Posted on 06/19/2015 5:23:06 PM PDT by Skooz
After doing due diligence researching a high quality, yet affordable, handgun for concealed carry purposes (as well as the first handgun I will own) I've decided on the Smith & Wesson M&P Shield.
I'm still not sure if I'll go with the 9mm or .40. Any ideas on that?
Like I said, this is my first ever handgun purchase, having owned only rifles and shotguns in the past, so I think this will be a fine starter handgun for a middle aged rookie.
I know FR is populated with experts and I greatly value your opinions. Please advise. Thanks.
I can shoot my block 17, right on target. If I switch to the M&P right away, I can’t hit the wall. (well, not THAT bad. But the trigger is certainly a tougher pull.)
Seems like a nice gun, I was thinking about upgrading from my 30 year old Glock 22.
I like how it shoots when I rapid fire and find I get acceptable groupings but the trigger style safety kind of annoys me when I try slow more accurate shots.
My accuracy is not really improved. Heck I shake too much anyway my blood sugar up and down with diabetes. Dang.
Unless you are a real butterfingers, you are not going to shoot yourself in the foot with a glock.
They are pretty much the AK47 of the pistol world. Easy to take down, clean, and maintain.
The S&W 586 4 inch is the finest bedside weapon ever devised.
That's because they are not shooting the Beretta Model 96 with 5+ inch barrel and a little heft.
“I read that S&W corrected the trigger problem a few years ago.”
All the “safe action” style “autoloading” (formal nomenclature = semi-automatic; “self-loading” is a common synonym but less popular than previously) handguns come from the factory with what a target shooter might denigrate as poor trigger pull: long travel, rough/gritty feel, uncrisp sear release, lengthy overtravel.
They can be improved; Glock is the leader, as there are more aftermarket parts sellers out there, making items that help. The others are catching up. But none of them can ever approach the single-action pull that can be developed for guns like Colt’s O Frame (US M1911 style), or various DA/SA guns like SIG or Beretta.
Ho-hum trigger action can be compensated for, by lots of practice. It’s even possible to do quite well with the DA pull on a revolver, by practicing.
Handling qualities are irreducibly subjective; your own hands are yours alone, and the best-feeling sidearm - to you - can be judged only through handling as many different ones as you can, and shooting as many as you can.
Unfortunately, unless you have access to a commercial range that rents handguns, or you have friends/acquaintances who own numerous handguns, and permit you to fiddle with theirs, you may have to live with little direct experience before buying.
Caliber choices are a series of unhappy tradeoffs. Bear in mind that few handgun cartridges are all that effective, unless one fires 357 Magnum or better.
Cartridges for autoloading guns are quite rigid when it comes to permissible size, bullet configuration, and performance parameters: they have to stay inside rather narrow limits if the gun is to extract, eject, and feed the next round reliably.
40 S&W may be the best compromise between bullet size, energy, gun size and controllability (hence the huge move by law enforcement agencies in its direction, in the 1980s when revolvers were abandoned). But firing one is less than pleasant: recoil and blast are significant. Additionally, reloading for it is less forgiving than the older rounds.
357 SIG and 10mm Auto are the only autoloading cartridges to deliver performance anywhere close to that obtainable from a revolver. But they are more costly, and the 10mm suffers from spotty availability. The FBI was in the process of adopting the 10mm in a special reduced-power loading when the 40 S&W was introduced. 357 SIG has been adopted by several major law enforcement agencies, but has since seen a decline. Performance and effective range are excellent, but accuracy is not great, and stories have circulated, about short service life and frequent parts failure in guns chambered for it.
9mm and 45 are the only other feasible choices. Both were introduced just over 100 years ago, have benefited from extensive development by military establishments, pose few surprises, and are relatively straightforward for reloading.
9mm NATO (adopted by Imperial Germany in 1904; aka 9mm Parabellum, 9x19mm, 9mm Luger) has been the world standard since before 1920, mostly because it is almost the only cartridge used in submachine guns. US availability is wide, and cost is not as bad.
45 Auto (adopted by the United States War Dept in 1911; aka 45 ACP (Auto Colt Pistol) changed in small ways from a round introduced by Colt in 1905) is the only other choice, but it is little used outside the US or Central/South America. Its reputation for effectiveness is very high, but little hard data supports that. In MIL STD loadings, 9mm outperforms 45 ACP in kinetic energy and effective range. A 9mm gun of size comparable to any given 45 ACP will hold twice as many rounds; for a comparable number of rounds, the 9mm gun can be made much flatter and more easily concealable.
