Carry In Plain Sight With Blackhawk!’s Diversion Carry Slingpack Holster

The Blackhawk! Diversion Carry Slingpack is a great solution for those times when traditional belt carry just won’t work.

Do you walk? Jog? Ride a bike? Wander aimlessly?

If so, you might check out the Blackhawk! Diversion Carry Slingpack as an off-body carry option. This single-strap sling pack looks sporty – as in some activity that involves a ball, not a gun. After all, that’s the whole point of Blackhawk!’s Diversion line – to blend in with common, every day activities.

Like other single-strap sling pack designs, the idea is to carry this small pack on your back. When access is needed, it rotates around your body, presenting itself on your chest with a hidden gun compartment zipper facing straight up. So, like other sling pack designs, the draw motion involves rotating the pack to the front and opening the zipper compartment first. This is simply the tradeoff for situations where a more traditional carry method won’t work for you.

The Blackhawk! Diversion Carry Slingpack is designed with a teardrop shape for the pack itself. This allows you to configure the interior holster so the heavy part (grip) of your gun is on the bottom – at the widest part of the teardrop. This helps to stabilize the pack as the heaviest portion of your gun is at the bottom of the pack.

The pack is also ambidextrous. You switch sides by clipping the bottom of the strap to one of two female clips on either side of the pack. Gun compartment zippers are on both sides of the bag and each side has two zippers with large rubber coated loops. You can configure the pack to work over either shoulder and access your gun with a left to right or right to left unzipping motion. It’s super flexible.

The primary strap does not favor right or left shoulder carry, so it may not lay perfectly flat across the top of your shoulder, but that’s the price you pay for the true ambidextrous configuration options.

The pack has three exterior compartments. The primary space doubles as a concealed carry gun pouch with a solid back covered with hook and loop material. A separate holster is included that attaches to the hook and loop backing. The holster has a retention strap if you want to use it, but you don’t have to. The main gun compartment has a mesh pocket that has zipper closures on both sides, so you can safely store other gear in the main compartment, in addition to your gun. The outside of the pack has two additional compartments, one large and the other small. The larger compartment has a strap and hook to fasten a key ring. The two exterior compartments are handy for things like wallets and cell phones so you don’t have to open to gun compartment to access those.

As you can see, the pack is small and completely non-tactical, by design.

How does it perform? Like any sling pack, vigorous movement will encourage the pack to rotate towards the front. The more weight you have in the pack, the more it will want to move towards your side. The pack worked great and remained stable while walking or hiking. It also tended to stay in place while biking. If you’re going to be doing something exceptionally active, you may want to consider a traditional two-strap backpack.

Be sure to check out our book, The Insanely Practical Guide to Gun Holsters. It will teach you all the major methods of concealed carry and walk you through pros and cons over 100 different holster models. It’s available in print and Kindle format at Amazon:

Now available in print! The Insanely Practical Guide to Gun Holsters