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I've got a nice little Colt Mustang in stainless (.380) and just scored a Kimber Micro (9mm). There's a bunch of NAA mini's (.22 Mag) in the safe. They're like chips, Can't have just one. Gots to love an itty bitty gun, so easy to pocket for a quick trip to the store when the .45 & Hi Power are in the safe.
Rule #1; Always have a gun.
Yes, those Mustangs are nice - I have the larger Government .380.
Also have a couple of Minis. They are neat little things, and well made.
Yes, I like pocket guns, but with a caveat - only revolvers. Pocket semi-autos are among the least reliable of all handguns, and most people find them quite challenging to shoot well. A J-frame Smith (642 and other similar models) in a Mika’s pocket holster and a speed strip carried in the offside pocket will serve most people very well that need something smaller than a full sized service pistol. I carried a full sized 1911 IWB for many years, but constantly removing and replacing the holstered pistol due to working in NPE’s for most of my career got tiresome. 642 when I’m going to work, 1911 for around town but no work, and a 629 when out and about in Bear country. But these days, it’s the 642 much more frequently than the others.
I have several pocket firearms. Purchased due to the easy conceal and light weight. Don't like any of them. At the range, I can't get through more than two magazines before my hand starts hurting because the grip is too small for my largish hands. Wish I didn't waste the money on them.
There are fixes available. Get a .22 rimfire "understudy" to do most of your practice shooting. The Ruger LCP line definitely supports this. In centerfires you can sometimes get "cowboy" loads which are not loaded at al hot. Or of course handload the centerfires with a cast bullet and a reduced load.
More for revolvers than automatics, you can sometimes find a Hogue or similar grip which can reduce felt recoil.
I live in Los Angeles where it's just about impossible to get a CCW permit. I have a Beretta Tomcat in .32 caliber that lives in the center console of my car. It's in a Sneaky Pete holster that could almost pass as a camera case. When I find myself in a dicey location I might slip it in my pocket for a bit of security. The gun shoots well and is very accurate. It also has a tilt-up barrel for those who have difficulty racking a slide. I know that .32 is considered not enough for self defense, but I can't just stick my 1911 in my belt like you lucky folks in Free America. On the other hand, .32 was the standard caliber for police and military in Europe for a long time. It was also James Bond's choice for his Walther, so there's that. LOL
I live in Los Angeles where it's just about impossible to get a CCW permit. I have a Beretta Tomcat in .32 caliber that lives in the center console of my car. It's in a Sneaky Pete holster that could almost pass as a camera case. When I find myself in a dicey location I might slip it in my pocket for a bit of security. The gun shoots well and is very accurate. It also has a tilt-up barrel for those who have difficulty racking a slide. I know that .32 is considered not enough for self defense, but I can't just stick my 1911 in my belt like you lucky folks in Free America. On the other hand, .32 was the standard caliber for police and military in Europe for a long time. It was also James Bond's choice for his Walther, so there's that. LOL
Well, first get your resume out there, get a new job, and move to Idaho or something. Without getting too political here, I don't understand why anyone who is more than slightly interested in guns lives in any of the "deep blue" states. I don't know if you are any more legal with the gat in your console than you would be with it on your person there in Cali. Anyway to get back on the main topic at hand:
The Beretta Tomcat is quite good for the small gat it is, and oddly enough with the Winchester Silvertip hollowpoint ammo in the real world it's a better manstopper than most would expect. It's laid out similar to my Minx with the tipping barrel and all, but the Tomcat is DA/SA like a PP. In the early 90's a guy with an Eastern European but not exactly Russian name, Sandow or Sandoz, something like that, wrote a book full of actual police report data for various shootings. That .32 ACP Silvertip did pretty well.
Something else to think about - for most rounds SAAMI and CIP loads are similar in pressure and peformance. Not so the .32 ACP. That same Silvertip ammo, loaded to the SAAMI spec and with a light 60 grain bullet, sometimes won't cycle the slide properly in old school European gats like your PP or PPK (What?! You don't have one? By all means pick one up if you have the resources!) Correspondingly the CIP ammo will beat up your Tomcat so if you find some S&B FMJ ammo at a good price don't use it in your Tomcat.
