Save me 32 pages of reading and recommend some hand guns for a first time owner. Wife has always refused but recently has had a change of heart, hitting too close to home I guess. I've never fired a hand gun, only shotguns and rifles when I was younger. I plan on signing both of us up for classes before we make any purchases and I'm sure the instructors will have recommendations as well but just wanted to get some different opinions.
I just went through this process and made a purchase around 30 days ago. Similar situation... wife finally came around after years of being adamantly against guns in the house. Previously, I'd fired guns here and there but I had no direct experience to draw from. But I'd been reading up on them for years, so I was reasonably well educated when I went up to the gun counter.
Here is my first-time-gun-purchasing experience.
Reason for purchase: Enjoyment/home defense.
I intend to shoot often... so a common caliber was a requirement to keep cost of ammo down. I chose 9 mm for this reason. The cheap ammo like Blazer Brass 115gr (18-20 cents/round) feeds reliably.
Another requirement I had was something I wouldn't need to make a lot of modifications/upgrades to. I just wanted something good out of the box.
I had my eye on a Taurus G3. It was well reviewed by many Youtubers including Hickok45 and generally considered to be a solid handgun for the price. Dunhams had one in stock for $250. I traveled to the store with the intention of making a purchase.
In the store, I absolutely hated the stipling on the grips. It was like gripping sandpaper. I held the gun for 30 seconds and after handing it back to the clerk, the palm of my hand noticably ached a bit. It's worth pointing out that I sit at a desk all day... so my hands aren't very tough. If you swing a hammer for a living, YMMV. But the aggressive texture on the handle was enough for me to reconsider my choice.
My backup plan was the Smith & Wesson SD9VE. The recognizable brand name, high capacity mags (16) and the price ($309 on sale) were attractive elements. This one was also well reviewed except for one universal complaint about how 'bad the trigger' was.
'How bad can it be?' I asked myself, thinking that while it may not be the Cadillac of Pistols - it should be a solid choice. After handling one in the store (with a trigger lock installed), I decided it felt good in the hand. I had permission. I was ready. I lost my gunginity that night.
So a week went by before I was able to try it out. I ended up at my buddy's property, who it just so happened had purchased a Gen4 Glock45 the week prior.
I awkwardly stuffed 16 rounds using the Maglula I'd also bought into a mag and slide the magazine into the mag-well of my new gun, eager to try it out for the first time. I couldn't get it all the way in! Disappointment turned to panic as flashbacks of another botched first-time-experience ran through my head. It turns out that many guns won't accept a fully loaded magazine... so I locked the slide open. Now it fits! I pointed the gun in a safe direction and pushed down on the slide release, half expecting a round to go off. It didn't of course.
I proceeded to shoot all the rounds at a paper target my buddy had set up. Accuracy was terrible (I was all over the place) but no hangups, and everything fed through nicely. Trigger
seemed fine... it shot a bullet down the tube with every pull! Not sure what all the complaining was about.
Then I shot my buddy's Glock45.
From about 25 feet away I put the entire magazine in a 6" group near the center of the target! And this was a larger caliber weapon with more recoil!
I then reloaded the mag for the SD9 and once again I could barely hit the target. The SD9 has a long takeup, and then with an 8 lb trigger you pull against the wall for what seems like forever before it finally breaks. Holding on a target for that long makes it very difficult to consistently hit what you're aiming at. In fact, I had better luck just acquiring the target and squeezing the trigger all in one motion, which is really what it's designed for, since the SD stands for 'self defense'.
So I started the process of shopping around again. My local Dunhams had exactly one Sig Sauer P365XL in stock. I'd seen many review videos and I'd been wanting to check them since I liked the regular P365 but it always felt too small in my hands (I wear a 2xl golf glove as a point of reference).
Even being an 'XL', it is considerably smaller than the SD9. I looked around at a few others including the Gen4 and Gen5 Glock 19 models before deciding to buy the Sig.
I haven't looked back since. Everything about that gun is smooth as one could hope for. And the trigger is incredible
If I had it to do all over again and could choose any pistol in the case, I'd choose the Sig.
TL;DR: Moxie Mike has been a kid in a candy store ever since Mrs. Moxie gave the green light to buy guns. In May, I acquired those two handguns and just last week I bought an AR15 (also a Sig). Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
