Next on the “concealed handgun wardrobe necessities list” is a compact semiautomatic pistol, if you’re comfortable with that type of handgun. Glocks in compact (G19 9mm, G23 .40, G32 .357 SIG, G30 .45 ACP, and G38 .45 GAP) are all good choices. So are the many other compact (i.e., medium size) modern autos you’ll find in the Gun Digest, where there’s more space to pore over the various models and size/weight specifications than here. In the 1911, Commander and Officers size work well. For many, something more sub-compact fits the body better. These would include the “baby Glocks” in the same calibers, the Micro-series Kahrs, and the smallest of the 1911s by their many makers.
Finally, a full-size gun makes particular sense under cold-weather wardrobes, which can amply conceal them. In cold weather, with gloved or cold-numbed hands, a pistol with a longer grip-frame may be easier to handle. I like something with a large trigger guard, and whose trigger won’t rebound so far forward that it can snag on or be blocked by thick glove material, which could make it fail to re-set. A TDA auto pistol will generally fill that bill, as will the Glock or XD. I get leery of single-action pistols when cold or gloves have further reduced a vasoconstricted hand’s ability to feel the trigger, and the glove-blocking factor leaves most revolvers out entirely.
The bottom line of “concealed handgun wardrobe selection” is this: the gun’s size and shape must fit hand, body, and clothing selection alike. You probably don’t dress the same every day. When you “dress to kill” (forgive me, I couldn’t resist) you also need to vary that particular “wardrobe” to better suit your daily needs.
Final advice: In the immortal words of author and big game hunter Robert Ruark, “Use Enough Gun.” Small-caliber weapons simply don’t have the “oomph” to stop a violent human being. I coined the phrase “Friends don’t let friends carry mouse-guns,” and I’ll stick by that. The cessation of homicidal human threat is the raison d’etre of CCW. If the Weapon you’re Carrying Concealed isn’t powerful enough to do that job, you’ve undercut the whole purpose of the mission. I personally draw the line above the marginal 380 ACP and consider the minimums to be 38 Special +P in a revolver and 9mm Luger in a semiautomatic pistol. On the top end, only master shooters can handle the violent recoil of 41 and 44 Magnums. For most people, the best bet is in a caliber range that encompasses 38 Special, 357 Magnum, 9mm Luger, 40 Smith & Wesson, 10mm Auto, 45 ACP, and 45 GAP. There are other rarely-carried rounds within that range, but any of those — with proper high-tech hollow-point defensive ammunition — can be reasonably counted on to get you through the night.
For more on gun and ammo selection, I’d refer you to my Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery, Sixth Edition, available from Krause. The bottom line is, it’s not about “what gun did you have” so much as it’s about “did you have a gun?” Modern ultra-compact, ultra-light 38 Special and 9mm Luger handguns give you adequate power in extremely small and light packages. You just don’t have to settle for anything less, when innocent lives — including your life and the lives of those you most love — will likely be at stake if and when the shooting starts.
Chapter 11
Defensive Handgun Ammunition Selection
Sterile lab testing in ballistic gelatin is great, but the ultimate laboratory is the street, the author maintains. Here are the loads that seem to be doing best there, input written in blood from gunfights police departments have experienced with this ammunition.
Defensive ammunition choice is about picking what works best to neutralize armed and dangerous human beings before they can maim or murder. Stcientific testing of ammo in ballistic gelatin can help predict bullet performance in the field, but at the end of the day, it is the perfotrmance and not the prediction that will matter.
Thirty-four years of carrying a sworn police officer’s badge, 20 years as chair of the firearms committee of the American Society of Law Enforcement trainers, and several years now on the advisory board of the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association have combined with several trips to major seminars of groups like the International Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors Association and the International Homicide Investigators Seminars to give me a solid base of cops who’ve investigated a lot of shootings for their departments. These aren’t “war stories,” they are full investigations of shootings including evidence recovery, complete autopsy and forensic ballistic testing protocols, and intensive debriefings of the shooters and the witnesses. From that collective pool of knowledge emerges a profile of which duty cartridges perform the best.
OBVIOUSLY, POLICE ISSUE AMMUNITION IS USED IN A SIGNIFICANT MAJORITY OF THESE SHOOTINGS. That’s why police duty calibers and loads have the strongest “data bases” to learn from.
Fortunately for armed citizens, they and the police tend to choose the same calibers. Picking a load that has proven itself on duty with the police gives the armed citizen added confidence in what their chosen gun/cartridge combination can deliver. As many have noted, using ammunition that is widely issued to police is a strong defense against unmeritorious courtroom allegations such as, “He used evil hollow point bullets that rend and tear, and that shows he had malice in his heart!”
Let’s look at what the “street feedback” is indicating is working best in the “ultimate laboratory” these days.
Concealed carry permit instructors tell me that the 38 Special revolver, usually in compact short-barrel form, is one of the most common guns brought to their classes by students, and often the single gun that their graduates most commonly carry on the street. For most of the 20th Century, this caliber revolver was also by far the most popular in law enforcement, with plainclothes and off duty officers generally carrying “snubbies,” and uniformed personnel generally carrying larger framed, longer barrel models.
At this writing, there are still thousands of senior cops carrying “grandfathered” 38 revolvers on duty in New York City and Chicago, and many more who carry them as backup or off-duty guns. In fact, the snub-nose 38 seems to be the most popular police backup handgun to this day, and is still widely used for off duty carry.
Only two cartridges really stand out as head and shoulders above the large pack of available 38 Special rounds. These are the “FBI load” and the “New York load.”
The FBI load gets its sobriquet from the fact that this round was adopted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation circa 1972, right after Winchester introduced it. It was also adopted by the Chicago PD, and remains the 38 Special load of issue there to this day. Metro-Dade (now Miami-Dade) police likewise found it to perform superbly, as did cops throughout the U.S.A., and it continues to be known by some locally as the “Chicago load” or “Metro load.” This cartridge comprises an all-lead, semi-wadcutter shaped hollowpoint bullet at +P velocity.