Special Circumstances for my wifes gun

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ARK9mm

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My wife suffers from some major arthritis in her hands and wrists. She is only 32 but was born with extra digits and due to surgeries and such she has lots of internal scar tissue and arthritis. She also has weak wrists and not much grip.

With that much information, do any of you have suggestions for a pistol. I have her convinced to get her ccw (finally!!).

I have heard revolver vs auto arguments. What do you 'pros' think?

Thanks in advance!

CH
 
With weakness in the hands, racking a semiautomatic pistol sounds like it might be too much. A lightweight revolver sounds like the ticket. .38 cal with +P loads would be my minimum caliber. I believe Smith & Wesson makes a model called "Ladysmith", which I suspect is light and designed for smaller hands. A snubnose is probably fine which will also help to reduce weight over a longer barrel. If the double action trigger pull is too much, have a trigger job done. If done right, you'll have a better feel to the pull with less effort. I'd get it down to under 7 pounds or whatever it takes for her to be comfortable with the pull.
 
I would say revolver vs autoloader depends on her wrist and hand strength. Just guessing from the info in your post, I'd say a revolver would be a more likely bet. We couldn't find a semi-auto with a weak enough slide spring to suit my wife, racking the slide on any of them was just too difficult for her. She settled on a SW 5-shot .38+P revolver (637 IIRC) that she's comfortable with.
 
I should have said already:
I have a Kahr CW9 that she can't rack. I have tried a Glock, Bersa and S&W (all autos). She couldn't rack them. I thought about something that I could rack and put on safe for her. So all she would have to do is unsafe and pull the trigger.
 
My mother has similar hand/arm strength issues.

The only gun she can carry, operate, and present is a Beretta 21a in .22lr. Yes, it's small, but it is her only option. Bigger autos she either can't operate or can't hold up. Smaller lighter revolvers have too much kick for her wrists. Bigger revolvers are too heavy.

Your best option is to start by seeing what amount of weight she can hold up to present the pistol.

Once you know how big a gun she can use, look for the actions she can work. Flip up barrels? Slides big enough for her to grasp and easy enough to operate? Cylinder latches?

Now that you have a size and action that are compatible with her, find out how much recoil she can handle. Once you've identified this, you've found her gun.

ps.. giving her a pistol that she can't operate is like giving you a car that you can't fill with gas.
 
22MAG revolver

Obviously not the best round for self defense, but given your description of her limitations, this weapon would probably give her the necessary confidence of being able to train fairly frequently and avoid significant pain from training. You could consider training with a 22LR or 22MAG revolver but have her carry a small all steel 38Spl which she could fire a few times each training session so she is reasonably familar with it. Of course, if she was comfortable with the recoil and could train with the 38Spl all the time, even better. I'd definitely recommend an all steel 38Spl just so the recoil is not so intense. Let her read corneredcat.com as well. Lots of very good information there for her (and you). Performing excersizes to improve grip strength would also be a huge benefit to her.
 
Take her to the range and see what she does best with, it may be a gun that you never thought of. People who suffer with arthritis, really need to try several different guns, in order to find that one gun that they shoot well, and can "pick up" quicklly .
 
How about a Beretta 86? The slide need not be racked at all, having a tipup barrel. And it can be set up for "cocked and locked" carry, negating the heavy DA trigger pull with the accompanying long reach, either or both of which might be a problem.

Sensitivity to recoil is one of the few times I recommend a .22. A pistol like a Ruger holds 10 rounds, has a light trigger pull and can be fired controllably and fast, provided she can draw back the bolt. A .22 revolver eliminates the slide/bolt racking, but has the DA pull problem.
 
Get something with contoured target grips, maybe? Better ergonomics would help spread out the recoil. It'd make concealment more difficult, but still...
 
If you think about recoil you might be better off suggesting a heavier gun for her. Some ultra-lightweight revolver with a hot load will generate more felt recoil than the same load in a heavier steel framed revolver, at least from my experience. If her hands are so weak that even holding a handgun is a hassle then shooting one will be more so, and in which case I'd be referring her to long arms and short shotguns.
 
My bride, as well.

She's tried them all, and yes, she has tried the method PAX advised on her website, the Cornered Cat. Her lack of upper body strength just won't accomodate a slide.

So instead, what she chose for herself and settled upon, are two revolvers.

One is a Ruger SP-101, worked on by Grant Cunningham, a prominent revolversmith out of Oregon. He does great trigger/hammer work.

This Ruger is heavy enough to absorb some of the recoil of the .38 Special Gold Dots she keeps in it.....but it's not so heavy she can't hold it up.

The second she chose is a Smith & Wesson Model 317 Airweight .22LR.

That's stoked with 8 Stingers.

She's at the range with me every weekend and she enjoys HER choices.
 
Maybe you can find a gunshop/range that rents guns. That way she can try a few and see what works for her. Somehow, the NAA Black Widow in .22 magnum comes to mind.
 
The Old Charter arms pathfinder in 22 mag would work great. I have chronographed mine and it pushes the bullet right at 1300fps. No recoil to speak of, but has a loud bark.
 
