In March, I reviewed Alien Gear’s Cloak Tuck 2.0 and gave it five stars. It’s one of the most comfortable holsters of this style — large, flexible backing with two clips, which is great for a heavy pistol — at what’s likely the lowest price on the market, all backed by a particularly solid warranty. Not content to rest on its laurels, Alien Gear claims to have improved on this five star design with the Cloak Tuck 3.0, so we just had to check it out. . .
As mentioned in the 2.0 review, my opinion on this style of holster is that it’s the ideal IWB solution for a heavy gun, but it’s excessive when the pistol’s weight doesn’t need to be spread out over such a large surface area and distributed between two belt clips. I’d rock a holster like this for basically anything larger/heavier than a GLOCK 19 and try to scale down for anything smaller/lighter than that.
Anyway, my “woods carry” pistol is a Gen3 GLOCK 20SF. It definitely falls into the full-size-plus category, especially when loaded with 16 rounds of 220 grain hard cast bear and cougar deterrent. Although it’s fully legal and even socially acceptable to open carry ’round these parts, especially up in the mountains, I prefer to keep things under wraps. Wouldn’t want to scare the Huckleberries away…
Or the pleasant folks at the country club where we enjoyed a lovely brunch before heading to the aforementioned mountains. A GLOCK 20 is a lot of gun to fully conceal, but if it’s going to happen a holster like this will help.
After half a day in the woods carrying the G20 in the Cloak Tuck 3.0, it was pretty well molded to my body.
In fact, one of the primary benefits of Alien Gear’s synthetic backing — a “thermoelastic polymer” on the gun side and neoprene on the body side — is how flexible it is. It’s basically broken in right out of the box, unlike a leather backing that takes extensive wear to mold to your shape and soften up.
The 2.0 has what I’d call a “leatherette” or “pleather” sort of a backing on the gun side — I think it’s vinyl — and the 3.0 has what is definitely a rubber. It features the “Alien Skin” texture, of course. In the photo below, the 2.0 is on the left, 3.0 on the right:
It’s a few mils thicker, feels tougher and just a tad stiffer.
When I visited the Alien Gear offices nearly a year ago and saw the Cloak Tuck 2.0 in person for the first time, I had two product suggestions for their team. Whether or not my input actually affected anything I can’t say, but the 3.0 does incorporate both of those changes.
The need to swap out stiff spacers of varying lengths to adjust retention and clip spacing has been alleviated through the use of a squishier, more spring-like material. The 3.0 still ships with extra spacers in various thicknesses and some other spare parts, but those other spacers are really only needed for large adjustments. This new, alien green material can be compressed by tightening the screws, allowing for some adjustment without a repeated disassembly trial and error process.
My second suggestion was hiding the T-nuts. Basically, if at all possible, putting them under the neoprene layer instead of on top of it. The truth is you can’t feel those T-nuts when carrying (pro tip: inside the waistband, but outside the underwear), but the appearance of them certainly doesn’t scream “comfortable,” which is the Cloak Tuck’s rallying cry. The 3.0 mostly takes care of it, with visible nuts only required at the currently-used clip locations.
This ability was likely — conjecture on my part here — due at least in part to the thicker, stronger gun-side backing material, and also due to what is certainly the largest, most important product change between the 2.0 and 3.0.
Instead of a thin ABS plastic sheet providing structure between the gun-side and you-side layers, the Cloak Tuck 3.0 uses a thin piece of stainless spring-steel. While the warranty always covered it, the most common failure in the 2.0 was a cracked ABS layer. The 3.0 is significantly stronger, with more vertical stiffness and stability, while still offering near-identical horizontal flexibility. It provides more protection for you from the gun and for the gun from you, and should indefinitely outlast the 2.0 material.
Conclusions
Yep. The 3.0 manages to improve on the 2.0 in all the key places. It’s more durable, just as comfortable, and more easily adjustable. Alien Gear does want $8 more for it, but at $43.88 it’s still one of the least expensive holsters of its type on the market, I believe beat only by AG’s own Cloak Tuck 2.0.
Specifications: Alien Gear Cloak Tuck 3.0 Holster
Gun Models Available: See this page for a full list
Build: kydex shell with 3-layer base (some sort of rubber, stainless spring-steel, closed cell neoprene)
Price: $43.88
Ratings (out of five stars):
Overall: * * * * *
Alien Gear went all Kaizen on the 2.0, which was already a 5-Star holster.