Appendix carry continues to enjoy a following. Younger and newer shooters love it. Instagram instructors love it. Keyboard commandos who bought a $90 Kydex taco and a YouTube degree love it. People who think skill comes shrink-wrapped next to the beef jerky at Bass Pro love it.
I still don’t.
Not because I’m a fossil who refuses new tricks. Not because I can’t conceal a compact at 1 o’clock. But because the muzzle is pointed at the parts of you that keep you walking, talking, and having fun.
If you screw up the holstering process — and people do, including people who teach this stuff for a living — the best-case scenario is a ruined sex life, a whole lot of discomfort and a very expensive conversation with a trauma surgeon. The more likely one is a hole in your femoral artery and a very short remaining lifespan to reflect on your decision to appendix carry.
I’ll say it again for the people already typing “But I train!” in comments: If you mess up while holstering appendix, you are in serious trouble. You will not get a cool scar on your ass for chicks to dig. Instead you will get a high-velocity reminder that Rule 2 exists for a reason.
Yes, appendix carry conceals well. Yes, the draw can be stupid fast. It’s accessible while driving or sitting almost anywhere. With the right body and the right rig, it can even be comfortable. None of that changes the geometry, the physics or the anatomy.
The gun is still looking right at your femoral and your family jewels. Other carry positions point at less important real estate. It’s true that scars are like tats with better stories. A mistake at 4 o’clock and you may get yourself a scar. Maybe a limp. A mistake at 12 o’clock you may give yourself a funeral and your family and friends a really sad day.
At least the funeral can be open casket.
Practice until you can’t get it wrong, the advocates say. Fine. Now do it after you’ve just shot someone who was trying to knife you in an alley. Your hands are shaking. The adrenaline dump turns your fine motor skills into a drunk piano recital. Sirens are coming. Bystanders are screaming, or worse yet fighting with you because you shot their ne’er-do-well relative or friend.
You still going to execute that perfect, eyes-on, slow-is-smooth re-holster process? Or are you going to survive the attack, only to lose the gunfight with yourself?
I’ve seen the “I’m careful” crowd. I also watched a highly trained instructor — someone who teaches this for a living — have one of her fellow highly trained instructors put a hollow point into her own hip crease after a long training day because she was distracted and talking while she holstered.
The round traveled down, rupturing the femoral in three places. She only lived because a room full of people who actually know trauma medicine put not one, but two CAT tourniquets on her in under thirty seconds and they met an ambulance a few short minutes later. She still needed emergency surgery and a whole lot of blood.
Here’s a thing…you aren’t gonna have those combat medics and pros if you pop yourself by accident or through negligence. Most of us will be in a parking lot, a range with spotty cell service, or a dark street with no one who’s carrying a tourniquet next to their energy drink.
Here’s another one.
‘Half-Sack’
During a professional firearms training session, YouTuber and first responder “North Wind Aerial” suffered a serious negligent discharge while drawing a GLOCK from an appendix holster. From the trainer’s start signal to the shot, less than half a second passed. The round fired while the pistol was still in or just leaving the holster. It punched through the holster, the seam of his jeans, his penis, scrotum, and left testicle.
Ouch.
He lost roughly a liter of blood and was rushed into surgery, where the damaged left testicle was removed. Urinary tract injury required a catheter for weeks. Fire-department colleagues nicknamed him “Half-Sack.” Despite 15-plus years of professional firearms experience, the incident happened during a timed draw under training pressure.
He posted a frank video about a week later, mixing medical detail with dry humor.
He later fired a pistol again without further injury and said he hoped the story would make others more careful with appendix carry and trigger discipline. The video became his most-viewed upload. He has stated he will keep making drone and first-responder content rather than chase the incident’s attention, while sharing recovery updates.
The usual workarounds don’t survive contact with reality. “I take the holster out of my pants every time.” Sure you do — until you don’t. “I’ll just set the gun down after a shooting.” Great plan until you need it again in the next thirty seconds. “It’s safer than other methods.” Keep telling yourself that while the muzzle stays pointed at the one artery that can empty you in under two minutes.
I have seriously considered appendix carry. The speed and the concealment are very real. I still won’t do it. My life, and the lives of the people who would have to mop me up are worth more than a slightly faster draw from concealment. A scar across the glute is an inconvenience. A self-inflicted femoral hit is probably lights out.
Carry however you want. It’s your choice. Just don’t pretend the risk is imaginary because your last 500 dry reps went fine. Murphy doesn’t care about your Instagram holster pics. He only cares that the muzzle was pointed at the one part of you that doesn’t bounce back.
😂😂😂
Coffe & laughter…
Great start to a Saturday!
Here locally, there was an employee at a LGS who was an avid devotee of appendix carry. He touted all the usual stuff about it, ‘faster’ ‘safer’ he proclaimed. Every time a person was buying a pistol he would tell them about ‘appendix carry is the only way to do it! Let me set you up with a good appendix carry holster like I use.” He was frequently seen on the range practicing with his draw from appendix – he proclaimed “Its perfectly safe, you just need to practice some.”.
The people purchasing guns, especially those new to guns, did not take him up on the appendix carry angle very often.
So this went on for a few years. Him telling everyone about appendix carry. And judging from seeing him on the range he was pretty good at it, smooth and well practiced and fast.
