Buyer's Guide

10 Things to Look for in a Concealed Carry Shirt

Shopping for concealed carry gear can be difficult. There are a lot of sellers out there, and some of them have ideas about carrying that may not work for you at all. Some options are cheap, others are expensive, and not all of them are worth your time.

That's because many factors go into carrying a firearm comfortably every day, and not everybody selling gear hits all of those points with every model they put out. Let's walk through those factors, including how a concealed carry shirt changes the equation. Keep them in mind and you'll know how to choose the setup that actually fits your needs.

1. Concealment

One of the most important things to look for is how well your setup hides under your clothes. It could be the best-retaining, most comfortable rig in the world, but if it stands out like a giant lump under your shirt, you may as well leave it at home.

When it comes to concealment, you should also look for adjustability, so the firearm sits at an angle and height that blends in with your body and your clothing. Material matters here too: a compression knit follows the form of your body and holds the gun flat against it without adding noticeable bulk, and that helps a great deal with concealment.

IWB, OWB or Concealed Shirt?

You'll also need to make an important decision at this step. Inside the waistband, outside the waistband, or off the waistline entirely? Here are some considerations:

IWB:

• Inside-the-waistband or IWB holsters are more concealable than OWB, at the cost of being slightly less comfortable.
• On the plus side, IWB holsters work well during the summer, especially when you aren't wearing a jacket or sweater but still need to cover your pistol.
• The downside is the waistline itself. You'll usually need to size up your trousers, and the grip still prints at the hip when you bend or sit.

OWB:

• Outside-the-waistband or OWB holsters are less concealable, because you need an item of clothing over them to fully conceal the gun and the holster.
• On the plus side, OWB holsters are easier to wear. That easy-to-wear nature makes them a better choice in the cooler months.
• In warm weather they're the hardest of the three to run, since the cover garment is doing all of the work.

Concealed shirt:

• A concealed carry shirt moves the firearm off your waistline entirely and holds it against the flat of your ribcage, inside a compression panel.
• There's no belt line for the grip to push against, so the silhouette stays flat when you bend, reach or sit down. Those are the three movements that give most waistband setups away.
• No belt is involved at all, which means it works with gym shorts, joggers, scrubs and anything else without belt loops.
• The trade-off is retention. Fabric compression holds the gun rather than a moulded shell, so there's no audible click and no mechanical lock.

Like anything to do with concealed carry, you need to balance your concealability needs against everything else. As a rule, lean toward "more concealable" whenever it comes to your concealed carry handgun.

2. Comfort

Any setup that causes you discomfort probably isn't the best one for you. If you're new to carrying it may take some time to get used to it, but keep the following in mind:

• If your holster digs into your side, you'll want to tear it off and throw it away before the day is out.
• A comfortable setup stays with you all day without ever drawing attention to itself.
• A rigid shell pressed against the hip for twelve hours creates hot spots where the edge meets bone. Soft fabric against skin doesn't.
• Weight affects comfort too. A belt concentrates that weight on one point on one side of your body; a compression panel spreads it across your torso, above your centre of mass.

This is where a concealed carry shirt does its best work. There's no hardware in contact with your skin, nothing pinched between a belt and your body, and nothing to keep re-adjusting through the day. Comfort isn't a luxury feature here: it's the difference between carrying every day and carrying on the days you remember to.

3. Retention

Another of the most important considerations is how well your setup retains the gun. The bottom line: if it won't hold onto or grip your handgun sufficiently, you shouldn't be using it. Why is that?

• Good retention keeps your gun where you put it, not bouncing along the ground or shifting out of position over a few hours.
• You probably won't be doing acrobatics while carrying, but if you have to put a hand on your gun to hold it in place while jogging, you're going to print and give yourself away.
• On the other hand, you don't want something that grips the gun so tightly you can't draw smoothly and quickly under duress.

With a moulded holster, retention is mechanical. With a concealed carry shirt, retention is compression: the tension of the fabric is the only thing doing the work. That makes fit far more important here than on any belt rig: one size too large turns the pocket into a hammock, and the gun starts to swing.

4. Re-Holstering

The flip side of retention is how easily you can put the gun back.

• For tactical and safety reasons, if you have to draw your pistol you should re-holster it as soon as the threat is over.
• Unfortunately, if your gear fights you on this, you can slip and drop the gun, or have a negligent discharge while trying to re-holster.
• A pocket mouth that collapses once the gun leaves it forces you to hold it open with your support hand, putting that hand near the muzzle at the worst possible moment. Look for a reinforced mouth that stays open.
• Re-holster slowly, one-handed, with your eyes on what you're doing. There has never been a situation that required putting a gun away quickly.

Why Material Matters

Carry gear commonly comes in four materials, and each one behaves differently once you've worn it for a few months.

Nylon:

• Nylon holsters are often generic and more one-size-fits-all. Guns may not fit snugly into a nylon holster for exactly that reason.

Leather:

• Like nylon, leather holsters can collapse when there's no gun inside, especially when used inside the waistband.
• When re-holstering after you've drawn, many leather holsters require two hands: one to hold the gun and one to hold the holster open. That's not a good thing.

Kydex:

• Kydex keeps its shape, which lets you draw and re-holster one-handed, useful when you're holding a child, or holding your phone while you call the police.
• Adjustable retention helps as well, and a correctly set-up kydex holster clicks when the handgun seats fully, so you know for certain it's safely holstered.
• The trade is that kydex is moulded to one specific model. A new firearm means a new holster.

