For anyone interested in purchasing their first gun, be wary of going into a gun shop and asking “what’s the best gun to buy?” Though gun shop owners love to roll their eyes at such questions, they also generally don’t give the best answers. Too often, a gun store “commando” tells you what gun he would buy, but doesn’t take the time to ask you important questions to help you make your best choice.
We’ve spent time in the first article in this series exploring the benefits of Revolvers for first time gun buyers. For gun owners without much experience with firearms, revolvers are easy to load, unload, shoot, and clean, so they represent the easiest entry into the gun market. All are confidently shootable, which makes it more enjoyable to practice with the gun. Since practice yields the best results if you are called on to use the weapon for defense, revolvers lend themselves easily for new gun owners.
But, revolvers have their limits for personal protection. Revolvers offer limited capacity. Most of the revolvers used for personal and home protection load only 5 or 6 shots, and reloading can be time consuming even for experienced shooters.
Revolvers don’t generally conceal well, as the cylinder bulges substantially. The most concealable revolvers are short barreled 5 shot stock that limit accuracy and capacity simultaneously. A two inch barrel for a .38 Special round is accurate only to a few feet, and if you miss, you have only 4 or 5 additional changes to get on target.
Revolvers can be heavy. With most revolvers built in all steel configurations, typically revolvers are heavier than their semi-automatic counterparts. The extra weight may give a slight advantage in recoil and returning to target after a shot, but could make it more difficult for a new shooter to shoot accurately through a full 5 or 6 shots of ammunition. Some manufacturers are starting to build small frame revolvers with polymer parts to reduce weight, but those guns will be a topic for a future report.
Semi-automatic Pistols offer several advantages to gun owners seeking a concealable gun for personal protection that can easily be used for home protection. Semi-autos are among the most popular type of pistol available to guy buyers, so the range of options, calibers, styles, and features exceeds what you’ll typically find among revolvers.
Semi-automatic pistols, like revolvers, fire one round for each pull of the trigger until the ammunition is exhausted. The most recognizable difference between a revolver and a semi-automatic pistol is the way in which the gun receives or chambers ammunition.
A revolver holds a cylinder of 5 or 6 chambers each holding one bullet. The chamber cylinder spins or revolves one position with each trigger pull to put a bullet in line with the barrel of the gun. Semi-automatics by contrast, have only one chamber and barrel, and load a bullet into the chamber for firing before ejecting the empty cartridge and loading a new bullet.
So, where you have to unload empty rounds from a revolver before replacing the ammunition, for a semi-automatic pistol, the pistol unloads the empty rounds after each bullet is fired, and reloading is done by replacing a full magazine of bullets into the gun.
Semi-automatic pistols usually hold more bullets than a revolver. Some modern handguns load as many as 20 rounds of 9mm or .45 caliber bullets, which gives the gun more capacity to shoot before reloading. The extra capacity gives someone using a gun for personal or home protection more bullets to fire in defense, and a quicker reloading time if the situation can’t be resolved quickly.
Semi-automatic pistols look and behave differently than a revolver. Where a revolver spins a chamber cylinder to prepare to fire a bullet, a semi-automatic pistol uses a mechanical slide to push a bullet from the magazine into a chamber to prepare to fire. Semi-auto pistols have more moving parts and are more complicated to use than revolvers, but any new shooter or gun owner can quickly learn to operate a semi-auto pistol easily and safely.
Virtually all law enforcement agencies and military units world wide replaced their revolver handguns in favor of semi-automatic pistols to take advantage of the increased ammunition capacity and the reliability available in modern semi-automatic pistols.
For the purposes of this article, we will examine semi automatic pistols most suited to a first time gun owner seeking a good gun for personal and home protection on a modest budget of about $550. That’s a typical profile for someone new to shooting sports or gun ownership, and a very common goal for new shooters.
The number of pistols that fit those criteria, however, can be overwhelming. A quick check on www.gunbroker.com lists dozens of brands and literally hundreds of pistols, so we need to limit our choices quickly to a manageable number.
First, we’ll look only at 9mm handguns to start. The 9mm caliber is the most popular center fire handgun cartridge commonly available, is inexpensive to shoot frequently for practice, widely available in discount and sporting goods stores, and offers a range of personal protection bullets fully capable of competing with larger calibers.
Guns chambered for 9mm ammunition are easy to use and limit the recoil often felt with larger rounds like the .40 S&W or .45 ACP rounds. Gun experts argue widely about the “stopping power” of various rounds, but for new shooters those arguments don’t carry much weight. If a new shooter cannot handle the larger recoil and power of a .45 caliber round, they risk missing their targets. The 9mm round has adequate stopping power when used with the right bullets, and offer a new gun owner a milder shooting platform on which to learn and train.
