Interesting topic...
What would you say about a guy who was perfectly happy with his carry rig now, but who says he might very well have done something different if he started over?
I've carried several different guns over the years. Mostly just sort of what I had on-hand at the time. I will admit here in public now, that, yes, I started off with a .45 ACP Hi-Point! (Actually a good gun for what it is in my opinion.) But it didn't take me very long at all to figure out THAT wasn't gonna work! (Tie a brick to your belt - or maybe a couple of bricks - and you get the idea.)
I then went to pretty much the other extreme caliber-wise and weight-wise and started carrying a Beretta Jetfire in .25 ACP in my pocket (and yes, in an Uncle Mike's nylon pocket holster - again with the ). I inherited that from my grandmother, and between the arguably insufficient caliber and the sentimental value that the gun had to me, I decided that wasn't going to work, either.
Next, I switched over and started carrying a wheel gun, a S&W Model 10 .38 Special that I had inherited, also. I think it would make a pretty good carry gun, actually. I bought a speedloader for it and practiced and got fairly decent at reloads. But again, it was sentimental to me because of who owned it before, and I didn't want to take a chance on losing that one, either.
After that, I carried a Ruger LC9 that my daughter-in-law bought right after they came out. After she bought it, she decided she didn't like it because it had a pretty stiff recoil spring, and it was pretty "snappy" to shoot. So I got that from her and carried it for a while. A decent little gun, but it just didn't scratch my itch.
Now, you're probably getting a good chuckle out of my various carry "choices" here. But that's ok. None of my family or friends at the time were "gun" people, so I was pretty much on my own, learning as I went.
After several years, I finally settled on the gun that I carry now, and have for a number of years. That is, a light-weight officer-frame STI 1911. And yes, some folks would say that also was a questionable choice as well.
Honestly, the reason I settled on that is another whole story that I won't get into now. But the fact is, after some initial issues (mostly me), it has worked very well for me. It works well, I shoot it (fairly) well, I like the short grip and short barrel and the slender single-stack, all for concealment. It's metal, it's a good looking gun, and it's the best caliber ever invented for a handgun. In fact, I like it so much, that several years ago I bought a Colt Defender that is an exact copy of the STI, except that the STI has a blued slide and the Colt has a SS slide.
I really like them both. And since they are identical, I swap out carrying each one every six months or so, and I don't have to worry about changing the "manual of arms" on my carry guns, and I don't put as much wear and tear on either one of them.
So yes, while I really love my little 1911's, if I had it to do all over again, I probably would be like most everybody else and would have ended up with one of the super-duper wonder-plastic Glocks or Glock-clone. I don't have anything against them. I'm not a Glock-hater like some. I just never got into them. But it's hard to argue against them. They do have a lot going for them. Reliability, light weight, capacity, price, etc.
So yeah, happy with what I got, but would probably go a totally different direction if I had it to do over again. Weird, huh?
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- by thatguyoverthere
- Sun Oct 18, 2020 7:47 pm
- Forum: General Gun, Shooting & Equipment Discussion
- Topic: If you started over carrying a firearm
- Replies: 16
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