As long as we’re referring to a relatively new gun of from a reputable maker that’s more than fine by my standards. This is assuming that the gun has gone through it’s break in period of 1500 to 2000 rounds and has not shown any problems during that period.
As someone who has spent the last 12 years cleaning up after a dog that Hubby brought home one Christmas in a fit of “hey wouldn’t it be kewl if the kids had a puppy”, I would like to know how many of the people in this thread so blissfully advocating “Get a dog!” actually own a dog.
Me, if I were looking for “home defense”, and my choice were between Daisy the Beagle and a gun, I’d go for the gun every time. The gun doesn’t shed, or poop in the basement, or blow out her ACL chasing a rabbit and need vet treatment.
And I say this as a mild-mannered housewife who’s never gotten any closer to a gun than your average Bruce Willis movie. But damn, I’m tired of the dog chewing things up, and I wouldn’t inflict that on anyone just for “security” reasons, just because you’re vaguely hopeful it’ll deter burglars.
The barking of even a tiny lap dog may serve as a deterrent to burglars of a quietly thoughtful mindset, but there are drug-addled home invasion artists out there who frankly don’t give a damn whether its the Taco Bell chihuahua or a pit bull making the doggie-noise, as they smash in your dining room window, clamber through, and attempt to make off with your TV.
I find this a very questionable bit of advice as well. Aside from the ear drum rupturing noise of one of these fired indoors, I could see a super sonic round going through several houses before stopping. Maybe the bullet would fragment and lose all energy after going through the first wall - then again - maybe it would kill your neighbor a half mile away.
I’ll stick with my 9mm and 12 gauge.
My dog is great at barking at people who ring the doorbell, but I’m not sure she’d hear a burglar over the sound of her own snoring.
The Box O’ Truth examines 5.56mm wall penetration, among other things. This site is worth perusing for their examination of real-world performance of cartridges against various inanimate objects and barriers. Many long-cherished myths of the gun world are challenged.
I can’t find the original tests now (I’ll keep looking) but both the FBI and Gunsight have found that a light bullet .223 penetrates less than shotgun slugs or many handgun loads (even the puny 9mm). I’ve heard people say that the bullet is more prone to destabilization and tumbling once it hits something, thus bleeding off energy faster than (comparatively) heavy pistol rounds.
I have the names of a few articles, but can’t find them to back this up. One is Comparison of the Wound Ballistic Potential of 9mm vs. 5.56mm Cartridges for Law Enforcement Entry Applications by Gary K. Roberts and Special Agent Michael E. Bullian.
Again, I’ve not read the originals so this is all based on other peoples opinion.
So if I plunked down a good $700 on a shiny new piece, and it went to shit after firing round # 1499, would I have any recourse other than to junk it and buy a new one?
I was wondering the same thing. Just a week or two ago my best friend’s puppy pissed all over me. When I complained to their neighbors/mutual-friends (our lives are starting to resemble Seinfeld more and more each day) about it, she-neighbor said that’s normal for puppies. That’s unbelievable. Why would you bring a beast into your house that’s going to piss all over your friends and shit all over your carpet, in the vague hopes that someday it might (or might not) scare away a burglar? Just get a damn 9, and be sure that you’ll either scare the fucker away or (for the rare fearless burglar/rapist/what-have-you) put enough lead in him to keep him from ruining your day. What if Mr. Invader gets uppity and shoots/stabs/kicks away your dog? Then you’ll come home to a burgled house, an ungodly mess, and potentially an ungodly vet bill on top of all the heartbreak you’ve already suffered.
1500 to 2000 rounds is a pretty excessive break in. Even tightly-fitted target 1911’s usually are expected to be broken in within 500 rounds. Revolvers and other manually operated weapons shouldn’t require any break in at all just to function correctly, though they may smooth up with use.
Any piece you paid that much for shouldn’t be breaking after 1500 rounds. You got ripped off, my friend! 