Mastering the obvious, you need to run a box or two at least of whatever ammo you intend to depend on in your gat, shooting up relatively expensive JHP ammo ain't a cheap date, but you have to try the ammo YOU intend to carry in YOUR GUN for any kind of serious use. This applies to hunting as well, and to match ammo if you want to avoid the embarrassment of not even getting all your shots on target. Amongst other bad habits and attitudes, Joe Average American Shooter is a tightwad and wants to cheap out on ammo. If you put cheap surplus ammo in your Steyr AUG, well, don't be surprised if accuracy is not up to par.
Uncle Jeff endorsed 3 ways to deal with the DA/SA automatic (crunchenticker):
1. With practice you can use the DA pull and get a first round hit quickly. Well, if you have at least some talent. With practice you can learn to work with the two wildly different trigger pulls. If you get as good as Thel Reid is, well, this is going to be your go-to technique.
2. (Possibly best for most shooters) - Thumb the hammer back as you finish your draw as such and as you are raising the piece to align with the target. If the marksmanship problem presented is relatively difficult like my 50 yard bowling pin, yeah, this is how you want to do it.
3. (Scorned by some, but nevertheless a practical way to operate these) - The "shot-****" method, where you fire the first shot in the general direction of the target without really aiming like in method 1 - of course this is to some extent a waste of ammo, but if your marksmanship problem is nearly trivial, a barn door at 5 yards, this can work and probably this is the quickest way to get off a shot for most of us mere mortals. Some DA/SA automatics have such a heavy and hard to manage DA trigger pull that this is about the only way to run them. I have read that the HK-4 is like this, but have never shot one, much less owned one, so I have no first-hand information to impart.
Yes, I like pocket guns, but with a caveat - only revolvers. Pocket semi-autos are among the least reliable of all handguns, and most people find them quite challenging to shoot well. A J-frame Smith (642 and other similar models) in a Mika’s pocket holster and a speed strip carried in the offside pocket will serve most people very well that need something smaller than a full sized service pistol. I carried a full sized 1911 IWB for many years, but constantly removing and replacing the holstered pistol due to working in NPE’s for most of my career got tiresome. 642 when I’m going to work, 1911 for around town but no work, and a 629 when out and about in Bear country. But these days, it’s the 642 much more frequently than the others.
I have a few pocket sized automatics. I have a 1903 Colt 32 ACP and it will drive nails with my cast bullet handloads, and I don't think I have ever experienced any failures with it. The Minx previously mentioned has been 100% reliable. I have a Ruger LCP I, the DAO version in 380 which I have not fired yet, but I have seldom run into a Ruger that would not at least function reliably given decent ammo.
You do have a good point though, when you consider 9mm and similar compact gats. As you up the power of the round and shrink the size and weight of the gat, reliable functioning tends to depend more and more on a good firm hold. Which you should use all the time everywhere on all handguns, but if you are surprised by the appearance of a target, your hands are wet, or you are tired, you may indeed wish you had a wheelgun.
Just in general a heavier bullet is more likely to rack the slide smartly than a light on when shooting an automatic. I'm not saying you need to shoot a heavy bullet in a compact 9mm, there are other considerations - but I would say if you can lay in some heavy bullet ammo it may be more reliable from a functioning standpoint.
The old Navy question of how to balance firepower, maneuverability, and armor comes to mind. Although for small arms it's more of a DVC question - Accuracy, Power, and Speed. In these most improvement is to be had in the "loose nut holding the gun". But these tend to live in tension with each other as well, inherently in the gat. A .44 Magnum certainly has power covered, but as a rather large revolver it can't be put into action as quick as something smaller. Repeat shots will definitely be slowe than something smaller. Certainly I don't have a universal "right answer" and I doubt anyone does or ever will.
My smallest gun is a CZ P-01. Sometimes I will put it in my front pocket if I go into a convenience store or whatever. I live in a free state so it doesn't matter vis a vis the "law". I had a SW Model 60 years ago that I sold (yes, I hate myself). It was way more suited as a pocket pistol.
<<SNIP>>
The Beretta Tomcat is quite good for the small gat it is, and oddly enough with the Winchester Silvertip hollowpoint ammo in the real world it's a better manstopper than most would expect. It's laid out similar to my Minx with the tipping barrel and all, but the Tomcat is DA/SA like a PP. In the early 90's a guy with an Eastern European but not exactly Russian name, Sandow or Sandoz, something like that, wrote a book full of actual police report data for various shootings. That .32 ACP Silvertip did pretty well.<<SNIP>>
That would be Ed Sanow, who along with Evan Marshall, wrote the book “Handgun Stopping Power: The Definitive Study.”
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