Best Home Defense Gun For My Wife

[grparks]

I have a problem. My wife is 5'2" and not interested at all in learning to shoot until such time as there's somebody ALREADY IN THE %&%*# HOUSE.

Now she acknowledges the importance of being able to defend ourselves and given our location and the average response time of police to this location, her putting a shotgun load into the ceiling ought to have cops in the house in about 3-5 minutes. So far I have been satisfied with the concept of her getting one shot off (assumed miss) from my 12ga and probably scaring whatever suburban kids got into the house off.

It occurs to me, however, that with the 12ga she might actually land on her ass or never even manage to get the shot off because she's assuming it'll be like the movies and she'll magically know how to use the thing. Heck, she might go and try to fire it from the hip and wind up with the gun somewhere behind her and a broken trigger finger.

So, with all that in mind, I'm looking for suggestions on the easiest gun that I can have around the house for her to use or at least hold menacingly that she'll actually be able to pick up and be even maybe possibly effective with.

My ideas to date are:
1. slingshot
2. aluminum baseball bat
3. bottle of pepper spray
4. frying pan
5. Roomba robot vacuum with kitchen knife battle harness (ankle biter)
6. cell phone with 911 on speed dial
7. something in 20ga with a semi-auto action and a pistol grip (and a stock)
8. .380 auto with no safety
9. .357 revolver loaded with .38


All joking aside, does anyone else have any suggestions?

**Obviously, I'm working on the other side of this which is luring her to a range with a trail of American Idol paraphernalia laid out like bread crumbs. There I hope to teach her the basics like which end the bullets come out of.

[stalkingbear]

A 20 ga would be the best bet for home defense loaded with a 2 3/4" #4 or #4 buckshot. Barring that I started my wife off with a revolver. To this day she carries a .38+P S&W model 442. A revolver would be so much simpler to learn how to operate than a semiauto.

[Travis]

Gary, I have to say I like idea # 9 you have. A good .357 Magnum loaded with mild / stout .38 Spl. or .357 Magnum. Both loads can be obtained with 125gr. or 158gr. projectiles and are VERY mild for women of your wifes' stature. Even a .38 Spl. revolver like the Ruger Synthetic Frame LCR that can handle the .38 Spl. +P loads are plenty to stop "hob goblins" from doing any damage.

.380 ACP is nice, but a lot of folks don't have too much good to say about it. Me personally, I like the .380 ACP, but shot placement is crucial with a load / round like that. 9mm is ok, but has been known not to be a reliable one or three shot stopper, and some / most women do have a hard time learning to shoot a semi automatic or racking the slide. A revolver is simple, straight forward and easy to use. Just point, squeeze and do it again. A good 3" or 4" barrel would be about the best to avoid wobble when sighting too.

Most double action revolvers can be cocked for smoother single action shooting as well so as not to have all the trigger travel / take up and makes the shot more accurate in most cases. Trigger training is a crucial note. Don't yank the trigger!! Squeeze it and the gun going off is supposed to "startle" you. Also, NEVER anticipate the recoil that will cause flinching and a good BB gun and a few tubes of BB's will help cure that flinch.

I wish we lived closer Gary, I can teach people how to safely handle firearms and use them effectively, I have done it for years and found some green folks that made some of the best shooters I have ever witnessed. Some of them went into the military too and are still serving our country.

[billybob03]

my ak-47 sits in the closet.
30 round clip in it, ready to go.
billy

[Travis]

Bill, No offense my friend, but the Clip and the Magazine are both animals of a different color. A Clip is known as a charger / stripper as in the M-1903 Springfield, K98 Mauser, M-1 Garand etc. .

A Magazine is what the AK-47 uses or the M-14, M-1911 pistols, Ruger P-89 / 90 etc. . ;D

P.S., Pump and semi auto shotguns have a Tubular Magazine, bolt action shotguns have a box magazine too. No harm, no foul buddy.

[Travis]

Another good choice I'm seeing on the market today {with further handling / shooting on my part} is the Taurus Judge with the THREE INCH cylinder. 3 inch cylinder you ask? Well, you can chamber .45 Colt, 2 1/2" .410 and 3" .410 all in 1 revolver! Buckshot, slugs or .45 Colt jacketed, semi jacketed or lead slugs too, in any configuration be it Hollow Point, Soft Point, etc. . For a 5 shot revlover with carefully placed shots, how many rounds do you REALLY need?

.410 or .45 Colt even with the Cowboy Action loads in 255 grs. is still a mildly recoiling round because those rounds are not meant for full blown combat or longer range defense, they are meant to make a noise on steel plate targets, but even at close range I would not want to receive one center mass!!

