RobertY

Well I gave my review of the places that we have been looking at fire arms. Now today we stepped it up a notch. We went to the Coal Creek Armory located on Dutchtown Road in west Knoxville. Here is our experience. The first thing I did was to mention that a few members of this forum had told us about them. They seemed very pleased with that. The second thing we did was to tell them that my wife had zero experience and this is who we were here for today. The guy (strangely reminded me kind of like Stephen King lol) took the time to ask us questions and answered ours. He agreed with this forum that a .22 was no good for a carry self defense weapon, that all it would do was to tick a druggie off. Point taken, we have been told enough. LOL! He proceeded to show us a variety of .380's and 9mm's. He also demonstrated them and gave her safety tips. He also demonstrated a racking technique that she could do. YES!! He then let her heft all of them and answered her questions about recoil and such. This guy was very nice. After she had decided on a 9mm model (thats right folks a 9!) we were given a page to read front and back that must be adhered to very strictly. We signed and showed our ID. Now he demonstrated how to load the clip, and demonstrated everything else like what lever did what. Now she picked up the unloaded Sig Sauer P239 and we headed back. I have to be honest I was worried. What if she hates guns even more after firing a round? What if what if what if??? Taking our lane she puts the target to the cardboard and we tape it in place. Then I ran it out to about 8 yards and stepped back. (we already had our ear protection and eye protection on) She picked up the clip and opened the box of ammo. She loaded just 4 rounds and put the clip home and was able to thumb the lever that put the slide back. Shaking very little she took aim and fired. Holy smokes she hit the target! BUT she also laid the Sig down in a hurry and backed away from it saying she don't like it. It was loud! I picked it up and fired off two rounds and I am pleased to say that I also hit the target. LOL! Well... she looked at me and I looked at her and she picked it back up and fired the last round. She dropped the clip out and loaded it back up with I notice six rounds this time. Taking her time she fired all six. As she was busy loading the clip up with another six rounds I brought the target in and put a P beside her shots and a R beside my two shots. Needless to say those were the only shots I fired out of the box. LOL! With her last six rounds we switched targets and I ran it out to the 15 yards. Whoa... with my old eyes that looked a lot farther than 15 yards. She still hit the target twice and the paper once. We used the target similar to the one used in the permit thing. I was very pleased with her first time out. Back in the main section we showed the guy her targets, he said she did good for a first time shooter. I was curious and asked him about the cost of the Sig. Wow! Really! Uh... baby, if you want a .9mm I think you will have to find another model. LOL! He tallied up our cost for todays excursion. $50.00. I can now see why you all say that this is an expensive hobby. hehehe... Ending, she still does not have a Love for guns. BUT she no longer despises them and is not afraid of them. She was also pleased that her wrists are not hurting. She complains her ears do because the ear protection squished her ears. Secretly I think she had a good time because she was in a good mood coming out.

Thats an awful wide "creek". LOL! Thank You laktrash.

We will definitely be checking Austins out before we buy. The Coal Creek range looks nice from the pictures and they also look like they have a wide variety of rentals. So that is another we will be checking out before we buy. Also there is a member on here that it looks like they may be meeting us some time so we can try a few of his at no charge. I am very Thankful and very impressed with this board and its members!

I am getting confused again. LOL! Looks like we will have no choice but to go to a range that also rents fire arms to try different things out. The price range of everything that we are looking to stay in is in the $200.00 to $250.00 range. We will just have to get them one at a time. But HER first.

Mike how easy is the slide to rack on the ruger lcp?

Thanks I will research that model.

kick the can, hide and seek, king of the hill, cowboys and indians, marbles... (sigh)

LOL! Thank You bk for clearing that up. I thought their name was GUNS! because that is what is on all their signs. I thought that Personal Defense Options was thier logo or tag line. LOL!

