Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 5-shot revolver vs. 15-shot auto for carry/defense

Ahhhh, yeah, I can understand that, kids. I knew it was your 'back up' in his ear....but not a teen kid in that situation.

Odds are if one NEEDS to defend themselves in my area, its going to be a different type of criminal.......

You made a good choice - that's a good outcome any day.

While looking for another post I came across this and in light of the recent movie theatre shooting I figured it might be a decent one to revive and have some re-assess or reflect upon if their thought processes have changed at all since that time.

night stands and dresser drawers (not to mention gun safes) are full of "concealed carry" handguns that the owner just leaves at home due to size and weight.

get a gun you'll carry every day! 5 shot vs 15 shot is a mute point if your gun is at home and you're somewhere else.

Last week we had a nut ball with a 7.62x54 Draganov kill a constable and one bystander, and wound one bystander. The nutball fired about 60 rounds total before he was KIA. The wounded's boyfriend returned fire with a .38 Special Ruger and ran out of ammo after 6 shots. The cops have his gun as evidence and he bought a 9 mm Glock as a replacement.

This fellow surely did the right thing but I would hope he doesn't go looking for firefights in the future.

I carry one of each; a Glock 19 and a S&W 638 with CT laser grip, plus a reload for each. The Glock is armament and the Smith is insurance.

Brother in law was in the Los Angeles Police Dept for many years. He stated on many occasions that the dept had a lot of trouble getting officers to "learn to shoot" a J frame smith. He stated it was one of the hardest guns to learn to shoot accurately under STRESS.

I carried a 38 Special, Smith model 60 for many years after being robbed several times operating convience stores in S. Ca. Having been a District manager for 7-Eleven stores in that area, I have been to many robberies and murder sites. I was robbed twice by individuals, and swarmed once by teenage gang members, beat unconscious. In the robberies where the individuals robbed me, they came up to me in a normal fashion in body language and verbal tone, then pounced like a leopard drawing their gun changing their demeanor to a predator. In one of the robberies, I was so scared that I forgot that I had the 38 in my waist band, 15 Seconds of sheer terror. The look in that guy's eyes and the size of his 357 with those Hollow points looking at me, told me this guy intended to shoot me at the slightest wrong move. I emptied the cash register into a paper sack, after asking permission to reach for the paper sack. He turned to walk out the door, then I remembered that I had the 38 and had picked out a spot on his ear that I wanted to put the bullet. Thank God that I remembered that in Ca. I would be in a world of crap if I had killed the guy because the threat was over as he had disengaged the threat and was attempting to leave the store. In my mind's eye, I can still see the look on that guys face to this day.

On the second robbery, I went to the back of the store with two large black plastic bags of trash to put in the dumpster. There is a concrete trash enclosure with two large 10' doors covering the entrance of the area that holds the two trash dumpsters. As I open the door on one side, and procede to throw the heavy trash bags into the dumpster, a guy with an old cheap 38 special comes around the corner and sticks the 38 in my the side of my throat as he grabs me by the sleeve. He wants my wallet. As he sees that I am complying with his order to get my wallet, he pulls the 38 back away from my throat, but keeps a strong hold on my I look at the 38, it is a 5 shot, and I see bullets in two cylinders, the other cylinders are empty. I give him my fake wallet with cancelled credit cards in it with $50 in 1's, 5's, and $10's. He shoved me to the ground and ran off. My 38 fell out of my waiste band. In Ca., I was carrying the pistol illegally, I could legally carry it in the store, but when I stepped outside on the side walk, I was in public domain. If I had killed that guy, I would have been in a hell of a mess once again.

On the third robbery I was not carrying a pistol. I got called to the store, 3rd shift employee had been locked up and wanted me to go get him out of jail....forget that! I was so pissed that I did not put my 38 in my waist band. A guy that looked to be 19 came in and wanted beer, he acted jacked up and highly agitated when I told him that I wanted to see his ID. He stormed out of the store and came back with 3 buddies, all of which were in the 19-20 year old range. The counter in this 7-Eleven was designed to be in the center of the store. One of the perps jumped across the front of the counter, one jumped across the back of the counter, and one jumped across the front of the counter. I punched the first guy in the throat as hard as I could, then the other two were literally on top of me. One of them grabbed an old cookie jar and beat me sensless with me as his friend was apparently having trouble breathing from the jab to the throat. They got their beer, could not get the register open, in general just trashed the area all in about 90 seconds. I spent 10 days in the hospital, 3 days in a comma.

