We Dig in (and Dremel) a Blackhawk! Omnivore

Several years ago, Blackhawk (Blackhawk!) released the Omnivore universal holster. Quite frankly, we weren’t huge fans of the non-light bearing holster, because it involved adding parts to pistol rails for the locking mechanism. The light-bearing Blackhawk Omnivore is another story entirely.

Blackhawk offers two different versions of the light-bearing Omnivore — one that accommodates a Streamlight TLR-1/2, and one that accepts a SureFire X300/X300U. If you’re into InForce, Insight, Viridian, or NC Star it isn’t for you. For this quick overview, we chose the SureFire model.

This is a Level 2 retention holster —  before you ask, you disengage the locking mechanism with your dominant thumb, not your trigger finger as with the Serpa. You can customize the height of the thumb lock with one of the two included spacers to fit your body and mounting position.

Flipping the holster over we see the standard Blackhawk three-hole pattern. Don’t be mistaken that these will line up with Safariland mounts; they won’t. As with most holsters though, a little bit of Dremel love on a Safariland QLS lock allowed the Omnivore to clip right in. G-Code also makes adapter plates for many other platforms if you’re the meek type.

If you don’t want to go through all of that, the Blackhawk Omnivore ships with both a paddle and belt attachments, with several holes to allow for cant if desired. Changing the belt-slide width is done with a secure and clever mechanism that double locks into place.

The full kit comes with all the parts and pieces you need to customize.

Blackhawk claims that more than 150 pistols will fit into the Omnivore out of the box, and while we don’t have 150 pistols, nearly everything we own that accepts an X300U fit into the holster due to its generous size, including those with slide-mounted optics — with some modifications, we got them all to fit.

There’s an awful lot of space inside this holster, and it sports a large sight channel. The bottom of the holster is open, but not entirely. You may have to break out that Dremel if you have a particularly long or compensated gun. Structurally, this makes little difference.

The front sight channel is generous.

One negative of the SureFire X300 and X300U-A Omnivore is that it isn’t compatible with the newer X300U-B because its thumbscrew mount adds more width than the holster can take. With that said, many light-specific holsters suffer from the same problem. Furthermore, there’s a grippy rubber texture added to the outside of the holster; far as we can tell it’s meant to collect dust and pet hair, though that’s just an aesthetic issue.

The tiny S&W EZ locks in place, and is like throwing a hotdog down a hallway.

Hitting the thumb lock during the draw is fast and smooth. When reholstering, since this Omnivore locks onto the light itself, some accustomed to non-light bearing holsters may have to practice leading with the weapon light itself.

As far as getting the Omnivore to work with all pistols and silencers to boot? You guessed it: Dremel magic. Since the locking mechanism is all about the light, we simply cut off the entire top of the holster. Active locking hood rat race holster? Don’t mind if we do! This modification also makes the Omnivore more flexible, which means it became possible to rip/twist the pistol out of the holster.

Once we cut it like a third-world surgeon, suppressed pistols were no problem.

So, we made a channel for a zip-tie to increase rigidity — we did say this was a hood rat race holster.

Ultimately, we found the light-bearing Omnivore to be the best holster Blackhawk has made to date. Time will tell if it holds up over time, and please, Blackhawk, release a professional version of our Hoodrat Race Holster.

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