Not planning on having any kids, I gather?
Quite frankly, I would recommend a dog before I would a gun to someone who has never owned one. A firearm is a deadly weapon, and unless you have a) already made peace with the fact that you may terminate another persons life, and b) are willing to own it responsibly, which means securing it when not in use, using it safely, and getting trained out the wazoo on it, then I don’t think you should own one. I have no idea of the OP’s qualifications or experience with firearms, and “I need protection from burglars” isn’t a good enough reason by itself to buy one.
If you do meet the qualifications above, then I would go with a Mossberg 500 or a 20-gauge pump. That and a Tac-lite should do the job adequately.
I’ve been kicking around buying one of those.
We have two dogs. And live in an area where it would be pretty much sucide to break into an occupied home. Quite remote, with lots of gun owners.
I do not currently keep my .357 GP100 loaded. One of the reasons for this is I do not have a safe, and would hate to come home only to find myself looking down the barrel of my own gun.
Reason #2, is that I’m not sure it would fit in the safe. It’s a six inch barrel. From the specs, it looks like it would fit, but I’m not quite sure.
I am glad that a number of people here like that safe.
Here’s my policy on intimidating intruders with firearms: Death is Oftentimes Very Scary. And for those people who don’t find it scary, initimidation probably won’t work anyways. That said, if I buy a gun, it’ll be for fun shooting, I don’t know if I feel like getting one specifically to potentially end someone’s life with (then again, I joined a profession where I might end up having to do that anyways, and not even in my own home).
If you are going to use Lethal Force, you’d best aim to be lethal with it, and you’d better damn well be justified in taking someone else’s life.
Is some thug’s life worth keeping my laptop? Nah. If he steals my laptop, the joke will be on him - It has Windows Vista!
Trust me, I haven’t spent $700 on anything lately, and I’m not about to anytime soon. I just don’t understand this “breaking in” business. What exactly is breaking a gun in, all about? Does it have inferior performance before you do? How is it different before and after breaking in, exactly? And if the “break in” period also serves as an indicator of a defective gun–ie, if a quality-brand gun breaks down during that time it’s a loser, and if it doesn’t it will last you a good while–what recourse do you have if it is defective? Do gun stores do refunds and exchanges? If you buy it from a dealer at a gun show, do you have any recourse?
Correct. I also have very little patience for messy pets in general and dogs in particular.
Breaking in is about moving parts rubbing against each other. Automatic pistols, in particular, have the slide moving back and forth on the frame. With use, the various moving parts smooth each other out. In automatic pistols, particularly tightly fitted ones, the gun may not be completely reliable until it has had several hundred rounds put through it to smooth things out. Note, however, that many shooters break in guns (at least partially) by hand cycling the action.
There is a bit of a disconnect between people that have never been around guns, and those that have. I was taught to shoot at 9 years old. Gun safety is second nature.
My Wife, did not shoot a gun till a few years ago. She is still apprehensive about them and would need some intensive time behind the trigger before she, or I would be comfortable with her shooting capabilities. She is more afraid of them, than respectful of them.
Maybe ‘fear’ compared to ‘respect’ is not the right way to put it. But I think you know what I mean.
Big difference.
. Good advice everywhere. But it sounds like BarnOwl lives in an urban setting. Probably all indoor ranges. Can you even take a shotgun to an indoor range?
IMHO, unless you have your own property to get used to it, a shotgun at just about any shooting range is not going to be welcome. I may be wrong. I’m not talking skeet shooting here. Can you even take a shotgun to a range that is not set up for skeet?
For a first time shooter, that wants something that has enough bark for home defense, is easy to learn about and maintain, can be taken to any shooting range, I would recommend a .38spl (or .357 [they will also shoot .38spl]) in a 3-4” barrel.
Something like this.
http://www.taurustactical.com/products/product-details.cfm?id=291&category=Revolver
Or this.
There is nothing complicated about either. If it is loaded, and you pull the trigger, it fires.
