Not quite on topic here, but given all the positive responses, I thought I’d ask–what’s a good ‘starter’ handgun to get?
My criteria: relatively inexpensive, not too heavy, ammo easily available, good for home protection. Lots of noise or kick aren’t a problem: in my view, they tend to increase the ‘scares the bejesus’ out of the person you’re defending yourself/home/family against.
feel free to refer me to another thread if you like.
thanks.
My favorite kind of gun is the kind where the owner struts around like he’s got the biggest damned killer phallus in the world at his disposal, then inadvertently discharges it while it’s tucked into the waistband of his Levis just like Starsky and Hutch used to, severing his spinal cord and moving his life experience closer to Larry Flint than to Mark David Chapman.
That’s my favorite kind of gun.
My second favorite kind of gun is the immense gun sitting on the grounds of the United Nations in New York City. It has a barrel that is knotted, and was cast from the metal of hundreds of weapons. Boy, I just love that kind of gun. A gun that makes a statement. Tres brilliant gun, from where I sit.
Cartooniverse: That reminds me of a scene from Dawn of the Dead. A cop is in a gun store in a mall and picks up a very fine, very expensive hunting rifle with a nice scope on it. He says, “The only person who could miss with this thing is the son-of-a-bitch that has the money to buy it.”
That’s easy. Get a Smith & Wesson Model 686, .357, 4 inch barrel. If you don’t like the kick of the .357 loads, you can use .38 Specials, which are a little bit kinder. However, I don’t know anyone personally that finds .357 to be a problem.
Now, among us shooters there are still some political problems with S&W that I won’t bother to go into. The great thing is there is a plethora of the pistols available used, which makes them cheaper and doesn’t give any money directly to S&W.
Revolvers don’t jam, are easy to clean and maintain and in many cases tend to be a little heavier than their autoloading cousins, which added a feeling of substance and makes the new shooter a little more comfortable on the range, in my personal experience.
If you do buy used, I’d recommend you have the gun checked by a gunsmith just to be on the safe side. I’d also probably buy my first piece from a gunshot, rather than a private seller. Many shops have used/consignment inventory, and I can’t remember the last time I didn’t see a 4" Smith in somebody’s case.
My $0.02
The best starter gun is hands down, a .22 revolver.
Cheap, small, lightweight, no kick, and it shoots any .22 bullet ever made with no problems.
The S&W kit gun is very good, so is the Charter .22, but I prefer the Hi-Standard 9 shot swingout cylinder western style. They are cheap, from $100- $200 is all it will cost if you look around or buy from the internet.
It is a must for starting out women, esp, to shoot handguns. Women are very sensitive to loud noises, and they dont like to break their nails on cocking automatics, and some of them cant even pull back the slide on autos. A .22 revolver is quite, no kick, and can shoot anything, cb caps, .22 bullets with no powder just primer, .22 shorts, very very quiet, and no kick at all. You can even shoot in your basement it is so quiet.
A .22 is very cheap to shoot. Someone new to the sport of shooting should be shooting thousands of rounds every few days to get used to shooting handguns, and it only cost $16.00 to shoot a thousand rounds here.
A .22 is fun and cheap for the men too, and is still the best way to learn to shoot handguns, and to learn how to trick shoot handguns, shoot moving targets, throwing clays in the air, shooting out candles, balloons, etc.
Never underestimate the power of a .22.
The most famous female serial killerof all, Aileen Woruous(executed just a few weeks ago), shot, stopped, and killed 9 out of 9 men with her little lowly .22 revolver.
Not too many of us have shot, stopped and killed 9 out of 9 attackers with any size caliber gun.
Robert Kennedy went down fast with just a couple shots from a .22 revolver.
I dont carry a .22 for self defense, but lots of women carry .22 for self defense because any woman or boy or even a man can hit what we are aiming at with a .22. 4 shots to the heart and 5 shots to the eyes from a .22, will send a strong message to any male attacker that he is better off attacking someone else, if not kill or blind him outright.
