Glock Gen6 and your Safariland holster

The short answer

A Gen6 Glock 17, 19 or 45 fits every Safariland duty holster built for the Gen3, Gen4 or Gen5 version of the same pistol. Light-bearing and non-light-bearing alike. You do not need a Gen6-specific holster.

There is one exception, and it is not a Gen6 problem. If your Gen6 has a red dot on it and your holster was not cut for an optic, it will not go in. That was true of a Gen5 with a dot too. A holster already cut for an optic takes a Gen6 with an optic. The optic rule, in full →

Why it fits — the holster never touches what changed

A duty holster holds a pistol by the slide and the trigger guard. The SLS hood rotates over the rear of the slide; the ALS engages at the trigger guard. Gen6 is an ergonomics change, and ergonomics happen in your hand, not inside the holster.

What Gen6 changed, nowhere near the holster

• Grip and frameIntegrated palm swell, two interchangeable backstraps, a built-in beavertail, a reworked rough-texture grip, ambidextrous frame shelves and a flared magazine well. All of it is where your hand goes. A duty holster never contacts any of it.
• TriggerA flat-faced trigger shoe and a shorter reach to it. Inside the trigger guard, which the holster surrounds but does not touch.
• Barrel and recoil springReengineered barrel chamfering and a single captive recoil spring. Internal. Invisible to a holster.

The three changes that are near the holster, and why none of them binds

• Deeper front slide serrationsSerrations are material removed from the slide, not added. Deeper ones give a holster body more clearance, not less.
• A more aggressive trigger guard undercutThe undercut is on the frame above the rear of the guard, where your middle finger sits, so you can grip higher. It is not on the outer profile of the guard that an ALS catches — that profile is unchanged.
• A thumb ledge and frame shelvesThese are additions, and they sit on the frame above and ahead of the trigger guard — open air on an open-top duty holster.

That is the difference between fits and nearly fits, and on an active-retention duty holster it is the difference that matters: an ALS or SLS either engages or it does not. Here it engages, because nothing it engages on moved.

The optic rule — the one thing that actually decides it

Gen6 ships optics-ready as standard, so far more Gen6 pistols carry a red dot than Gen5 pistols did. The dot, not the generation, is what decides whether your holster works — and this rule was already true before Gen6 existed.

• Optic fitted, holster not cut for oneWill not fit. Never did, on any generation. The sight body fouls the holster where the slide sits.
• Optic fitted, holster cut for an opticFits. An RDS or RDSO holster bought for a Gen3 to Gen5 takes a Gen6 with an optic. The optic cut did not change.
• No opticFits. Any Safariland fit for the Gen3 to Gen5 version of your pistol.

So if your old rig suddenly will not take your new Gen6, check whether you mounted a dot. That is nearly always the answer, and what you need is an optic-cut holster — not a Gen6-specific one. The RDS and RDSO in a Safariland model number are what mark the optic cut: read a Safariland model number →

What Safariland says

Safariland states that it has “tested retention and certified Gen 6 fits across all of its duty holster designs”, and that the listed models work with Gen6 as they have with Gen5.

Source: Safariland’s own Gen 6 guide, published on its CADRE Dispatch blog, and the trade coverage of it in Shooting Illustrated, which names the 6000-series duty holsters specifically. Retention on duty gear is not something to take on inference alone, so the manufacturer’s own testing is quoted rather than summarised.

What this page covers, and what it does not

This page is about Safariland. That is what we specialise in and what we can speak to.

We also stock duty and tactical holsters for these pistols from Bianchi, Blackhawk, DeSantis, Eagle Industries, Gould & Goodrich, Specter Gear and Uncle Mike’s. We are not making a Gen6 claim for any of them, because we have not confirmed it — the same reason this site does not map Bianchi holsters onto Safariland retention levels. If you are looking at one of those and need to know, ask us and we will tell you what we actually know.

Nothing here is a substitute for checking your own pistol in your own holster before you carry it.

Holsters for these three pistols

Not sure which model you are holding, or what it fits? Use the Fit Finder → · Retention levels →