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Thread: What makes you change your primary (and secondary) firearms?

  1. #1
    The R in F.A.R.T RevolverRob's Avatar
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    What makes you change your primary (and secondary) firearms?

    I saw one of @GJM's older posts in the CZ P10 thread. Mentioning a love-hate relationship with Glock and a tendency to move every 6-12 months or so. It made me think about my own tendency to be a 'gun of the year' kind of guy.

    I've carried and shot a lot of different guns since I got my first concealed carry license at 21. And I've gone full circle going from 1911 back to 1911. But it seems like every 6-12 months or so, I'm tempted to try something else. And it isn't "the grass is greener", I actually have enough data now to recognize I shoot the 1911 best and everything else 'second' to that. So, when I'm chasing performance the 1911 is my answer. None-the-less I get the itch to work with something different. I've found myself digging back through the safe and taking out different guns and running them for a bit, that usually gets me another 6-months or so. But usually I want to try something new after that.

    Right now and for the past oh 3-4 months or so, I've been contemplating picking up something else. But I haven't done it because I just haven't figured out why I want to change guns.

    So what makes you change your handgun of choice? Cycles of Moon, specific shooting challenge, desire to keep it fresh, changing concealment/carry needs?

    ___

    I'm primarily focused on pistols here. But in the past two years, I switched from shotgun to AR as a primary long-gun. That was driven by the fact that I haven't run pump guns enough to be comfortable with them any more. Whenever I would get out to the range, I wasn't smooth and practiced. By contrast the AR feels like a big handgun to me with it's manual of arms being highly similar to a semi-automatic handgun. I feel reps with a pistol are so much closer to the AR that the gap between my comfort with a shotgun vs. AR had grown to a point where it no longer made logical sense to go shotgun over rifle.

  2. #2
    From 1999 to 2008, it was the gun of the month, because I was young, dumb, financially irresponsible and chasing performance by cycling through carry platforms and calibers.

    From 2008 to 2014, I had gained a clue, and was static with 9mm Glocks and .38 Special J-frames.

    In 2014 I moved to six-acres on a rural property and having "woods guns" became more of a thing. After (another) aborted attempt to make 10mm work (again) I settled on a 4" GP100. Now my urban carry is La Vida J-Frame, and my woods carry is the 4" GP100. Most of my shooting is revolver-centric, and I like it. After I get either a 640 Pro or LCR to take advantage of better sights, a bigger than a J frame/smaller than a GP100 .357 that I can carry AIWB may become a thing.

    If I was still living in town, I'd still be rocking the 9mm Glocks, but I'd probably still be looking for a 640 Pro or an LCR. I still have the 9mm Glocks, they just don't get the carry time they used to.
    I was into 10mm Auto before it sold out and went mainstream, but these days I'm here for the revolver and epidemiology information.

  3. #3
    https://youtu.be/JEIwJQUZxYo


    Curiosity of what's that new thing out there and what can I do with that.
    Most powerful reason to get a new blaster even though there's a barely shot KAC SR30 right there in that Vertx backpack.
    Doesn't read posts longer than two paragraphs.

  4. #4
    Deadeye Dick Clusterfrack's Avatar
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    What makes you change your primary (and secondary) firearms?

    Quote Originally Posted by RevolverRob View Post
    what makes you change your handgun of choice?
    1) A massive disappointment resulting in a loss in confidence in the design or manufacturer. Hopefully that won’t happen again.

    2) Significant improvement in reliability or performance. It’s unlikely I’ll find anything that is a major improvement over a CZ or Glock. I could be happy with these guns forever.
    "You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
    Shabbat shalom, motherf***ers! --Mordechai Jefferson Carver

  5. #5
    Site Supporter Totem Polar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RevolverRob View Post

    So what makes you change your handgun of choice?
    Time commitments. During school, I acknowledge both my limits, and my considerable myelination, and keep and (minimally) tend revolvers. In the summer, I have the time to maintain a moderate proficiency with Glocks—although the older I get, the more the revolver lifestyle takes hold. I’d rather be a ninja with a wheelie than a rusty dunce with a SFA. JMO.
    ”But in the end all of these ideas just manufacture new criminals when the problem isn't a lack of criminals.” -JRB

  6. #6
    For me, it's usually a matter of experimenting with a new paradigm I might not be used to, to keep growing and learning. I usually don't do that frequently. For example, carried a G17 probably the longest of anything (7-8yrs?), a P30 for the last ~2yrs. Early on, I carried a P220 maybe 1-2yrs and had brief stints with a ton of others. More recently was the P30, as I went down the DB "people management" rabbit hole and quite liked the concept of it. I'm still learning and growing with that, and see myself sticking with it for quite awhile. I tend to only do this at most once every couple years as I feel like frequently changing things is probably going to be problematic in terms of neural memory, setting one's self up for success with carry gear, fundamentals, defensive gun placement and access within the home, etc.

    I'd say some of the impetus for change, for me, is usually due to reaching an irreconcilable issue or crossroad where my current solution no longer works or isn't good enough for me. That could be the current carry or home conditions, or it could be the gun itself and its impact on performance, reliability, or durability. For example, I can always carry and shoot a Glock just fine. However, I find Glock triggers to be mentally demanding. My grip method is very high and aggressive, Vogel-style. If there is one thing I find I have been absolute about for awhile, it's that I do not like to compromise grip. I find that I have a significant issue with the proximal phalange of my trigger finger, on pulling the trigger, flexing and pressing into the frame. Often, when I'm not 100% on my game or slack even a little bit, all of sudden my shots are 1-2" left, consistently, and still in tight groups. So I had kept an eye out for options, whether through quality mods or a new platform, to reduce that mental stress.