Notice I did NOT say ".45 Long Colt"? There was never anything listed officially as a ".45 Short Colt" to warrant the name of "Long Colt" in the first place. You do have .45 Auto Rim, .45 A.C.P. / Automatic Colt Pistol, .45 Colt, .455 Webley, etc. . At least not in modern times / post Old West days.

Cor-Bon makes some great loads for the .45 Colt and so do many other manufacturers that make .45 Colt. If the round was that bad, would it have survived for so many years? Its inception was in the latter portion of the 1800's! It can outperform the the .44 Magnum with the right handloads and in the right firearm but for close in work like the Taurus Judge is meant for, you don't need all that "complicated jargon corrupting your mind".

I'm closest to the same mindset of the late Elmer Keith when it comes to big bores for self defense as I am just a humble civilian. The F.B.I. and the C.I.A. want a smaller to medium bore with specially designed ammunition to control the recoil under rapid firing in a fire fight with the "bad guys" better than having to opt for a .45 A.C.P. or the 10mm which several years ago was considered by the F.B.I. for stopping power but found the recoil to be "too harsh". They will spend billions of our tax dollars to try to develop the perfect bullet for the perfect caliber. BULLPUCKY!!!!

Well, if you are really shooting for defense in the household environment carefully placed shots even with a larger caliber weapon should not warrant the fear of recoil due to the adrenaline rushing through your veins and realizing it is not I going to be killed, but he killed in the process. So therefore the .45 Colt / .45 A.C.P. and even 10mm are very good choices in my humble opinion. 10mm is VERY close to the diameter of the old .38-40 Colt round, not the same, but VERY close for diameter. That was proven by a former writer for Guns & Ammo magazine named Ross Seyfried back in the early 1990's.

I do see a trend / pattern since the days of "J. Edgar Hoover vs. John Dillinger". Back in those days, you HAD to be able to handle the Thompson Sub Machine Gun, B.A.R., various 12 ga. shotguns and the like. Now they HAVE to handle the Heckler & Koch 9mm MP-5 and 9mm pistols, and .40 S&W and the like. .40 S&W / Smith and Wesson / Short and Weak is a shortened up 10mm, no more, no less. Kind of like the .38 Special and the .357 Magnum or the .308 Win. to the .30-06 Springfield.

Then you have what I like to refer to as the "Specialty Calibers" which in most cases are rather hard to find from your smallest "Mom & Pop" gunshops, Wal-Mart, and in some cases even Cabelas or Gander Mountain or Bass Pro Shops chains. Without ANY offense I'd like to include a few below....

.41 Magnum, .44 Special, .44-40, .38-40, .45 Auto Rim, .455 Webley, 9x23, 9mm Largo, 9mm Makarov, 10mm, .30 Carbine in Soft Point or Hollow Point. Just to name several, most of which have slipped my mind at present. I try to keep my calibers simple and common. Not saying I have most / some of these but here are my choices for a defense situation below....

.45 A.C.P., .44 Magnum, .38 Special / .357 Magnum, .45 Colt, 9mm Parabellum in HEAVY grain weights, and then we can get into shotgun gauges like the 20 gauge, .410, 16 ga., 12 ga. depending on the area / environment you live in whether it is out in the woods, suburban, rural, city etc. .

You do have a LOT of newer calibers out there such as the .327 Federal Magnum which in its own right a damn fine caliber but still not too readily available in a lot of stores I mentioned above. .357 Sig is another one, while good, not too easily found. .45 G.A.P. which is a gross attempt to fix the NEVER broken .45 A.C.P., but in a shorter round, that is kind of like a mix of the .455 Webley, .45 Auto Rim and the .45 A.C.P. all in one.

One round that TOO many people overlook is actually .30 Carbine, even in Full Metal Jacket from a revolver like the Ruger Blackhawk or in semi automatic pistols like the AMT Automag or the IMI, it is a damn fine round for home defense with little to moderate recoil and will stop "crooks" with little effort even from a short barrelled handgun, much less the M-1 Carbine itself.

I own an M-1 Carbine and all I have or could find was the F.M.J. ammo for it and as soon as I can get the rear sight repaired on my Carbine I'll load a 15 round magazine for it as a home defense weapon and if need be I can fix a bayonet to it too for just in case and give my Marlin M-1894S .44 Magnum Carbine a break. Where I live the .44 Marlin Carbine is a bit too much.

Even a .22 L.R. or a .22 Magnum is better than 2 .25 A.C.P.'s in both hands!

So many variables, so little time. I'd like to see this thread go on and on!