CHAPTER 6

CHOOSING A GUN

Preparing to buy your first handgun can be quite daunting. Handguns aren’t cheap. New handguns range in price from $250 to $2,500. And to complicate the matter even further, there are many different manufacturers and choices. I tell people in my carry permit course that there are as many different types of handguns as the manufacturers can talk people into buying.

What is probably most confusing to someone new to this field is the fact that, for every make and model of handgun, there are three gun magazine writers telling their readers that their particular brand or caliber or gizmo is the best, and four others saying that the gun in question will get the reader killed.

I am often asked my opinion about Glock pistols. I usually say that what I think doesn’t matter; it isn’t my money or my safety on the line. My preference does not matter in your decision to buy your gun. What is important is that the gun fires every time you pull the trigger. Luckily for us, almost any modern name brand pistol is able to live up to this standard.

I have a friend who likes Glock pistols the best; I feel the same about S&W revolvers. Our preferences differ. Your knowing your gun, knowing why you chose it, and how it fits your needs, is what builds pride in gun ownership. A firearm is just a tool.

Choose a tool that works with your needs, one you are comfortable with. You do not need a $2,000 custom 1911A1 .45 ACP with another $2,000 of bolt-on accessories to launch a bullet. Since it is the bullet that does the work, all you need is a safe, reliable handgun that you are comfortable with.

Many different functions and characteristics of handguns are available. Comparing these characteristics is like comparing pickup trucks and cars. There are many brands of pickups (revolvers), but generally they are all basically the same. In the “car world” (semiautos), there are sedans, sports cars, wagons, convertibles, limousines, economy class, and luxury designs.

Revolvers are nice because they are simple and don’t have a lot of extra options, semiautomatics are nice because they have a lot of options. Any car that runs will get you to work and back, but one type may work better for your needs.

Like cars, you can buy a firearm based solely upon an arbitrary reason such as looks, popularity, or what the marketing hype in a gun magazine tells you. You will be happier if you select your tools by deciding your needs and weighing your options to get something that fits your needs and lifestyle.

How you use a handgun means much more to me than how the handgun looks. A defensive pistol has a different set of criteria than a pistol bought solely to satisfy a Walter Mitty fantasy.

SIZE MATTERS

The size of both the handgun and the round are important. Rather than make cool-sounding platitudes about particular calibers, let’s go through the benefits and drawbacks of different sizes.

Size matters in the consideration of the actual firearm. One of the reasons is that the larger the firearm, the easier it is to control recoil. Recoil is the movement of the gun in response to the round leaving the barrel. Recoil is caused by the laws of physics, which states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. There was a controlled explosion in the bowels of this piece of steel you now hold in your hand; thousands of pounds of pressure just pushed a bullet out the muzzle at supersonic speeds. There has to be some movement on the opposite end of the handgun. This is recoil. There is less felt recoil in a larger handgun because the weight of the handgun counteracts the recoil effects. Just as it is easier to push a little red wagon than a little red pickup truck, recoil moves a tiny handgun more than a huge “hand-cannon.” The amount of recoil changes depending on the ammunition also, so a small gun with a tiny round may recoil less than a big gun with a big round.

Length of the barrel also matters as there are differences in the distance between the front and rear sights. This distance is called sight radius. A longer sight radius allows aiming mistakes to result in smaller targeting errors. The figure on the next page shows a graphical representation of this. In both images, the distance from the rear sight to the target is the same. In the longer barreled firearm, the aiming error only moves the round a small distance off target, while the same error in the short barrel firearm causes a greater targeting error.

Imagine you were trying to navigate with a compass and you misread the compass by a degree. If you were only going a couple of feet, your error would barely be noticed. But if you were going a couple of miles you could be hundreds of feet off. The longer barrel makes smaller errors more noticeable before the bullet is fired.

Rifles are not inherently more accurate than handguns just because of the length of the barrel (even though that does affect accuracy); they are more accurate because the greater sight radius reduces aiming errors.

It is easy to be accurate with a firearm close up, being able to shoot targets where you can cover all the holes with a quarter becomes progressively harder the greater the distance to the target. If the fundamentals of firing are adhered to, and you shoot consistently, why does the target group grow larger as the distance to the target increases?

Think of the relationship between the firearm and your sights as a triangle, with one leg being the axis of the bore (where the gun is mechanically aimed and where the bullet will go), and the other leg representing your sight picture (including any aiming errors and where you think the bullet will go).

As you visualize this, realize that the error is the same, but the longer the bullet travels, the more apparent the difference between the two legs will become.

