Gun advice for a newbie

That's some dedicated testing routine ya got.

Some very fine advice indeed. I myself had never really felt the need to carry until a certain person became our current president. I had always wanted one, I just never felt I needed it until about 3 years ago. It had been some time since I had fired a handgun (Marine Corps) and did a little research. I went to the local retailer and spent at least 2 hours with the guy, handling as many guns as I wanted to see. Take your time and pick one you like the feel of. I eventually picked a S&W .357 6+1 revolver. I just liked the weight and feel. It also shoots .38 cal which are much cheaper to practice with. But, do spend time practicing with whatever load you intend to keep it loaded with. And, try different grains to see what each one kicks like. I eventually settled on 125 grain jacketed hollow points, but pick something and get comfortable with it. Just remember, as soon as you purchase it, you have entered into a new realm of responsibility. Just having it in your possession makes for lots of new scenarios in your life. It's your weapon and you are ultimately responsible for what it does. Whether you pull the trigger or not.
I agree with others that the best child protection is to educate. I also grew up in a home where we were exposed and educated to guns and we knew not to f*ck around with them and were only to be used with adult supervision. At 12, we went to hunter's safety, boaters safety, and snowmobile safety and only learned what the old man already had taught us. lol
If you have one available to you, take a concealed carry class. Much information and lotsa fun to shoot.

Bruzilla said:

Nooooooooooooooooooooo!!! You put a magazine full of hollow points into your gun, not a clip!

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clip...magazine....the damn thing holds 11 rounds...that should be enough stopping power...lmao

All of my 'mags' stay fully loaded and so far, no problems. A cop I know rotates 10 different clips and has them all lettered A thru J and them installs new springs after 5 years of age on each clip. A little bit **** imo but he wants to be sure he never has a problem.

I grew up around guns but only had a S&W .38 revolver until recently. Just bought a Ruger SR9C, 9mm. Comes with two clips. Has a double trigger, along with the safety. Also has a small arm that sticks up to show when it's chambered. Paid $425.00. My oldest son also bought one. You can buy a box of 250 Remington rounds at Wally World for under $60.00 so when I go target shooting with my two boys it only puts a small dent in my wallet.

I'm picking up a laser sight for it next month. My bro-in-law who is a gun nut said nothing deters an intruder like a laser beam on their chest. I live in a rural area where crime isn't a problem but with the ongoing breakdown of our society I feel it's time to stock up on personal protection products.

Glock for home protection. 1911 if you get into guns after owning one for awhile.

Bruzilla I got faith in it...p226 is a nice weapon indeed...

I agree on the revolver for in the bedstand, I personally carry a S&W body guard .380 and love it, it's small and light enough I never even think about carrying it, it's always on my hip. The built in laser on the rail is nice too, it's less then an inch wide.

Only pulled it once so far, I went to my grandparents house when I knew they were out and the garage was open without there car in it. Did a sweep of the house found no one and called them, sure enough they had left it open by accident. Hindsight I probably should have called them first but. Anyway make sure you practice practice practice,

I noticed one thing missing from most of these posts. Please consider where the gun(s) will be stored/kept in the house when nobody is home. The usual places like night stand, closet, etc. are often checked by burglars, and the last thing that any of us need is more guns in the hands of criminals.

I have a concealed carry permit and carry a Sig P230 with black talons, mostly because its easier to conceal than my P226. as far as shooting goes, nothing beats the P226, Its just bad ***. I also have a 1911 Ive owned for years. Now thats a knock down weapon for sure. As stated , firearms training for the entire family is a must. Even my wife is trained, and loves to go over to the farm and shoot clay targets. Also have some legal auomatic weapons to spray around at the farm.

tpodwdog said:

clip...magazine....the damn thing holds 11 rounds...that should be enough stopping power...lmao

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The word magazine stems from the use of a magazine building or room to store ammunition at a fort. The word is used because a magazine contains the ammuntion. A clip is used to bind ammunition together, and doesn't contain it.

Hearing someone in a gun discussion say clip when referring to a magazine is like hearing someone talk about a Chevy Roadrunner.... it just shows a lack of refined knowledge about the material. Since the last clip-fed pistol was the old Mauser C96 'Broomhandle", designed in the late 1800s, you can see why gun nuts get a little when they hear someone say they stuck a clip into a modern pistol.

yfdcap said:

Glock for home protection. 1911 if you get into guns after owning one for awhile.

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Damn! I knew a Glock guy would show up sooner or later. Letting Glocks into a discussion like this always opens a can of worms. Glocks are nice pistols, they are affordable which makes them popular, but their design is inherently dangerous. More non-intentional discharges of weapons occur with Glocks than all other weapons combined each year.