Hi Dave, You ask some tough questions. LOL! What I am looking for in a dealer is one that is nice and knowledgeable. One that is willing to answer questions and to demonstrate, not treat me like I am a total dork and dumber than dirt. I know at this point of time I am a babe in the woods with minimal experience with fire arms. I was upfront about that in all the places that we went. There is NO excuse what so ever to treat a person like you are something stuck to the bottom of their shoe just because they are new to this. I can garuntee you that that person that did so was not born with a fire arm in their hands and knew everything about them. Everybody was new to fire arms at one time. I think that people tend to forget that. Another toughie from you, man your good. LOL! I would have to say: d. Self Defense Carry Weapon… I am looking for a carry gun that I feel is reliable and is in a caliber that I feel is reliable to stop the threat of an armed attacker preparing to take my life. But here is the kicker to that one. The first one will be for the wife. The reason is she works at a store and as winter draws closer it does get dark before she gets off. We are worried that the umm... seedier people will think that she takes the deposit money with her when she leaves. She doesn't, but they don't know that. No her store where she works has not been robbed yet (broken into yes after hours) but a few of the other stores in the chain have been held up. The problem is she is only 5' tall and maybe 100lbs. Her wrists are very fine boned (and have been injured many times) and she is afraid that the higher calibers will hurt or even break her wrists from the kick. She has held some of the larger calibers and she says they are to heavy and do not "fit" her hands being that the trigger is to far forward for her finger to seat properly on it and her not being able to rack it. As for another of your questions I am hoping that we will be able to go to a range and practice at least every two months. As for our budget that is the hardest question of all. I know her life is priceless. BUT! Unfortunately we have to live in the real world and be able to afford it. The price difference between the brands is incredible. The reason we are looking at Taurus is because we have been told that in its price range it is dependable. We do not want one that is going to fall apart when you pull the slide or the trigger. but can not afford the upper brands. That is one reason I mentioned that we are just going to have to get them one at a time over a time period with hers being first along with getting her a carry permit. Thank You for asking those questions as they also help clarify to this forum what we are up against.

In my case my first experience with a semi auto was frustrating and highly embarrassing. Left a very bad taste in my mouth against them. I know that is not using common sense as they do carry more ammo. But I figure if I can get a speed loader for the revolver I decide on then it will even the playing field at least a little. Plus I forgot which shop I was in in which they also leaned toward a revolver by informing me that with a semi auto you are only guaranteed your first shot. After that there is the possibility of a jam or a mis feed which you have to clear before getting a second shot off. With a revolver just pull the trigger again as 99% of the time with a misfire? it is due to a bad ammo as opposed to gun malfunction. Was that sound advice or was I misinformed on that? This forum is very friendly. Thank You. The wife how ever who has never fired a shot does want a semi auto because she says that the revolvers are to bulky.

Thank You. You can rest assured that we will never step foot in Farnsworth again. It does not feel good to be treated in such a way. To go back again is just begging for the same treatment. No Thank You. For as on here I have had one person PM me with an offer to show us the ropes. I found that very kind and more than likely will be taking him up on it when our busier than normal schedules calm down a bit. Thank You also for the advice. We will be checking out a couple more places. We will try to make Austins one of them. Not afraid of it becoming an addiction because due to money matters we will be stopping once we both get hand guns and get a shot gun for the home (over a time period lol), oh and carry permits. I did find online a range in Maryville that rents lanes along with renting firearms. I will be calling them on Monday for prices. I want the wife comfortable and confident in her choice of fire arm. Problem is she hates guns. BUT!! She does see the need for them because it is getting wacko out there so she is willing to try. So the choice of fire arm will be her choice. I do want her to try a larger caliber than the PT22 but she is small and fine boned. So recoil will be a big issue and also being able to "rack?" the fire arm. I think that is one reason she is drawn to the PT22 because it has the tilt barrel that she is able to operate with ease. Plus she says it is pretty for a gun. LOL!

