Hello everyone! I'm new around here, and well, kind-of new to guns in general. I was raised around guns, but in a "always be afraid" type of way. So most of my shooting experiences were basically, getting handed the gun, shooting and handing it back. About two or three months ago my husband decided that he and I should get concealed carry permits. We live on the northern side of Houston, and while it's a nice-ish area...there are a lot of shady characters around...and well, let's just say that we'd prefer to have a last line of defense that is more than a baseball bat.
I am perfectly fine with the idea of learning to shoot properly (and have been doing a great deal of researching and reading regarding it.) And I don't mind the idea of concealed carrying either. The other day he even took me to the gun range down the road and taught me to shoot his Ruger .380. It's an older model, that his father gave him. (Who received it while in the military.) I admit that I was afraid of it, but after putting a full box through it most of my fears were extinguished. That said, the little sucker had quite a bark when firing. (I've always had a thing about loud noises...but its a gun, what are you doing to do?) While the recoil wasn't horrible, my hands did ache afterwards and the area between my thumb and palm is still sore. (And racking the slide was a chore, but fairly easily accomplished.)
I know I'm writing a bit of a novel here, but I wanted to come here and ask a few questions, so some background is required.
I did like the .380, however I'm not sure if I'd like one as my own personal gun. Before we went to the range, I had been reading a lot about the Ruger sr .22. From what I've read, it sounds easy to handle, easy to aim (short distance) and easy to maintain. However, it seems to be a very popular opinion that a .22 cal is not for self defense. While even I agree, it does lack some of the power the larger cals have, it beats not having anything at all. My husband insists that I get nothing less than a .380, but honestly I'm hesitant to handle it unless we are at the range. I feel that will get better with time and practice, but still.
So far everyone I've talked to has said that the .22 would be a bad choice, even if I would feel more confident in handling it. Most of the gun store guys recommend the Walther pk .380 and it seems to be fairly well promoted online as well. So I've come here to ask for oppinions, which would be a better gun for a beginner to learn with? Ruger sr .22 or Walther pk .380.
I am extremely hesitant to try the Walther, I greatly dislike the fact that you have to PULL THE TRIGGER to decock it when the safety is on, and with my inexperience I am afraid that I would fire it by accident. The Ruger seems better adapted to prevent gun morons (such as myself) from accidentally using it. But then again it's "too small" to be a defensive gun. I'm at my wits end arguing about it. So please just tell me what gun I should get! P.S I am a lady, if you hadn't managed to figure it out yet.
Thank you if you managed to read this whole thing.
P.P.S -- I really would like reccomendations for other types of guns as well, but honestly the larger the cal, the more nervous about using it I would be. I am far more confident using rifles. (30.30 is my favorite by far.) And anything near the range of a .45 handgun is out of the question. I shot my grandpa's .45 revolver once and it dang near made me pee myself. Too loud, too big. No thanks. I'd like to get used to the smaller stuff first.
Welcome! And congratulations on taking action to improve your safety.
The main issue with the .22 caliber is it is a rimfire vs a center fire. Rimfire cartridges are less reliable to go bang and cycle the gun every time. Your life likely depends on it doing that when you need it to in a self defense situation. As for being an effective round, you will soon see that debate has no end if you search for info on it. The truth is a .22 round to a critically vital area has taken many to their graves but the reliability factor of it being a rimfire is the deal breaker for use as the first choice for defending yourself from an attacker. Just learning to shoot with a .22 is a great idea. The lower recoil helps you to avoid bad habits forming and allows you to concentrate easier. Yes, I am saying a girl can benefit from owning multiple guns. However, if you can only get one, my personal preference is the .9mm round. It is effective with less recoil than the .40 or .45.