The worst robbery in my store was with a graveyard cleak that was a football and wrestling coach at a local high school. I told him that if he got in a fight that I would fire him and just let the bad guys have anything they wanted, dolly was in the back room if they wanted to take the safe with them. Coach's wife was having a baby and they needed the extra cash.

A kid about 16 comes in and wants beer after hours. Coach tells him that he can not sell it to him, after hours. Kid comes back with 4 of his friends and without saying a word, starts shooting coach with a 9mm. Coach drags himself to the back room and locks the door while getting shot through the door again. Kids shoot the lock off the door(hollow core door) and shoot coach multiple times as he lies on the floor. Kid's 9mm was loaded with 115g FMJ or coach probably would have never made it to the back room. In my mind's eye, I can still see a partial tooth of Coach's sticking out of the drywall.

Recently, my wife's boss stopped in at a very large gas station to get gas. 4 teen age kids attacked him with pipes and large wrenches. His eye socket was caved in, skull fracture, jaw broken, broken ribs...in hospital for 2 weeks, and may have TMJ for the rest of his life. I asked him how the assault started, and he said that the youngest kid told him that he had dropped a $5 bill and was returning it to him, he did not drop it of course. He said the kids looked in age from 14-16 years old. I asked him if he wanted to attend my brother's Concealed Weapons Class for free. He said, No that his wife would approve guns being in the house...can't fix stupid.

As I stated earlier, I had to go to the scene of many shooting and robberies and take reports as District Manager. The cops that read this could write a 100 pages each of what they have seen and personally experienced. They offer their advise without many realizing how they came to their conclusions.

As Mackay Sagebrush stated, " Manipulating less due to multiple targets, manipulating less due to an injury, manipulating less due to having a hold of someone else you are responsible for or feel compelled to protect, such as a loved one or principal. The less you have to manipulate gear, the more you can focus on the situation at hand".

This is really great advise for someone that has been through my experience, since a person should be able to defend themselves and perhaps others from multiple perps.

7-Eleven's security dept did some exhaustive research on felons in prison that had committed armed robbery. They found that on an average, that if a guy had a gun during the robbery, that that single individual would feel comfortable holding 5 people at bay.

At 19, I moved to S. Ca. and commenced a shooting war on jackrabbits with about every rifle, pistol, shot gun, and muzzle loader that I owned and could afford to buy. I got to be a hell of a shot on running jackrabbits. I would carry two skeet pouches full of 357's and a shooting vest with a bird carried in the back to carry the empties. I got to be more than a fair shot with a 357 with 125g HP and a 44 Mag with 180g HP.

Some years later after I had sold the 7-11 store, I started shooting IDPA and was really shocked at how bad a shot I was and how lousy a lot of pistols are under just a little duress of being times and having to engage multiple perp cardboard targets. It was really hard for me to wrap my head around just how bad I was shooting IDPA. After all, I had killed 8 coyotes with a 357, and untold thousands of jackrabbits. When I started shooting IDPA, center hits under duress became an issue as I was baffled by how bad I was. It soon became apparent that the relationship of grip fit, poundage of the trigger, Re-set on the trigger, Accuracy, ease of reloading, not to mention sights were things that I had never even considered.

My brother puts on a IDPA match first Sat of every month. He and I shoot on a squad that takes all first timers. Often we see a guy show up that has shot pistols all his life(just like me). This guy brings out his custom this or that, acts the big shot around all of us shooting lesser guns. Then he proceeds to show all of us that he is really incapable of hitting a bear in the azz with just a little stress on him, he also has multiple issues changing magazines, shooting good guy targets, and in general just spraying and praying in the general area of a threat. We encourage everyone because we all had issues to deal with when we first started, magazine issues, gun issues, ammunition issues, and reinforce the fact that having reliable equipment and being able to use it under duress is not as easy as it is on TV!

From the first hand account of my own assults and robberies I hope that those reading will realize that real life assaults are extremely quick and violent and usually without you having the slighetest inkling of you being in any kind of emminent danger. Multiple perps add to the danger along with you may having to respond with a pistol while you are wounded seriously. For this reason, I prefer a semi auto with NO SAFETY and/or no hammer to cock...I can not stress this enough. If you feel the need to carry a pistol for self protection, then carry a reload. When you are scared to death, you can squeeze off a lot of shots in a hurry.

Also, not knowing the laws in your State and City can ruin your life for years to come in civil suits, and may land you in jail.