Well I had Penny take me to several places a few weeks ago. Result: no gun yet. But we did see a few that we will be considering. Here is a gun newbies run down of today. First my experience with guns. Almost nil. At around age 16 I used to shoot my uncles Colt .45 pistol, also his double barrel shot gun. In High School was in NJROTC for 3 years on their drill team and rifle team. Was really good with the bolt action .22 rifle. As you can see those are guns from long ago. Very different from todays semi automatics and such. Penny's experience with guns. Zippo. Nadda. Nil. Goose Egg. Each place we went into that was explained to them along with what we were kind of in the market for. A .22 or .25 pistol for Penny (she wants a carry permit). A .38 cylinder pistol for me. A shot gun. Not all at once as we are not rich. First place visited. Farnsworth in Vonore. Result: left there ticked off and feeling like a moron. Reason: Explained everything like mentioned above so the guy knew we knew almost nothing. He was an older on the thin side man. The first thing he did was whip out a few semi automatic .38 pistols to show me. I picked one up and looked at him in confusion and asked him how does it work. He took it from me and faster than my eye could follow he popped the clip out, put it back in, and did a slidey action thing. I picked one up and examined it. Finally I saw a button to push. Ohhh button... pushed it and the clip fell out. I did catch the clip. I put the clip back in and I slide the top of the gun back. Huh??? What gives??? Now it is stuck! Crap! I have broken the gun! I catch his attention and point it out to him. He takes it from me and does something and it slides back in place. I pick up another one and repeat the process. CRAP!!! Now I have broken this one!! It did the same thing. It is stuck! I catch his attention again and tell him this one is jammed to. He gives me a very irritated look and uses a snide voice and tells me I have to release the clip. Ah... so I push the button and the clip pops out and he raises his voice don't drop it on the floor. I once again caught it. I may be getting old but I can still catch things I think. Mmm... work slide to pretend to cock the gun... arg... same thing. I am thinking what the heck am I supposed to do if someone breaks in? Call a time out to Mr. Burglar while I keep working the slide and popping the clip until it works right? I told the guy forget it, to let me see some revolvers. He did show me a few with which I was surprised as how easily it came back to me to just thumb the button and twitch to quickly open it up, spin the cylinder to check for smoothness, and pop it back. Felt good. Let me peep at the price tag. Whoa... set it down and back slowly away. We went out the door. The guy with body language, tone of voice, and handling made me feel like a total moron which just ticks me off. I was so tempted to challenge him to doing things on a PC so I could return the favor and make him feel like a moron. But I bit my tongue and we just left. Next stop: The Pawn Shop in Loudon. The guy was very friendly. But he had only about 4 pistols that were not for us. I told him (i was still ticked) about our experience at Farnsworth. He (a pawn shop owner not a gun dealer) explained to me that I was not breaking the semi automatics, and they were also not jamming. He explained to me that if there is nothing in the chamber and the clip is empty the slide will not go back into the ready position. That is how it is supposed to work to show you that you are out of ammo. Ahhh... Thank You! He apologized for not having more but his stock was currently low and he pointed us toward Global Pawn in Lenoir City. Now why couldn't the bozo at Farnsworth explain that instead of making me feel like an idiot? Next Stop: GUNS! At Watt Road and hickory Creek inside G&A Equipment. Very friendly and patient with us. In fact this is where we found what we are now interested in. The down side is that he only does 30 day lay a away so unless we can save the money we will just have to be patient ourselves. LOL! Here is what caught our eyes. Penny: Taurus PT22. $277.00. Black model with the dark rose wood hand grips. She actually said it was pretty. It also felt good in her small hands and was not to heavy. Also small enough to carry in her purse. He also recommended a certain holster for just that purpose and informed her that he holds Carry permit classes. Between him and the State a carry permit would run her around $200.00. Whew! Me: Taurus Model 85 .38 Special. $355.00. I thought it looked good. Had a short barrel so would be an easy carry. Smooth cylinder action. Medium weight and felt good in my hands with my short fat fingers. LOL! The House: Mossberg Maverick 88 12 gage shot gun pump action. $235.00 Brand new. I like the sound the chambering action made. Easily loud enough to be heard through a closed door. LOL! Next Stop Global Pawn: Wanted me to buy the $300.00 out the door .38. Barrel way to long. I told him that I did not want to look like cowboy Bob and that is what I would look like having a holster big enough for that thing. He showed me some other .38's but he was way higher in price than GUNS! and his stuff was very very used. Some were even broken and he was still higher in price. I asked him why he was so high priced and he told me that this was the lowest prices for guns that I would find since OBama took office. I did not argue with him we just left. Whew! That was our day. Something tells me that this is going to be just as hard as finding a house. LOL! Now this past weds. we did another excursion. We went to Bill's Outpost in Maryville. Both of us were pleased with I guess it was Bill. He was the only one there. We came in and interrupted his lunch. We begged him to go on and eat as we both know what it is like trying to wolf down your lunch and work at the same time. Well, he wolfed down his lunch just so he could take time with us and answer our questions. He showed Penny many other models but she still likes the Taurus PT22. Bill had the same model as she found at GUNS! The price was also right in line. She just has a horrible time racking slides and does not like the look of revolvers. He made the suggestion to Penny that if that was going to be her carry gun that she needs to have high velocity ammo. He was really patient with us even though he was getting very busy. Showed us different type holsters for different uses, showed her how to clean the PT22, different ammo. Even worked up when asked a rough estimate of how much everything would be. WOW! Things add up big time in a hurry. LOL! Very friendly and informative! So from a newbies point of view a break down would be to stay away from Farnsworth until you can talk the talk and walk the walk and already be part of the good ole boys club. Two thumbs up to GUNS! Two thumbs up to Bills Outpost. Pawn shops: the one in Loudon was nice, the one in Lenoir City not so nice. The selections in either was not really on par with a Gun shop.

Thank You. Will head over there now and make my post.

I would like to know before posting what is the correct forum section to post about mine and my wife's first time out looking/pricing/asking questions in 4 different businesses? We went out about 2 weeks ago to different local shops and I would like to share this day with this forum. A Newbies first outing and how we were treated and handled. I do have to warn that in 1 shop in particular we were treated pretty shabbily.

