How Do You Choose Which Gun To Carry

[Kleanbore]

Detroit requires a decent ccw. North Dakota? Not so much. I might go lazy, and carry a jframe instead.

I think you are confusing the likelihood of occurrence the risk with the requirements for mitigation.

If "threat level" is meant to indicate number of potential hostile humans or human sized animals, then I see why an argument can be made that you do not know when, or how many attackers will come at you, and therefore having as high of capacity as you can practically carry is the only logical response.

Yes, and is a solid argument.

However, If I am being charged by a grizzly bear or a moose, which is certainly possible in the places I go, I am more concerned about carrying a cartridge that has better potential to stop the threat...

Of course.

 

[Texasgrillchef]

What I choose to carry, is dependent on several factors which include the following. The weather, what I will be wearing, where I am going, and the activity I will be doing. Including if I will need to carry concealed, or if I will be open carrying as well.

If I am going on a long hike on a warm day in bear country. I will probably carry my 454 in a chest holster and my Bond Arms 2 shot derringer with 410 magnum buck shot shells on my waste.

Yet normal hiking in non Bear country on a warm day, then it’s my Bond Arms, and my P365 in a holster on my camelbacks shouldstrap. Allows for easy shoulder carry and quick cross draw. (Alien Gear Holsters)

Other times I carry my P238, other times my P365, sometimes my 92fs.
The Bond Arms is always with me, because it makes a great backup gun, and is very easy to carry and conceal.

Nice thing about hiking camping etc... and carrying the bond arms with another gun, is it gives me the option of choosing two ammo types to shoot without having to reload. The bond arms with buck shot, works great for snakes, and some other small pita critters if needed. It also can make a great defensive weapon against close quarters attackers as well..

 

[Steel Hayes]

When I started carrying, there were only 3 factors.
1. It had to fire every time when I pulled the trigger.
2. I had to be able to control my shots when it fired and it shouldn’t hurt when I do.
3. It had to be within my budget.
I broke all my pistols down into two classes, the ones I collect and enjoy shooting(about 40+) and those I would EDC( there are 2).
I’ve carried my CA Undercover for 10 years without a single failure.
The Undercover May be replaced by the Taurus 856 I’m about to pick up, but only after I’ve put at least 3-500 rounds through it.

 

[daniel craig]

By how much practice I've put in recently.

 

[Deleon517]

I generally stick to the same one unless I find something i'm just as accurate if not better with and is easy to slip on and conceal no matter what i'm wearing. For a few years it was a S&W shield 9mm, then that got replaced with the Taurus pt111 g2 after enough range time. Until that got taken over by my wife as her EDC when she got tired of carrying her Glock 19, and replaced with the G2C she gifted me in exchange.
I have to shoot it enough to trust it and it has to be something in a size I won't walk out the front door without.

 

[Browning]

I didn't start this thread to be a smart-ass.

I spend at least some portion of every single day in an NPE. Because of that there is no decision for me to make most of the time. I carry a Glock 26.

If I'm going out with my wife and on Saturday nights when we go to church is the only time that I carry my Glock 19.

Like I said, there is no decision for me to make and I was wondering how those of you who get to decide do it. Is there a matrix? Is there a decision tree? Is there a threat assessment? And if you do a threat assessment and you decide the threat is such that you need to up armor why are you going there?

My re-entry into the .40 S&W (I had an H&K USP in the early 2000’s, but sold it) came because of a few different factors.

Ammo availability :
First one was because of the 2008 election and I couldn’t find 9mm ammo. I had a fair amount of it, but I shoot a lot. So I bled 9mm out for awhile to remain current. However I noticed that .40 S&W and .357 Sig was still on the shelf. So I bought a .40 conversion barrel for my Glock 20SF.

Ammo availability round II :
In 2012 it was the same thing. Really hard to find 9mm and .45 ACP. However .40 S&W and .357 Sig was still in stock.

A pistol that I really like appears :
A stippled G23 with a bunch of upgrades literally fell into my lap. I really liked the pistol itself. It was well done and was my entry into customized Glocks. I also bought that plus a 9mm conversion barrel for it.