If you love to shoot your pistol, I would encourage everyone to attend IDPA matches(International Defense Pistol Association) in your area. You actually compete against your own time from match to match, you will be with some great people, and get to shoot your favorite pistol and ammo. Shooting scenarios are set up at the IDPA matches that are taken from real life circumstances.

Hey, Mack. I've deferred answering that question (which I'm sure you know has surfaced on the 24HCF several times in several forums...) because I was still thinking about it.

The question of whether I need to change my weapon(s) in light of the Colorado theatre shooting took second place to my defensive mindset and tactics questions. First thing, I had to wonder how likely such a shooting would be in my future. Pretty unlikely. But I carry a gun every day even though I believe (and fervently hope!) I'll never need it. So I decided to think through the exercise.

Okay, the fact is I like movies and I like to see them in a theatre where the picture is nice and big and the sound is good. My wife and I like to sit about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way back from the front of the theatre, and in the middle of the row, where the viewing and sound are best. It occurs to me now that this is a good place to be from a tactical perspective: I am not near the entrances, front or back, so unlikely to be among the first persons shot by a would-be mass murderer.

First tactical priority would be to get us both on the floor and out of the gunman's line of sight. Second priority would be getting to the end of the row where I could get line of sight and take a shot on him.

That's when I started thinking about what I would want to have on me to shoot him with. Let's see... it's gonna be dark, and he's gonna be at one of the darker parts of the theatre, with a big bright movie screen behind him making my pupils constrict so my vision won't be its best. Tritium sights are a good thing, but I'm not sure how much good they'd do me with the movie screen behind/above my target. So it seems to me that a laser dot would be a really, really smart thing to have on my gun in such a situation.

Funny thing... the only CCW handgun I have that has a Crimson Trace laser on it is my J-frame S&W 442 Centennial 38 snub! I have rail-mounted lasers on a Glock 17 and a SIG P220, but they're duty guns, not concealment guns... And the other funny thing is that I've trained with my 442 enough to know that the laser makes it a damned accurate gun out to 25-30 yards, so I'm confident I could put two or three rounds into the perp in short order, and probably before he knew I was even there.

But what if he's wearing armor? Two or three 125 gr GDHP bullets into his trauma plate will NOT stop the slaughter, and will in all likelihood draw his attention to Yours Truly, and shortly after drawing his attention, I'll likely be drawing his fire. Not Good. Under such circumstance, I would want more than 5 rounds at my disposal, because after putting 3 ineffective rounds into his armor, I'm going to have to try to put a bullet into his brain. This may require multiple shots fired to get the necessary hit, and it may require putting a round into his hip joint to put him on the ground before I drill his brainstem. Hmmm. A 5-shot Centennial, even with a super-duper accurate laser on it, might not be the best choice for this scenario.

Then it struck me... I have several Ring's blue guns with CTC lasergrips on them that I use for classes, and one of them is a Glock copy. If I take the CTC grip off the training gun and mount it on one of my Glocks (my G23 is my favorite of the bunch) I would have the advantages I currently enjoy with my little J-frame Centennial, plus I'd have 14 rounds of 40 S&W to get the job done with, and another 14 rounds at my disposal with a single reload. And while the 39 Special 135 gr +P GDHP is a nice, effective load, it doesn't have the quite as much punch as a 180 gr .40 caliber GDHP; maybe not enough of an advantage to make a real difference, but after working with PD's throughout the upper Midwest where a lot of bad guys have been given permanent dirt-naps thanks to the 180 gr GDHP, I have more than a little faith in this round.

So last weekend I took the CTC grip off the blue plastic training gun and mounted it on my G23, and I went to the range and sighted the laser in dead center at 20 yards.

That G23 has been my going-on-the-road gun for about 8 years, and it has served me well. Now it's my going-to-the-movies gun.

Hope the reply wasn't too long, but I wanted to explain my thought processes.

Very true!

Horse schit.


Travis

Very good point

Nobody ever survives a fight while using a 15-shot auto and says to himself afterward, "Man, I wish I had carried a 5-shot revolver instead".

However, I can envision a circumstance where somebody who carries a 15-shot auto could wish he had a 5-shot revolver in his pocket as well.

That's why I carry one of each and a total of 41 rounds of ammo most everywhere I go.

Jesus.

Shark repellent too?


Travis

It is a form of shark repellant, I guess. I am only carrying one reload for each gun. Maybe I should fill my pockets with loose rounds?

I've carried 2 since the early 70's and haven't seen a downside yet.

