Soon to be gun owner needs help

[RICH 45]

OK but you might want to look at the numbers first. Your #9 soft lead 12 ga. bird shot is traveling at about 1000 fps at the muzzle. My Gamo Extreme with a hardened alloy in .17 cal. pellet traveling at 1600 fps. At 10 feet? I like my chances.

[RICH 45]

But we have digressed. First handgun IMO should a med. frame .357 revolver. Most versatile, shoots more different ammo, .38 wad-cutters thru full .357 mag (even bird shot). Will hold 5 to 8 rounds of ammo.

[tck]

Have to agree with "roadkill". 357 MAG is the way to go. Ruger's GP-100 is a fantastic wheel gun. I own other .357's: SW (2),Colt (1) but the GP is awesome. Mine is 6" blued, dressed up with Houge wood grips. Gorgeous and it's a great shooter.
Nice thing about .357s is you can use lower cost and recoil .38 sp at the range and .357s for serious work.

[rjgnwdc]

Birdshot is useless for home/self defense.

Never said birdshot although I do have a round of 6 shot behind the 2 rounds, 7.5 shot and behind the 2 rounds 00 just in case he keeps coming, by then he's close enough to not be concerned with any missed shots

[lfdtruck3]

My thoughts are for a first time gun owner, buy an S&W 686 in a 4" barrel and shot .38 specials at the range to save bank and use .357 mag for home defense. A wheel gun is much better then an auto for a first timer. Auto are good CCDW weapons and hold a lot more ammo, but you tend not to aim as much as you would with a wheel gun.

And as far for an AR-15, there great guns for CQB if you know how to use them. There very costly and ammo is not cheap any more. If you don’t respect them and don't know how to use them, you can kill innocent people very far away. For a 1st time gun buyer I would recommend a 12 GA. Shotgun with 00 Buckshot. A Remington 870 Mag.

[Malifax]

My first and favorite gun of all time is a 2" .38 special. This gun has a great deal of advantages. It always goes "bang" and the range is decent as a defense weapon. That being said my carry gun is a Bersa Thunder .380 with 8 round flat bottom mag. Yes there are better guns out there. But for the money this little Bersa is accurate, has all the safety features I want, is light and easy to conceal with a IWB holster, can be pocket carried, is easy to maintain, and ergonomic. Sure it would be mighty nice if I could pack around a 1911 with a high cap mag. But I cannot justify the weight and the size is hard to conceal. It is always a second choice to have to be in a gun fight with a pistol. For me a good rifle or shotgun is the best weapon to get into a gun fight with. It comes down to the gun I will carry ALL the time verses the gun that stays in the glove box because it is to heavy and hard to conceal.

[bigdad5]

Dear soon to be:

I have started a thread on the Bersa Thunder .380 under Bersa Thunder Pistols That is something you may want to check out .
Over all, almost evey one of the posts that have been added to your thread is accurate, concise, and helpful. The Ruger revolver in .357 would be an excellent choice for all around shooting. And yes the Ruger will take any sort of load you put in it and not even breath hard. But I like the idea of owning as a first firearm with light recoil and low cost to get started . That being said i like the Ruger.22 Mark III. That pistol is about as stable, fun, economic , comfortable, and learnable to shoot as any sidearm as you can find. I am of the opionion that learn first the right way with out any bad habbits forming BEFOR you go heavyer. Then after you learn you can buy something larger and deal with the recoil and heavy loads of a .357 revolver or larger. But i also promote, as a first low recoil firearm as i have mentioned is the Bersa Thunder. My friend no matter what you read the answer is you can spend as much or as little as you want and still not be happy. Buy. what you can afford and learn all you can about the draw backs. I, will agrue one point that i have seen many times . Though the .357 is a great firearm and has a plethra of shootable loads i do not like it for home defence unless you are useing light loads like .38's. There is too much muzzle blast, too much recoil , too much muzzle flash, and with a full factory load to much over penatration which is a danger in home defence.

I do accept personal questions just read my post that i mentioned .

bigdad5

as for the AR15 no advice from me on that little gem other than to say many places make one and most are reliable

[Roadkill Bill]

The first gun we bought for home defense and recreational shooting was a S&W 2206 which is a .22LR. The reason behind this was that my wife had never fired a handgun, and being a real weenie, she wouldn't like anything that hurt in any way. This was a full sized, stainless steel firearm with absolutely no recoil. She loved it. Now I know this wasn't the best choice for home defense, however, both of us could put 12 rounds in a pretty small group pretty darn fast.

The next gun was a Ruger SP101 for my wife. She would practice with .38s, and a limited amount of .357s, so she would be prepared if she had to use it in defense with her 357 loads. Now, a bit older, our snubbies (her Ruger and my K-frames) carry Winchester 110-gr. .357s with less recoil, but still a bigger punch than .38+Ps.

For a newgun I'd suggest something you can afford to shoot a lot, and practice a lot. The cost of ammo is out of sight these days. You want a gun for recreational shooting and home defense, I'd suggest a .22LR first, then either a .357 (and shoot a lot of .38s), or a 9mm. (Wow, did I just recommend a semi-automatic?!?!!) Yeah, I bought a Ruger SR9 just so I could shoot the cheap Russian ammo for fun. My favorite do everything round is a .44 Special, but the ammo is too expensive for a lot of practicing. Others that are easy on the shooter, like .380s, 9x18 Mak., etc, are just too expensive to be practical.

Later when you decide to get a carry gun, that will be a whole new argument!

Let us know what you get!