Actual purpose :
I do carry it during winter when people have heavy clothing on and it’s also my woods gun since I sold my 10mm (I hog hunt a fair amount), but for all intents and purposes my reason for having it mostly revolves around training and ammo availability.

I stock quite a bit of 9mm. More than anyone else I personally know. However other than just liking that pistol and having slightly better terminal ballistics on four legged animals and through winter clothing it makes sense to have options.

Might as well shoot .40 ammo if it’s available at that time.

Obviously up to you, but having at least one .40 makes sense to me.

 

[hogslayer6]

I only have one gun so the choice is made for me already.


Well, not exactly. I have other guns, but I only have one that fills the self-defense role even though some of the others could. It is my concealed carry gun, my open carry gun (if I were to ever do that), home defense gun, yard work gun, car gun, etc.

I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of swapping different guns around like they're fashion accessories or something. "Honey, what do you think? Does the blued with Walnut grips or the stainless with Rosewood go better with this suit?" "Honey, have you seen the polished nickel with Ivory? I'm meeting with an important client today and I want to look my best."


But what I really can't wrap my head around is the notion some people have of up or downsizing based on ______? The "Oh, I'm only going to the store for some milk, so I'll just throw the .22 derringer in my pocket" crowd. What? If you have a longer grocery list, you need a bigger gun? Is that how it works?

The fashion accessory concept makes way more sense.

If someone was to try and kill me, I'll be just as dead in my front yard as in a back alley, just as dead with only a loaf of bread as with a whole shopping cart.


One gun. One holster. One manual of arms. Simple. Less decisions to make. More efficient use of my limited training resources.

If you do the same thing the same way every time, it greatly reduces your chances of making mistakes.

Best advice I have ever read on this topic.

 

[swagbrdr]

For me, its always concealment or i need it dead. I shoot either .45acp or .44 mag. Right tool, right job.

 

[Choctaw]

I pick one and stick with it. If the threat evaluation is the same every day, so to speak, then I don’t want to have to think as I’m drawing my gun about which gun it actually is. I will have trained/conditioned myself to be thinking about/reacting to the situation with the characteristics of the particular gun and the loads it’s carrying in mind. And yes, this means that it’s always going to be loaded with the same cartridge. I firmly believe in eliminating unnecessary variables in crisis situations.

Yep. I carry my Glock 35 on and off duty because it is what I train with and handle everyday. Deciding on which weapon to carry isn't like deciding which shoes to wear.

 

[BCC1]

I don’t worry about caliber effectiveness when carrying. 9mm, 40, 45, 357, doesn’t matter to me.

And since I don’t worry about it, I’m tending to standardize on 9mm. Just makes life easier.

What I care about is handgun ergonomics. I want each weapon to point the same way, especially under stress. And since I’m used to it, every handgun has the same ‘pointability’ as a 1911.

So that’s what I suggest. If you are a Glock guy and a good, fast, accurate shooter with it, well, buy any darn caliber you like, in a gun that shares the same grip angle as a Glock.

I live in Florida. I carry a Staccato C Duo, which is a low capacity single stack, in hot weather, since it doesn’t print with a slim t-shirt and shorts any maybe something in a double stack with a 3.9” barrel in the cooler winter days. But to be honest, I think shooter skill is much more important than handgun capacity, once you get beyond 6 rounds.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

A month that none of us ever could have predicted later I am very glad that I chose to buy another case of 9mm and some more magazines for the guns I have rather than trying to set up a new platform.

 

[Weflyfast]

Elmer Keith always said....carry ENOUGH gun.....
Ha! I'm just fat enough to pack a 1911 without too many knowing I have it....and it comes out quick and shoots straight....

....it's not a 44 mag....but you won't catch those 230s with a baseball glove!

 

[CDMCKY]

I have A LOT of guns, but the only "problem" I had was which one works best at the
office where I work. I wanted POWER and capacity, while needing "INVISIBILITY".

So, I designed and fabricated a (quite nice) deep concealment "crotch carry" holster;
paired with my CZ-75 Compact 9mm (14+1) loaded with HST 147 gr. +P JHP's I get
the result I need. I can carry a spare 14 round mag. and covered by an un-tucked
shirt there's nothing to see -YES.

Note; I can do a 1 second (or less) draw, and as the CZ is a DA/SA with a hammer,
I'm not worried about blowing off my "johnson" during a draw...

