Neptune-white-final
Glock 43X Holsters

Custom Kydex Glock 43X Holsters

Nobody buys a 43X for the ballistics. They buy it because a double-stack compact stopped being worth the poke in the ribs, and the 43X gives back almost the whole grip while losing the width. A shell that fits it loosely throws that trade away.

Ours is pressed to the 43X specifically — not to a slimline family, and not shared with the 48. Built by hand to order in Middle Tennessee, in appendix, strong-side and sidecar configurations.

Build Your Glock 43X Holster
Check 43X vs 43 vs 48 Fitment
Light grey Triton Premium Kydex IWB holster with a concealment wing

10+1

Flush capacity
Fifteen with a Shield Arms S15, which changes your magazine carrier but never your holster.

0.87 in

Slide width
An eighth of an inch under a Glock 19 slide, and that eighth is the whole reason people switch.

3.41 in

Barrel length
Identical to a Glock 43, yet the two do not share a shell — the frame underneath is a different shape.

10–14

Business days
Heat-formed once your order reaches the bench, which is why the fit is still there in month three.

Pick Your Variant

Standard 43X or 43X MOS?

The 43X arrived in 2019 with a clean dust cover — no optic cut and, more importantly for a holster, no accessory rail whatsoever. The MOS version added both. That rail is not cosmetic: it sits exactly where the shell wraps the frame, so the two are different presses.

Your Glock 43XWhat is differentOrder this
Glock 43X (standard)No optic cut and no rail. The original slimline dust cover.Glock 43X
Glock 43X MOSOptic cut on top, and a short accessory rail underneath. The rail is what changes the shell.Message us before ordering
Glock 43Same barrel length, shorter grip, single-stack magazine. A different pistol, not a variant.Glock 43
Glock 48The 43X frame carrying a longer slide and barrel.Glock 48
Glock 48 MOSLonger slide plus the optic cut and rail.Glock 48 MOS

Quick check: look at the dust cover in front of the trigger guard. Smooth and unbroken means you have the standard 43X. A stepped notch cut into it means you have the MOS rail, and we want to hear from you before you build so the shell is right first time.

Cross-Fit

What Will Not Fit a Glock 43X Holster

The slimline Glocks trade parts around more than any other family, which produces a lot of confident bad advice online. This is what actually interchanges in a holster.

FirearmShares this shell?What to order
Glock 43X with a Shield Arms S15YesThe magazine lives inside the pistol, so the shell never touches it. Your spare carrier is the part that has to match the steel body.
Glock 43X MOSAsk usThe optic on top is not the problem. The rail added underneath is, because it lands where the Kydex wraps.
Glock 48NoSame frame, three quarters of an inch more slide. It hangs out of the end of a 43X shell with the muzzle unsupported.
Glock 43NoShorter grip and a thinner magazine, and the frame meets the shell differently. We tool it separately.
Glock 26NoA double-stack subcompact wearing a wider slide. Nothing about it lines up.
Glock 19NoWider and longer in every dimension the shell cares about. It has a page of its own.

If you are moving between two of these guns regularly, buy the shell for each rather than one that almost holds both. A slimline has so little surface area that a compromise fit shows up as a rattle within a fortnight.

Know which 43X you have?

Pick the variant, your hand, your clip and your colour, and we will press a shell that indexes on your pistol alone.

Start Your 43X Build
Carry Style

Carrying a Slimline Glock

You bought thin, so the build should protect that. These four cover how 43X owners actually wear them.

43X Appendix IWB

Where this pistol earns its money. A claw rolls the grip inward and the narrow slide does the rest.
Shop IWB

43X Strong-Side OWB

Under a jacket or a flannel, a slimline vanishes outside the belt with none of the seated discomfort.
Shop OWB

43X Sidecar

Adds a spare on the same chassis, which matters more on a ten-round gun than it does on a fifteen.
Shop Sidecar

S15 Mag Carriers

Steel Shield Arms magazines are a different shape to factory plastic, so tell us which you carry.
Shop Mag Pouches
Lights & Optics

Can You Put a Light on a Glock 43X?

Black Theseus 2.0 Kydex IWB holster pressed around a pistol and weapon light together

Straight answer, because the internet muddles it: a standard Glock 43X has no accessory rail, so no weapon light mounts to it. Glock only added a rail on the MOS models, and it is a short one — the full-size bodies that live on a Glock 19 will not fit it. These are the compact lights built for that rail:

  • Streamlight TLR-7 Sub, in the variant cut for the 43X and 48 MOS rail
  • Streamlight TLR-8 Sub, if you want a laser in the same body
  • Olight Baldr Mini and the PL Mini series
  • Crimson Trace laser units that clamp rather than rail-mount

Red dots. The MOS slide takes a shielded micro dot directly, and our slimline shells run a sight channel deep enough to clear one. Because the rail and the optic cut arrived together on the same variant, we would rather confirm your exact combination by message than guess and press the wrong shell.

Pictured is a light-bearing dual-colour build, formed around the pistol and the light as one shape.

Ask About a 43X Light Build
Recommended Builds

Three Builds That Suit a 43X

Each of these presses cleanly around a slimline slide. Variant, hand and clip type are all set when you configure it.

