TexasCHLforum.com

Last night, one of my friends from church and I were leaving a Bible study we had been to together, and we started talking about rifles. After a few minutes, he straight up asked me, "do you ever pack heat, or do you have a CHL?" Well, he's a pretty good friend, and he is gun friendly, so I confessed that yes, I carry and have a CHL. He said "me too," and showed me his Glock 17 which was hidden under his sweater. He then asked to see what I carry - a Kimber Ultra Carry II - so I showed him. We talked for a few minutes more, and then each went on our way.

Now, the point of all this is that he is right handed, I'm left handed, and we have been sitting in the same spots on the same couch for the past 6 weeks on Thursday nights - with him on the left end of the couch, and me on the right end. Thus, my gun side was facing toward him, and his was toward me, and neither one of us ever realized that the other had been carrying all this time until last night when it came up in conversation.

The odds are practically nil that an uninitiated person is going to realize that you've got a pistol concealed about yourself.

Don't worry about printing. Avoid it if you can, but don't spend time worrying about it. As others have said, 99.9999% of the people who even bother to wonder what that shape under your shirt actually is won't be able to tell. And most of them, even if they could tell, won't care - as long as you don't look the part of a gangsta and are not acting in a threatening manner.

That being said, slightly looser fitting shirts, with printed patterns in a darker color will conceal your pistol better than a t-shirt will. But choice of holster and firearm also are factors. Even so, there are at least a few members here who carry full sized pistols OWB and don't have printing problems. I used to thing that being (ahem!) "beltline challenged" would make it harder to conceal a pistol, but I've seen enough posts on this site from people who describe themselves as beanpoles who complain that they have trouble with concealment. So, I think that firearm choice, holster choice, and clothing choice have more to do with it than physical build - that and attitude. If you act with that "I'm nervous because I'm hiding a gun" attitude, people are going to pick up on it. If you take appropriate measures to conceal, and then forget that the gun is there until you need it, nobody will be the wiser.

I'm a believer in, "put it on, cover it up, forget about it."