Hey Guys, I am helping a female adult (teacher and mother of two) pick out her first firearm. She has taken a basic safety course and will be furthering her training from there. Her primary concern is home defense. Her two other uses will be range use for practice and she wants to have the ability to carry/conceal it even though she doesn't plan to often (that is the kicker).
In the past for females, I recommend a snub nose revolver for carry due to the simplicity of mechanical manipulation and the fact that it tends to be less intimidating to beginners. For home defense, I usually recommend that smaller females use a 20 gauge shotgun. But since this situation requires only one firearm with the primary purpose being home defense but also requires the ability to conceal on occasion, I find myself unsure. I am leaning towards a revolver but slightly larger than a snubby... Like a 3 or 4 inch barrel or something.
What are your thoughts, advice and/or Recomendations? Please don't say buy two guns or choose either home defense or carry. That is obvious for those that can but let's try and work with in her perimeters. Thanks.
As a few others have recommended, let her try a lot of different pistols and see which she likes best. Let her decide, not you.
Snub nose revolvers are hard to fire accurately for anyone, and are never a good first pistol for anyone.
Odds are she will do best with a mid-sized auto with a smaller grip. Kahr, FN, S&W M&P, Gen 4 Glocks, and the Ruger auto have slimmer grips, and are easier to control and fire accurately than a snubby.
Have her try all of those before making a final decision.
A 20 gauge for home defense is a very good suggestion, but a semi-auto, not a pump.
Again, bottom line, take her to a range that rents or demos pistols and let her pick which one she likes, not you. Comfort and control during the trigger pull and while under recoil are critical.
If she is going to bank protecting her life, as well as that of her family, view the expenditure as an investment. This is a place that makes sense to spend money on the pistol, plenty of ammo for practice, and some periodic instruction by an experienced and qualified instructor.
Shot placement is far more important than power, and good shot placement comes from lots of practice, good form, and good control.
During extreme stress, a person's performance does not rise, but drops to the level of their training.
Shooting an occasional IDPA match will bring some reality checks and up her skill level and confidence significantly.
fwiw - my wife tried about 15 different pistols, and she picked two that she liked and shot very well. She is extremely and equally capable with either a Glock 19 and/or Les Baer 1911 with 200 grain ammo. She actually prefers the 1911, but finds it too heavy to carry, so the G19 is her first choice.
Once she finds the pistol that she likes, try different ammo in it as they can have very different recoil characteristics and accuracy, so try several different kinds.
For practice, I highly recommend buying her a Ruger 22 Mark III. Ammo is cheap and she can really learn to master trigger control without being afraid of the recoil. It takes several thousand shots to really build muscle memory. In reality, very few men commit to the practice really needed to obtain proficiency.
In practice, once they are tired, stop, do not push them any more.
I've run/participated in female only training events too simply because some women are intimidated by the attitudes of men described above or just don't want to put up with their BS. I often prefer to train females.
Absolutely.
Here is a young lady I taught to shoot a rifle last year, when her dad hired me to give her private lessons so she could go deer hunting with him - at her request. This was her final challenge in the lessons to really show her what she could do. I knew she could do it, I just had to convince her. 200 yards with a 308, with the last two rounds of ammo left and she nailed it with a fair amount of wind also.