Then on 20 August 2025, the day came when practicing for what can happen became the reality of what did happen. I saw the security cam surveillance video; They had the element of surprise and were beating on him with hands and a bat – he draws quickly and fires a few times and hits one bad guy (twice we learned later) and this bad guy with the other bad guy flee. Then he calls 911 and is on the phone with them shy of a minute standing there leaning back against a wall when he staggers some to the side and falls down and drops the phone. Then sits up and realizes he is bleeding and tries to apply a tourniquet with his belt but then sort of goes limp for a few seconds and he has not finished applying the tourniquet. Then he is moving around again trying to do it but now his movements do not seem coordinated (its probable with the blood loss at this point he is too weak and is not able to think clearly), then he stops moving and his arms go limp and he leans to the side. He bled out and died before paramedics arrived – the first round he fired was into his femoral artery as he was drawing from appendix. From surveillance security cam video the total time of the attack incident, from them first attacking to when he stopped moving, was 2 minutes and 35 seconds. Paramedics and police pull up ~6 minutes after he stopped moving.
Ouch. Won the fight and killed himself accidentally. That sucks. I am with Boch on this. I prefer to learn from other peoples mistakes.
“Ouch. Won the fight and killed himself accidentally.”
Except it *wasn’t* a fight, his choice to fire that gun, that day, was ENTIRELY optional, full stop.
That makes what he did butt-fuquing stupid, and he pretty much got what he deserved, in my non-humble opinion…
A guy that successfully defended himself from two attackers beating on him, but in that defense action accidentally shot him self leading to his death…
but it wasn’t a fight and the defender got what he deserved?
What planet are you posting from?
Geoff PR, your parents cousins… aren’t they, Scooter?
How was this not a fight?
He was being beaten by two men, one with a bat…you have to be a special kind of mental midget to say it wasn’t a fight.
Is there a link for this story?
It seems like 99% of guntubers carry that way. You have to ignore Rule Number Two. Either the Four Rules of Gun Safety mean something, or they don’t.
They’re living their life thinking they’ll just never mess up. Have you ever dropped anything? Have you ever tripped? Stuff happens.
Mr. Boch and the comment section points out something really important: the true risk of something includes the oddball stuff that you don’t expect to happen. Appendix carry is no exception and the true risk involves the oddball stuff already pointed out.
I came to this general revelation a few years ago. I am REALLY good–excellent–at everything that I do. I am incredibly meticulous and pay attention to fine details. I have fantastic skills. I don’t make mistakes. What woke me up was a simple event. I was working on a task at a property on a 1/4 mile long private dead-end dirt road. It was lunch time so I parked my utility trailer on the grass three feet off of the side of the road. I went home for lunch. When I returned, my trailer tongue was sticking up in the air, my trailer was now about six feet off the side of the road, and it was 15 feet farther away from where I parked it. At first blush I thought it was a prank. Then I noticed the skid marks across the gravel road and into the grass to where my trailer had been parked. Yep: someone went off the road and crashed into my trailer. Translation: even though I did everything right, something highly improbable happened and the final result was very bad.
Now I park my trailer at least six-feet off the side of the road. As for you, find another way (other than appendix location) to carry.
One of the unwritten rules of being prepared for Defensive Gun Use is to mitigate your exposure to Murphy’s Law.
Given the realities of what happens to the human mind and body of a defender in a sudden ‘stress response’ (AKA ‘fight or flight’ response) situation of Defensive Gun Use – effects on coordination, spatial movement and awareness including body movements and sense of touch and hand/finger position, effects on vision, sense of time, memory, etc… for some period of time ranging from [sometimes micro-seconds to] seconds to minutes to sometimes hours (depending on the individual) – one mitigating factors is not to start your draw with the gun aimed at critical parts of your body like appendix carry does.
“Carry however you want. It’s your choice.”
Personally, I will *never* carry striker-fired appendix, for that EXACT reason.
I will, and occasionally do carry double-action only revolvers like that, relying on the long, heavy trigger pull to reduce the CHANCE of that kind of accident happening.
I salute the courage of that guy having the balls (so to speak) to make that video…
Shot self during the draw? $100 says there was a shot timer involved.
If you are carrying a gun you should be carrying a TQ.
As a new person to personal guns. After I became military retired. I was amazed at all the prior military who talk civilians into rationalizing ignoring rule #2.
Once again I see so many of these so called “gun experts” setting new people up for failure. And perhaps much worse.
It’s been very obvious to me that the guys with more gun knowledge than me. Many of them are very unsafe with guns.
And they charge a great deal of $$$ to take one of their classes too. Some of their stuff is useful. Some of it is not useful to me.
Shoulder carry can be faster than appendix carry. And safer. Even carrying on your pants belt, people will point the muzzle at a foot or some other part of their body.
However you carry, you need to practice drawing and reholstering your side arm. And practice with it unloaded.
There are so many things about carrying a loaded gun that most people never consider. Like using a public restroom. You should practice for that too. At home.
There are videos about that on YouTube. Or there use to be over 10 years ago.
Bruce Nelson, the name originally associated with appendage carry, didn’t. Cooper was mistaken.
Nelson positioned his IWB holster forward of his hip but with the muzzle to the rear, outside his leg. Most of the advantages of appendage but without the downside.
See Pistolero magazine 1980 in an article by Bruce. His own BNCL Summer Special holsters were muzzle to the rear.
His competition and uniform duty holsters were forward rake, but not IWB.
From the first time I observed the appendix carry I knew I never would.
If you’re using your situational awarness, you’re likely to gain more than a 0.5 second advantage to take a better course of action.