The best way to learn to shoot automatics, is to buy the .22 Beretta Cheeta. It is the best .22 automatic in the world, and the most reliable .22 automatic.
I also, when I am wearing a jacket that might snag, cover or otherwise interfere with my Accumold carry, carry in a LaserGuard brand tactical holster. It’s one of the few that has one thick leg strap, which I prefer, rather than the two thinner ones. My neighbors were a litte leery for a while when I’d walk my 1/2 Lab 1/2 Rott dog down the street with a tactical holster on my leg and a black utility jacket. They’ve figured out that we’re okay now, though. It just took some time and being willing to talk with them on the street.
I’ve looked into this pretty extensively. I’m not talking about getting it stimpled or clear-coated with that spray on bedliner kind of stuff. I just want six or so shallow grooves cut into the trigger because a) it started out with a really smooth texture and (b) after somewhere far above 30000 rounds and the gods only know how much dry fire practice (save your brass, kids), it’s only gotten smoother. It feels kind of like polished marble, and I just prefer some texturing. It’s one of those “1 1/100ths of a second” confidence things.
I never use bumps or other shock absorbers. My Choate stock has a built in pad, which is fine, but I like to keep the guns in exactly the condition they will be in if they are ever used. That way the muscle memory you’re training will be exactly the muscle memory you tap into should the situation every arise where it’s needed. Of course, with the brass ass on that Enfield, I’ve been tempted to change that view a couple of times.
When I’m on the range, I use the same Oakley wraps that are my everyday sunglasses as my eye protection. Keep my rings on, wear my holster in exactly the same way I do normally, etc. just to keep the environment as realistic as possible. The only exception to this is, of course, the earplugs I wear religiously. I’m not bad with loud noises in the real world, and I know how badly (give or take) my hearing will cut out if I have to shoot without plugs, so I’d rather protect my hearing than train to shoot against the BANG problem.
Damn, I’m long winded today. Sorry if I ran over.
Susanann I agree with you in part. .22s are great practice weapons, and fun as all get out, but my experience in teaching shooters (and, no, I’m not an instructor or certified by anything, I’ve just been shooting for a long time) is that if you start out on a .22 you build an expectation of .22 performance and responses that acts as a foundation and can really increase the shock of shooting full-sized weapons later.
I’ve found that combining shooting with a .22 and a full-size (9mm, .357 or .45 ACP) works very well, because it gets the person used to the feel of a “real” caliber but also lets them develop and hone their skills with a gentler load. 50 rounds with one, then the other, has worked best the few times I’ve tried this with people. They brought their new full-size and then rented a .22 from the range. Worked great.
I was wondering when this post would come along…
Well, aren’t you special, that first paragraph in particular seems to have come from a levelheaded, caring hunk o’ heaven, i’m sure JC would be proud of you for wishing ill on others.
unclviny
I’m not a gun owner. But if I had the money and infinite amounts of permits necessary…I’d like to get one of these.
http://world.guns.ru/shotgun/sh18-e.htm
Or one of these.
http://www.44automag.com/photos/automag-flash02.jpg
Going back to more prototypes, like the CAWS, I think the H&K G11 just looks like it would be incredibly cool.
http://remtek.com/arms/hk/mil/g11/g11.htm
One more experimental weapon:
http://www.hwth.com/guns/MBA_Gyrojet.htm
What can I say? I like ‘gimmicky’ firearms. I find them fascinating.
The first link didn’t work for me.
I own a AK-47 clone, no permits/licenses here
That HK looks kewl
That has not been my experience.
I have mostly taught women and children, and the biggest problem I face, is that many wives are given guns, intorduced to guns, which are too big, too powerful, kick too much, too heavy, and are too hard to operate, so they dont want them, dont like them. And they dont like shooting with all that noise around them at a gun range. And they dont think shooting at paper targets is fun.