I carried that many condoms at time after my divorce.

so many variables given that a question like that could run pages...

but in my mind, the typical type of scenario in the woods is likely to be quite different than in the home, on the street, or on the road--in a woods setting, i don't care as much about capacity, and focus more on penetration and power. i use a revolver in the woods--stainless .44 mag or .454 casull, but i hike and climb alot in grizz country, and for me they are a better companion than a 9mm or .45 auto in that setting.

the "pros" concerning revolvers for self defense are "bottom line basic"--they are easier for inexperienced users to "use" and learn, especially in stress situations (though in some cases harder to hit accurately with), and i usually recommend them to almost all women and inexperienced shooters alike. time and time again i've seen numerous women who cannot operate a slide easily, due to weak hand strength. i've also seen inexperienced users confused by semi autos, unless they are dao sans a safety. unlike some situations for guys, if a woman is going to fall under attack, in many cases there may well be only one attacker, so capacity is less of a issue--that woman needs a firearm that is easy for her to figure out and use under stress, on demand--a small, powerful revolver--and i recommend the ruger sp101 in .357. if the gal has trouble handling the recoil, lighter weight pills can be used in it, or .38 + p's with medium to heavier weight pills.

9mm semi autos are very hard to beat for efficiency, and i find that most people that are inexperienced can fire them quite well. they usually do ok if someone is helping them in a range setting, but unless they work at it regularly and diligently on their own, in a time of sudden need--on demand--the semi auto may not be the best choice for that person--a possible "con" for these certain people.

a 9mm with the right ammo can share that "rarified air" with the .357 using 125 grain pills--for years some of the writers said that the 9mm was not powerful or efficient, especially when contrasted against a .357 mag. but in those times past, velocities for the .357 were usually given with 6 inch or longer barrels--however, cut that barrel back to packable snub lengths and it surely changes some. a 9mm with +p or +p+ will rub shoulders with a .357 snub and 125 grain pills.

though i use glocks alot--i'm not a "dedicated fan" of them. if you like 9mm and you like the glock platform/manual of arms, a glock 19 is real good medicine, though i typically use a 17 round g17 mag in them. the glock 26 is also nice--perhaps slightly harder to use--and i usually use the 15 round g19 mag in it. i like a longer handle/grip and a shorter barrel/slide. if concerned about more rounds on tap--for some drills i use the g18 33 round mag, and if out and about on a road trip, i take along the g18 33 round mag for both the 19 and 26 as added insurance/peace of mind.

an interesting note on the nyc cop who whacked the pitbull--i believe they use the 9mm there--and if that is correct, good shot placement--likely stitching the cns--rendered an instant stop on an animal that is known for being more difficult to stop with smaller handgun cartridges--which for you in a hunting situation adds up to yotes in the bag--and if you fail to stop it on the first hit--which will happen at times as coyotes are very determined--hi cap mags will be extra sweet frosting indeed...

but any guy that can whack yotes with a handgun already "knows his way around the block."

I wonder if in a semi-dark theater room, with a shooting going on, with people scrambling for the exits, if there will be enough dust in the air to make the laser visible to the perp. If so he may not be totally caught off-guard by a citizen lining up on him.

mackay,

i remember reading about 35+ years ago that bruce lee was in a particular scrape--one in which he was not able to immediately bring to an end--damaging his fists in the process. it led him to completely overhaul the way he approached his martial art--to devise a new system that emphasized efficiency, directness, and simplicity--to get an opponent on their wallet before they knew what happened.

one has to figure that if someone of bruce's capability saw the need for a "re-evaluation" after an incident--the incident itself--or knowledge of some incident, should set the stage for some evaluation, which may lead to a "re-evaluation".

though unrelated to the theater incident, an example for me--though nothing occurred to precipitate this;

when i used to travel out to blm or state land to perform "all-day-long" handgun drills--whether by myself or with another--i only took handguns along. about 4 years ago i re-evaluated this practice, and the result of that re-evaluation is that now i always take a rifle along when out in open country shooting handgun drills--though i may seldom give it a care or a use when shooting these handgun drills--but it gives me some real peace of mind having it along out in those somewhat more desolate, open regions...

Divorced already? That was quick.

Prayers sent.

Rick

Just kidding, I didn't miss the past tense thing.

Scaredy cat.


Travis

HI Vel,

In regards to the rifle part of your comments:

While I rarely discuss it, rifles have pretty much always been part of the equation around here, both at work and otherwise. I simply keep them on the down low.

I just tend to find them awkward out in social settings.