What to carry?

[Guest tnmom]

Hi, I've been carrying a Beretta Jetfire 25 that's at least 40 yrs. old, but my dh wants me to carry something with a little more punch. I'm 5'4, about 150 lbs and I have some health issues that effect my ability to rack harder slides, that's part of the reason why I love my Beretta, it's got the drop barrel feature. I've been carrying in SOB, but want to carry with a belly band, (appendix). Have been looking at the Kel Tec 32, S&W 38, Taurus TCP 32. Any help would be really appreciated.

[Jonnin]

beretta makes a tip up barrel in 32 that is exactly like your 25.

My wife really likes our sip p238s, those are 380s but easy to rack the slide (she has trouble with many guns as well).

Can you handle the DAO triggers on the guns you mentioned like the kel tec?

Have you looked at the cornered cat web site, which gives great tips for women to rack a slide?

Edited June 4, 2011 by Jonnin

[Parrothead]

have you looked at the technique used to rack the slide? Try holding the back of the slide with your left hand and push the gun forward with your right. It helped my wife a lot.

[Guest BenderBendingRodriguez]

Eh, screw your hubby. Carry what you feel comfortable with. But failing that, is he pushing you to any particular minimum caliber?

[mikegideon]

One of the most frequently asked questions. Go to a good store and fondle various pistols until you think have found true love. Then, arrange to shoot it so you can determine if it's true love, or just lust. A choice in handguns is as personal as it gets.

[Guest pfries]

One of the most frequently asked questions. Go to a good store and fondle various pistols until you think have found true love. Then, arrange to shoot it so you can determine if it's true love, or just lust. A choice in handguns is as personal as it gets.

I agree with this.

Still no matter how I break it down it is permission to go gun shopping.

[ted]

try a kahr pm9

[ttocswob]

My wife cannot operate any slide. She ended up with a Beretta Bobcat INOX in .22LR for practice (picked it out herself, thanx Outpost!) and a Beretta Tomcat in .32 ACP (which I found used) for SD.

Given your constraints, the Tomcat is a viable option, IMO.

Edited June 6, 2011 by ttocswob

[Guest coldblackwind]

If you want more punch, and have trouble racking a slide, you might consider looking at a revolver, simple way to get into more punch, and theres no slide to rack, I generally carry a snubnose .357, and I carried a snubnose .38 before that, and my 55 year old mother carries a snubnose .38. Gives you more punch with not a lot more recoil, and removes the worry of racking the slide. I have a glock 30 I carry on occasion too, but the majority of the time it's that .357. To comment on one of the ones you mentioned specifically, I've had 2 taurus tcps, and I really didn't like them. I traded one off on here and ran into the person I traded it to a few months later. He got halfway through the first magazine he tried in it, and the whole gun locked up tight, wouldn't fire, wouldn't eject, nothing. Had to send it back to Taurus, I believe he told me he even had to leave the live round in because it was completely locked up to the point NOTHING would move. It also had a TON of recoil for being a .380. I just wasn't impressed with it at all.

Edited June 6, 2011 by coldblackwind

[Guest Aces&8s]

I agree with coldblackwind... take a look at some revolvers while you are shopping. My wife uses a Ruger LCR and loves it. It is very light, and recoil on some loads can be a bear, though. Check out the Ruger SP101 and/or Charter Arms Patriot in .327 Federal Magnum, too. The round has great ballistics, not as much recoil as .38, and you can download to .32 long or .32 H&R Magnum for practice. Taurus makes one, too, but the one I looked at just didn't seem as well made as the Ruger or CA.

[Guest friesepferd]

my honest opinion as a weak female - it is much more likely that you will have a problem with a double action trigger than you will with wracking a slide.

If thats not true, then you are wracking the slide wrong (very very possible, most people do).

If you are pointing the gun straight in front of you, grabbing the slide with your other hand, and pulling the slide back toward you, you are doing it wrong.

I highly suggest you read this: Cornered Cat - Rack the Slide

and while you are at it, read ever other page on her site. its great.

Having said that, there are some guns that are easier to rack than others. Some can tell you which are easier, personally, I would just go to a gun store and have him take out all the guns you are looking at and try and rack them all correctly. See which is easiest.