See if you can try out a Smith and Wesson Shield in 9mm at a range if you can find one that has one to rent. I really like mine and the recoil isn't bad at all IMHO. It is a dependable gun with a decent trigger. Locks back on empty. Big enough to have a softer recoil but small enough to carry easily. It does have a thumb safety. This is not the only good choice of course, but it's worth checking out. If your hand is hurting after practicing with a box of ammo in any gun; it can be caused by a grip that needs adjustment, or the gun does not fit your hand, or the gun simply has too much recoil for it's weight/caliber to be "fun" to shoot. If the gun is punishing you to practice with it, it tends to discourage practice. That is not a desirable combination.
Hope some of that helps.
The Only Bodyguard I Can Afford is Me
Texas LTC Instructor Cert
NRA Life Member
I own a Smith and Wesson Bodyguard .380 and a Springfield XDM Compact 9mm.
My wife's favorite between those two is the Springfield. She says the Bodyguard kicks harder and makes her hand hurt. She also has problems with the slide on the Bodyguard.
My daughter is 18 and prefers the Springfield as well for the same reasons.
In general, the larger the frame on a particular caliber pistol, the more manageable recoil will be (i.e. a full sized 9mm will feel like it "kicks" less than a compact 9mm). It's a balancing act between how large a pistol you can (or want to) carry and how much recoil you are willing to deal with.
I agree with TexasGal that a .22 may be a great learning (training) gun but wouldn't be my choice for self defense. I also agree with her that 9mm is a great way to go and there are many options out there to try.
You may try going to Tactical Firearms on Mason Road in Katy. They have a great range and will rent pistols (I think just about every flavor available). It's a great way to try a variety without having to buy them first. You just provide the ammo for rented weapons. I'd recommend making a reservation if you're going on a weekend afternoon. They get crowded and sometimes have a wait.
Good luck and have fun with the selection process!
Lo que no puede cambiar, tu que debe aguantar.
Take Care.
RJ
I have an XDm 40 I was very surprised at the difference in recoil. It is true that the larger the gun the less recoil. My XDm 40 tho has much less perceived recoil than my 38 or the light weight same size 9mm I had. I would agree go to a range with rentals an try a few, I never would have purchased that particular 9mm if I had tried it. I keep going back to My XDM love the built in safety it was initially a little stiff to cock but that has gotten better. And it is a breeze to conceal
Don't get pigeon holed into only considering one gun. Selection of handgun is a wildly subjective thing. I suggest you locate a gun range with a number and variety of rental guns, and shoot many.
While .22 is not a generally thought of defensive round, some do use it. I would suggest if you can find a larger caliber that you can comfortably shoot go that route. That said, I have a cousin in his 60's who suffered sever shoulder, arm and wrist injuries in Vietnam. He cannot handle the recoil of anything above a .22 He has a very tough time completing his CHL test with my full sized 9mm. He carries a .22
Congratulations for realizing your protection is in your hands.
When I worked in an ER back in the 1980s, I saw a lot of people shot dead with .22s....maybe 75%-80% of them. The problem with the .22 isn't whether or not it is an effective killer, it is whether or not it is an effective stopper.......and it is not.
You will learn here on the forum, and in your CHL class, that the purpose of shooting someone isn't to kill them, it is to stop the threat. You don't shoot to kill, you shoot to stop the threat. If the attacker dies as a result, the moral burden for his death is on him, not on you. He initiated the attack; you defended yourself. Self-defense is a fundamental right; assaulting someone is not. This is a moral issue. If your motivation is to kill, then you are no better than your attacker. If your motivation is to stop his threat (either to you or a 3rd party for whom you feel responsible), then it establishes that you are on the moral high ground; and that is important because the law is founded on moral precepts. In this case, it is the moral difference between killing for its own sake, and killing in self defense. If your actions are in line with those precepts, then you will have less difficulty in justifying your actions before the law than if you are acting outside of those moral precepts.
