Scary situation last night

[Lonestarm]

Glad all turned out ok.
A couple of comments, not criticism, but just to think about.

1. If you have a handgun you are not comfortable carrying with one in the chamber (other than an old cowboy style revolver with an empty chamber under
the hammer) you might consider changing to another gun.

2. The only time you should rely on a light caliber like .25/.380 etc., is in a temporary situation when you really can't conceal something larger! There are several really good guns in .40/.45 that are quite small.

I had a similar experience many years ago (also in a rag-top Jeep after midnight) where I was forced to use a handgun to prevent a guy actually coming in the right side canvas door. Luckily I didn't have to shoot. A .357 pointing at his nose was enough to change his behavior. Also lucky because I was not carrying legally at the time (Cook Co., Il) but had to make the trip at that time of night and "better tried by 12 than carried by 6."

[anygunanywhere]

Wow. You broke the law so you could defend yourself?

I need to digest this concept.

Would this be considered civil disobedience?

Illinois is a gun free state, essentially, if you want to arm yourself. Wait. You were not one of Daley's goons then so you could not pack illegally legally.

You took action and were willing to accept the consequences of a sun dress in Joliet prison to protect yourself.

I can understand this, but there are others lurking here who are not so understanding......be very careful!

Anygunanywhere

[SRizz21]

I would always keep it chambered when carrying...it's likely you won't have time to do so if you have to use it sometime.

[Excaliber]

If you're looking for an excellent, extremely safe chambered carry gun, check out the H&K P7. Safe to carry with a round in chamber because it is impossible to fire unless you give the squeeze cocking lever a very conscious squeeze.

There are a number of reasons why the P7 was not successful in the American defensive pistol marketplace. Among them are:

1. With the P7 and its sqeeze lever front strap, you are either loosely gripping an uncocked pistol, or tightly gripping a cocked one. There is no such thing as tightly gripping an uncocked P7. Gripping it loosely leaves it vulnerable to being separated from you in gun grab / struggle / fall. Gripping it tightly enough to hold the lever in is tiring over time, and leaves you with a weapon in the same condition as a cocked 1911 with the safety off - which is the situation the squeeze lever was designed to fix but doesn't.

2. If you're not REAL careful about keeping your finger out of the P7's trigger guard until the gun is aligned with a target you've made a decision to fire on, you're vulnerable to an ND. This is very easy to do during the draw stroke. (Think about how you would bring the pistol out of the holster in a firm firing grip without putting pressure on the front strap.)

One of the largest police agencies that ever adopted this pistol experienced a number of these ND's (self shootings to the leg, buttock, or foot on the holster wear side) during their transitional training process.

3.If you encounter a sudden noise, loss of balance, or other surprise situation, or need to grab something tightly with your nongun hand, you are extremely likely to encounter either the startle response which causes the hands to automatically and unconsciously clench with about 50 lbs of force, or the parasympathetic nerve response which causes the opposite hand to grip tightly when the other hand does so. Either response will cock the weapon involuntarily and leave it in a condition functionally identical to a cocked 1911 with the safety off, and will give away your position as described below.

4. The cocking mechanism is LOUD. Each time the squeeze lever is either gripped or released, there is a pronounced "CLACK!" that may not be noteworthy on the range, but in a tactical situation where you'd like to keep your opponent from identifying your position whenever you can, that inescapable noise is a dead giveaway of where you are. It has about the same effect as shining a flashlight on yourself. It's an unnecessary tactical gift to the opponent that I see no reason to give.

To sum it up, the P7 never made it in the marketplace because it was an imaginative solution to a problem that is better resolved by proper training on any one of a number of high quality weapons, and the new solution brought with it a suit of new problems that was judged to be unacceptable by the law enforcement community as well as the general shooting public.

XD's are nice but there are pistols out there that have more capacity with relatively the same dimensions. I.E. FNP-40 is close in size to an XDSC 40. FNP-40 has 14+1, XDSC has 9+1 and 12+1 if you use the extended grip.

The XD is available in a 16+1 .40 S&W configuration as the XDM. Grip size is the same as the earlier XD. Right now it's only available in the full size configuration (grip size same as the XD with an extra half inch on its match grade barrel) which would make a great uniformed carry or home defense piece. Details can be found at the link to the Springfield Armory catalog below. Descriptions of the XDM start on page 18.

http://www.the-m-factor.com/images/down ... atalog.pdf