Anecdote time.
You don’t even have to have the dog, yourself, for the deterrent effect to come into play.
While I was living with The Monster and her mother, they had two Great Danes which were mostly kept in a kennel. They barked and were generally large, loud, and goofy. (As Great Danes usually are.) We were living in a house in the city, so the neighbors were fairly close.
And within a month or so the neighbors were coming over to thank us for having reduced the number of break-ins and yard thefts that had been happening. The only real change in that time frame was the arrival of the idiots. These were dogs that were afraid of the dark! But because they were obviously there, and responding when people snuck around - most criminally minded people went elsewhere.
I grant that a dog is a lot of work to keep. And if you don’t train it properly, you’re making life difficult for yourself. (Of course, I’ve never had a dog shit in my clean laundry, either - so I’m not exactly taken in by the “clean” reputation of cats.) If you can’t stand the idea of living with one, that’s your needs.
Pointing out that the dog might not work, however, is not an effective argument. Even if one is a fully trained, and competent gun-owner, there’s no guarantee that will work, either. You pays your money and takes your chances. The risks associated with dog ownership are much lower, esp. if one takes comparable care of the training of the dog to what people are talking about for training for gun ownership.
That doesn’t change that a gun can protect one in situations that the dog cannot, just pointing out that it’s hard to use a well-trained dog to kill it’s owner.
My understanding is that it’s something like breaking in a car - you want all the moving pieces to settle into alignment with each other and any rough bits to wear down so the motion is smoother. Supposedly Kimbers (particularly) have very stiff slide-racking for the first five hundred rounds or so.
In any case, most of the big names in the industry do have warranties on their guns; send in your warranty card, give them a call, and they’ll take care of you. Kimber’s warranty is a year, while (I’m told) Glock and HK will basically repair their guns forever if you don’t abuse them too badly. If your warranty runs out and you send it in for service, they’ll give you an estimate for the parts and labor.
Actually, one of the bedside pistols is a S&W Model 28 Highway Patrolman. (The bottom one, in fact.) I keep it loaded with 4 .38 wadcutters and 2 .38 +P hollowpoints. It’s the gun I feel most comfortable with, since I’ve owned it for over 30 years. It would be my first choice for confronting an intruder in the middle of the night. The Tac-Lite rests beside it in the drawer.
ETA:
This is abuse. 
We have quite a few outdoor shooting ranges here in Ohio. As far as I know, shotguns are welcome at all of them. However, this is to be expected; here in Ohio, the only long gun you’re allowed to use for hunting deer is the shotgun, and every winter the hunters depend on outdoor ranges for sighting them in.
Absolutely. Every single piece of a gun is replaceable and any worthwhile gun maker out there would be apologetic to the point of tears if one of their newer handguns failed so quickly under normal use. One of the things that gets you spoiled in our sport is the increadible customer service you get from a big name maker.
1000 to 1500 rounds is excessive for a break in period, **Scumpup ** is right that even custom raceguns will usually harmonize after 500 rounds or so, but I’m not broken in on a new pistol after 500 rounds. I went 1000 on my HK USP before I felt like it loved me as much as I loved it, and that baby can put a full clip into 1 1/2 inches at point of aim as fast as I can empty it at 20 feet.
Me and the USP are ready now. I know that gun like the back of my hand and I trust it with the lives of anyone in my home. It’s my flawless German hole puncher.
Now that they opened a Cabelas down the road I’ve had my eye on a Springfield XD and I’ll have to start all over again, but that’s the fun part for some of us.
I only wish that I could bolt it to a floor joist under my bed. I don’t like the cable that it comes with so much, I don’t really have anything to lock it around, but if that’s a complaint then I really had to reach for one. It’s 100% perfect quality otherwise and if you get the one linked to above there’s plenty of room in there for passports and other important stuff.
I wish I had to get another since they introduced the biometric version that only needs a fingerprint to work, no codes at all.