Well its been a cold few days here locally, not much over 38F in they daytime, spent Sunday at the range for one of my Range Officer days, good thing we had the fire going inside the office, I had to make multiple trips inside when the range was cold to allow my extremities to warm up. Had a good turn out at the range for such a cold foggy day.
This blog post will be Part one of a three part series on firearm purchasing. Part One will be on pistols, Semi Auto to keep it short. Part Two will be on Shotguns and Part Three on Rifles.
Pistol Purchase
The two biggest items I believe are what you want, an what you need, when I purchase something I try to mix the two.For example, you want the 1911 in 45ACP but you need something for home defense or personal protection. With this post I hope to help you along with Pistol purchasing.Go over your wants, do you want to shoot it on the weekends? Shoot pistol Competition? Plink? Hunt? Upgrade capabilities? There are many different brands that will cover those few things I mentioned, I believe the 1911 styled pistol has most of those covered in one package, with many different calibers available and different manufactures from inexpensive to high end.
Now, go over your needs, did you originally start looking for pistols for home protection or personal defense? You will want a small frame, compact or sub-compact pistol for home protection or personal defense, easy to carry an conceal and easy to remove and keep in a lock box or safe in case of a home intruder.
Let's weigh the two, with most of the larger frame pistols are made to be shot over and over, for competition, target shooting, hunting and plinking. But on the personal defense side, they are made to be shot a few times to get sighted in and familiar with then put away until the time arises when they are needed(Hopefully Never.)
Another thing to look at now days, is ammo availability, see what your local store carries, then see what they seem to have at all times, that may influence your purchase as well. Do your reload? If so look at what reloading components are available for each caliber interests you. You may find 45ACP on the shelf all the time, but the 9mm components are just as available and cheaper.
New or Used? You can find higher end pistols that have aftermarket parts available cheap, if you want to take the time to find them and then see a gunsmith and check the condition they are in. Or you can get a cheap low end gun new for the same price.
It is all about you and what you want or need. I like to tinker and build stuff, so I would go for a used 1911 and build it up to my liking. Something I could go out and shoot on the weekends an maybe shoot competition if I wanted as well. On the other end for Home defense, personally I would look at what the local law enforcement are using, they are using there pistols for self defense, protecting the innocent and can't have a bulky side arm on there person. I think a lot of agencys use Glocks, Taurus and Sigs.
Ad-ons, accesories and aftermarket parts are other things to look at, do you want the capability to add a Laser sight, Red dot sight or scope? Do you want to put a Picatinney rail on the side with a flashlight? Do you want to put on different grips, trigger upgrades, barrels and slides? Those are all items needing consideration when purchasing your pistol.
I hope this helps you with your decision on your pistol purchase in the future, I will add more information if I can think of anything else to add. Here are a few of the many manufactures of quality pistols. Glock, Taurus, Beretta, Smith & Wesson, Ruger, Sig Sauer, Kimber, Springfield Armory, Colt and many more. And don't forget about foreign brands, they are readily available and some are of great quality.
Thanks For Reading,
Rex
Just Remembered this after I posted the blog, Keep in mind the layout of your house and materials it is made out of when choosing ammo, you don't want a bullet going through a wall hitting something you don't want hit.