With those moral precepts in mind, picking the highest power caliber that you can shoot reasonably well is where you should concentrate your efforts. After you have settled on a couple of caliber choices that meet both of these requirements, then it makes sense to find the gun(s) chambered in those calibers that meet your personal defense requirements before you actually spend the money on one. Many ranges have rentals that you can try out, and don't hesitate to ask friends who have other guns if you can try their gun out. (Range days with friends are a great way to spend time.) While there is nothing wrong with small pocketable guns in well-recognized self-defense calibers—my own carry collection contains two such examples—you should consider what your primary means of carry will be before you invest in the gun. For example: if you have chosen 9mm as your favored carry caliber, a pocketable gun will be someone more difficult to shoot because of a stouter recoil-to-weight ratio than a heavier compact model that you might carry in a holster or in your purse. My own wife made this calculation. One of my pocket guns is a Kahr PM9 in 9mm, which is a tiny little 9mm by most objective standards. My wife liked it, but she preferred a similar model in a slightly larger frame with more weight, so she bought a Kahr CW9. But if you plan on holster carry, then a somewhat larger pistol might be even better because of better ease of shooting and higher ammunition capacity.
Personally, I'm not a fan of .380, but many people on this forum carry them. Given my age and physical condition, I don't feel like I can afford to rely on it. With the previous paragraphs on killing vs stopping and the morality of defensive shooting in mind, you should consider both shot placement and penetration, and beyond that, load choice. Stopping the threat depends upon incapacitation. The .22 actually has excellent penetration, but it severely lacks incapacitation. In fact, I've seen plenty of people shot in the chest with a .22 (multiple hits) with complete pass through of each bullet.........and they were neither killed nor stopped. In other words, short of a direct hit to brain, descending aorta, or cervical spine, the .22 almost never stops someone outright....and sometimes even hitting those vital areas directly will not immediately incapacitate the foe. The .380 is the same approximate diameter as the 9mm, the .38 Special, and the .357 magnum, but it is a poor penetrator because it lacks the grunt to reliably push the bullet deeply enough into the attacker's body to produce incapacitation.
So what causes incapacitation? The obvious ones are circulatory and CNS collapse. If you rupture the descending aorta, the attacker will suffer catastrophic loss of blood pressure and bleed out into their chest or abdomen in a matter of seconds. Hits to the brainstem, and spinal cord (particularly the cervical spine) will cause near instantaneous incapacitation. But while shot placement is king, even the best shooters in the world may not be able to reliably hit targets in a way that will produce instantaneous incapacitation, when the target is moving, or may even be shooting at you. So, you shoot for center of mass because it is easier to hit the COM than to specifically hit the heart (even a gunshot wound in the heart may not stop, let alone kill your assailant). In the real world, shooting lots of big, deep, holes into your attacker is what you're going to be relying on to stop his attack. And this leads to the other three factors in incapacitation: Mechanical (skeletal) incapacitation, Pain, and Psychology.
Barring some kind of prophylactic pharmaceutical intervention, getting shot hurts. It hurts a LOT. But if your attacker is high on something or amped up on adrenaline and has severely dulled pain responses, one shot may not produce enough pain to do the job, where 5 or 6 hits will.........or not......there are plenty of documented cases of police dumping upwards of 15-20 rounds into a bad guy who simply will not stop. If you shoot them in a supporting structure—like breaking the pelvis or femur—you might mechanically disable the attacker......or not.....an attacker with a broken leg and two good arms with a gun in one hand is still a formidable opponent (not to mention that trying to hit a moving target in the pelvis or femur is a lot more difficult than shooting for COM). So in the end, the only way you have of reasonably reliably stopping an attacker is to throw lots of bullets into their COM, and you want those bullets to A) penetrate deeply enough to hit vital organs, and B) leave a large enough wound track for blood to leak out.
That is why you keep shooting until the attacker has stopped his attack. A tiny round like a .22 or .25, or anemic rounds like the .32 and .380 simply lower the odds in your favor. More powerful cartridges including .38 Special, .357 magnum, 9mm, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP raise the odds in your favor. In the end, it's a numbers game.
Each of us has to make a personal calculus balancing stopping power, ease of carry, personal skills, and confidence when arriving at which gun/caliber combination one will carry. Fortunately, we probably have more choices in carry guns/calibers today than ever before in our history; but guns are not cheap (although they are MUCH cheaper than a hospital bill or a funeral), and so it is worth it to consider and spend wisely.