Many may suggest a revolver, but like my first statement, I stand by that a heavy double action pull is going to be VERY hard for you to do well. I can pull one all right, but I can't shoot one well at all because my hand has to wrench wrong to pull it all the way.

[peejman]

"More punch" is highly over-rated. Carry what you can shoot most effectively. A miss with a .22 has the same effect on your target as a miss with a 20mm.

[dats82]

Peejman got to it before I did, but I completely agree. A gun choosen for power over proficiency is a very poor choice. I do not know what causes your limitations, but if you lack the strength or function to rack a slide, you will probably lack the ability to control the recoil of a larger round in the same size gun. My father is in failing health and can no longer handle his 38 S&W. He rarely leaves the house, so carry is not an issue. He is looking closely at the Kel-Tec PMR30 simply because he knows he will be able to be proficient and more effective with it. Caliber is way overrated if you cannot control it.

If you are well practice and comfortable with what you already have, stick with it.

[Guest nicemac]

"More punch" is highly over-rated. Carry what you can shoot most effectively. A miss with a .22 has the same effect on your target as a miss with a 20mm.

The last two news stories about a woman shooting a home intruder that I have read both used a .22 and the intruder was killed in both stories…

My wife carries a .38 snubbie. All but fool proof and no slide to rack.

[JAB]

Many may suggest a revolver, but like my first statement, I stand by that a heavy double action pull is going to be VERY hard for you to do well. I can pull one all right, but I can't shoot one well at all because my hand has to wrench wrong to pull it all the way.

I think it depends on where a person's physical strength/weaknesses lie. Case in point: my wife.

Try as we might, we couldn't seem to find a semiauto that she could rack. Even when she could manage to rack one, with some difficulty, her ability to do so was such that she would never have been able to clear a jam in a 'real' situation. She tried the method described on Cornered Cat. Didn't work. She tried other, alternate methods as demonstrated to her by other folks who had trouble racking a slide. Didn't work.

At first, she had some trouble with pulling the trigger on DA revolvers. Often, her hand would be shaking by the time she got a DA revolver to fire. Then one day I looked closely and realized that she had too much of her trigger finger through the trigger guard and was trying to pull the trigger with the second joint. Once I saw that and got her to adjust her technique, she could operate the trigger on most double-action revolvers just fine (one notable exception being the horrid trigger on a snub-nosed Taurus .22WMR she tried out at the LGS - but even I found that one hard to operate.) Don't get me wrong, she wasn't going to break Jerry Miculek's revolver speed shooting record or anything but she did well enough to fire the gun every time and get good hits on target. She ended up taking (and passing) her HCP class with a snub-nosed Rossi .357 (one of the 'Taurus' Rossi models) loaded with Remington UMC .38 Special FMJ. She has even gotten to the point that she can fire that gun in a one-handed grip with her strong hand and get good hits on a B27 target at 10 yards or so. The problem was (and this is something to consider), she wouldn't carry that revolver because it was too bulky and heavy.

Because I have a Kel Tec P3AT (the recoil of it is too much for her hands to take), I had wanted her to try out a P32. Well, I had recommended the same to my mom who also wanted a small, lightweight, low recoil carry gun. My mom got one and loves it. My wife tried it out and ended up with one for her carry gun, too. She can rack the slide on it easily and reliably (even though she still has trouble with many other semi-autos), has no trouble with the DAO trigger and has declared it to be the only gun she needs.

When I recently got a S&W 642 I wanted her to try it out just because I like her to be familiar with all of my carry guns just in case a situation arises when she has to pick one of them up and use it. She said that it was small and lightweight enough that she would carry something like that but the recoil was too much. She could use it, if she has to, but wouldn't choose to do so otherwise.

Edited June 8, 2011 by JAB

[Guest pfries]

The last two news stories about a woman shooting a home intruder that I have read both used a .22 and the intruder was killed in both stories…

My wife carries a .38 snubbie. All but fool proof and no slide to rack.

You have to hit somthing vital.... period.... acurate is effective, larger rounds only allow for more error. This is why I carry my 9mm even though I have larger caliber pistols, it is what I am fastest with, most comfortable with, and most importantly most accurate with.

[bajabuc]

Loved my M19 but never shot it DA