Large Caliber Handguns and Women

[Texas]

YouTube - Crazy girl shoots a 50 caliber pistol.
No problems here.

 

[Oldgrunt]

9mm

GlockFan: I think both references are to the 9mm weapons. No decimal point needed. 9mm is only small when you are holding the bullet in your hand. If you are ever hit with it, it feels like a Mack truck.:biggrin:

 

[Jay]

You should be proficient with the gun you're going to carry. Practicing with one caliber and carrying another is asking for trouble.

 

[kenster]

My wife shoots my ruger 454 she don't like it but she can shoot it if she has to, she carrys a Taurus 9mm and a 380, she shoots my Bersa 45 almost as well as I do, I think she would carry a 45 but one small enough for her to be comfortable with is way out of my price range, so I dont put no stock in that, that guns to big for a girl stuff.........oh and she's 4.8 and is barely a 100 lbs

My girlfriend can shoot my Casull almost as well as I do. At 5'4" 125# the 300gr. rock her world some but she puts all five on paper at 35 feet. She carries a Bersa .380 in summer and a XD-9 the rest of the time.

 

[Yrose]

I love my Beretta 92, but until I find a comfortable way to carry it I carry my Bersa 380. Not crazy about off body carry and being a BBW can make it hard to carry a full size gun. I carry the 380 at 5:00.

 

[Rocketgeezer]

My girlfriend can shoot my Casull almost as well as I do. At 5'4" 125# the 300gr. rock her world some but she puts all five on paper at 35 feet. She carries a Bersa .380 in summer and a XD-9 the rest of the time.

She will shoot it when the guys are around just to show she can, but if shes not careful the scope pops her in the forehead

 

[crowsnake]

My girlfriend can shoot my Casull almost as well as I do. At 5'4" 125# the 300gr. rock her world some but she puts all five on paper at 35 feet. She carries a Bersa .380 in summer and a XD-9 the rest of the time.

What is a Casull? I have to ask, there are so many guns out there. It is a hand gun? what Caliber? I have never heard of it. I thought I knew guns pretty well, but not this gun.

Someone reported USA carry to FireFox as a bad site and I had to disable my site warnings to even use the site. I assume some anti gun group has thought it would be funny to come and report us as a bad site. :cray:

 

[wooddoctor]

You should be proficient with the gun you're going to carry. Practicing with one caliber and carrying another is asking for trouble.

Jay, good wisdom it should be in you mussel memory

 

[Dutch1911]

The above named article has me giving a full applause. It's far more in depth than what I have given as my "advice" but directly in line with it. I love to hear of stories of folks that have not treated women looking to buy a gun as a small child.
I tell everyone woman or male the best caliber for you is that which you can fire accurately, repetitively and safely.

 

[jtg452]

What is a Casull? I have to ask, there are so many guns out there. It is a hand gun? what Caliber? I have never heard of it.

Basically it is a .45 Colt that's been stretched out and put on steroids. It first was developed back in the late '50's. Up until the .50AE (the Desert Eagle round) came out, it was the most powerful hand gun cartridge in the world and survived for decades as a wildcat before it was picked up by the major gun makers back in the '80's. Even today, after the .500S&W and all the new big bore revolver rounds have come out, it's nothing to sneeze at. It basically picks up where the .44Mag leaves off in both bullet weight and velocity.

The .454Casull means a big gun (Ruger Redhawks came in .454 and nobody will ever say Redhawks are not big guns), big bang, BIG recoil. You can push a .454" diameter bullet weighing 435gr (that's basically 1 ounce of lead. 1 ounce = 437.5gr) up to just over 1200fps. The 'light' loads use a .454" 240gr bullet (over 1/2 an ounce) traveling at anywhere from 1700 to 2000+fps. It works at a VERY high operating pressure (everything happens very fast). The pressure is so high that you have to go up to the .35 caliber belted magnums to find a rifle round that has similar pressures.

I got a chance to shoot one once. That's when I decided I didn't need all those hard kicking, harder hitting pistol rounds. That was the toughest 5 rounds I've ever fired.


Back to the topic at hand.

I agree with what's been said about shoot what you are most accurate with and comfortable shooting.