Welcome to this world.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
Very well written TAM. and I have to agree completely.
The one other item that want to throw in there is that in a case where you have to use deadly force, your adrenalin is also very high. With that in mind, it is difficult at best, when in a high stress situation like a defensive shoot, to have a well placed shot. There are many documented cases where trained professionals as well as those of us that train on a regular basis, miss the target when in a high stress shoot. You always like to think you are completely prepared, but if and when that time ever arises, the nerves will get involved. That is why we train for center of mass as a target. It gives a much larger area to shoot at.
A case in point on this is the very first time I ever shot IDPA, I was totally prepared and ready (or so I thought) until that buzzer wnet off and I completely locked up. Now, I feel I am better prepared but still won't know for sure until that time arises if it ever does.
Although I carry a .380 as a pocket BUG, it is not my primary weapon nor my weapon of choice. My wife and daughter both like the 9mm over the .380 or 38. They both have an XD9, one on a compact and one in a sub-compact that they prefer.
As stated above, find a range that rents pistols and try several in different platforms and calibers.
Much like buying a boat, try out any pistol/caliber you're interested in first before buying, plus those you may think aren't for you. You may be surprised to find the one you're certain you'd like isn't for you and vice versa.
I would'nt buy a boat without trying it out on the water first - Same with a pistol. Try it before you buy it.
Everything TAM said makes sense.
If however, over time and trial testing of different pistols and calibers (which I hope you do) you find anything stronger than a .22 is just too much, then consider a high quality .22 L.R. revolver. Some of them hold as many as 10 rounds. If you have a dud, simply keep squeezing, the next round will more than likely fire. A .22 semi-auto with a dud takes more time and effort to fire again...
Also, a .22 magnum revolver packed with hollow points has only slightly more recoil and considerably more pop over the .22 L.R. round.
I hope you settle on something at least as strong as a 9mm, but if you find anything higher in caliber than a .22 is something you're completely uncomfortable with, don't give up on the idea of being armed for self defense.
A .22 is better than being completely disarmed.
That said, if you do go the .22 route, practice until you become as expert as Annie Oakley. As TAM pointed out, the round is a stopper if it hits vital spots, but if not, it most likely won't incapacitate quickly enough to save your life. So, practice until you can knock the eyelashes off a gnat.
P.S. All of the above said, I hope you go the 9mm as a minimum caliber route.
Good Luck!
P.S. You can't take the CHL pistol shooting portion of the test with a .22.
Welcome and congrats on taking the necessary steps toward personal responsibility, and also for taking the time to ask questions & investigate before diving in.
That said, I'm going to separate from the pack a bit. Given your experience, I say get the .22 and spend as much time at the range as you can. Learn how to stand, hold the gun, fire the gun, and fire follow-up shots without the noise & recoil. Also hang out around the firing line without a gun to acclimate yourself to the noise. Someone is bound to show up with a hand canon that will startle at first, but you'll get used to it & eventually come to like it.
After you've spent a while at the range and are more comfortable around the environment, try some rentals in larger calibers. Preferably something that was made within the last decade. There is a world of difference between a full size 9mm polymer frame modern pistol and a ww2 era pocket .380. Example - my full size Smith & Wesson m&p .40 with 185g bullets is a much softer shot than my Beretta Nano 9mm and my full size gen3 Glock 17 in 9mm. My buddy's all metal Sig .45 shoots softer than my m&p. For some reason, ladies seem to get steered toward smaller guns that are harder to shoot & that's just plain wrong as you've already experienced.
Somewhere in this process you should look into various shooting classes and/or groups. Several ranges offer Learn to Shoot, Ladies Night, Girl With A Gun, etc. This will get you more familiar and give you more trigger time with whatever gun you ultimately decide on.
Once you get more comfortable with all of this, start looking into getting your chl. You can carry in your vehicle and at home (and if you own your own business, at work) until you get your license. So there's really no need to rush this. Since you will probably have to unlearn and recondition yourself, I'd say take your time and create a more positive experience for yourself.
