Gun For My Fiance?

[IndyRoadie]

Ruger LCP?

[lowriderjim]

Take a look at the S&W Airweight. With 38 ammo pretty tame and the gun is rated for +P ammo is you feel the need for a hotter load.

Also, as mentioned earlier. the Beretta .32 Tomcast offers a good round count and very easy to hang on to. With a pocket holster, I use Desantis, it would come out of a purse or pocket nicely.

Good shooting.

[Joe Williams]

Which ones has she shot, liked, and chosen for herself?

IOW... take her shooting with different guns, and let her pick out the one she likes and does well with.

[blablabla]

Id go with a small .22 I bought my wife a taurus PT22 to keep in her purse/suitcase LOL she very rarely shoots but when she does shes a great shot...now if I could only get her to actually CARYY the gun.....

[Rey B]

Cornered Cat

[tedbower]

My wife has a s&w lady smith , she likes it alot, also a bersa 380 is a great gun. Unless she shoots fairly often i would stick with a revolver.

[Jeremiah]

I wrote this a as a reply to some questions in a girl asked in one of my facebook groups. wrote fast, no spell check and terrible grammar so look past that.

I am posting this because a few people decided it could be helpful, to anyone looking to buy or get there first handgun or a posible defensive carry gun. I wrote it quickly, so ther is plenty of spelling and possibly grammar issuses but please look past that.


Welcome, now for the essay.

Basic safetey is paramount. I'd read this first. http://www.nrahq.org/education/guide.asp

and order this book,
Amazon.com: Basics of Pistol Shooting: NRA... this will help your shooting alot, it points out proper position, training techniques, and will even help Identify marksmaneship issues so you can fix them

once you have the basics on how to shoot picking a gun comes in, price is a factor, but be willing to spend at least 500 bucks,

TELL GUN STORE OWNERS, AND LOCAL MALE FRIENDS TO PISS OFF. alot of guys tend to steer women towards small " J-framed revolvers" they are light, easy to carry safe, but they are not comfortable to shoot, especially in extended ranges sessions. which meas you won't practice that much. they have small capacity and take practice to reload quickly, and are not too accurate especially past 7 yards.

find a gun you are comfortable shooting, something not too big you can't conceal it, a pistol you can shoot with some accuracy, ( 8 inches at 25 yards is a good goal)

find one that isn't too heavy when loaded, or you will end up leaving it at home, in the car or in your purse, and ot with you,

night sights are a plus.

things to thing about while shopping.

can you operate the pistol.
is the slide to hard to pull back if you have a malfunction such as a faliure to feed , or failure to eject?
can you reach the magazine release comfortably?
can you operate the safetey?


semi auto pistols come in many flavors, Single action, ( manualy set, or cock , the hammer before firing) double action, cock the hammer and fire in pull of the trigger pull, single action/ double action gives you the ability to fire without cocking the hammer or from a single action mode.

safeties, most guns have forms of safeties engineered into them to keep them from going off without the trigger being pulled, and alot of them have maual safeties on them to prevent the gun from going by bumbing the trigger.
types of guns.
small pistols are easy to conceal but limit capacity, Large guns are more pleasent to shoot but there heft is often annoying to drag around.

revolvers tend to hold around 5 shots, don't have a manual safety, but have a llong, heavy trigger pull, which makes them hard to shoot accuratley,

DA/SA guns like the beretta 92 and sig P226 have the option of fireing from either double action or single action.

1911 is a single action gun, you have to cock the hammer before it will fire the first shot but every subsequent shot the slide sets the hammer.

Double action only guns, like hammerless revolvers, Glocks, Springfeild Xd's, only require a trigger squeze to set them off.

I higly recomend guns without manual safeties, sigs, Glocks and revolves for ddefensive purposes. this allows you to get the gun out and get shots off and not having to train to remove a safetey. nothing is worse than when guys get shot trying to defend themselves but fail to get the safetey off in time.

Sigs are a great choice because many of the traditonal sigs, ( P220,P226, P228, P229) have a heavy double action pull and a lite single action trigger pull, they lack amaunal safetey.Very accurate guns, but often hefty and many are single stack so low capacity so its out of the holster and boom.

guns like the Glock, Springfeild Xd, Smith and wesson M&P,and Walther P99 have no manual safteies( with exception of a few XD models) theses guns sport a lot of great features, high capacity, and low weight, they have no manual safety and light trigger pulls. not a gun for match grade acuracy, but reliable, and accurate enough for peopel sized targets. the biggest warnig with these is they must be carried in a holster as if thrown in a purse or the pants it is too easy to have an accidental discharge and end up burnt and bleeding. with a new hole in your body.

small revolvers are light and reliable, they have few ways to get screwed up and almost always o off when the trigger is pulled, the simpliest of pistols to shoot. they fit in pockets, and sport a trigger heavy enough not to be a big risk of accidental discharge. the downside is 5-6 shots amd rough sights.

