Upgrading Blackhawk Omnivore with Safariland QLS

The Blackhawk omnivore is a really cool universal holster system. We reviewed the ins and outs of that system in last week's video, so if you missed it feel free to check that out. In this week's video, we're going to do a short tutorial on how to make the holster cross compatible with Safariland's Quick Locking System, or QLS for short.Show more

The Safariland QLS system is essentially a highly secure buckle system that features a male fork and a female receiver. By mounting the fork to a variety of holsters, you can quickly swap out holsters on your belt. Similarly, you can have many belts equipped with the QLS receiver, allowing you to swap holsters and belts at your leisure.

I personally run two belts. I have a competition focused belt that I like to use for USPSA production matches featuring polymer mag carriers, a dump pouch, and a QLS receiver for my holster. I also have a more general purpose range belt that is set up for more tactical style training courses and can be easily configured for 2 gun. It has a slimmer and more flexible profile, ESSTAC kywi mag pouches, for pistol and rifle, a dump pouch, IFAK, knife, QLS Fork, and Tourquet.

By using the QLS system, I can swap holsters depending on what style of class or competition im shooting in with minimal effort. So combining this versatility with the versatility of the Blackhawk Omnivore gives you nearly unlimited combinations of gear options as your gear closet grows.

Okay so with the case made for the QLS system, lets talk about the problem with mounting the Blackhawk omnivore. The blackhawk omnivore has a proprietary mounting pattern that honestly isn't compatible with a lot of the aftermarket. Its pattern is just off enough that it won't work with the QLS fork out of box which can be pretty frustrating. In order to get this to work with the QLS fork, you'll need an adapter, so that's where this $35 adapter plate from Cross Machine and Tool comes in.

Keep in mind that there's a chinese knockoff version of the adapter plate, but it has sub par reviews and only saves you $5. Just spend a little more and buy the American made version. As always, links to the real thing will be in the description of the video and pinned in the comments section.

so the first thing you'll notice is that the inner mounting holes on the adapter plate line up to the holes on the omnivore. As you can see the indentations on the inner holes need to be facing the holster, this is the correct orientation of the adapter plate.

Next, we'll want to take these locking nuts and insert them in the outtermost holes. These are the holes that we'll tap into from the QLS fork to attach the QLS fork to the plate. These must be inserted prior to screwing the adapter plate to the Omnivore holster.

Next, identify the 3 short screws. The short screws will interface with the holster. The long screws are for the QLS fork since the QLS fork has more thickness.

Lastly, we'll fix the QLS fork to the nuts that we inserted earlier utilizing the long screws.

Just like that, the Blackhawk Omnivore is now compatible with the Safariland's QLS system, giving you maximum customization capabilities across all of your belts.

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