Choosing your little friend

I’ve been asked a few times about how to pick a handgun caliber. Should I go with a 9mm or a 40 caliber? What about a 45? I want a one shot stop gun. Blah blah blah.

Let me start by saying handguns suck. Hitting something further than 25 yards is a crap shoot. For practical concealed carry at best you have 16 rounds before you need to reload. Even with a 45 you are not going to blow your assailant out of his shoes. The reason we carry handguns is because people lot at us kinda funny when we walk in to Starbucks carrying our 12gauge. Local and state authorities also discourage it. The point of the handgun is to let you get back to your car so you can drag out the 12 gauge to finish the conversation.

So we’re stuck with a handgun. So go big or go home right? Get a big old 44magum like Dirty Harry. You are going to conceal that where? Next to the 12 gauge in your trunk? It is not going inside your waist band. Worse you only have 4 or 5 shots in the magazine. Don’t bother.

The whole idea of stopping your assailant does not really have much to do with caliber. It is about the ammunition being used. Shoot a person with a full metal jacket round out of anything and they might not go down right away. They’ll be hurt, but not out. But shoot a person with a nice high quality hallow point even in a smaller caliber and it is a whole different story. Ballistic studies bear this out. The entire goal is to create as much shock as possible. That is why self-defense rounds ammunition is almost all based on a hallow point bullet.

So why do I carry a 9mm? First, I load it with high quality self-defense rounds (Hornady Critical Defense). Each magazine carries 16 rounds so I’m able to easily carry 32+ rounds on my person when I’m out. Because the 9mm has no real recoil I’m able to keep my front sight on my target for several rounds. I’m also able to transition between targets and move without getting off target.

Does this mean you should get a 9mm too? Nope. Go to the store and see what fits your hand. If there is a range that rents stuff out – go take advantage and see what you like. The important point on picking your friend is that you can use it and reliably hit your marks with it. The caliber is just an ego thing. 9mm might not be a big caliber, and people talk about the 1911 like it is Excalibur, but if you can’t use it effectively it might as well be a spork.

Once you have your weapon: practice with it, take some classes, burn up a few hundred dozen boxes of cheap ammo and keep some good stuff for around the house. After that maybe you look in to getting a CHL and consider the realities of the world we live in.