A small handed, small framed woman (presumably a person with less than gorilla like hand strength) is always going to do better with different size/weight/caliber firearms than someone with another physical description. Personal strength is another factor apart from phyisical size.
A good friend is a full sized man that has spent his whole life pushing paper across a desk. Never does his own handiman work, doesn't even play softball with the kids. Against my advice he bought a plastic Springfield compact .40 from the clerk at Gander Mountain. (what a deal we have for you sir, ) He does not have enough grip strength to rack the slide, and he limp wrists it into a jam about every 3rd shot. The pistol works perfectly for me, it is even amazingly accurate for a compact. I am 6'2" 235, size 12 shoes and my hands are a comfortable fit on a double stack Para even with thick fingergroove grips.
We are all different and really good shooting depends on matching a firearm to our size, strength and skills. A person that thinks her findings guarantee a perfect match for them, is in as much error as she was purchasing her compact Kimber. You can spend 100 hours of research on the internet and still have less useful information than shooting 4 different pistols for 15 minutes each. With so many ranges having rental pistols these days, it should be a lot easier to make a better choice right out of the gate. Unlike the friend I taked about above, everyone else I have started in the last few years has rented (or tried some of mine) at least a couple of times before purchase, and they are all pretty happy
A good friend is a full sized man that has spent his whole life pushing paper across a desk. Never does his own handiman work, doesn't even play softball with the kids. Against my advice he bought a plastic Springfield compact .40 from the clerk at Gander Mountain. (what a deal we have for you sir, ) He does not have enough grip strength to rack the slide, and he limp wrists it into a jam about every 3rd shot. The pistol works perfectly for me, it is even amazingly accurate for a compact. I am 6'2" 235, size 12 shoes and my hands are a comfortable fit on a double stack Para even with thick fingergroove grips.
We are all different and really good shooting depends on matching a firearm to our size, strength and skills. A person that thinks her findings guarantee a perfect match for them, is in as much error as she was purchasing her compact Kimber. You can spend 100 hours of research on the internet and still have less useful information than shooting 4 different pistols for 15 minutes each. With so many ranges having rental pistols these days, it should be a lot easier to make a better choice right out of the gate. Unlike the friend I taked about above, everyone else I have started in the last few years has rented (or tried some of mine) at least a couple of times before purchase, and they are all pretty happy
I do think another lesson, as someone else mentioned, would be to send the gun back to the manufacturer before letting someone work on it.
