Thread: Personal Firearms

I'm thinking about purchasing my first firearm. I have experience with rifles, shotguns, but not much with pistols which is what I'm thinking about buying. I want semi auto over revolver but I just don't know what would be a good choice.

I want to do some target shooting as well as home protection. I'm leaning towards a glock or 1911 but I'm open to suggestions. I don't want to spend a ton on my first gun and I'm a little lost on where to go besides just going to the range and shooting.

Originally Posted by Cavere

I'm thinking about purchasing my first firearm. I have experience with rifles, shotguns, but not much with pistols which is what I'm thinking about buying. I want semi auto over revolver but I just don't know what would be a good choice.

I want to do some target shooting as well as home protection. I'm leaning towards a glock or 1911 but I'm open to suggestions. I don't want to spend a ton on my first gun and I'm a little lost on where to go besides just going to the range and shooting.

Target shooting and home protection are two very different things. In my opinion. A good target gun can be anything from a nice 45 to a 38 super, or even better a high-end, 22. The benefits of shooting 22 for targets is the cost, their super accurate and very cheap to shoot. For home defense, I know this may be blasphemy,but I am no fan of the Glock. I too prefer a 45 semiauto. However, nothing will make people run faster than the racking of the 12gauge pump. I myself have an Ithaca 37 with pistol grip hidden where my boys know it is at and 45 with a surefire light in my nightstand drawer and my avatar is the first line of defense. A big dog is a great deterrent for that matter, any dog is. Between the three of these I sleep very well at night. JMHO.

Originally Posted by Cavere

I'm thinking about purchasing my first firearm. I have experience with rifles, shotguns, but not much with pistols which is what I'm thinking about buying. I want semi auto over revolver but I just don't know what would be a good choice.

I want to do some target shooting as well as home protection. I'm leaning towards a glock or 1911 but I'm open to suggestions. I don't want to spend a ton on my first gun and I'm a little lost on where to go besides just going to the range and shooting.

I find that there are numerous choices in DA/SA semi-auto pistols. For accurate target shooting and competition, I believe the 1911 is the ideal platform to learn the proper grip with, which is so important, and the single-action trigger offers the best and fastest trigger action possible. Every other pistol design requires some adaptation of that grip and the triggers are something lesser. It's been argued that defensive pistol triggers are designed with the gross motor skills associated with stress in mind, however, there were many Marines at Iwo Jima under such stress and never had a serious issue with the finer nature of a 1911 single-action trigger.

For home defense, a shotgun is good to have, but somewhat limited in application. Rule #1 is HAVE A GUN, but I wouldn't go buy a shotgun and not have anything else. It's just not an either/or question for me; I like to have a range of options, so to speak... If I was going to run out and buy my "first gun" all over again, it would be something I could best afford with the best trigger and natural pointing grip angle that I could find such as an S&W M&P in .45 ACP, in dark earth with contrasting black grip and two extra mags (in case anyone reading had a sudden overwhelming desire to get me one)...

Originally Posted by Furcifer

For home defense, a shotgun is good to have, but somewhat limited in application. Rule #1 is HAVE A GUN, but I wouldn't go buy a shotgun and not have anything else. It's just not an either/or question for me; I like to have a range of options, so to speak... If I was going to run out and buy my "first gun" all over again, it would be something I could best afford with the best trigger and natural pointing grip angle that I could find such as an S&W M&P in .45 ACP, in dark earth with contrasting black grip and two extra mags (in case anyone reading had a sudden overwhelming desire to get me one)...

Please explain this to me as I just don't get it. I have seen the devistation a 12 guage w/ 00 buck can do & of all my toys I have...a shotgun (Remington 1100 w/ 18" sawed down bbl) is what is by my bed. I don't rack the action either, one safety is enough.

Originally Posted by shooter74743

Please explain this to me as I just don't get it. I have seen the devistation a 12 guage w/ 00 buck can do & of all my toys I have...a shotgun (Remington 1100 w/ 18" sawed down bbl) is what is by my bed. I don't rack the action either, one safety is enough.

Sorry for the confusion. I just mean to say that a defensive shotgun does not provide a particularly good platform for a person to "teach oneself to shoot well", per se, such as proper grip, trigger control, etc. It also isn't really the place to start with learning good indoor CQB tactics, such as shoot/no-shoot drills, Tueller drills, weak-hand reload, etc. This is not the gun that a person will shoot 200-300 rounds with every other week at the range. That doesn't mean it's not effective or that it shouldn't be learned and incorporated SOON... It's just not first, from a purely pedagogical approach to CQB (which applies directly to the safest and most effective home defense).

Now, I also have a 12ga and actually prefer 3" Mag 000 over 00 mixed in with 1" slugs that hit like a dump truck going 200MPH. I'm not saying it's not effective in the least, and certainly not saying don't have one, but for learning to shoot well and then adding good CQB tactics to it, start with a good pistol with a good comfortable frame size in an effective caliber, learn to shoot and move and THEN how to bring a shotgun into those tactics. A good defensive shotgun can be had for a lousy 250 clams, so it's not like buying the pistol puts one out of the shotgun market forever. On the contrary, the best recommendation to glean from my post is to eventually accrue all types of weapons, and learn to be effective with them in a reasonable order according to the way modern tactics are taught. (I can describe home-defense scenarios where the best weapon might be pepper spray, or a pistol, or a pellet gun, or a bat, or a Barrett in .50 BMG. There are a couple of good articles out there by some respected instructors/gunwriters that go against the standard gun-store recommendation that a shotgun is just always automatically "the best weapon for home defense", because, of course, nothing can be, for every case... ...although I'll still agree 100% that there are probably a lot more times when you DO want to pick up the shotgun to go investigate that bump in the night, but I'd have my .45 on my hip, too, just in case; after all, why not?)

BTW, I don't rack the action on mine, either. That big AK safety is real easy to find in the dark.

Originally Posted by Furcifer

For home defense, a shotgun is good to have, but somewhat limited in application. Rule #1 is HAVE A GUN, but I wouldn't go buy a shotgun and not have anything else.

About twenty years ago Jerry Miculek and I were comparing S&W 625s mods for IPSC competition. Both of us were shooting the 5" barrel version. He reminded me to always make sure the tension screw for the hammer spring didn't back off , in case my life might depend on it. He paused for a moment and then said "if your life depends on it use a shotgun".

Originally Posted by welshwizard

About twenty years ago Jerry Miculek and I were comparing S&W 625s mods for IPSC competition. Both of us were shooting the 5" barrel version. He reminded me to always make sure the tension screw for the hammer spring didn't back off , in case my life might depend on it. He paused for a moment and then said "if your life depends on it use a shotgun".

I used to shoot bowling pins at a local range one night a week. Really a lot of fun. Anyway, the top guy there week after week used a 625 with the half moon clips. I was using a Glock G-20 10mm and it knocked the pins down one hit but I still couldn't beat that guy. The Indian, not the arrow.