Guns for Weak People: Observations

[rob_s]

I sold guns for several years. This was in the late '90s and through the millenium so the market has changed drastically.

However, what hasn't changed is the way guns often wind up in women's hands, which is purchased by men who "know what their wife needs" and turn out to be unshootable/usable for a variety of reasons.

The OP mentions the struggle of not being able to run the slide on a semi-auto, which in turn leads to the conclusion that they "need" a revolver, at which point you discover they can't pull the trigger on the revolver. As a salesman, I learned to ignore the husband and focus on just the wife/woman, to include speaking directly to her and making eye contact, and when handing over a gun offering it to her rather than him.

what I generally resorted to was just having them try everything in the case, but there didn't seem to ever be one universal solution, as evidenced by the fact that I can't tell you "the vast majority chose the..." I do seem to recall that some DA semi-autos became managable when first cocking the hammer, then running the slide, but again you wind up with a DA trigger that may be a problem.

IME tha challenge was to find a balance of

• not so heavy that they got fatigued just holding it, but not so light that the recoil was off-putting
• an operating system that they could manipulate, but not at the expense of a trigger they can't pull
• knowing what she wants/needs vs what he thinks she should have
• understanding what the actual goal of buying her a gun might be (real-world self-defense need vs simply starting by getting her to the range and teaching her to shoot and enjoy shooting)

Right now my wife is very into Sporting Clays. She's learned to manipulate the gun without help, provided that it doesn't malfunction (at which point I still have to step in, typically). She's now asking that we store the 870P in the bedroom as she feels comfortable enough with shotguns, but i"m resistant because (a) I don't have a good way to secure it in the bedroom right now and we have kids and (b) an 870 is not an A300. I'm also hoping that *maybe* this interest in sporting clays will lead to an interest in the action games (IDPA, USPSA, action steel, Steel challenge, whatever) so I'm very interested to follow this thread and see what others have had success with. My thinking right now is that if I can get her shooting steel with a PCC or .22 that'll be the "gateway drug". Plan to go stay overnight sometime soon where we can shoot clays in the afternoon and steel in the morning.

[OlongJohnson]

There’s a P250 .380 on Gunbroker right now.

[littlejerry]

My wife is just under 5ft tall and roughly 90 lbs.

The Glock 42 is always a challenge for her. She can shoot it quite well but the slide is difficult to work. My 19.4 is just thick enough thatshe either can't get good trigger finger placement or the web of her thumb isn't behind the grip.

We tried a CZ75 and the slide was impossible to rack due to the internal slide rails. She also hated the weight.

I bought an M&P 15-22 that she can shoot all day and quite well. She'll struggle to hit 2/3 scale silhouettes at 15 yards with a pistol but then drill 6" plates at 25 yards with the 15-22 without breaking a sweat.

I will probably just order a Shield EZ this fall for her to experiment with.

[Redhat]

My wife is just under 5ft tall and roughly 90 lbs.

The Glock 42 is always a challenge for her. She can shoot it quite well but the slide is difficult to work. My 19.4 is just thick enough thatshe either can't get good trigger finger placement or the web of her thumb isn't behind the grip.

We tried a CZ75 and the slide was impossible to rack due to the internal slide rails. She also hated the weight.

I bought an M&P 15-22 that she can shoot all day and quite well. She'll struggle to hit 2/3 scale silhouettes at 15 yards with a pistol but then drill 6" plates at 25 yards with the 15-22 without breaking a sweat.

I will probably just order a Shield EZ this fall for her to experiment with.

Are there any female instructors nearby that she might consider? Maybe a ladies only class?

[scjbash]

The EZ can be the ticket for a lot of people but it's not a guaranteed fix. I've had one student have stoppages with an EZ because of strength issues. She had to really focus on maximum grip pressure with both hands to get it to run, which in turn caused an accuracy problem.

[JTQ]

My wife is just under 5ft tall and roughly 90 lbs.

The Glock 42 is always a challenge for her. She can shoot it quite well but the slide is difficult to work. My 19.4 is just thick enough thatshe either can't get good trigger finger placement or the web of her thumb isn't behind the grip.

We tried a CZ75 and the slide was impossible to rack due to the internal slide rails. She also hated the weight.

The CZ75 is a big hand gun. The trigger reach in DA is very long, and the reach to the thumb safety is also long.

The M&P, Beretta APX, HK VP9 are three full size guns that are fairly small hand friendly.

[littlejerry]

The CZ75 is a big hand gun. The trigger reach in DA is very long, and the reach to the thumb safety is also long.

The M&P, Beretta APX, HK VP9 are three full size guns that are fairly small hand friendly.

I'm gonna disagree a little with you. In our/her experience the M&P 9 was a total no-go. The trigger reach and grip circumference were not ideal for a small hand. The CZ has a very short trigger reach, which she liked, but the slide was very difficult to manipulate. The weight was also a hindrance.

She shot a P30 relatively well in SA, but DA was a new non-starter so perhaps the VP9 would be a good option, but she'll still have to deal with the muzzle blast.

Part of the issue is that she's a casual shooter at most. It's easy for any of us who shoot regularly to say "oh but with some training and practice you can overcome these issues...". That is a major turnoff to someone like her who wants to know how to safely operate and use a handgun but she doesn't want to practice regularly. A full size 9mm doesn't jive with this type of mindset. She can pick up a 22 pistol and shoot it well with minimal practice. A modern 25 ACP or .380 in a Glock 48 sized package would be ideal.

[Bucky]

I’ll add another thought regarding the CZ 75 lineup. The internal frame to slide rail configuration gives less room to grasp for slide racking, making that function more challenging versus more traditional railed guns.

[Jim Watson]

Apparently nobody in the business thinks there is enough of a market to develop a real mechanical solution as was known a hundred years ago.
The Dreyse 1910 9mm and the Smith & Wesson 1913 .35 could disconnect the slide from the recoil spring, letting you charge the chamber with little effort.
They had shortcomings to where a direct reproduction would not be a good choice, but the concept is there, or was.

And, as said, a lot of people don't need a mechanical solution, they just need technique, practice, and exercise.

[Rex G]

Over the years I've observed this problem to usually be mindset and /or technique. However, nearly all my experience is training personnel on the M9.

For the racking issue, have you looked up different racking methods here, and had them try them?

My experience as well while training both of my daughters. It typically is not an actual strength issue, it's a technique and application of strength issue. I never thought my girls were dainty at all until we started working with semi auto handguns. Once I got them to get after it with dummy rounds and a few hundred repetitions of slide racking they were good to go. I know there are people with real strength issues, but I started my girls on Glock 19's at 10 years old,and they sure weren't strong as I spoiled them pretty bad. Concentrate on gun handling first, then introduce the shooting aspect.

These.