Safariland SafariVault Holster: Best Duty Holster Ever?

Almost anywhere in the United States, you can find a police officer on duty whose service weapon is secured in a Safariland duty holster. 

For some four decades now, Safariland has made Level III retention duty holsters — meaning that three separate, deliberate actions are required to unholster the firearm, preventing criminals from successfully grabbing an officer’s gun.

Safariland’s now-ubiquitous system consists of the SLS (Self Locking System) with a strap and hood that must be pressed down and flipped forward — two motions — to expose the gun underneath. Then, the ALS (Automatic Locking System) must be disengaged, a thumb release lever that releases the pistol with no further resistance for a smooth draw. That adds up to the three actions required to defeat the retention.

Officers and operators have been using Safariland’s ALS- and SLS-equipped holsters for many years; with practice, the draw eventually becomes second nature. 

The older 6000 series is extremely popular; it’s comprised of thermoformed Boltaron that’s straightforward to manufacture, and it’s thick and strong. The newer 7000 series features 7TS injection-molded holsters; however, since injection molding requires dedicated tooling, rolling out additional fitments is slower and requires sufficient demand to justify the investment.

Not content to rest on their laurels, Safariland spent over a year designing and developing the strongest duty holster they’ve ever built. The result is the SafariVault, a brawny holster that’d look at home in a sci-fi movie. The hefty, injection-molded clamshell housing doesn’t flex or crush, and we even stood on top of it with no ill effect.

Notably, the SafariVault is weapon-mounted light and optic agnostic as long as they fit in the housing, since the holster latches onto the ejection port of the gun. The initial version of the holster accommodates thinner weaponlights like the Streamlight TLR-7, with a variant for fatter lights coming soon. 

The SafariVault can swallow up larger optics such as an Aimpoint ACRO or Steiner MPS, as well as the competition-sized C&H Precision Weapons Comp red dot shown here. It’s also open-ended, so threaded barrels and compensators are no longer verboten. 

The SafariVault mounts up with any three-hole Safariland accessory, and AXON systems slot right in. More accessories are planned for the future. 

Safariland brought us out to the iconic Rogers Shooting School in Georgia to test out the SafariVault under the tutelage of the legend himself, Bill Rogers. His unique range features concealed, reactive steel targets from 5 feet to 18 yards away that are pneumatically activated and computer-controlled. 

With over 50 programmed drills, the system can expose and retract various targets in unpredictable sequences for undetermined periods of time, providing students with extremely challenging and very educational instruction.

It definitely takes a lot of practice to master the drawstroke, indexing on the gun consistently, then thumbing the SLS strap down and forward, and ending up on the ALS lever to release the gun. 

When you get it right, the presentation is very smooth — if you’ll be carrying the SafariVault in harm’s way, you best put in the time until it’s second nature. By the end of the day on the range with Rogers running us through difficult drills on multiple, random targets at various distances with exacting time standards (in other words, putting us under stress), we were approaching smooth draws almost two-thirds of the time.

At launch, the fitment supports Glock 17/19/34/45/47 and similar Shadow Systems models, with SIG P320 to follow shortly.

The SafariVault does exactly what Safari-land advertises — it has to be the most robust way to carry a pistol short of strapping a Pelican case to your waist. If your agency or unit issues you a SafariVault, or you have need this level of security, carry with confidence — it’s an absolute beast. But be sure to train with it until you master the draw. 

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