On The Topic of Back Up Guns

I carry a NAA Blackwidow. Every. Single. Day.

Now, I feel much better with a .357 in my coat pocket or IWB. I like the comfort of my .45 Shield riding at 4 o clock. Serious and hard hitting guns.

Serious and hard hitting guns that I often am forced to leave locked in my truck or office. There are times that when I must meet with customers wearing fitted jeans and a polo in which even the most flat .380 may still be noticeable. I simply don't have that problem with the little NAA revolver as it rides right next to my pocket knife and does not print.

Is it my favorite type of gun to shoot? No. Do I wish it had more than 5 rounds of .22 mag? Of course. Is is faster to access and pop off a shot than reloading my primary? Undoubtedly.

I like to keep it on my person off hand. If someone were to grab my dominant arm, I could retrieve the Blackwidow in no time. I like that it is small and robust and I literally have had to pat myself down trying to remember I had it on my person. Of course I did. I always do. I have been walking on a dark sidewalk after a dinner out with my wife and she wants to take a stroll by the river. Safe place, but deep dark shadows in the alleys. I wish I had clipped my Shiled to my waist, but it's a super warm evening and a tucked in dress shirt with no coat will conceal nothing at the nice restaurant we have eaten at. I fidget for my pocket knife. A totem. Something to rest my hand on as we walk. I feel the rough spur of a small hammer and the familiar leather holster I crafted. Nestled deep in my pocket and tossed in before dinner due to muscle memory is the loyal little Black Widow. Not what I would take to war, but I was certainly happy to feel the smooth laminate grip resting in my hand as we walked along. Would I have preferred something bigger? Of course. However, I was more concerned about a nice evening out with my wife rather than dressing around a gun, and I was very happy to know it had hitched a ride.

I practice with it where I can hit a pie plate size target at 3-5 yards instinctively point shooting. I almost always have a larger, more powerful gun on me, but I ALWAYS have the Black Widow to back it up. Even when I carry my Shield and a spare magazine. The scrappy little NAA is there, never letting me roll totally naked.

In a perfect world I suppose you would carry a BUG that shares ammo with the primary, or is even more powerful than the primary, etc.

In the real world, the bulk and weight may not make this entirely feasible.

Everything is a compromise. Carrying your favorite rifle around with multiple mags in case you run into a roving pack of hooligans is not on the table for most people and is generally frowned upon.

If your 2-3 extra mags or ~60 rounds of 9mm haven't solved the problem, whether or not you have a LCP or a .44 Mag is probably neither here nor there. Just having a BUG/2nd option of most any kind already puts you "ahead of the game".



There is a point of overkill/overthinking things. I think this might be a case of that, personally. No offense intended to anyone; by all means please keep doing whatever makes you comfortable and I'll do the same.

Fiv3r said:

I carry a NAA Blackwidow. Every. Single. Day.

Now, I feel much better with a .357 in my coat pocket or IWB. I like the comfort of my .45 Shield riding at 4 o clock. Serious and hard hitting guns.

Serious and hard hitting guns that I often am forced to leave locked in my truck or office. There are times that when I must meet with customers wearing fitted jeans and a polo in which even the most flat .380 may still be noticeable. I simply don't have that problem with the little NAA revolver as it rides right next to my pocket knife and does not print.

.

Click to expand...

PLEASE DO explain why you "must meet" with skinny jeans on ??.

I could be VERY snarky and say why there is a reason to do so = but I will be polite and just mention that a gun is meant to be COMFORTING and not comfortable.

Much smarter men than I taught me what I should have seen for myself.

After having a few incidents where the lack of a real tool for that job was left behind due to "dress style",I read that you dress to carry the proper tool and not the other way around [ make the tool fit your "wardrobe".].

The comment about not being comfortable is only meant to point out that a larger gun is not as cute & easy to conceal.

BUT it is doable all day and for at least 16 hours at a time.

Mr. Mosin said:

Little loose ? Nah. Just right. If I was wrong, you wouldn't be seeing UPS trucks that look like Swiss cheese, with a toll of innocent bystanders hit, the list longer than my forearm every other month.

Click to expand...

Into hyperbole much?

