Advice for a newbie

[TexasCajun]

Welcome to the forum!
For belts, I either use a 5.11 reinforced nylon or Tucker Gunleather.

Here is my holster journey.
I carried a g17 iwb for a while in a DeSantis Tuck This with a single j-clip. It worked ok with jeans, but tended to shift and sag with dress-casual pants. I downsized to carrying a Beretta Nano in a smaller DeSantis and had the same results. So I changed to carrying the Nano in a Kholster leather/kydex with dual metal over-belt clips. My wife started getting aggravated with what the metal clips were doing to our furniture, so I changed the metal clips to kydex c-clips from Comp-Tac. I recently switched my EDC to a Smith & Wesson Shield, 9mm. Luckily, my Kholster fit the new Shield. Unfortunately, Kholster seems to now be out of business.

The reason most of us have a box or drawer full of holsters is that it takes a while of consistent use to determine if what we have actually works or not.

[n5wd]

4. Wear a good belt - one that is fairly stiff, 1-1.5 inches wide and a bit thicker than you'd normally wear with dress clothes.

I must respectively disagree with the above. Don't wear "a good belt". Wear "A GUN BELT"! They are especially designed to carry the weight of a gun and perhaps a spare magazine or two.

Respectfully.
I agree a "good belt", "work belt", "heavy belt", "Amish belt", etc. are not the same as something designed and sold as a GUN belt. Get a gun belt.

While normally, I wouldn't come back with a rebutal to two such good, fine and respected members of the forum's community, perhaps the following tale will be enough to illustrate my meaning...

At one of the gun shows in Fort Worth a few years ago, I was looking for new belts after, ahem, expanding my waistline a little bit. A vendor had two piles of belts... one was marked "dress belts" and the other was marked "gun belts". Both had belts that were the appropriate length for my new waistline, about 5/8th " thick, 1.5" tall, and fairly stiff (hmmm.. sounds familiar, doesn't it?). Black, brown and tan in various shades. In fact, in comparing the two, I found a couple that were almost exactly the same, though the stitching was a bit heavier in one than the other. The only difference I could tell was the price tag, about $20 difference for the "gun belt".

I asked the vendor what the difference was... his reply? "The price tag" I'm still wearing, and still carrying, with those belts a few years later, though it probably is time to get some new ones since I've been on a waistline reduction campaign for the last little while.

My point is this: sometimes belts sold as "gun belts" might be different than similar belts. Sometimes, they might not. Your mileage may vary.