I've been competing in Cowboy Action Shooting for over a decade and I've seen women shooting everything from .32's loaded so light that you can almost see the bullet going down range to .45 Colt with 255gr bullets mashed down on top of a case full of FFFg Black Powder. There's really no difference between men and women when it comes to shooting firearms. If a woman decides she wants to shoot a gun, she'll shoot it. The only issue that may arise is hand size but that's an issue for men with small hands as well. Heck, I'm over 6 feet tall and over 200 pounds and I have problems with some of the double stack, large bore semi autos being so wide and thick in the grip. It seems logical that anyone (no matter what gender) that's a foot shorter and 100 pounds lighter than I am would have the same issues, too.

I used to work in a gun shop and I always HATED it when a man came in to 'buy a gun for his wife'. If the gun's for his wife, then SHE needs to pick it out. A man's got as much business buying a gun for a woman as he does picking out high heeled shoes for her. I figure he's got as much knowledge about with will work or won't work for her in both instances.

 

[Rocketgeezer]

Basically it is a .45 Colt that's been stretched out and put on steroids. It first was developed back in the late '50's. Up until the .50AE (the Desert Eagle round) came out, it was the most powerful hand gun cartridge in the world and survived for decades as a wildcat before it was picked up by the major gun makers back in the '80's. Even today, after the .500S&W and all the new big bore revolver rounds have come out, it's nothing to sneeze at. It basically picks up where the .44Mag leaves off in both bullet weight and velocity.

The .454Casull means a big gun (Ruger Redhawks came in .454 and nobody will ever say Redhawks are not big guns), big bang, BIG recoil. You can push a .454" diameter bullet weighing 435gr (that's basically 1 ounce of lead. 1 ounce = 437.5gr) up to just over 1200fps. The 'light' loads use a .454" 240gr bullet (over 1/2 an ounce) traveling at anywhere from 1700 to 2000+fps. It works at a VERY high operating pressure (everything happens very fast). The pressure is so high that you have to go up to the .35 caliber belted magnums to find a rifle round that has similar pressures.

I got a chance to shoot one once. That's when I decided I didn't need all those hard kicking, harder hitting pistol rounds. That was the toughest 5 rounds I've ever fired.


Back to the topic at hand.

I agree with what's been said about shoot what you are most accurate with and comfortable shooting.

I've been competing in Cowboy Action Shooting for over a decade and I've seen women shooting everything from .32's loaded so light that you can almost see the bullet going down range to .45 Colt with 255gr bullets mashed down on top of a case full of FFFg Black Powder. There's really no difference between men and women when it comes to shooting firearms. If a woman decides she wants to shoot a gun, she'll shoot it. The only issue that may arise is hand size but that's an issue for men with small hands as well. Heck, I'm over 6 feet tall and over 200 pounds and I have problems with some of the double stack, large bore semi autos being so wide and thick in the grip. It seems logical that anyone (no matter what gender) that's a foot shorter and 100 pounds lighter than I am would have the same issues, too.

I used to work in a gun shop and I always HATED it when a man came in to 'buy a gun for his wife'. If the gun's for his wife, then SHE needs to pick it out. A man's got as much business buying a gun for a woman as he does picking out high heeled shoes for her. I figure he's got as much knowledge about with will work or won't work for her in both instances.

Thats a good comparison, as i have a Super Redhawk and a friend had a Desert Eagle, when we shoot his Desert Eagle gets a lot more use,LOL, the 454 is a tad stronger, ballistics wise, the 50AE is more easyer to shoot

 

[zarry]

I carry 2 ways. First is on my hip in a generic kevlar-type holster, both open carry and cc with an over-sized outer shirt. The other way I carry is in a fanny pack. Today, I just bought a Bianchi Auto Retention Carrylok holster and have questioned its use for both carry on my "curvy" frame. See here.

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[Cyr]

Glock Fan: Am I missing something???

Being that this is a thread on large caliber handguns, I'd like clarification on a particular caliber. At least 2 posters have talked about a ".9" caliber handgun. I've also seen reference to a ".9mm" handgun. I am not familiar with either caliber. The largest caliber handgun that I know of is the S&W .500 Magnum. I do not know of any caliber larger than the .500 mag. I'm guessing that the ".9" is a typo, but being that there's new stuff coming out all the time, I could be wrong.

On the converse, a ".9mm" would be very small. A millimeter is small to begin with. Imagine a bullet that is 9/10 the size of a single millimeter.

