The present invention relates to gunholsters. In particular, the present invention relates to holsters for long barrelled guns which may be worn on the body without impeding the activities of the wearer and where the gun is always quickly and easily accessible to the wearer.
Outdoorsmen who have activities in the wilderness, such as the forests and bush of British Columbia, Canada such as fishermen, hikers, surveyors and oil field exploration people when indulging in their recreational or professional activity find it necessary to carry a gun so as to defend themselves if attacked by wild animals, in particular by bears, such as brown bears. However, handguns are not effective against large wild animals and the fisherman, for example, usually has to have a more powerful gun which is effective in killing large wild animals, such as bears. Such a gun is longbarrelled gun and by the term longbarrelled gun as used herein and in the claims of this application is meant a gun which has a longer barrel than a hand gun, such as a rifle or a shotgun which may, for convenience, have a shortened barrel or a pistol grip or a collapsible stock. Thus, for example, such guns include riot shotguns and assault rifles. Some typical examples include the Winchester Defender Shotgun, the Remington 870 Riot Shotgun and the Ruger Min 14 Rifle which has a collapsible stock.
Such longer barrelled gun, if carried by the fisherman, impedes his fishing activity and thus heretofore the fisherman has laid the gun on the ground nearby where he is fishing, such as with his fishing tackle. However attacks by bears come very quickly and unexpectedly, the bears travelling at about 45 miles an hour and it is necessary for the fisherman to quickly retrieve his gun ready for firing if the attack turns out to be serious. It is quite probable that in such circumstances the gun is at a distance from the fisherman and not readily accessible to him and under stress of the charging bear the fisherman simply finds it impossible to retrieve his gun.
The present invention provides a holster for a longbarrelled gun of sufficient power to kill large wild animals such as bears which allows the wearer to carry the gun on his body without impeding his activity in the absence of danger from such animals and at the same time allows him to readily and quickly pull the gun from the holster so as to be in a position to fire the gun and thus defend himself against the charging wild animal.