Easiest shooting 9mm for small hands? Dedicated home defense application.

[frozentundra]

I've got a daughter about to graduate high school. She has a reasonable amount of training/experience with shotguns, bolt guns, AR's, and service-style pistols, but she hasn't been terribly enthusiastic about shooting for a couple years now, being more inclined to hang out with friends than her boring, old dad. Can you even imagine that?

My hopeful plan is to try to maximize our time at the range this summer before she turns 18 later in the year (she started school earlier than most kids do). I'd like to focus on handguns, and I thought about trying to find a new 9mm pistol that has very minimal recoil for caliber, while still being as optimal for very small hands as possible. To this end, I thought about mounting a giant WML to increase weight and perhaps reduce recoil. Probably want to be red dot friendly. My hope is a setup like this might eventually become a dedicated home defense/bedside safe pistol for her someday if everything works out well.

For reference, Glock 19s are hard for her to get good trigger reach. M&Ps with small backstrap work OK for her, but it seems like there may be more good options these days. PDP-F and Sig 320s look interesting, but there are no places around to rent these, and I've heard some weird things about the 320 series. P365 Macro family looks interesting because of the modularity, but not sure how much you can tame the recoil on these by adding grip weights, lights and such. I do have a standard p365 myself, and think highly of the p365's in general, but it's pretty snappy in the smallest/lightest form factor.

1) What is the short list of pistols to look at for this application in 2024?

2) How much can the weight of a large weapon mounted light and/or grip weights reduce perceived recoil? If this isn't a dumb idea, what to look at?

3) What holsters would you be looking at? I'd need to find a quality holster for the whole setup because we always work out of holsters at outdoor shooting ranges for practice, and guns without good holsters are just stupid.

[Clusterfrack]

My Girl #1 is very tiny, and I set her up with a Glock 43 with a striker control Gadget. Like your daughter, mine can't run a G19.

A 365 of some sort might be a good option.

[Navin Johnson]

The 365 family one can get Wilson grips that are weighted. I don’t know in which sizes.

The 365 and the 43 series have very snappy recoil, the shield and the CSX have much softer recoil

A 1911 style 9 mm would probably be very nice to shoot and reach Shouldn’t be too bad but they’re gonna be more fussy.

A shield EZ in 380 should be very soft shooting, but I know nothing beyond that about them

A 3913 or equivalent Smith & Wesson if one can find one and support for it has reasonably light recoil

I think the bigger issue is, can she manipulate the gun?

[Drogo Bunce]

I'm a fan of the P365, and the modularity and aftermarket support make it a good choice given what you can do with ergonomics, weights, sizes, configurations, etc.

But let me suggest something else entirely: the Springfield Armory EMP4 (note the "4"). It's a 1911 scaled down for the 9mm cartridge. Small grip diameter, and great ergonomics. The trigger is one of the scaled down parts, so normal 1911 triggers won't work, but I think you can find shorter triggers for it if needed. I think VZ grips make thinner scales for it if you need an even smaller grip. The metal frame gives it some weight, so it recoils like a staple gun. Everyone who shoots it, from the highly experienced to the total newbies love shooting it and get the same grin after a single magazine. Small handed women particularly like it. It's a single stack, 10 round magazine, and requires a tool to field strip, but mine has been totally reliable with everything except some poorly resized reloads. Hard to find, but worth the effort.

[GJM]

You can also address recoil with ammo selection -- PMC 115 is accurate, clean and pretty mild shooting.

[Redhat]

SIG 365X Macro Comp or AXG Legion with alloy frame?

I believe S&W also makes their EZ in 9mm as well.

[G19Fan]

For what it is worth my wife is 5'1 and a p365xl works great.

She shoots comps with an xl too

[Clusterfrack]

You can also address recoil with ammo selection -- PMC 115 is accurate, clean and pretty mild shooting.

This is a great point. HST147 is relatively soft and not super loud.

[WobblyPossum]

I run a P320 with the small grip module for work. It gives me about the same trigger reach as my previous G19 without any back straps. If a G19 is too large for your daughter to reach the trigger while maintaining a good grip, the P320 won’t be any better. The P365X Macro might be better. I don’t have a lot of time on the Macro frames yet.They will recoil a little harder than a larger gun. How is your daughter responding to the concussion of a gunshot? As mentioned earlier, the P365 AXG Legion is an option too. It’s about 3 oz heavier than the Macro TacOps so recoil should be lessened just due to the weight increase even without the comp portion. The comp should also lessen recoil but the concussion would increase.

[CakeEater]

BLUF: I’m the tallest in the family and knee high to a frog.

My daughters had the option between a Zev OZ9C and the P30/L Series and the HKs won. Also, tested out the USP45 and Elite, and the Elite won. Trigger and recoil were key factors. They also liked the SIG P365xl with threaded barrel and Mischief Machine grip.