Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Handgun for a Woman - in home self defense

You never know where you are gonna find the next Obama supporter.....

I wonder if she could have done it if she had Bell's palsy?

I could guess.

If anybody would know.......

Met a lot of ladies who grabbed a gun and didn't think it felt right. A few hours later they were fine with it. All but the smallest hands will go around a Glock grip, and they shoot them better than little revolvers.

You are exactly right. Almost any beginning shooter will do well with one of the striker-fired pistols (Glock, XD, M&P) in 9mm. The little revolvers are really experts' tools.

Starting ladies or kids on a snubbie revolver can be as frustrating as making someone shoot a .410 for their first scattergun. It often turns out not to be a good experience for any involved.

Scott

I say a DA revolver is the only way to go to begin with. I will only carry auto's and DAO ones at that for a reason. In a home defense gun one needs it to be as simple as possible for sleepy/sudden need to use it. The less BS one has to deal with the better. My recommendation is 2 revlovers a .22LR revolver, like a Taurus 94 and a .38 special be it a Taurus 85, the new 6 shot J-frame the 856 or a 3 or 4" S&W in the same chambering. A brick of ammo for the .22 and a case for the .38 spl.

Later if she wants one can progress to autos and the manual of arms they require.

Simplicity is best with a new shooter. Revolver and lots of practice.

The manual of arms for a Glock is pretty simple: grasp, aim, squeeze trigger. There are different frame sizes so unless the lady has very small hands the chances of finding a fit are good. The recoil springs in them don't seem nearly as heavy as those in a lot of other makes, so after a bit of familiarization making the gun ready shouldn't be an issue.

I like DA revolvers too, but most that I've tried could use a good professional action tune to lighten, but more importantly smooth that long pull.

The challenge is fitting a woman�s hand with guns made for men. Women tend to have narrow hands with long fingers, somewhat the opposite of men. The guns I have found that fit a woman�s hand best are:

Revolvers
Ruger SP101 with factory grips
S&W K frame, Round butt with Pachmayr Compac Professional grips (the one with the open backstrap)
Revolver grips � Stay away from anything that has finger grooves, as they are surely to be too far spaced out.

Autos
Kahr K9 series (either steel or polymer frame)
Astra A70 or A75 (very high quality single stack 9mm & .40�s that no one knows about)
S&W 3913

I have taught a lot of women to shoot, and I�ve always had the best luck with these guns.

In a revolver I would recommend a Ruger GP100 or a Smith& Wesson 686. You can start out with low power 38 Special loads and work your way up to mid power 357 loads like the 110gr load from Federal, Remington or Winchester, or the mid power 357 Golden Sabre load from Remington. In a pistol I would recomend a DAO pistol like the S&W M&P or Sigma, the Ruger SR9 or P95, the Glock 17, Springfield XD9 or a myrad of other DAO pistols in 9mm Luger. The 38 Special and 9mm Luger are easy rounds to control and are reasonably inexpensive to practice with.

+1

My wife has a friend that carries a Ladysmith and loves it. It is a snubbie but for home use, not target it appears to be a good litle ladies gun.

My wife carries a Kel-Tech 380 auto and likes it well to carry. She also has a Glock 27? 40cal sub-compact. She shoots the bigger Glock better and that's what lays on her side of the bed.

Just don't come home unexpected and try to scare them for fun when they have guns. While its pretty sexy when she is standing there with a left sock on only holding a gun, it kind of kills the moment when its pointed at you.

Simplicity AND low recoil.

As for grips, the new S&W M&P semi-auto with the swappable backstraps satisfies all of the above.

Scott

You are still wrong, but that's ok.

There's no restrike IIRC in a Glock and I'm talking about clearing jams FTF's and FTE's. There is more to do than simply pull the trigger again as there is in a DA revolver. To begin with simplicity is best period. Auto's- all of them require more training and practice.

No matter how many times I tell her there's nothing sexier than a good looking woman who can handle a large-frame single-action auto (preferably a 1911)well, my wife sticks with her 3 inch Model 36.

True. That's so natural to me at this point that I don't actively think about it.

Learning to manage a DA pull is still a pretty steep hill for a beginner though.

The recommendation toward revolvers is somewhat stereotypical and often wrong. It has been the experience of almost every law enforcement and military agency in the world that people (including women) tend to shoot auto pistols better. They have better ergonomics and better triggers (on average), which results in higher scores. You don�t have to agree with me, but if you disagree, then your argument is with factual data, not my opinion.

9 times out of 10, if you hand an auto that fits her to a woman, she will shoot it better, have more confidence and enjoy herself much more on the range.

Here's my one datapoint. My wife is completely freaked out by the concept of the slide coming back towards her when the gun fires, so she will only shoot revolvers. Just something to consider.