Mag Pouches Upgraded

So I have decided to shoot an IDPA match this coming weekend and started to review the rules to see how they compare to what I have been shooting at the Wake County Range.  My current action pistol matches are a little laid back then what the IDPA rules are.  I pulled up the IDPA rule book and found lots of interesting things to read, IDPA Rule Book 2005.  I checked out the rules for the equipment that I was going to bring and my take away on equipment was that my holster that I made the other weekend will be ok, however the magazine pouches that I made a while back will not.  The scoring seems to be pretty straight forward thanks to this link that I found, IDPA-Scoring-For-Dummies.  So now that I know how the scores work in simple terms.  So now what to do about those magazine pouches.

 

The criteria for the magazine pouches is that it must cover 2" of the magazine and the entire front face.  I don't think that anyone would give me to hard of a time with what I originally made (image below), but I decided to create the second generation of my design.



Original Design



I needed to figure out how I was going to go about doing this, so after some thought I decided to use a wrap technique.  This is very similar to the speed loader pouches that I made for my Dad last month except these would be rectangular instead of circular.

 So all I needed to do now was figure out the size of my template and start cutting them out.

   

Templates Laid Out

  



Templates Cut Out



 Now that the templates were cut out I heated up the portion that I was going to wrap around the magazine and began forming this rectangular shape.  Once the wrap was complete I needed heat up the bottom and use the press to mold the shape that I wanted.  In order to do this I had to tape the wrapped shaped around the magazine and also set the height of the magazine inside the holster.  When I heat this up the tape will allow only the bottom part of the pouch to be molded and will also keep the magazine where I want it.  Once the end was heated up it was into the home made press.

Taped Up Shape & Mag Height Set

 

In The Home Made Press ($10 To Make)

 After removing this from the press (just a couple of minutes) I needed to trim the end of the mag pouch off.  I used a scroll saw to do this and give me a niece clean cut (thanks for the scroll saw Dad).

Once the end was cut off I taped up the bottom of the mag pouch to retain the shape while I heated up the one side to make it flat.





Bottom of Pouch

Once that side was flatten all that was left to do was to trim off the extra and make it smooth.

Need to Trim Excess

Flattened the Side

Now the mag pouch was complete and just needed to fold the loop for my belt.  Once the loop was formed I adjusted the tension by heating up the fully wrapped side and squeezing it in until I had the tension that I wanted.

So all that being said here are some pictures of the final product.



Finished Product



Wearing Finished Product