To take it a step further, turn your mental triangle into an “X”. In the letter “X”, the farther the legs are from the center, the wider the legs are. This is important as most people have a hard time estimating distances, and distance estimation becomes even harder if you are only using one eye (as many people do when shooting). It is hard to perfectly estimate the distance between the left and right sides of the front sight as it is centered in the rear sight. Small errors in centering become large errors in shot placement.

The farther the front and rear sights are apart the more those errors are reduced. This is because the errors are more noticeable to the shooter because the front sight looks smaller with increased distance.

The distance between the front and rear sights can affect aiming mistakes.

I see this problem at the academy firing line all the time; shooters can blow out a tiny hole at the four-yard line and have a hard time hitting the target at the twenty-five-yard position. They haven’t changed anything; it’s just that the greater distance exposed their small aiming errors.

As Mel Gibson’s character said in The Patriot, “Aim small, miss small.”

Barrel length also affects velocity of the round as it is fired. Ammunition works by burning gunpowder to create gas, and different powders have different burn rates. It’s very easy for a discussion about how this works to become very technical, especially for someone that reloads their own ammunition, but at this point, all you need to know is that when you fire the same brand of ammunition in two firearms of the same caliber, the firearm with the longer barrel will generally have its bullet exit the barrel with more velocity and less muzzle flash than a shorter barreled firearm. More velocity means less drop of the bullet over distance, and more power when it hits the target.

Size can also be a drawback; a handgun can be too big. If your handgun is too large for your hands, accuracy suffers. A large handgun is harder to conceal and might be uncomfortable to carry. This may make you less likely to carry it.

A good rule of thumb is to choose as much gun as you will carry and can control.

Ammunition size is also important. No matter how fancy the gun, you must be aware that the firearm is only the launching pad for the bullet. The bullet does the work. Cape Canaveral is a nice place to visit, but people go there to see the shuttle, not the launching pad.

All things being equal, large ammunition is more effective than small ammunition. Some very famous firearm instructors have made statements such as, “You can carry any caliber you want as long as it starts with a four” or “A .380 is a good gun to carry when you don’t feel like carrying a gun.”

I agree with them. I think that anything under .45 is minor, and anything under .38 special is marginal; I normally carry a .380. I am aware of the shortcomings of my normal carry gun, but I balance this with the likelihood of an attack, the concealment issues I face, the convenience of carrying a smaller gun, and the fact that my wife carries a much larger gun. I also must say for those guys that may get an ideas, I am under no illusion that, should the excrement hit the oscillating air current generator, she would give me her gun to use.

Large calibers have more recoil; I like the .45 ACP round, and I originally carried a small 1911 .45; however, my arthritis will not let me practice with this gun as much as I should. The large bullet and light gun make it almost punishing for me to shoot for extended periods. This is relative to the person, as I know many who love to shoot a firearm that size. My larger Glock (in a smaller caliber) is fun for me to shoot because recoil is negligible. You must balance these factors when you decide to buy a firearm. This is the reason you should try to fire a gun before you buy it.

Handguns are defensive weapons; they do not contain anywhere near the power of rifles or shotguns. No matter what the caliber or size of the handgun, they are not able to provide a guarantee of the miracle “one shot stop.” What a handgun does is provide the ability to conveniently have a gun upon your person when you need it. Since you cannot carry a .308 battle rifle to the mall, and you may be able to carry a handgun, do not sacrifice this ability to carry by buying a handgun too large to control or too uncomfortable to carry. A handgun does not do any good in your safe if you are attacked on the street.

CALIBER

We have mentioned caliber. Now let’s talk about what caliber actually is. Caliber is the size of the inside of the gun’s barrel. It is measured in hundredths of an inch (such as .38) or in millimeters (such a 9mm). Caliber is measured across the diameter of the inside of the barrel.

With modern firearms, the caliber is stamped alongside the barrel and it should always match the ammunition you are attempting to fire with the handgun.

TYPES OF GUNS

Both revolvers and semiautomatics have good and bad aspects. They will both do the job you make them do.

Contrary to what gun stores, shows, and magazines say, the gun is not the most important piece of equipment. The brain behind the gun is. That being said, let’s discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the two main types of handguns—revolvers and semiautomatics—so that you can decide for yourself which type of firearm best suits your need.

REVOLVER

Common double-action revolver.

Revolvers are a type of pistol with a rotating cylinder containing a number of firing chambers. They typically hold five or six rounds, or bullets, each held in its own firing chamber. Revolvers are generally cheaper to purchase than semiautomatics, with a new revolver from a major manufacturer such as Taurus or Rossi being in the neighborhood of $350. The major benefits of this type of handgun are:

• They are easier to learn to manipulate, because there are generally fewer functions than with a typical semiautomatic.