The problem with Glocks is their trigger safety. It's an ingenious design, and amazingly simple, but the reality is that no matter how much training a person has, there will be times they won't follow it, pick up the pistol, and put their finger on the trigger. Once that happens, the pull is light enough that lots of Glock owners, including lots of well-trained cops, end up putting holes where they never wanted to put any, like in their walls, floors, furniture, and feet.

I like Glocks, I have Glocks, but I would never recommend one to a new shooter.

PoppaSmurf said:

Bruzilla I got faith in it...p226 is a nice weapon indeed...

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My P226 is a pretty oddball pistol. According to Sig-Sauer records, the first production P226s were made in 1985, but my pistol is marked 1984. The only P226s that were supposed to be made in 1984 were a small lot made for testing by the DoD in the XM9 pistol tests. It's also import marked as "Lysons Corner, Virginia", which is an error because Sig-Sauer was located in Tyson's Corner, VA.

I've found there are a couple of these 1984 Lysons Corner error guns out there, but we've never been able to find out what the deal was with them. Were they built for the XM9 trials, and not used because of the error with the import mark? It's definately a pre-production gun, but the folks at the Sig-Sauer historical center keep telling us no P226s were made for sale in the US before 1985, so who knows.

Bruzilla said:

Damn! I knew a Glock guy would show up sooner or later. Letting Glocks into a discussion like this always opens a can of worms. Glocks are nice pistols, they are affordable which makes them popular, but their design is inherently dangerous. More non-intentional discharges of weapons occur with Glocks than all other weapons combined each year.

The problem with Glocks is their trigger safety. It's an ingenious design, and amazingly simple, but the reality is that no matter how much training a person has, there will be times they won't follow it, pick up the pistol, and put their finger on the trigger. Once that happens, the pull is light enough that lots of Glock owners, including lots of well-trained cops, end up putting holes where they never wanted to put any, like in their walls, floors, furniture, and feet.

I like Glocks, I have Glocks, but I would never recommend one to a new shooter.

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I recommend them to all new shooters. Both of my daughters carry them. I think you here of more accidents because they out number other guns carried by a huge margin. They are stone cold reliable and if the person is trained properly very safe. I don't think they are anymore dangerous than any others it just comes down to basic gun safety. Just my 2 cents. I own or have owned most or all of the guns mentioned in this thread and they are all good choices.

I own two Glocks and both stay chambered. If you learn to keep your finger off the trigger when picked up (pick them up with your index finger straight...should do that with any weapon) and pay attention to what you are doing, there shouldn't be a problem. If you have a problem with your attention span, then maybe a Glock isn't for you. My wife is one of those people that takes her focus off of what she's doing before the 'movement' is completed. IE, if she puts something on the counter, her eyes are already moving to something else before the object is fully turned loose and is safely on the counter. She's forever handing me things and starts to move her eyes away before making sure I fully have control of the object she's handing to me. This has cause many broken items over the years and I now carry her model 21 and she carries something with a physical safety on it. I feel that taking the safety off is quicker than having to chamber a round and I feel safer around her lol.

yfdcap said:

I recommend them to all new shooters. Both of my daughters carry them. I think you here of more accidents because they out number other guns carried by a huge margin. They are stone cold reliable and if the person is trained properly very safe. I don't think they are anymore dangerous than any others it just comes down to basic gun safety. Just my 2 cents. I own or have owned most or all of the guns mentioned in this thread and they are all good choices.

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This argument always happens the minute anyone criticizes Glocks. Yes, Glocks are 100% safe if handled safely by properly-trained persons, but just as even the best drivers get distracted every now and again, even the best trained shooters screw up every now and again. And when they screw up, the Glock is a very unforgiving gun.

The reason there are more unintentional discharges with Glocks is not because of their numbers. If you dig deeper into the data you'll find the Glock numbers are disproportional when compared to unintentional discharges of other firearms. The reason is the trigger safety. Most pistols can be fired double action (DA) or single action (SA). Most pistols are designed for carry in either a DA posture, or uncocked (1911-series pistols), and when carried employ a safety or a long trigger pull (Sigs) for safety. These same guns use a much shorter/lighter trigger pull for SA firing, but these pistols aren't designed or intended to be carried in an SA mode. Glocks are essentially an SA-only pistol. While the pistol's internals are actually cocking and firing, there is no additional operator interaction required, so trigger pull is about the same as an SA pull on most other pistols.

