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chabouk wrote:I think choosing a pistol based on the "What if you have to make a contact shot?" scenarios fall into the same range as "But what if he's wearing Class III armor? With a ceramic trauma plate? And I have to do a tactical roll to pull my .380 BUG from the ankle holster to take a hundred yard shot?" level of silly over-thinking.

Here's the thing about carrying a gun: there is no perfect solution. Every "what if" scenario can be best countered by looking at what you could do to avoid being in that situation in the first place, not which firearm/ammo/holster/carry method would be perfect for that particular situation.

My reason for the OP was not to over-obsess about this particular scenario,
or to sway anyone to switch to a revolver or an XD based on contact shots.

Think of the scenario presented in my OP and simply add it as a mosaic piece to the
whole of your knowledge about personal defense issues. The strength of our forum
community here is that many people present issues that the rest of us are unaware of.
One of the reasons that I like the forum is that having a deadly weapon at our disposal
requires all of us to be as informed as possible about laws, tactics, and survival; and
the forum is the place to kick these issues around.

If this thread ever helps even ONE of my fellow forum members who might be involved in this
sort of thing, it would all be worth it.

SIA

How is that a sure thing?

A decocked semi auto will not fire without a long and hard trigger pull. Those are usually intentional, almost never accidental.

Not to get too far off topic, but I like a manual safety on my carry gun. There are a lot of very fine CC choices out there, but I personally like the 1911 style. The safety lever can be switched down as the weapon is being raised and then it is a light, trigger pull away from firing. I really love the design. I know that some would say that the "cocked and locked" style is unsafe for carry, but I have never had a moments worry.
As far as firing with the gun pressed against an assailant, that is not a good position to be in. A problem with revolvers in this situation is that the person you are struggling with can grab the cylinder and prevent it from rotating. If the the revolver is in single action mode, that is a different situation, but in double action, it can cause a problem. With an auto, they can grab the slide and attempt to force a discharge and jam. Granted, your attacker would have to be a pretty "heads up" assailant, but anytime you get close enough to touch, it gets dangerous. Good food for thought though.

TheBrit wrote:None of my handguns has a manual safety, and I would not own one that did.

Oh Lordy... Now you've gone and offended all the 1911 guys! Run! RUN, while you still can!!

surprise_i'm_armed wrote:

chabouk wrote:I think choosing a pistol based on the "What if you have to make a contact shot?" scenarios fall into the same range as "But what if he's wearing Class III armor? With a ceramic trauma plate? And I have to do a tactical roll to pull my .380 BUG from the ankle holster to take a hundred yard shot?" level of silly over-thinking.

My reason for the OP was not to over-obsess about this particular scenario,
or to sway anyone to switch to a revolver or an XD based on contact shots.

My apologies. I didn't mean to insult you, not at all.

chabouk:

I accepted your apology before you made it. :-)

SIA

surprise_i'm_armed wrote:

chabouk wrote:I think choosing a pistol based on the "What if you have to make a contact shot?" Here's the thing about carrying a gun: there is no perfect solution.

Think of the scenario presented in my OP and simply add it as a mosaic piece to the
whole of your knowledge about personal defense issues. The strength of our forum
community here is that many people present issues that the rest of us are unaware of.
SIA

I agree with chabouk and SIA that choosing a defensive carry gun based on one characteristic would be too limiting for most.



I do think this is a worthy topic and maybe if we re-frame the question a little or expand it a bit it will be easier to discuss. Maybe something like "Would you or when would you attempt to take a contact shot?"

A contact shot has some pretty significant risk attatched to it. As Karder pointed out on a revolver if the cylinder is held, it won't fire, unless the hammer was already cocked. But, we have a similar issue with a semi auto. MoJo made an excellent point about pressing the gun into something and pushing the slide out of battery and it not firing. Also, if the slide is held you might end up with no shot (if the slide get's out of battery) or 1 shot and then you'll have to clear that in order to fire another round. Getting the pistol up and running again is not an easy task to do with a resisting BG that close. And for me, I want to be very careful of taking a shot that limits my pistols ability to fire rounds.

If the situation has degenerated to the point you have gone to the ground you have been blind sided or waited too long to present your gun and get distance from the attacker. For CHLs there are very few reasons to ever have to make a contact shot. LE is different they have to place hands on the suspect to take them into custody. A civilian should always try to keep distance and if confronted, increase distance.