 

[Pudge]

A month that none of us ever could have predicted later I am very glad that I chose to buy another case of 9mm and some more magazines for the guns I have rather than trying to set up a new platform.

Amen! I didn't buy more ammo, but components and a lead pot, and time at home has resulted in more to use. Having dies and components standardized for the platform(s) is important. The problem is, since the range is right here, the stockpile isn't much bigger. But I'm not running low any time soon.

 

[Rexster]

I doubt there is enough terminal-ballistics difference, in a living target, to matter, between 9mm and .40 S&W. Staying with 9mm is what I would have advised. I gladly “down-sized,” from .40 to 9mm, in 2015, for police patrol duty, as soon as my chief OK’ed 9mm as an alternative primary duty cartridge. Shooting .40 had become painful, by my 50th birthday, in 2011. I had been using .40 S&W on duty since 2002, and during most personal time since 2006. (I do not “blame” the .40 for being the main cause of my aching hands. The .44 and .41 Mags, fired through N-Frames, too big for my K/L-sized* hands, in the Eighties, were the main problem,)

I had tended to carry .40 P229 SIGs, both on and off the clock, but when .40 started hurting. I brought my full-sized, all-steel 1911 .45 ACP from the safe, and, thankfully, found that I got right back into the groove. Yes, .45 ACP, is kinder and gentler than .40, especially when fired from an all-steel pistol. I then starting adding 9mm Glocks, in anticipation of a rumor that 9mm would soon be authorized for patrol duty.

Before good controlled-expansion JHP ammo, with bullet profiles that fed reliably, had been developed, I do believe that using bigger-bore ammo was a good idea. I believe that .40 S&W made sense, at the time of its introduction. I bought an S&W Shorty Forty, and the .40 version of the Browning High Power, in the early Nineties. Neither managed to dethrone my favored .357 Mag and .45 ACP handguns. By the late Nineties, good 9mm JHP ammo existed, which made the .40 S&W unnecessary, in my opinion.

As I saw it, shooting .40 S&W gave me terminal ballistics somewhat like that of a 185-grain 45 ACP, while being almost as obnoxious to fire, indoors, as .357 Magnum. When it became necessary to use .40 duty pistols, I used the Gen3 G22, at first, but reached a frustrating accuracy plateau, and so switched to SIG in 2004. When I was able to down-size to 9mm, in 2015, I returned to Glocks, as Gen4 fit my hands much better than Gen3, which aided accuracy.

*Actually, my hands are long, so a large-gripped gun “feels right,” but, my fingers are not long, so reaching an N-Frame trigger required that I hold the weapon in an ergonomically-compromised way, that later became known, by some firearms trainers, as the “h-grip.” This asymmetric grip directs recoils forces into the base joint of the thumb, which torques the wrist in a way that is now known to be terribly destructive. (I am not an M.D., but am married to one.)

 

[Rexster]

A month that none of us ever could have predicted later I am very glad that I chose to buy another case of 9mm and some more magazines for the guns I have rather than trying to set up a new platform.

It has been a challenging month, for us all. Switching to, or adding .40 would have, in my opinion, bought you a louder, snappier, obnoxious beast, with no realistic increase in gun-fighting capability.

Let’s all be safe and well.

 

[Garandimal]

...My problem is if I buy a Glock 23 I'm one of those people that's going to get 19 magazines for it, three or four cases of ammunition for it, a half a case of Speer gold dots for it and a $120 Kramer holster for it (by which time SWMBO will have already thrown a conniption and relegated me to the couch FOREVER. )

And I know that either it or the Glock 19 (for which I've already bought all of the above) is going to end up a safe queen and SWMBO will be really twisted.

I'm trying to decide if the financial outlay is justifiable but based on the answers that I've gotten before I added this edit I don't think it's going to be.

The answer to your problem is simple.

Get a slimline Glock G36 .45 ACP.

It is a much better CCW that the G19/23, has the subsonic 400 lb-ft. Energy of a 180 gr. .40, and is flat, smooth, thinner and lighter than the G19/23, while still being an honest compact size pistol.


Transitioned from the G23 to the G36 - and never looked back.