Start them(start anyone) with a .22 in a quiet forest or valley at cans, rocks, ping pong balls, bullet shells, and they quickly find out how easy and how much fun it is to shoot.
It is true that some women never want to move up to bigger guns, but most of them do want something bigger, they want something more powerful, once they become familiar with guns in a friendly fashion and learn to handle a gun as familiar as if it were a third hand.
I generally move them up to larger and larger calibers, until their accuracy falls off(and it always does at some point). If they cant shoot extremely accurately, the gun is too big.
Accuaracy is everything. It doesnt matter how powrful your gun is if you miss. Shooting your attacker 6 times in the eyes with a .22, is better than missing him with a .44.
The biggest mistake every husband makes, is to get his wife a powerful handgun as her first gun. I have seen so many women that got turned off of guns after getting a .40 caliber as her first gun. She will not treat it as a friend, will not like it, will not think it is fun to shoot, and rarely will want to shoot it thousands and thousands of times.
A grown man who has shot long guns before, and who has no problems buying thousands of rounds of ammo, may want to start with something more powerful, but he is still missing out on a lot of fun since he did not begin with a .22 handgun as a child as he should have.
It depends on your budget. You can quickly become a very good shot with a $100 or $200 .22 handgun and $200 of ammo(12,000 rounds) in just a few weeks, and then, after you have mastered shooting a handgun, move up to whatever power you want. If you dont want the .22 anymore, then sell it for what you paid for it. Total cost: $200 of ammo.
(but I dont know anybody who has sold the original starter .22)
Greetings ALL!,first post here!
my favs in no order at all(I love them all for certain things)
Ruger #1 stainless in 300 win mag
Winchester pre-64 mod 70 in 30-06
Win. mod 70 in 243
3- M-1 Garands ones a model D --THE MILITARY ARM for ALL times.
S&W model 29 in 44Mag w/ 8 inch bbl GREAT deer gun out to 100yds w/ hand loads.
about a dozen others that I wont bother listing.
also waiting to find a 50 bmg that I can get without paperwork locally if the stars align just right for Me.!
Welcome to the boards! I’ve always wanted to say that…
I have always wanted a Garande,is there a rare breed of those with a star stamped on the business end of the barrel? Just curious I heard something to that effect…
I’ve always liked the M-1 carbine. I have two: an IBM and… the other one (the auto maker). I got one for my (now ex-)g/f too. She thought it was “cute”. She called it “the baby” and would polish its stock while she watched teevee. Yeah, she was a little obsessive.
But in any case, the M-1 carbines are a lot of fun to shoot. (The AR-15s are still my favourites though.)
Tony M- never heard of the “star stamp”…but I’m FAR from a Garand expert. Perhaps you mean the ends of the gas /recoil chamber? they put 2 different plugs in the ends of the guns,one was just a plug, the other style was for launching grenades I believe. mine all have a plug with a 4 point cross or + sign if you will. anyone else know otherwise?
It’s really sad to see hoplophobes like Cartooniverse jumping into a thread with people discussing their lifestyles to demonstrate his lack of tolerance by wishing suffering on those who make different lifestyle choices than he does, and I certainly wouldn’t be surpsied if he supports the comission of hate crimes against gun owners like many of his ilk. His intolerance leads him to take joy in and wish for inuries on those who have made lifestyle choices he doesn’t approve of, and to project his own insecurities about his penis onto gun owners, much like Fred Phelps and pals do with regards to homosexuals and AIDS.
It is kind of ironic Riboflavin that someone who espouses tolerance and freedom for just about anything would post something like that, don’t you? I think mr. c-verse’s post is dangerously close to T-word type behavior and I think your rebuttal hit the nail on the head.[/hijack]
Has anyone fired the new Beretta Neo? That thing looks really slick.
You sold a pre-ban FAL?!?! :eek: :smack: :eek: :smack: How do you live with yourself?! 
Agree, Riboflavin.
Our Founding Fathers warned us about people like Cartooniverse…