Revolver or auto for the little woman?

[06flstf]

Couple of factors for ladies to consider when deciding on a handgun platform 1. Revolver, simple but heavier double action trigger and more felt recoil. Also shorter barrel is less accurate (we do not recommend walking around the house with a cocked hammer and single action trigger - sympathetic reaction could cause trigger to be pulled unintentionally if startled). 2. Auto, more capacity, lighter trigger and less felt recoil (with 9mm) but heavy slide to load a round into the chamber. As others have wisely stated, if the handgun is for her - let go of your personal "guy" perceptions and let her pick what works for her. 45ACP does no good for her if she can't manage the recoil and hit the target. The paper is always the judge and the judge never lies. What ever firearm she can hit the paper target with when practicing is the one she should use. The ballistic differences between 9mm and 45 ACP don't mean anything if the bullet doesn't hit the target. The other thing to consider is the reduction of fine motor skills when highly stressed - safeties, mag releases, revolver reloads, etc. should all be practiced often so they are second nature.

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[2wheels4ever]

I agree with the revolver since it won't jam. But if you have a place to shoot or maybe a range nearby, then buy some cheap ammo that will jam so she can see and learn how to handle it. And then pray to God she never has to use it.

[dFREDb]

+1 on a revolver. Wife was intimidated with my .45 Kimber's action. She loves the new Ruger Vaquero. True simplicity!

[NAMVET]

Best advice was given early, go to a range, rent a few, see what she likes and feels good shooting. A wheel gun might be good for a new female shooter, some people have a habit of limp wristing a semi-auto making it fail to cycle next round.
Try a few, buy one. Good luck.

[overhead]

Other than the strength to pull the slide, I see no reason a woman should *need* to use a revolver anymore than a man does. Just like a man, her comfort with the weapon is going to be most important. In my case my GF lifts weights like I do and has no problem with the slide on my Browning High power. That is the gun she enjoys to shoot and the one she is most comfortable with. We drilled on what to do if she pulls the trigger and nothing happens etc. Now she also enjoys shooting my 44 mag, but that is a little heavy to carry around

[jjlefty51]

I have spent a lot of time shooting and training shooters. In my opinion before you commit to anything you need to either borrow or rent the various types of guns and let her shoot them to see how she feels with them. The jamming issue on a semi auto can be mimicked by you loading her magazines and slipping an empty shell in the mix so the gun will feed but not fire. She needs to be able to clear that with confidence. Remember this weapon is for her personal protection and should she find the need to use it it will certainly be at a time when her heart is racing, blood is pumping, there is a sense of panic potentially. When you are in these situations your body will have certain physiological responses not the least of which is the tunnel vision that you will experience. It is important that you are comfortable with the handling of any weapon used for personal protection under these response conditions. I typically advise anyone that is looking to have a firearm as their method of personal protection to make sure you are regularly firing (at least monthly) the weapon to maintain your comfort with it. If you can find firearms training classes that will simulate tactical or real world situations I would definitely sign up for them. They will focus on point shoot techniques while trying to simulate the potential duress you will find yourself under.

This will help her find what she is most comfortable with and when faced with a bad situation that warrants the potential use of deadly force that is the number 1 consideration.

Good luck and be safe.

[karz10]

* Agree with posters saying in general revolver is more simple

* Agree with going to range and letting her rent both, see how she shoots with them w/ real ammo, see how accurate at different distance, how it feels to her, etc.

* Get her thinking how she's gonna use it. Is it for HD, a car gun, or is she gonna carry it? If carry, then really think about carrying a baby glock compared to a revolver and let her ask herself if she would...

* Maybe take a class w/ her, either a CWP class or some other general firearms/handguns class, find out ahead of time what is covered. I know my OL got a lot more out of an instructor telling her what's what than just hearing me say it, and as a by product she found out I knew what I was talking about...lol, in my class he demonstrated how autos can go wrong, from failure to feed, failure to fire, stove pipes, pressure on slide moving it out of battery, even the jackie chan berrata move disassembling the gun (for fun more than anything), and showed how he could hold a revolver upside down and pull the trigger w/ any appendage to show how it keeps on clicking

* If that isn't an option, maybe demonstrate some of that to her, see how long it takes for her to tap/rack/bang, and see what she says

* I have no problem w/ females / new shooters w/ semi-autos, as long as they really understand the difference, the risk of failures (even in a Glock or your favorite brand), effects of limp wristing (as someone else stated), and are comfortable with them, and preferably willing to practice and train a reasonable amount of time (maybe take her to a local IDPA club practice, that did a lot for my proficiency)

* If she wants a semi auto, then I'd go w/ a Glock, hard to beat the reliability

* One benefit of using a similar platform for SD purposes, say Glock 9MMs, you could have home guns, car guns, carry guns, whatever, and extra ammo in different places, loaded up in magazines, and then either of you w/ the same platform have easy access to a reload around the house or in either car, if need be, or to grab quick to take with you once out and about, if you felt the need...

* Another thing about Glock 9mms, 33 rd magazines are available for SHTF, or providing cover fire waiting for more help to arrive, or a host of other scenarios

* I'd consider extended controls on the Glock for her, slide stop, mag release (there's one company that makes an extended mag release in between the standard and Glock extended, some say it's perfect balance, easier to drop the mag, but not too big to snag or accidentally drop the mag)

* You could always buy the new glock and a new revolver, after narrowing it down, and either way you get a new gun

[Night Crawler]

My wife started out with a snub nose revolver.

Then one day her arthritis/joint pain started kicking in on her hands and fingers so one day she tried a 9MM pistol and the rest is history. She now carries the S&W 3913LS Ladysmith and she also likes having nine rounds as opposed to five.

She says there are days when her hands don’t bother her but she’d never go back to that snub nose revolver!

There are some things I will never buy for my wife: Shoes, cosmetics/beauty products, underwear and handguns; I’ll let her decide for herself on those.

[jimmers1817]

Unless she's willing to get in regular range practice and tap and rap failure drills, she should go with the user friendly revolver. Point and shoot. Little to go wrong.

Cheaper too.

[nvsteve]

I forgot to mention earlier that there is a relatively easy way to pull the slide back on an auto. Actually you push. Let me see if I can explain.
Put your hand on the grip as you normally would. Point the gun to the left and grip the slide
with your left hand so that thumbs are pointing at each other. Now raise your elbows so arms are parallel to the floor. Push slide and grip in opposite directions.
This method made it pretty easy for my wife to operatate the slide on our autos.
Easier for me too.
O yeah, and keep the finger off the trigger and if your on a gun range stand sideways to the target.
Hope I didn't confuse anybody that hasn't used this method.