All of this means that handling a Glock is about the same as handling any other pistol while it is in SA mode. I would never, ever, ever, advise anyone to keep a cocked pistol in a holster, purse, or storage area. I know a lot of 1911 owners do, but they do it only because there's a frame safety that must be manually deactivated before the gun can fire. With the Glocks, their safety is automatically deactivated the second a finger is placed on the trigger. You can train and train shooters to not put their finger on the trigger until they're ready to fire, but they don't always do that; and with Glocks there's no manual safety or long trigger pull to prevent just a bit of pressure from discharging the gun. You can slip up and put your finger on a Sig trigger and apply some pressure without it going off. You can pull the trigger all the back on a Beretta and it won't fire with the safety on. But a Glock... you slip up and put some light pressure on that trigger as you draw or handle it, and blam... you're buying new drywall, hopping on one foot, explaining to the kids how Sparky must have run away, etc.

Cranky said:

I own two Glocks and both stay chambered. If you learn to keep your finger off the trigger when picked up (pick them up with your index finger straight...should do that with any weapon) and pay attention to what you are doing, there shouldn't be a problem. If you have a problem with your attention span, then maybe a Glock isn't for you. My wife is one of those people that takes her focus off of what she's doing before the 'movement' is completed. IE, if she puts something on the counter, her eyes are already moving to something else before the object is fully turned loose and is safely on the counter. She's forever handing me things and starts to move her eyes away before making sure I fully have control of the object she's handing to me. This has cause many broken items over the years and I now carry her model 21 and she carries something with a physical safety on it. I feel that taking the safety off is quicker than having to chamber a round and I feel safer around her lol.

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Like I said, I like Glocks. I have a 17 and a 22, but I wouldn't recommend one for a novice shooter.

My buddy who carrys a glock has a little plastic piece that goes behind the trigger that you have to pop out before it can be depressed. That being said I only carry a DA pistol.

72 Charger SE said:

I noticed one thing missing from most of these posts. Please consider where the gun(s) will be stored/kept in the house when nobody is home. The usual places like night stand, closet, etc. are often checked by burglars, and the last thing that any of us need is more guns in the hands of criminals.

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As far as storage they are either on my body or locked in my very nice cannon safe.

Shotgun, by far the best and only weapon I will use for home defense. Yes, if I'm stalking through my house leading with the barrel, somebody "waiting for me around a corner" can grab the barrel. Fortunately, when there is a home invasion, there's very little chance you're going to hear someone breaking in when their intention is to lie in wait and ambush you. More likely, you were alerted in the first place by either the entry noise or by the rummaging in the dark, gathering your goods. In either situation, unless you are calling out asking who is there, they're not going to simply break in your house, then stand at a corner waiting for you to appear. Your training is unrealistic if you're having your students enter a room where you're waiting around the corner for their barrel to appear. To put it in another light and to make it more realistic, turn off all the lights including where the student is coming from (as it would be at night in a house being invaded), then try to grab a black shotgun barrel in the pitch dark from a student who is moving quietly (as in, trying to catch the bad guy who broke in their house, not trying to clear a room Delta Force style).

A shotgun is inherently a better choice for a few simple reasons:
1. You don't have to aim or even bring the weapon up to your shoulder to score a disabling/ mortal hit
2. Whatever pellets that don't hit the target will wind up stuck in the drywall, not penetrate walls like EVERY hangun round will and potentially wind up in a sleeping child's head in the next room, or a neighbor's home, etc. (as was stated, in panic mode you WILL fire more than one round and you WILL NOT hit the target with every round, meaning SEVERAL rounds will be flying unaimed and passing through everything in their way).
3. Nothing more than #6 bridshot is necessary to do great damage to any target within 30ft of you. Very cheap and extremely effective, and out of a couple hundred BB's, less than 10 will actually penetrate one sheet of drywall, and the ones that do will fall to the floor immediately after.

Unless I am trying to defend myself from a hit team coming specifically to take me out, or a SWAT team coming to take me down, no intruder is going to be lying in wait for me after making enough noise to alert me of his/ their presence unless I come out of my bedroom hollering "Hey! Who's out there? Who's in my house? You better leave if you know what's good for you!!". I too grew up in metro Detroit and saw nearly as many innocent people shot and/ or killed by stray bullets as ones that hit their intended target. Sorry, but my family's lives as well as my neighbors' lives are far too important to me to use a firearm that could put them in danger while trying to defend my home. If the "brown shirts" ever come and start rounding people up or trying to take all the guns, zombies attack, or someone sends a hit team after me, I have several other weapons I can use to defend myself in those situations.

Mark I like that last paragraph..