1911 - are a true pro's guns, accurate, and with a lot of safeties, limited capacity and notable recoil. they are not a big risk of accidental discharge but it probperly carried you have to disengage a grip saftey, and do one of many other things to make it go boom, it you carry witha round in the chamber you are going to need to either carry hammer cocked, or hammer down, it you carry with the hammer cocked you need to put the thumbe saftey on, and it will need to come off before you can shoot, it you carry hammer down you will need to get the hammer cocked in order to shoot it.

I recommend guns with out manual safeties. These guns require a very concious effort in hendling, and carring. but they reward you in a defensive situation by limiting the steps you need to take to make the gun go off. and take a lot less training to be competent to use effectivley.

it doesn't matter how cool the gun looks, how great it feels in your hand if you can't shoot it, are afraid to shoot it, can't hit with it, won't carry it it doesn't matter what calbier the gun is. you need to find a gun you like, can shoot, and will carry for it to be effective for a defensive gun.

Caliber.

I really like 9mm. effective, easy to shoot, maageable recoil, high capacity, and accurate. that said the best caliber is the one you have with you. a .22 in the pocket is better than a .44 at home. and you need to be able to handle the caliber's recoil because a miss means nothing.

bullets.
cheap is what you are looking for practicing. and I recommend speer Gold dots for defensive use. there are alot of very useful Jacketd hollow points out there, and almost all of them work very well. but I personally know the man that chose Speer Gold dots for the Indiana State police, read his research. What he found is they worked the best across the board, some rounds were more accurate, and some preformed better in heavy clothing, some better in light clothing, but the gold dots worked consistenly well in all tests.

practice.
dry fire is very important,
line up on the target like you plaln to shoot and then sueez the trigger, focus on not puking the gun one way or another, squezing the trigger not pulling it, keeping the sights lined up, and not flinching. use a-zoom snap caps to avoid damage to your gun. and shoot it to . practice reloading the gun, ut the snap caps in the magazines while at the range to simulate a round that didn't go off, and figuring out how to get the bad round out of the barrel and a good one in there.
also practice drawing the gun from the holster and shooting the target, there are a lot of drill syou can do but those can be listed/descrided for a long time and I have written plenty here already.

Carrying.

First off the gun is not a magic wand, If you feel you need a gun. It needs to go off if it leaves the holster. or you can find yourself in a world of hurt. the longer the gun is out and you aren't shooting someone the longer the criminal would have to disarm you. and the longer you have to think about reasons not to shoot him. so if you are going to carry make sure you can shoot someone if you feel you are in danger.

I can't stress this enough. carry the gun, and carry it on you.
If its in your car and you need it while pumping gas or running into the bank, you don't have it with you.

Don't carry it in your purse. I doubt you can dedicate a pocket in you purse for a gun, no lipstick , no pens, nothing that could pull the trigger on accident.plus I highly doubt you can keep your purse oriented the same way all the time, which means you can't always grab the gun from the grip. plus if you get grabbed by the arm and you are holding your purse by the handles then you can't get to it.

carry it on you and the same way, make sure you can get to it regardless of how you are clothed, and make sure you can operate all the safeties or procedures nessasary in order to get a shot off.

I know I wrote alot, but check this out as well.
On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs - Dave Grossman

[cce1302]

Originally Posted by Jeremiah

I wrote this a as a reply to some questions in a girl asked in one of my facebook groups. wrote fast, no spell check and terrible grammar so look past that.

.......

carry it on you and the same way, make sure you can get to it regardless of how you are clothed, and make sure you can operate all the safeties or procedures nessasary in order to get a shot off.

I know I wrote alot, but check this out as well.
On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs - Dave Grossman

All good info. Pretty much the same process I wnt trhough with my wife.

sorry, can't rep you. gotta spread the mayonnaise first.

[IndyRoadie]

Only thing I can add is: take the NRA Basic Pistol Course. Not only will you get safety training, basic gun operation and cleaning training, but you can shoot several different handguns and find the one that suits you.