Good luck & keep us posted. This is a very newbie-friendly forum, so please stop by often.
Opinions expressed are subject to change without notice.
NRA TSRA TFC CHL: 9/22/12, PSC Member: 10/2012
When I worked in an ER back in the 1980s, I saw a lot of people shot dead with .22s....maybe 75%-80% of them. The problem with the .22 isn't whether or not it is an effective killer, it is whether or not it is an effective stopper.......and it is not. ...
Main body Deleted by me to save space
...
Each of us has to make a personal calculus balancing stopping power, ease of carry, personal skills, and confidence when arriving at which gun/caliber combination one will carry. Fortunately, we probably have more choices in carry guns/calibers today than ever before in our history; but guns are not cheap (although they are MUCH cheaper than a hospital bill or a funeral), and so it is worth it to consider and spend wisely.
Welcome to this world.
Very well stated,TAM . Your first paragraph says it all about choice of caliber for a self defense weapon.
Welcome to the forum Dragon. Excellent first post
KAHR PM40/Hoffner IWB and S&W Mod 60/ Galco IWB
NRA Endowment Member, TSRA Life Member,100 Club Life Member,TFC Member
My Faith, My Gun and My Constitution: I cling to all three!
If all you're comfortable with right now is a .22, shoot and carry a .22. Practice, practice, practice. And as you get more confident, try training yourself on a larger caliber as well. When you get comfortable with it, you can make the switch. Better the gun you can shoot well and will carry than any gun you can't and won't. It may not be the ideal place to end up, but it seems like a perfectly acceptable place to start.
You didn't say where you are, but like Cajun said, alot of the ranges have some sort of ladies night and many will let you rent guns so you can decide what you like.
Personally, I carry an LCP, I know it's a small gun, but I'm a small gal and it fits me. I have an LC9, but haven't made the switch yet. Try both of them out, you might like one of them.
Something to keep in mind. From the sounds of it, you had never really shot before, then you went to the range and fired off a full box with a small gun of course your hand is going to hurt. Heck, I can't run much more than a couple of magazines through mine without taking a break.
~Tracy
Gun control is what you talk about when you don't want to talk about the truth ~ Colion Noir
You have received some good advice already. Carrying a weapon is not just about caliber, but is also about the system (gun, holster, other gear and carry style). For each individual, that system is going to be unique and is based on our individual strengths and weaknesses.
As others have said, caliber really depends on your comfort level and the more you shoot the less recoil sensitive you will become. I personally believe that .22 magnum can be a reasonable choice for some folks depending on their situation. Ruger makes an LCR in .22 magnum that might be worth your time to take a look at. While you are in the process of getting your CHL, try to get in as much range time as you can. You may be surprised how much your tolerance for recoil will improve after a half dozen trips. A .38 special or 9mm may be ideal for many, but only you know your comfort level. Concealed carry is definitely not a one size fits all proposition so you have to pick the carry solution which is right for you. Good luck and welcome!
“While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.” ― Samuel Adams
The others have given excellent advice. I think renting a few guns at the range is a great idea. I personally carry a Ruger 9mm, a Ruger 38, or my new favorite a Bersa Thunder Plus 380. It all depends on where I'm going or what I'm doing. I'm confident in the stopping power of the 380, but many aren't. (I was in law enforcement for many years and consider myself a decent shot and handle pressure well. Hope it's never tested) You may find yourself owning more than one weapon and becoming comfortable shooting many of them. If starting out with the .22 is what builds your confidence than by all means start there. You may find that some of the larger guns are easier to handle. My 380 and 9 are a pleasure to shoot at the range. My little 38 is hard on the hands, but easy to conceal!
P.S I am a lady, if you hadn't managed to figure it out yet.
However, if you can only get one, my personal preference is the .9mm round. It is effective with less recoil than the .40 or .45. 
of course your hand is going to hurt. Heck, I can't run much more than a couple of magazines through mine without taking a break.