GR

 

[JR24]

The answer to your problem is simple.

Get a slimline Glock G36 .45 ACP.

It is a much better CCW that the G19/23, has the subsonic 400 lb-ft. Energy of a 180 gr. .40, and is flat, smooth, thinner and lighter than the G19/23, while still being an honest compact size pistol.


Transitioned from the G23 to the G36 - and never looked back.




GR

Dump half your ammo load for a slimmer gun (which is worse for my hands) that recoils harder and is harder to control fast for a dubious, at best, potential improvement in terminal performance?

Oh, and pinches you pinkey under recoil as a bonus.

Not for me

Though I did try for a while, and mine was reliable and accurate.

 

[Garandimal]

Dump half your ammo load for a slimmer gun (which is worse for my hands) that recoils harder and is harder to control fast for a dubious, at best, potential improvement in terminal performance?

Oh, and pinches you pinkey under recoil as a bonus.

Not for me

Though I did try for a while, and mine was reliable and accurate.

The post wasn't addressed to you.

"Dumping half your ammo load" is what all conventional single stack pistols do. The theory being that if you are making good hits with a substantial round, SD shooting is still at the "revolver" ammo load level. So you carry your Additional Ammo in a thinner spare mag, that you will probably be carrying anyway.

As for recoil - 400 lb-ft is 400 lb-ft, and they are both compact frame Glocks. The G36 is a little lighter, that's all. I don't really notice the difference b/t it and my G23. Shoot both one handed regularly.

And "pinky pinch?" That is a grip problem. W/ a proper grip it is a non-issue for me.


A very good Purpose built CCW choice.




GR

 

[JR24]

The post wasn't addressed to you.

"Dumping half your ammo load" is what all conventional single stack pistols do. The theory being that if you are making good hits with a substantial round, SD shooting is still at the "revolver" ammo load level. So you carry your Additional Ammo in a thinner spare mag, that you will probably be carrying anyway.

As for recoil - 400 lb-ft is 400 lb-ft, and they are both compact frame Glocks. The G36 is a little lighter, that's all. I don't really notice the difference b/t it and my G23. Shoot both one handed regularly.

And "pinky pinch?" That is a grip problem. W/ a proper grip it is a non-issue for me.


A very good Purpose built CCW choice.




GR

First, I was unaware I could only respond to posts addressed to me, mea culpa.

Second you clearly state it is a much better CCW, which is a dubious claim at best. As good? Perhaps. Again you are putting a heck of a lot of eggs in the "few good hits" basket when you only get 7 shots for not all that much smaller than a gun that carries twice the ammo in a not insubstantial caliber itself.

Also, there is a lot more to recoil than the bullet's ft/lbs.

But you're happy with the Glock 36, that's cool. Didn't work for me.

 

[AK103K]

The post wasn't addressed to you.

"Dumping half your ammo load" is what all conventional single stack pistols do. The theory being that if you are making good hits with a substantial round, SD shooting is still at the "revolver" ammo load level. So you carry your Additional Ammo in a thinner spare mag, that you will probably be carrying anyway.

As for recoil - 400 lb-ft is 400 lb-ft, and they are both compact frame Glocks. The G36 is a little lighter, that's all. I don't really notice the difference b/t it and my G23. Shoot both one handed regularly.

And "pinky pinch?" That is a grip problem. W/ a proper grip it is a non-issue for me.


A very good Purpose built CCW choice.




GR

I came to realize a couple of decades ago, that there is really very little difference between the major calibers as far as performance goes, so why stay with a gun that is harder to shoot (in comparison) with and has half the capacity?

I shoot 45acp all the time, in a number of different guns, and have owned 45 and shot a couple of Glocks a good bit, and while they are not hard to shoot well with, it is a LOT , and noticeably easier, to shoot better with the 9mm guns. And a good hit with a 9mm is just as good as the same hit with a 45. Saying otherwise is being disingenuous.

And if you shoot the least bit realistically in practice, you already know how quickly those 6 or 7 rounds go, especially when dealing with more than one target. So why intentionally limit yourself?

 

[KevininPa]

Location that I'll be visiting.

 

[rskent]

Whatever Glock is in the “loaded ready to go” cubby. It varies but a Glock is a Glock.