This is an open forum. Our posts could be viewed by a lot of people. It's important that we realize this and be sure that we're posting accurate information.

Old post, but worth an answer: '9' (lose the decimal point because your question is NOT a technical nor a scientific paper, okay) is simply a fast way to refer to the 9mm Luger or Parabellum cartridge. The 9x19mm cartridge is more formally referred to as either the 9mm Luger, or 9mm Parabellum. Strictly speaking millimeter (mm) is NOT a cartridge caliber designation. It is a cartridge 'chambering' designation instead.

In my opinion, the three most popular 9mm cartridges in the United States are: (1) 9x19mm, also called the 9mm Luger, or the 9mm Parabellum cartridge. (2) The 9x17mm, also known as the 380 Auto, 380 ACP, 9mm short, or 9mm Kurz (German for short); and (3) the 9x18mm Russian Makarov cartridge.

Over the past 25 years I have trained upwards of a dozen women in how to use a self-defense handgun. Most of them turned out to be more effective with a pistol than many of the men I’ve shot shoulder-to-shoulder with. (My own very gentle and feminine wife among them!)

Call me old fashioned, too conservative, or too careful; but, because women tend to be mothers and spend a lot of time around family and/or children, and less time at places like shooting ranges: I strongly prefer to keep women away from trickier and more difficult to live with semiautomatic pistols. (I don’t want any of them to ever wind up on my conscience!)

Want to know a ‘secret’ about training with pistols from an old firearms instructor with more than 40 years of handgun training and handling experience? I just read through a long post on handguns and finding the perfect ‘Holy Grail’ pistol for a woman.

IT’S ALL PALAVER AND NON SEQUITURS—ALL OF IT!

The so-called ‘right handgun’ is not a matter of fitting the gun to the person; it is, instead, a matter of fitting the person to the gun. Think about it! What happens when a person enters military service? You learn to shoot what the military gives you, and that is that! Well, this attitude, this willingness to learn, is no different in daily life than it is in the military. The military hands you what conflict has taught to be the most effective weapons; and, afterwards, it’s up to you to learn how to use these highly effective weapons properly. (Something that far too many recruits never really learn how to do!)

Me? Today I carry a Glock, either a 9x19mm, or a 45 ACP pistol. However, I strongly prefer to teach women how to skillfully use a 357 Magnum revolver; and, so far, the training regimen I use has worked out very well. In the beginning, the primary thing I am concerned with is how well a revolver fits the user’s hand. That’s it! Proper fit in the hand is the first training obstacle that has to be overcome.

Then I work on instilling Cooper’s 4 Firearm Safety Rules (+1 more) into the student’s head until these rules stop being just items to memorize, and become PROFOUND PERSONAL HABITS, instead.

After these first two steps have been accomplished a neophyte handgunner is ready to begin working on: (1) How to acquire and maintain a proper grip on the pistol. (2) How to complete a SMOOTH, UNINTERRUPTED, and easily REPEATABLE trigger stroke. (3) How to watch and manage the front sight; and, finally, (4) Recoil desensitization and firing rhythm management.

In my experience 357 Magnum revolvers have proven to be ideal handguns for a woman to both learn on and use. Neither do I particularly care if lower powered ‘target’ 357’s, or 38 Special ammo is selected. Personal health and physical strength can be issues, and I leave this choice up to each student.

My primary focus is training each new female student in how to tightly group her shots, and repeatedly hit the target while firing in true (uninterrupted &non:staged) double-action mode. I like to see a new pistol student be able to place all of her pistol shots into a nice tight 8 inch circle at 10-12 yards; and, as I’ve said, to be able to do it REPEATEDLY!

What is my favorite pistol drill for new students? I use several variations of George Harris’ ‘Wall Drill’. Here is my own wife’s Sturm-Ruger SP101 357 Magnum revolver. It is spec’d out and set up in the exact way that it should be for EDC: It’s got a polished action job, a 3 inch barrel, soft rubber Hogue Monogrip, and a spurred hammer for those occasional longer shots.





She can carry this smallish, but somewhat heavy, little revolver in either: a belt holster, a pocket holster, a fanny pack, or (my personal favorite for her) a ‘wineskin’ under-the-shoulder lady’s handbag.