I can’t call myself an avid handgunner but I’ve been carrying in the woods since ‘95, shot them quite a lot and have tried a variety of handguns.

I love revolvers but can’t shoot them as fast and accurately as I can a comparable semi-auto.

I’ve carried a 9mm Glock 19 and a 10mm Glock 29. With Buffalo Bore Hardcasts I’m faster and more accurate with the 9mm Glock 19, five more rounds than the Glock 29 too.

As a gentleman named Phil Shoemaker demonstrated, if I can place those 9mm 147grain Hardcasts correctly under stress they’ll get the job done even on a grizzly. At this point, if I lived in griz country, I’d still go with the Glock 19 because I shoot it better than anything comparable and I’d be way undergunned with any handgun anyway.

They say under stress we revert to our training. If he buys a handgun your friend needs to practice enough so that drawing and shooting it comes as second nature. That seems unlikely tho unless he decides he likes shooting handguns, IME most new buyers shoot a box or two and call it good.

"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744