal holster for different pistol setups. The holster retails for $165.39 on SureFire's website. Which is not bad when you compare it to similar style race holsters like the CR Speed WSMII holster or the Safariland 014. However the Masterfire only works with compatible SureFire weapon lights.

• XH15
• X300UH-B
• X400UH-A-GN
• X400UH-A-RD

You can opt for the XH15 polymer single cell weapon light and that will set you back another $154.29 on Surefire's website. That is almost $320 for a holster the requires a weapon light to work. Is that expensive? It depends on how you look at it. I like flashlights so adding a new weapon light to use this holster is not a big deal for me. I have plenty of handguns and one more light doesn't hurt. I think the fact that this holster will work with almost any railed handgun sets it apart from other holsters. Plus you can run optics and suppressors on the gun while using this holster. The Masterfire holster was just released last week and is available for sale.

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