Compression knit:

• A technical knit with elastane content wicks moisture, holds tension under load, and springs back to shape after washing. It's the only one of the four that's worn against your skin all day.
• Recovery is the property that actually matters and the one nobody advertises: a fabric that stretches but never springs back has lost its retention within a month of wear.
• Because the pocket isn't moulded to a specific model, the same garment accommodates a range of compact and subcompact pistols.
• Avoid heavy cotton blends. They soak up sweat, hold it, and stretch out under load without recovering.

5. Adjustability

Every person's body is unique, and the pants you wear one day may fit differently than the pants you wear the next. Given that, why would you expect a rigid, non-adjustable setup to fit you properly? The chances are just too low.

With a belt holster, adjustability means ride height and cant, and if a company only sells fixed positions, you end up buying two holsters for two pairs of trousers. With a concealed carry shirt, flexibility comes from somewhere else entirely: mirrored pockets. Two identical pockets mean the same garment works for a right-handed carrier, a left-handed carrier, and the same person after a wrist injury.

It also means you can move the firearm to whichever side isn't blocked by a seatbelt on a long drive, and use the free pocket for a spare magazine, a phone or documents. Check that both pockets are genuinely identical: same depth, same tension, same seam reinforcement. Some shirts advertised as ambidextrous have one real pocket and one that only exists on the spec sheet.

6. Quality of the Craftsmanship

Quality is something you pay for upfront but save on over the years. There's a lot to love about leather, but it's an organic material susceptible to wear and tear even after it's been broken in and conditioned. Sweat in particular can penetrate leather and work its way through to your gun.

• That means leather will eventually become unsuitable, despite the expense. Kydex lasts longer: it doesn't need conditioning and doesn't care if it gets wet.
• A carry shirt lives a harder life than either, because it's worn against skin, sweated through, and washed dozens of times a year. The failure is never dramatic; the compression just quietly gives up.
• Check the bar-tacks at the pocket corners. That's where the load sits, and it's the first place a cheap garment fails.
• Look for flatlock or bonded seams rather than a standard overlock, which is bulkier and rubs under a compression fit.

Not all gear is created equal, so it pays to buy from a maker that controls its own production rather than rebadging a generic garment. When shopping, make sure you choose something backed by a solid guarantee. If it's made in America, all the better.

7. Proper Fit

One-size-fits-all gear fits just about anyone, in theory. Plenty of inexpensive products claim it, but do they actually do it well?

The short answer is "No."

Here's why:

• On a belt holster, sizing is about the gun. On a concealed carry shirt, sizing is the retention system: there's nothing else holding the firearm in place.
• Too loose and the pocket becomes a hammock. The gun shifts when you walk and swings when you run.
• Too tight and your draw is restricted, the hem rides up when you move, and you'll take the shirt off before lunch.
• Compression sizing doesn't map onto casual sizing. Your usual t-shirt size is not a reliable guide.

Measure your chest at the fullest point with a soft tape, arms down, without holding your breath, and read the size chart rather than assuming. If you land between two sizes, order the larger one. It still compresses enough to retain the firearm while letting you breathe and fully extend your arms.

8. Safety

You carry a pistol to keep yourself and your family safe. Shouldn't your gear help with that goal? Not every product does. Some don't cover the trigger guard at all. It could get snagged and fire straight through.

Additionally:

• Some holsters cover the trigger guard but the material protrudes inside it. You could be holstering the gun, and then BLAM.
• A rigid holster protects the trigger by being a hard shell. A concealed carry shirt protects it with pocket depth and correct fit, which puts more of the responsibility on you.
• With the firearm seated, you should not be able to touch the trigger from outside the pocket, and the pocket mouth should sit above the trigger guard, never across it.
• Check this with your firearm, not the one in the product photo. For striker-fired pistols without a manual safety, this check matters more, not less.

9. Ease of Drawing

If you need to draw your pistol, every second counts, and you don't want to be fighting your own clothing to get the gun out.

Plenty of factors affect how easy that draw actually is, though.

• Chest-level carry starts your hand closer to the firearm than hip carry does. There's no reaching down and behind, no shirt hem to sweep clear, and no jacket falling back over the grip.
• You should be able to get a full firing grip on the gun while it's still in the pocket. A pocket cut too high on the grip forces you to draw first and fix your hold afterwards: slow and unreliable under stress.
• Access doesn't change when you sit down, which matters given how much of an ordinary day is spent driving, working or eating.
• Practise with the outer layer you actually wear, and run the sequence with an unloaded firearm until it's boring.

10. Ease of Wearing

Your pistol can't defend you if you've left it at home. When you're choosing a setup, try to find one that's easy to put on and take off, and that works under a range of different clothing.

• Not all holster clips are easy to get onto your belt. You shouldn't have any difficulty working out how to use one. If you do, that's a product to stay away from.
• A concealed carry shirt removes that step entirely. There's no belt to thread, no clips to position and no ride height to set. You put it on the way you put on any shirt.
• There's nothing to re-adjust through the day either. Belt rigs loosen; a compression panel doesn't.
• It works with clothing that has no belt loops at all, and it works while seated, which is where most of an ordinary day is actually spent.

Choosing the Best Concealed Carry Setup

All ten points come down to one sentence:

Find something that fits the gun well and fits you well.

Get both right and the rest follows: it conceals, it stays comfortable, and you'll actually wear it. Get either wrong and nothing else on this list makes up for it.

Final Thoughts

A carry shirt isn't for everyone. Carrying full-size, or need a rigid shell over the trigger guard? Stick with a holster. But if you carry a compact, sit most of the day, or live somewhere with a real summer, moving the gun off your waistline solves what belt rigs never could.