How to care for your Kydex Product
Avoiding damage to your Kydex holster
Your holster/magazine pouch is a robust piece of equipment. Kydex can withstand all sorts of abuse, and continue working quite well. However, it is important to be aware of things that could damage your holster in ways you may not expect.
Use: Note that Kydex holsters/magazine pouches are fit to an exact pistol or magazine/accessory combination. Using a different pistol/magazine in it is not supported or recommended. Using a different pistol/magazine that fits "good enough" is likely to result in a pistol/magazine with an improperly covered trigger guard, improper retention, etc. These are potentially dangerous situations.
Heat:
Heat is the tool we use to form your holster/magazine pouch. Be aware that heat can deform your holster/magazine pouch quite quickly. Do not ever heat your holster/magazine pouch in an oven to try to reshape it. Do not leave it on your dashboard or under a glass-enclosed area with direct sunlight. Our experiments show that a holster/magazine pouch left in its product packaging (clamshell) under direct sunlight on a cool day can reach over 150 degrees Fahrenheit and deform. When washing your holster/magazine pouch, do not use water over 100 degrees. Do not ever set your holster/magazine pouch on a heater or radiator or other hot surfaces as it can discolour or deform your holster.
Physical damage: It's pretty hard to physically damage a holster/magazine pouch to the point it becomes unusable. However, it's possible that extreme abrasion or cuts on outside surfaces can cause the Kydex to weaken and break.
Washing your Kydex holster
Kydex has a number of distinct advantages over leather or soft synthetics: it can be washed. Washing your holster is the most important thing you can do to reduce damage to your pistol's/magazine pouch finish over time. When carrying your pistol/magazine pouch, and especially while training, it is likely that dirt and grit can get into your holster. Kydex is much softer than the finish on your pistol, but bits of dirt, dust, and sand is not. Thankfully, washing your holster is easy. Simply run it under lukewarm water and use a mild detergent to clean the inside and/or outside. After washing, dry, with special attention to drying any steel hardware to prevent rust. You may wish to disassemble any such hardware to ensure it dries completely to reduce corrosion issues. Do not wash under hot water, as this is likely to deform your holster.
Tightening or securing hardware
Your Kydex holster/magazine pouch has hardware that is used to hold the holster together, secure attachments, or adjust retention. Eyelets on the holsters/magazine pouch are brass, so we don't need to worry about those too much. It is the screws with barrels ("Chicago screws") that we need to worry about. These things have a way of slowly backing out over time, ultimately falling out and getting lost. It is important to periodically check the tightness and re-tighten it as appropriate. This can be done with common hand tools. If you are experiencing this issue and do not need to remove or adjust the screws in the future, you can use a thread lock or even a dab of nail polish on the threads to help keep them from backing out. At the factory, we use o-rings or spacers in many places on your holster/magazine pouch; do not remove these because these also help maintain tension on the screws to reduce the amount they back out over time.