Unless you are willing to train with regularity, a revolver may be a better choice.
The most popular caliber by far is 357 Magnum. Cost is slightly better than others, and availability universal in the United States. A 357 fires 38 Special with no alteration, and the cost and availability of 38 Special cartridges still beat every other choice, revolver or autoloader.
Revolver loading, unloading, and use are much simpler, ammunition choice is much wider, and its reliability is still about 100 times better than an autoloader.
The downsides:
(1) Limited ammunition capacity. Guns of manageable size and weight are limited to six or even five rounds; this has been offset in the past decade, a little, by introduction of seven-shot or even eight-shot cylinders for guns of no greater dimension, and use of lightweight alloys.
(2) Severity of malfunctions. A stoppage in an autoloader can usually be corrected in short order by the shooter (though mastering the various drills for clearing is an absolute necessity and demands very disciplined training); any stoppage in a revolver, save a total failure to ignite, can be extremely serious and often requires the services of an experienced pistolsmith. Be prepared to spend lots of time and money.
Please recall that at the end of the day, even the most powerful handgun is no more than a marginal piece of ordnance hardware. The late Mel Tappan wrote that its chief advantage - portability - causes it to be there when nothing else is. There’s a reason that the military sets the effective range of handguns at 20m, even after decades of development and technological advances. The smallest, lightest, mildest rifle still provides range and effectiveness many times that of a handgun. Plus, rifles are easier to learn; developing skill with a handgun requires more time and effort, and abilities fall off quicker unless refreshed at shorter intervals.
We have a local range where $10 let’s you use a bunch of different pistols, as long as you pay for the ammo. That’s what I recommend whenever somebody asks my opinion.
LOL ... my old fingers missed the “9” and hit “0”. But I do have a few break barrel air guns I enjoy shooting in the garage and out back.
Just got a Bersa Thunder .380 and love the trigger... great gun for a great price and has lifetime warrantee. Perfect for concealed carry.
Colt's Commander in .45ACP has never let me down in the 35 years I have owned one. I got a new SS model in 2008.
I love it. Easy to carry concealed and hits hard. Both of mine have been very accurate and reliable. .45 makes big holes too...in paper targets of course. You should see what it does to a watermelon.
I have the full size M&P in .357sig that I CC with, and love it. I would go with the .40 because you can buy a .357sig barrel and use the same magazine, then you have 2 choices with one pistol. I have a .40 barrel for mine and put it in at the range because its cheaper to shoot than the .357
I just bought that myself for my first handgun as well.
My 357 M&P has more recoil than my brothers 40 M&P, but its something you get used to with range time.
If you research current modern bullet design and penetration you will see there is no advantage to 40 over 9mm.
One of the best performing bullets is the HST 124gn, my current carry round.
I love the G26 (9 years, 5K rounds, perfect) my Shield in 9mm is less than a year old, has about 1K and shoots and carry’s like a dream. A real keeper.
I have others, but those are two of my favorites.
I have the shield in 9mm and have shot the shield in 40. The small size lends itself to a lot of recoil and the 40 is a handful. Personally I really like my shield, but only with the larger magazine because the short magazine leaves my pinky hanging off. I also have a Springfield XD mod 2 that feels a lot better in the hand to me. You may want to check that out as well. See if you can find a range where you can try some of these.
Modern defense loads make it a much better round than it was 20 years ago. It is easier to shoot (recoil and noise are much less). Remember, if you can't hit it, you can't hurt it.
On a similar note, since the noise is less than a .40, you reduce the chance of permanently hurting your hearing if you have to shoot it in your house. A lot of cops have really hurt their hearing because of in-house gunfights.
Ammo is extremely cheap (especially if you buy it in bulk and on line- ammoseek.com); which is extremely important if you shoot more than a couple hundred rounds a year.
One last thought, the purpose of a pistol in the house is to be able to fight your way to your shotgun.
My two cents...
I recently left the house fully intending on buying a cc revolver in .38. Gunshop dude said lookit this ruger p-95 in 9mm.
I was sold. It is small enough to tuck in my shorts behind my back....it holds 15 rounds...it has a hammer with decocker...shoots any ammo everytime....and comes apart in seconds to clean. Oh...and I got it for 250.
Im very happy.
I was funnin’ with ya. Crosman, or Benjamin; .177 or .22?
I have a 9mm shield. Great gun, reliable, concealable and accurate to shoot.
I haven’t heard much good about the .40 version. Too snappy and no fun to shoot.
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