[Adam]

Clint's correct the Colt is a great gun! I also have the Sig 226 .40 cal and never carry it. I weight out my risk based on were I'm going and either go with a Walther .22, Colt Mustang or Colt Pocket 9. All are good guns, the mustang I've had the most misfires with and the Walther is picky about ammo.

You can't have the best of all worlds though. Either size, comfort, price or enjoyability while target shooting will suffer. All of the above are poor guns for plinking if you ask me. I'm also not a huge fan of autos for C.C. and just haven't found a wheel gun I like to carry yet.

Anyway, good luck, it's always tough finding the "one gun" and that's why most of use have so many.

Adam

 

[Adam]

I'm speaking from the standpoint of Michael not wanting to spend a boat load of money to get what he wants.

The wheel guns for me are maybe just a mental thing. With an auto, mainly the small autos they're not the most dependable firearms. If you have a 6 round mag and the first one stove pipes you're out of luck till you clear the jam.

With wheel guns if one fails to fire you just pull the trigger again. There is very little that can go wrong with them as there are less then half the moving parts.

While it's true the .380 has about a 60-70% one shot stop compared to about 35-40% with a .22 Stinger who cares? Use the gun you shoot best and if that's a .22 or .380 fine. We can't all carry a .357 because it's got the highest stopping power.

Like I tell me wife, you're better hitting somebody twice with a .22 then missing them 10 tims with a .40 cal.

I use a formula:

Number of times I've needed a gun in my life X Area I'm going to be in X My age = Chances I'll need a gun.

I base the gun a carry on that and since I've never needed a firearm for protection yet I don't see a need to carry, say, my Sig .40

 

[Adam]

You mentioned liking the Ruger so I'm going to assume you have bigger hands then I do as I've never been happy the feel of any Ruger autos.

The best auto I can suggest however (even more so if you have small hands) is the Browning BDM. It's a 9mm (cheap to shoot), can be had at a very low price for the quality and can be switched from SA to DA with just the turn of a screw. It also has 15 round mags floating around.

That BDM was from what I've hear was designed under a
development contract between Browning and the US Secret
Service.

Here's a link to one I just saw:
http://gunbroker.com/auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=12357563

They almost always seem to sell around $300 and for that price in my eyes are a steal. The gun just never caught on but try to find one and give it a shot (pun intended), I honestly haven't seen a nicer gun at that price.

 

[Adam]

You're correct! The main difference is weather you put two shots in the floor at night when you think somebody broke into your house but it's really a cat that jumps out and scares you!

All kidding aside, with SA two things happen when you pull the trigger, the gun fires and the slide cocks the hammer on it's own. This allows your next trigger pull to be very light, on some guns with trigger jobs maybe a half pound trigger pull (that's a guess as I don't know) making it very easy to fire by mistake if you're shocked by something and you jump.

With DA the only thing that happens is the gun fires when you pull the trigger. The hammer then returns with the slide so when you pull the trigger it brings the hammer back with the trigger pull causing the pull to be much higher (and safer for the most part), say in the 7 pound range.

This of course is an easy way to explain it for autos and many autos have the first trigger pull as DA then the rest as SA so there's a little safer in the above situation.

With a wheel gun that's SA you have to cock the hammer with your finger for each shot as pulling the trigger alone does nothing. This is mainly found in older revolvers and guns used for action/cowboy shooting. However of them all this ranks about the highest on my list as I find them the most enjoyable to shoot.

 

[Adam]

I would firmly have to disagree with you!

I have shot tens of thousands of rounds through both and autos do jam from time to time. You may have shot 5,000 rounds in an auto with only one jam (that would be amazing) but with a wheel gun you wouldn't even get that out of 50,000 rounds.

That isn't even touching the fact that you're not talking about a compact auto nor the fact that the one shot stop of a .357 is 10% higher if not more.

I'm not saying I would use a .357 for a CCW but I wouldn't use a 9mm either.

Adam

 

[Adam]

Well, we agree, I would much rather deal with a 454 Casull then a 357 Scandium and while both are little fun to shoot the Scandium is one of the hardest hitting handguns I've ever dealt with. To laugh it off and say oh it's just a .357 is not wise.

I've seen .22's take down 350 pound pigs with ease. I feel comfortable in all but the worst of situations with my Walther .22 as my CCW but I will say it's taken me a long time, many rounds and a lot of trying new rounds to find one I like and felt comfortable with. Even the Stingers were shooting poorly for me and I had to go with the hotter Aguila rounds to be 90% happy with the performance.

Even them for some odd reason I have to pull the trigger twice to get the 3rd round (always the 3rd round) to fire. Otherwise in about 1,000 rounds I've never had a stove pipe so I'm okay with it and feel it's trustable enough.