Triton Premium Series custom Kydex IWB holster by Neptune Concealment

Triton Premium IWB Holster

$75

Our best appendix shell for a thin gun. The concealment wing and adjustable ride height do the tucking so the narrow slide is not doing it alone.

Build the Triton Premium
Theseus Series dual colour custom Kydex IWB holster by Neptune Concealment

Theseus 2.0 Dual Color IWB

$85

Two colours of Kydex bonded into one shell, with a claw fitted as standard. Pick this if you want the 43X hidden and want it to look like something.

Build the Theseus 2.0
Gemini Series dual layer Kydex IWB holster with a soft backing layer

Gemini Dual Layer IWB

$70

A softer backer between you and the Kydex. Worth it on a slimline, where thin sharp edges sit closer to your skin than they do on a compact.

Build the Gemini
Compare

Glock 43 vs 43X vs 48

Three pistols, two frames, one barrel length shared between two of them. The table is the fastest way to see why none of them borrow each other holsters.

Glock 43Glock 43XGlock 48
Capacity, flush magazine6+110+110+1
Barrel length3.41 in3.41 in4.17 in
Overall length6.26 in6.50 in7.28 in
GripTwo fingers for most handsFull three-fingerFull three-finger, same frame as the 43X
Accessory railNoneMOS models onlyMOS models only
Shares a shell with the others?NoNoNo

The 43X is the sweet spot and the reason it outsells the other two: a grip you can actually hold on a gun you stop noticing. Take the 43 only if your hand is small or your cover garment is thin; take the 48 if you want the longer sight radius and do not mind the extra slide. Order the pattern for the one you own — all three are separate lines in our configurator.

Why Neptune

Why a Slimline Punishes a Loose Shell

There is roughly a third less holster wrapped around a 43X than around a compact, and every bit of it is working harder. What a dedicated pattern buys you on this pistol in particular:

  • Retention off a smaller surface, taken from the trigger guard rather than from squeezing a slide that is barely there.
  • A thin profile that stays thin, because the shell was formed to your gun and not padded out to swallow three of them.
  • Edges finished for skin contact, which stops mattering less the closer the holster rides to your waistband.

Veteran-run, Tampa-born, now working out of Middle Tennessee and still cutting one shell at a time. More about the shop, or go back to the full Glock range.

Olive carbon fiber Triton 2.0 Kydex IWB holster with two belt clips
FAQ

Glock 43X Holster Questions

No. The 43X and the 48 share a frame, which is why the confusion exists, but the 48 slide is roughly three quarters of an inch longer. Put a 43X in a 48 shell and the muzzle stops short of the bottom, leaving the pistol loose and the retention point in the wrong place. Put a 48 in a 43X shell and it simply will not seat. They are separate patterns and separate lines in our configurator.
It does not, even though both pistols use the same 3.41 inch barrel. The 43X carries a taller frame with a ten-round double-stack grip, and our shell wraps the frame where it meets the trigger guard, so that difference lands directly on the mounting surface. Choose the Glock 43 or the Glock 43X pattern to match the pistol in your hand.
Only if yours is an MOS. The standard 43X has a smooth dust cover with no accessory rail at all, so there is nothing for a light to clamp to. Glock added a short rail when it introduced the 43X MOS and 48 MOS, and that rail takes compact bodies such as the Streamlight TLR-7 Sub in its 43X and 48 MOS variant — not the full-size TLR-1 or X300U that fit a Glock 19.
Not the holster, no. The magazine sits inside the pistol, so nothing about the shell changes and your 43X drops into the same Kydex it always did. Your spare magazine carrier is a different story — the S15 is a steel body with different dimensions to the factory polymer magazine, so tell us which one you are carrying and we will press the pouch for it.
It is close to the ideal pistol for it. The narrow slide is what makes appendix bearable when you sit down, and the full-height grip is what keeps the gun shootable, so you are not making the usual subcompact trade. Add a claw so the grip rolls inward and a wedge so the muzzle kicks away from you, and it vanishes under a fitted t-shirt.
For appendix, our Triton Premium IWB at $75 — the concealment wing and adjustable ride height are doing the work a slimline cannot do on its own. If you want a softer surface against your skin, the Gemini Dual Layer at $70 backs the Kydex with a second material. The Theseus 2.0 at $85 is the one to pick if you want a claw fitted as standard and two colours bonded into the shell.
Every pattern we press is available in left hand at no extra cost, and it is a genuine mirrored mold rather than a right-hand shell with the clip moved over. Select Left under Hand when you configure the build. That applies across the slimline range, so the 43, 43X and 48 are all available either way.
Slimline builds start at $50 for the Triton IWB and reach $85 for the Theseus 2.0, with most 43X orders landing between $60 and $85. Everything is made to order on a ten to fourteen business day window. Should your build call for a mold we do not already hold, allow longer — a new mold has to be made and proven before a shell comes off it. If that will not work, check the Quick Ship listings, which carry pre-pressed shells in the most common slimline configurations.

Build Your Glock 43X Holster

Give us the variant, the hand and the clip type. What comes back fits your slimline and no other pistol.

Configure Your 43X Holster
Ask About the MOS Rail

More fitment: all Glock holsters · holsters by firearm brand · Glock 19 holsters

Shopping Cart