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Moon Clip Holders. One point of view.

Posted by George on 15th Jun 2017

Moon Clip Holders:

The purpose of a moon clip holder is to provide a place to store moon clips, securely retain those moon clips, and make them available as the shooter needs them.  Simple enough.  Most shooting organizations require that the moon clips be secured to the belt area and all reloads come from that place.  While not our main focus, we'll also talk about hiking and concealed carry applications.

Here is a picture of a basic moon clip holder.

basic-holder

It's made from a piece of metal and slips onto the belt.  One holder for each moon clip.  The shooter would place as many of these holders as he or she might need on their belt.

The next step in moon clips holders is many single posts on one unit.

basic-holder

This image shows many posts (note each is angled to the strong hand) attached as one unit on to the shooter's belt.  These posts contain magnets.  Steel moon clips are held on by those magnets.  They don't work for stainless moon clips

Another design approach for moon clip holding is a post tall enough to hold 2 moon clips and many posts in a unit.

basic-holder

Above is a picture of one such unit.  The angle between the back of the frame and the posts/moon clip is used to retain the moon clips.  The pictured unit is 5 posts, 10 moon clips in total and has some quick release hardware to attach the unit to a shooter's belt.

And finally, let's discuss the moon clip holders from Revolver Supply.

basic-holder

basic-holder

As you can see, we offer single and double post units.  Our holders are made from a thermal setting plastic.  You can make changes to them with hot air and slight pressure.  The holders slide on your shooting belt and are retained with a loop that is riveted in place.  We offer single post and double post units.  Our holders also come in a short version for 45 ACP and 9MM cartridges and a tall version for 38 Special and 357 Mag.  Moon clip retention is achieved because of the interference between the post and back of holder.  This tension is adjustable, making these holders great for competition and also hiking.

Let's talk about reloading a revolver.  The two basic methods of reloading are strong hand and switched hand.  With strong hand the shooter never lets go of the gun's grip.  All the extraction and ejection is done with the week hand as is reloading.  Switch hand reloading switches the gun from the strong hand to the weak hand, as the cylinder is opened and the moon clip ejected with the week hand.  The strong hand is free to pick the next moon clip up and place in the opened cylinder.  The cylinder is closed and the strong hand transfers to the grip.

Now depending which reloading method you use and if you're right or left handed, you would want your reloads to be on either the left or right side of your belt.  Our 2 and 1 post units let you do precisely that.  I use a right handed, strong hand reload technique and have 2 double post units on my belt just above my left pocket.  My right hand just falls to that pocket area to get a reload.  I also have a single post unit above my back pocket of starting a stage.

With a switch hand reload my moon clips would want to be above my right pocket but that is also where my holster is located, making everything crowed together.

I tried putting the single moon clip holder across the front of my belt.  That didn't work for me, I was always hunting to my next moon clip to pick up and wasting precious time.  Also with all the moon clips in the front my senior stomach got in the way.  I do much better with the moon clips on the side.

Other odds and ends.  Sometime match directors require a start with all moon clips on the table.  Our units are designed so that you can pick up 2 moon clips in each hand (4 total) and push them down onto the posts.  The tip of the posts let you slide moon clips over top.  

Hiking and Concealed Carry:

Our single post units are great for hiking.  You can trip and fall and your moon clips won't go flying all over.  The holders are not so good for concealed carry.  It's easy to see the moon clips (not covered up) and these holders don't look well with dress up clothing.

Conclusion:

There are no correct answers to the best way to hold moon clips.  Look around and find the best approach that suits your shooting style.