We will also look only at guns that incorporate polymers in their construction. These so-called “plastic pistols” are every bit as capable, durable, and shootable as other pistols, but offer new shooters two significant advantages. The use of polymers in the construction process makes some semi-automatic pistols lighter than most revolvers. Lighter guns are easier for new shooters to handle and more comfortable for concealment if the owner decides to carry the gun for personal protection.
Many modern polymer pistols offer better ergonomics “out of the box” than their revolver counterparts, as well. For the past few years, manufacturers have been updating their polymer pistols with modular grips that allow shooters to change grip profiles with interchangeable inserts to fit any shooting hand size. That modularity increases the usability of the pistol without increasing the price of costly grip replacements on modern revolvers.
Finally, we will review only guns with recognizable brands, which offer new gun owners a variety of advantages. While working with a well know and well established brand doesn’t negate the possibility of getting a sub-standard gun, big-named manufactures have quality assurance, manufacturing processes, and a commitment to customer service that make it easier for new gun owners to get help in the event that they need it. Well established brands are also the best bet for finding qualified gunsmiths to make repairs or cover warranty items in the event of problems.
In the spirit of ‘if it’s good enough for experts, then it’s good enough for me…” my top choice for an affordable first semi-auto pistol is the Glock G19. This gun is the most popular handgun in general issue among police units around the world. It was a serious contender to replace the Colt .45 in military trials, and has been considered in more modern trials to replace the Beretta M9. The Glock 19 is the mid-sized frame 9mm semi auto pistol and carries 15 rounds in the current magazines shipped with the gun. With a street price of about $450 and many top quality used guns available everywhere, it’s a great choice for a new shooter.
Some buyers might find the early G19 grip a bit too large for small-ish hands, so test fit the grip for good comfort unless you are buying the latest Gen 4 release. With the newest gun, Glock has changed the grip dimpling pattern to a more “aggressive” texture to improve its fit in wet or slippery conditions. Also, the latest Gen 4 design includes modular grip inserts to make the size of the grip larger or smaller to fit nearly any hand.
Accuracy with the Glock has never been a problem, but with a 4 inch barrel, new shooters should find no trouble keeping shots on target. Sights on the G19, like all standard Glocks, are a front post with a white dot contrasted against rear sights with a white highlight outlining the posts. This setup is adequate for new and experienced shooters.
Glock triggers revolutionized the industry by incorporating a trigger safety integral to the gun. Glock firearms all include three safeties in their engineering, but no external slide safety to fiddle with if you are called to shoot the gun. The G19 fires when the user puts their full finger on the trigger and squeezes to fire a round. It’s just that simple, and doesn’t cause a new owner to learn multiple steps to shooting the gun.
Glock has been a staple of modern law enforcement and popular shooting since its introduction in 1985, so it’s easy to find dealers and gunsmiths virtually anywhere. Competition among dealers keeps the cost of the gun relatively low, and the G19 can be found online, at shows, and in stores well under our $550 price target. New buyers can still afford a few extra magazines and a good gun case for transport.
Glock offers 9mm semi-automatic pistols in a variety of sizes and configurations, but the G19 is my recommendation for most new shooters. The full sized G17 has a longer slide and larger capacity magazines, but with the bigger gun come more weight making the G17 hard to carry in a concealed fashion for personal protection. The smaller G27, considered a sub-compact frame, is a very easily concealed gun at just 4” high, but with a short barrel, the recoil increases, making the G27 a better choice for experienced shooters.
As the first widely available polymer gun, Glock has been put through torture tests more than any other pistol. Glock pistols have been frozen in ice, drowned in water, buried in sand, heated in ovens, and brutalized in many other ways, but still shoot reliably. Testers have put thousands of rounds through Glocks without cleaning their guns, and typically don’t experience failures after 3k, 5K, even 10,000 rounds. The most impressive demonstration of reliability came from a Glock test where a representative completely disassembled 10 different , shook up all the parts, then built one gun from parts of different guns. That gun then fired several thousand rounds without a failure. In short, you can depend on a Glock G19 to function properly in nearly any condition, which could just save your life.
Other manufacturers offer options in this category, as Glock has many competitors. In future posts, we’ll consider other options for new shooters, as well as what manufacturers have a chance to displace Glock as the standard for future evolutions of the semi-automatic pistol.
