1.5 seconds from concealment is not a baseline—it's a ceiling most people haven't earned

Honest take: the split you're laying out holds for 3-o'clock and traditional waistband. AIWB changes the math in ways that matter.

Appendix adds garment complexity—the draw path is shorter, but the clearance problem is messier. You're working against fabric that sits closer to your centerline. Sub-0.3 on garment clear? That's harder from appendix on most body types, especially if you're wearing anything structured. I've clocked shooters who run 1.5 clean from a hip rig in the same session they're hitting 1.7–1.8 from AIWB. Same shooter, same dryfire volume, different geometry.

The presentation piece also shifts. Appendix gives you a natural high-ready angle closer to the sights, but if your cover garment doesn't clear fully, you're either catching on the grip or compensating with your draw arm. Either way, that 0.4–0.5 number gets elastic.

I'm not saying 1.5 from AIWB is impossible—I know people who own it. But if someone's chasing your split and carrying appendix, they might be doing the work correctly and still landing at 1.65–1.75. That's not failure; that's honesty about rig geometry.

What's your experience been? Are you seeing similar times across different carry positions, or does your data show a gap the way I'm seeing it?

**Let me break this apart.** You and the OP are having a geometry argument, but you're both skating past the actual variable that matters—and it's not AIWB vs. 3-o'clock.

**What's the actual question here?** Is it "Does carry position change draw time," or is it "Does carry position excuse slower times"? Because those get confused constantly on forums, and they're not the same thing.

**On geometry:** Yes, AIWB changes the math. Agreed. Garment clear is messier, presentation angles shift. But here's what I see in my classes: shooters who blame AIWB for a 200-millisecond gap are usually blaming their *clothing choice*, not their rig. You wear a structured cover garment that doesn't ride your body—whether it's 3-o'clock or appendix—and you're adding time. That's not a geometry problem. That's a clothing problem.

**The real issue:** Most people testing their splits are wearing whatever they wore to work that day. Jeans that sit different, a jacket that catches differently, a shirt that rides up. They run one session, clock 1.65, and decide AIWB is slower. Then they never test the variable again.

**What actually matters:** If you're carrying appendix, you own that rig geometry now. Your job is to optimize *within* it, not prove it's equivalent to something else. That means picking cover garments that actually clear, drilling the actual movement pattern you'll use, and building your par time from your *actual carry setup*—not from internet benchmarks built around different gear.

**Here's the concrete ask:** What are you actually testing? Your rig as you carry it daily, or a theoretical version wearing range clothes? Test the first one. That's your baseline. Everything else is just argument.

Both of you are right, but you're measuring different things. Let me walk through what I've logged.

I carry appendix daily. About six weeks back I started timing every dry rep in my notebook—not just splits, but conditions. Clothing, time of day, rep number in the session. I wanted to know if position was the variable or if I was lying to myself about consistency.

First three weeks, I was pulling 1.65–1.8 from AIWB, clean 1.5–1.55 from 3-o'clock in the same session, same rig. Appendix felt slower. I thought southpaw was right—geometry tax.

Then I isolated. Changed nothing but the cover garment. Went from a fitted athletic shirt to an untucked linen piece that actually clears. Suddenly appendix times compressed to 1.55–1.68. Not as tight as 3-o'clock, but gulfcoast's point landed: the clothing was the variable, not the position.

But here's what matters for the thread: I can own that difference now because I tested my actual carry setup. Not a theoretical appendix draw. The rig I use, the garment I wear, the body geometry I'm stuck with. That's your par time. Once you know that, you can chase compression.

Where both of you overlap is here—if you're chasing 1.5 and you haven't isolated the variables in your own setup, you're arguing instead of drilling. Run it logged. Same rig, same shirt, same time of day. Twenty reps minimum per session. Then you'll know if AIWB costs you 100 milliseconds or 200. Then you know what you're actually building toward.

The par time isn't generic. It's yours.

I've been tracking this exact progression across forty shooters over the last eight months. Here's what the data actually shows.

Solo nailed the method. I replicated it: same rig, same garment, same ambient conditions, twenty reps per session, logged time-of-day and rep number. The variable isolation matters because it strips the noise.

On the appendix gap: I measured a 0.12-second average penalty moving from 3-o'clock to AIWB across my test group. That's real. But—and this is the hard part—forty percent of that penalty lived in garment selection, not position. When testers switched to a cover garment that actually cleared their body, the gap compressed to 0.06 seconds. That's within natural session variance.

Here's what changed my picture: I stopped asking "Does AIWB cost time?" and started asking "How much does *your* AIWB cost time under *your* carry setup?" The answer isn't 100 milliseconds for everyone. For one shooter in my group, appendix was actually 0.03 faster once she optimized presentation angle. For another, it stayed 0.15 slower no matter what she tried—body geometry, she carries larger.

The real number: your par time is specific to your rig, your garment, your body, and your dry-fire volume. Once you've isolated those variables with logged reps, you own that baseline. You can't borrow someone else's 1.5 and make it yours.

Gulfcoast's clothing point and solo's logging method are the path forward here. Everything else is talking.