• It is easier for weaker handed persons to operate, due to the lack of a slide. However, because of how a double-action revolver operates, the trigger pull of a revolver can be heavier than a semiautomatic.

• The round is stationary, and does not move inside the firearm, so you have more choice of ammunition.

• They are said to be more reliable, because of fewer moving parts.

• Also, because of the fewer moving parts, they are not as training-intensive as a semiautomatic pistol (more about this later). However, this ease of use applies to the shooting of the handgun only. Loading a revolver under duress or at speed is more difficult than loading a typical semiauto.

At one end of the training spectrum, they are considered “beginner’s guns” but taken to mastery they are the firearms of experts.

I prefer revolvers for home defense, since a home protection weapon will be stored loaded for an extended period of time. They have fewer moving parts, which in turn makes them less sensitive to a lack of cleaning and maintenance than semiautomatics. I also recommend revolvers for someone who is not going to train as intensively as recommended because this type of handgun has fewer functions to remember. In order to use a revolver, one only has to operate the trigger and the cylinder release, whereas a semiautomatic pistol generally has a trigger, a magazine release, a slide lock, and at least one safety lever.

Revolvers do have some disadvantages, and it is because of these that police departments around the county have changed to semiautomatics. These disadvantages should be understood if the reader wishes to make a decision:

• Because single rounds are loaded individually into the cylinder, they can be slower to reload than the typical semiautomatic.

• Due to width of cylinder they are harder to conceal.

• They don’t carry as many rounds as a similar sized semiautomatic (five or six rounds compared to eight or ten rounds in a semiautomatic.)

• Because a revolver contains separate chambers for each round, to fully load a revolver, the operator must put a round in each chamber (six actions for six rounds). To fully load a semiautomatic, the operator has to insert a single loaded magazine into the pistol (one action for multiple rounds).

SEMIAUTOMATIC

Semiautomatic pistol.

Semiautomatic pistols fire a single cartridge or bullet each time the trigger is pressed. The pistol automatically extracts the spent casing and prepares to fire another round. A semiautomatic is sometimes called automatic, but the difference is that a true automatic can fire multiple rounds per trigger press. This seemingly small difference can cause tens of thousands of dollars in fines and years of time in federal penitentiaries, so be sure to know the difference.

A semiautomatic holds its rounds in a single device called a magazine (it is possible to offend some hardline gun enthusiasts by calling a magazine a “clip”). This magazine is normally inserted into the grip of the handgun. These are the most popular handguns for many reasons:

• It holds many rounds compared to a revolver. Normally a semiauto magazine holds eight to ten rounds, but there are magazines capable of holding fifteen, thirty, or even one hundred rounds.

• It is easier to reload faster with a semiautomatic. This is because you only have to deal with magazines rather than many single cartridges.

• Due to its popularity, there is a wider choice of accessories such as holsters available.

• It is easier to carry spare ammunition via preloaded magazines.

• They are easier to conceal due to thinner profile. There is no wide cylinder to bulge.

The semiautomatic has replaced the revolver in the arming of our nation’s police due to the number of rounds easily carried in magazines on one’s body and the number of rounds in the pistol. What have kept semiautomatics as the handgun of choice are the different features that are available. A police force or a private user can decide the type of safety devices or modes of operation that they want in a firearm and buy a brand that has those features. While this is a benefit, it also can become a drawback.

The possible drawbacks are:

• Semiautomatics are very training intensive. Before one begins to carry a semiautomatic for self-defense, it is recommended that the user fire two or three thousand rounds of the type of ammunition he or she intends to carry in the firearm in order to fully understand the function of the firearm.

• They have a complex action because of more moving parts. This translates to having more chances for something to fail. While modern firearms and ammunition can fire thousands of rounds without malfunction, they can and do happen.

• Semiautomatics tend to be more expensive than a revolver.

• Because of the slide spring, it can be harder for people suffering from arthritis or of weaker stature to manipulate slide; however, proper training can help with this. I have found through personal experience with new shooters that proper technique for racking the slide is more important than hand strength.

• They are more sensitive to ammunition type. Some types of semiautomatics are more prone to jam with certain types of ammunition. In a semiautomatic, the actual round is part of the mechanism and moves inside the gun during the firing cycle. Flat-nosed bullets or what is known as aggressive hollow-point bullets may actually jam against the ramp that feeds the round into the barrel of the handgun. It is for this reason it is suggested that you train with the type of ammunition you intend to carry.

OTHER TYPES OF HANDGUNS

There are other types of handguns such as derringers, pepperboxes, or single shot pistols. These are not recommended due to the limited ammunition capability and sights they normally contain, or the difficulty in manipulation because of the extremely small size.