I'm 40 with arthritis and have trouble with racking some short barrel autos and recoil of most large caliber guns.
I have recently gotten back into shooting and started looking for new guns. I did some research and got a 3 inch barrel auto. I could rack it, but it was very hard. The recoil was terrible for me. I could only shoot 80 to 90 rounds and would have to stop.
I have ended up with a full size 5 inch SA 1911 operator in 9mm. It still has a kick but it is very manageable. I can shoot about 250 to 300 rounds before I have to stop.
Racking the slide on my 1911 is very easy with the hammer already cocked. It takes little to no effort at all.
The heavier gun and longer slide did the trick for me. Your wife might want to look into something like that.
Also, I have no problem CCWing the full size pistol.
I have a friend who had a colt 1903 that is a dream to play with also. Easy to rack and fire.
Small caliber revolvers are also good. Having some soft rubber grips should also help a lot with them, and might let her get a larger caliber if she wants.
 
Have her work with a local instructor. The guy doesn't have to be the second coming of Jeff Cooper, but you don't want someone who just got out of NRA basic instructor school either.

Seriously, find an experienced instructor near you, explain her physical capabilties, and he/she will work with her to find a solution that works.

I've had several students with different physical problems and so far we've managed to work out solutions for all of them. It does involve more time and personal attention then just taking the standard NRA Basic Pistol class in a group of students. Any good experienced instructor should have some ideas for techniques and equipment that might work for her.

This is the kind of thing that really works best one-one-one and in person. That's why I'm even relunctant to make any other specific suggestions.
 
I'd suggest a DA Full Hammer revolver. If she can't rack a slide on her own, the auto should probably be out. She won't be able to clear a jam or load/take care of the weapon in the event you're unavailable to help at that moment.

A revolver she can load and shoot on her own. I suggest a full hammer so she can get the benefit of a SA trigger and she'll probably be able to cock the hammer.

A hammerless DAO Revolver is fine too though, for her. But definitely a revolver. As for the chambering, buy a .357 but load with .38Spcl first and see how her hands hold up after shooting that. If she's good, let her fire off a .357 or 12 and see how that feels. If she can handle firing a full cylinder of .357 without pain, load .357. If it hurts, load .38spcl.
 
I know I am somewhat dense but why would she need to rack the slide? I understand even in a protracted battle where one would have to change magazines, the hammer is still in the cocked position and all that is required is to activate the slide release lever and squeeze the trigger. The only time I could see the need to actually rack the slide would be to clear a jam.
 
I know I am somewhat dense but why would she need to rack the slide? I understand even in a protracted battle where one would have to change magazines, the hammer is still in the cocked position and all that is required is to activate the slide release lever and squeeze the trigger. The only time I could see the need to actually rack the slide would be to clear a jam.
Click to expand...

I briefly considered this when trying to recommend something for my wife. But as much as I wanted "her" to get that G26 I'd been thinking of, I just couldn't possibly recommend something to her that she couldn't totally operate on her own. All it would take would be somehow the gun gets stuck or needs racking or something (like a jam possibly) and she'd be stuck and wouldn't be able to get her pistol back into operation. Maybe she'd accidentally hit the slide release before seating a magazine perhaps, especially in the heat of the moment if she really did need her gun. Neither she nor I felt comfortable taking a chance of that happening, in fact, I think it's likely something like that would happen at some point. I would not feel good at all about my wife having to depend on a firearm she could not load, unload, and operate in every way it's meant to be used. I could tell from trying to teach her how to operate my other pistols too that she wasn't interested in learning all the controls and methodology of the autoloaders once she realized the slide was going to be a problem.

Interesting note - I too have one of the Kahr CW9s and I think it has the stiffest slide spring of any pistol I own, bar none.
 
Have her try out a bunch of different guns, one never knows sometimes unless you try.
Haveing her carry a semi that you cock seems like the wrong way to go.

The Beratta tilt barrels are something to look at but I believe they only come in fairly weak calibers.
I like the mid size .357 revolver . Start her out with 38 target loads (which will still be beter than some of the mouse guns) and move on to more powerfull loads if she is able. Worse case is haveing to cock the hammer with her off hand if she is unable to handle the double action trigger but this isn't terribly slow if some practise is got in
 
My wife has arthritis, but she loves shooting her Smith&Wesson 431PD in .32 H&R mag. It's light, conceals easy, has 6-shots and reasonable recoil. Unfortunately, S&W doesn't make them anymore, but you might find them used. S&W made a number of similar models, with exposed or concealed hammers, over the years. These include the 431PD, 432PD, 331, and 332.

A heavier and less concealable option would be to get a rare used Ruger SP101 in .32 H&R mag, or buy a new one in .327mag, and fire lower recoiling .32 Long, or .32 H&R mag ammo out of it.
 
Let her try as many as possible.
My wife has wrist problems and finally settled on a GP-100.
It's easier for her to hold on to than my SP101, and heavy enough that there's almost no recoil from .38 Special +P.
She can shoot it for quite awhile without any problems.
 
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