A good belt kit can act as a great “standalone” piece of gear for military, LE, or civilian applications. This will detail some refinements I’ve done to my own gear through trial and error.

Since the Warrior Industries class back in…. April? I’ve been working to bring my belt rig up to speed. Doing .mil stuff, I never had a need for a pistol on my belt. Instead, it was rifle focused, often carrying my entire load plus NODs in lieu of wearing any other kit.

Since leaving the Army, I’ve been shifting away from traditional chest rigs and plate carriers and moving towards using my belt for everything. As a civilian, I also have ready access to a pistol at all times, so incorporating a secondary weapon into my kit makes sense.

The belt itself is an ATS war belt with their basic fastex liner belt.

From left to right, as pictured, I carry all of my ammo on my left hip as always, but now with pistol mags just in front of my hip. Pictured are Glock 17 mags, but 21 rounders allow me to carry more ammo on my person along with offering an easier profile to grab. All mags are carried in KYWI pouches, which gives me the speed I want, along with adequate retention, and allows me to easily reinsert mags.

Under the mag pouches I have a basic no name dump pouch. I’ve used a few of the lower profile pouches in the past, but the lack of rigidity at the mouth left something to be desired when doing administrative tasks involving mags, so the no name pouch is a better option for my uses.

To the right of the mags, I’ve got a BFG MP7 pouch, which allows me to carry a CAT ready to go and easily accessed. If for whatever reason I have to access it and don’t have the use of my left arm, I can simply unbuckle the whole belt and pull it across my body to access all the med gear.

Past that, I’ve got a basic little carabiner which works well for whatever I might need to administratively clip on while at the range.

The HSGI EOD pouch was previously used for my NODs and BII, but with those out of the picture, it acts as a GP/additional med kit. My most likely scenario with this belt is being on the range and dealing with some sort of ricochet or perhaps gunshot wound, thus having extra TQs is a boon. In this pouch I keep a good length of paracord for general needs, and two SOF-Ts. On the exterior of the pouch is a quality seatbelt cutter.

Next comes the “primary” med kit, the HSGI bleeder or blowout kit, (can’t remember). This houses a set of trauma shears, some combat gauze, and an izzy dressing. Additional med supplies, if dealing with an injury at a range, can come from the full kit I keep inside my truck, (more on that later), but this gives me enough materials to deal with most basic gunshot/penetration wounds.

I’ve spent most of my time messing around with finding a good holster. Previously, I’ve had issues finding solid holsters for the Glock 19/TLR1 combo, but given its broad acceptance as a quality light, options are much more available than they were years prior.

I wanted a quality holster with retention, but didn’t want to pay too much money getting it set up. Because of this, I went with the Safariland 6378 ALS. Retention and speed are both phenomenal. I’ve added the nub mod for more positive engagement, and recently added the UBL hanger to accommodate mounting it to the belt. The ride height of the UBL is wonderful, bridging the gap between the 6004 I’ve used in the past, and a full on hip holster/concealment holster.

In the future, I’m considering doing the ITS style strap mod to keep the 6378 firmly anchored to my leg, but my previous aversion to leg straps, (light infantry background), has slowed that experimentation.

Hope this helps.