Thank You all for the warm welcomes! Nope, no A&W anymore. Got Sonic though. They have a pretty good hot dog when the right people are working but it still falls short of an A&W.

I think my wife liked the PT22 so much is because she was able to tilt the barrel real easy and she had trouble working the slide on the other models she tried. Plus she said it was pretty. Because her wrists are so slender and her bones not that strong recoil will be a big issue for her. Thank You again for more advice and sharing information. I have now officially posted in the Welcome section.

Sorry did not mean to fib. But I guess I can not yet post reviews of places that sell guns yet. No New Thread or Reply options for me in a few areas still.

Hello all. Thought I should pop in and introduce myself. I am Robert living in the East TN. area. Pretty new to the site and have mainly been lurking in the Classified section. As of yet the wife and I are not gun owners but due to the increasing craziness of increased Violent Home Invasions we are looking to arm ourselves and our home. For myself I have very minimal experience with fire arms and that is from eons ago. I am 50 now and have not fired a gun since 16/17 years old. Even then it was limited to just a very few models. My Uncles Colt .45 and 12g double barrel shot gun. Also the .22 bolt action rifle from my HS NJROTC days. My wife is a pretty little lady with zero experience with guns. If your interested I will be posting a few reviews of a few places that we have looked. Please keep in mind that these reviews will be that of a newbie to the world of fire arms. So you will get to read about the reactions of gun shops and pawn shops to a newbie. I have been enjoying this forum so far. Thank You for providing a learning place TGO.

Thank You so much for the advice. Believe me it is needed. LOL! She will be picking out her own gun. I just hope she does not put looks above functionality.

I only wish that I was more up to date on fire arms. I am 50 years old now and I have not fired a gun since I was 16/17. Even then it was limited. My Uncles Colt .45 and double barrel 12g shot gun. Also since I was in the NJROTC in High school I became pretty good with the bolt action .22 rifle. But as you can see that is from a different era. Fire arms have changed since then. LOL! My wife has zero experience at all with fire arms. She is just 5' tall 100 lbs and fine boned. So we are worried about kick hurting her wrists. We have already been to Farnsworth in Vonore and left there pissed off because of how shabbily we were treated by an older on the thin side man. We have been to a few other places and we have been surprised by the high prices of fire arms. A friend of mine suggested this forum. So I have been coming in here and peeking around. So far I have been enjoying reading posts but mainly cruising the Classified section. I guess I made a boo boo by not stopping in the new member section first and saying hello. What would you suggest as the minimum defense caliber? That way we can have her try out the minimum first? Oh, she did see a P22 at GUNS! in West Knoxville. She thought it was pretty. Black in color with what looked like dark rosewood grips.

Never even hinted that gun owners are a new thing. Just stated a fact that OBama has nothing at all to do with my wife and myself interested in getting a few guns for self defense and home defense. A lot of people in my family have been gun owners for many many years. Just not the wife and I. If I were not getting older and slower and violent home invasions becoming the norm, I still would not even be considering guns. Our home is not undefended in the least bit. I do have a whole arsenal of different types of martial arts weapons. Those how ever are short range weapons that have to be used with in a few feet. That is fine and dandy for the first few that come through the door IF I am awake and aware their behinds are mine no problem. The scenarios that I am very worried about are the early after hours kick in the door by thugS that are armed with guns. That will be a problem in our current situation as then they would have distance as a huge advantage. What we are toying with is possibly a .22 or .25 for her to carry. (she is a little thing) A .38 revolver for myself A shot gun for home defense.

Sorry but OBama does not have a thing to do with my very recent desire to get hand guns for both myself and my wife and also a shot gun for the home. Both of us have always been strongly against guns in our home. But now I am getting older and my hands and feet are not anywhere near as fast as they used to be. Also sadly it looks that there are a lot more crazies out there. I do know in our area Violent Home Invasions are becoming all to common. It is getting scary and now we have both come to an understanding that you can not stay unarmed. After all a lot of the drug crazed lunatics that are kicking in peoples doors are already armed and fully intend to do you bodily harm while robbing you blind. It is starting to make me down right angry when I hear on the news that another home invasion wound up with the home owners injured or dead. What is also shocking to me is that when the home owners defend themselves and kill the would be thieves my thoughts now lean toward, "once less scum bag on the earth". I'm sorry but those type thoughts that I have are still shocking to me. I do feel guilty very briefly after having one but am coming to realize that with the frequency of it happening that something has to be done. So now twice now we have ventured out looking and pricing and going into sticker shock. LOL!