    In contrast, I've found the P30 LEM trigger to, so far, be fairly "care-free" for me. I'm loving the LEM and, again for ME, I find the nature of the trigger just falls away, out of mind. I can just SHOOT the gun without burning through unnecessary mental focus, while not sacrificing significant performance on the shot timer (between .05-.15s difference in splits). That might be exactly the inverse of what a lot of people here seem to experience with LEM, but I am an N of 1, so take that for what it is. If you find the opposite, I'll gladly take those LEM's off your hands! LOL
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  7. #7
    For me it all depends. A lot of my 'changes' have come with evolution as I learn more or have changing needs. Also there is the issue of evolution of capabilities.

    When I started carrying regularly/daily I had a massive 'brick' that I carried. I then decided that I wanted a smaller gun because it allows me to carry without drastically altering my clothes. Problem is the smaller guns of the time had a lot less capacity and the ones I liked were of a different type of pistol than of something like a Glock. Then eventually some of the gun companies solved a number of problems with increasing capacity while not expanding size.

    So basically I evolved from a big heavy full size gun>>then a small but much easier to carry gun>>>then to currently carrying a small striker fired gun that doubled my round capacity. Current carry is the 365XL. Basically put a gun can be 'too small' but it took me a while to learn this. There are certain dimensions of a gun particularly when combined with the right type of holster allow for a lot better carry. Basically switching from 4:00 carry to appendix changes everything as far as concealability goes. It also depends on the type of holster involved but I consider all of this an evolution of basically 'discovery' by me of what I like better. It pays to be open minded. It pays to be skeptical as well.

    I found that I can now carry a much larger gun if needed and there is not as much penalty to doing that. In other words I change my carry for exact reasons but none of them are because some gun company put a new color scheme out or whatever.

    Lately I have started to use red dots on my pistol. It was weird at first but now I think it's superior. Not all that long ago (in the big picture) it wasn't an option to have a dot on a pistol. It's like when I was in high school if you wanted a cel phone it meant carrying around a brief case. But now it's night and day what's available and what it can do vs the size. Not to mention back then cel phones were like $3 per minute whereas now it's unlimited talk and text.

    I am a proponent of being able to shoot with what you have. Big time. It's the Indian not he arrow. I try to never lose sight of that. That said some stuff is simply 'just better'. In my case there was enough evolution going on either through me learning personal lessons about what works best for me (IE I don't want to walk around with a 50 caliber Desert Eagle in my pants) on to the actual availability of simply 'just better' stuff being available. It's not that my previous guns were ever bad. They were good guns. That said when groups of engineers get together and figure out how to incorporate my wish list into a single firearm that I can pick up at my local gun shop that shouldn't be ignored.

  8. #8
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    Even though I started out as a timmy, competition in general and USPSA in particular is my main interest. My carry guns tend follow whatever competition gun/division I am currently shooting.

  9. #9
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    I started carrying in the '80s, so naturally, I carried a Series 70 Gubmint Model. That morphed into 4" S&W revolvers with occasional forays into C&L CZ-75Bs and then into M&Ps and back to round guns, trying to find the balance that worked for me in what I shot well and had enough capacity. I shoot revolvers better than I do autos, so I decided to stick with them based on my threat assessment.

    I joined P-F about four years ago and read Givens' remarks recommended minimum capacity and they made sense, so I went back to the CZs, this time carried with the hammer down so I'd keep the DA first shot. Manually decocking them was fine on the range but I was afraid of what might happen if I had to do it right after a defensive shooting, so I started looking for a DA/SA gun that wasn't a Sig (because I always decocked my P6 when trying to drop the slide). Since I was on P-F, I ended up with the PX4, and that's where I am now. When I need something smaller, it's a P99c or a J frame.

    The needs-based evaluation continues, though. I'm 69, and while my eyes still work well enough to see the sights, I can see how a dot sight might be advantageous. That's a pretty good chunk of change, either modifying the PX4s or buying two new guns set up for red dots, plus the sights. And since I faithfully follow the Rule of the Three Stupids, I'm seriously considering going back to revolvers since they're easier to conceal and I still shoot them better.

  10. #10
    Site Supporter farscott's Avatar
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    For me, two basic "reasons". The quotes are there because one is nothing more than justification.

    1) Loss of confidence in my current system. Like what happened when multiple G19.3 start failing to extract and eject at 2500 rounds. That one is a reason.

    2). When I get bored with my current system and try something new for the sake of trying something new. That is "passion for the gun", which is necessary for me to keep practicing. But that is a justification. I got into the P30 LEM that way. I was unhappy with my G19.3 performance as I had multiple pistols go down and back to Glock. I had gone Glock for more capacity and ease of service. I could have gone back to my 1911-pattern guns but indulged in something new.

    Sad thing is I am back to 1911-pattern guns as I had spent most of 2020 getting up to speed on the EDC X9, depleted most of my 9x19, and pulled the .45 and 9x23 pistols from the safe. I have cases of ammo for those pistols.

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