I'm late to this, but I am one of those "unacceptables" who carries a backup that is chambered in a smaller caliber than is my primary. To make it even more ghastly and shocking, the only spare magazine I carry is for the backup, not for the primary. This is so that, should more discretion be needed somewhere I go, the primary gun, worn on the belt, can be shed while leaving me my second gun (eight rounds in it) and a spare magazine (with an additional ten rounds.)

The calibers chosen are 9mm Luger and .32ACP. Both are Kel-Tec pistols. Sometimes, I even stick a third, even smaller gun, on board somewhere, a NAA Mini in .22LR, just because the new, engraved boot grips I just got for it are so cool.

Some of the people who insist that your backup is unacceptable if it's not as "capable" as your primary are less quick to castigate anyone who doesn't even carry a second gun.

MedWheeler said:

I'm late to this, but I am one of those "unacceptables" who carries a backup that is chambered in a smaller caliber than is my primary. To make it even more ghastly and shocking, the only spare magazine I carry is for the backup, not for the primary. This is so that, should more discretion be needed somewhere I go, the primary gun, worn on the belt, can be shed while leaving me my second gun (eight rounds in it) and a spare magazine (with an additional ten rounds.)

The calibers chosen are 9mm Luger and .32ACP. Both are Kel-Tec pistols. Sometimes, I even stick a third, even smaller gun, on board somewhere, a NAA Mini in .22LR, just because the new, engraved boot grips I just got for it are so cool.

Some of the people who insist that your backup is unacceptable if it's not as "capable" as your primary are less quick to castigate anyone who doesn't even carry a second gun.

Click to expand...

My wife carries a kel tec p32 as her edc. It may not be the biggest powerhouse of a round but it’s the only one she shoots accurately. Also she’s confident with this setup and that is probably the most important thing. I carry my pf9 sometimes with my p3at as a backup

Change your smoke detectors batteries. Prepare for the more likely than the unlikely.

I sometimes carry a New York reload when I'm out on the bike and riding in the back country. But other than that, I don't do stuff or go places where I would get me into a situation where there would be in an extended shootout.

What is the frequency of people having to use a backup gun, and what is the failure rate in those incidents because of inadequate caliber, low capacity or contact-shot failure? I only know one person who had to use a backup in a shooting, a S&W 640, and he did not run out of ammo. While I think it is a good idea for people involved in high-risk situations to carry backups, I don’t think that the type of firearm, caliber or capacity matters that much. The Glock 42 is my current favorite for many reasons. Most important are that it is light, accurate and fun to shoot, and, consequently, I shoot it a lot. YMMV.

Kleanbore said:

I would opine that backup guns make sense for LEOs who may lose their primary weapons in close quarters while effecting arrests or intervening in fights.

Click to expand...

Yep, many cops are shot with their own gun, a backup definitely makes sense for them.

Kleanbore said:

Such information is not compiled.

Not available.

The likelihood of either is surely far less than remote. It's the stakes that matter.

I am not aware of any, but it does happen.

I would opine that backup guns make sense for LEOs who may lose their primary weapons in close quarters while effecting arrests or intervening in fights.

They provide the quickest way to react to a malfunction or to reload.

The could be very useful for people who spend a lot of time strapped into the diver's seat of a vehicle.

Click to expand...

The very fact that so few of us EVER need to fire a shot to save ourselves or another is a number that is hard to pin down.NOTE = that Bloomberg et al have HEAVILY armed guards,when was the last time anyone attacked one of them ?.

By the same fact = we carry for THAT DAY / THAT MOMENT, when not due to our intentional putting ourselves in harms way ----- it came to find one of us.

A BUG is also called a NYC [ new York City ] reload as back when all cops carried a 6 shooter [ model 10 S&W 99% of the time ] the NYCITY RELOAD was to drop your primary and pull your BUG [ a S&W snub in the same caliber as your primary.

I was issued a S&W model 10 heavy barrel,and was told that a BUG was not allowed ----- I chose to face the "tried by twelve" reason to disregard and learned to REALLY conceal well.

By the time we were allowed to carry & qual with a BUG,I was THE authority about BUG's due to my fellow officers knowing I did.

And yes I let them know as too often they would leave their gun at he station after making an arrest,then NEED to help me clear a building with their empty holster.

This is the stuff you don't get from the F.B.I.U.C.R. [ fbi uniform crime report ].

If I feel the need to carry a BUG my primary is going to be a long gun. Better still I'll just not go

I read these kind of threads in amazement and amusement. I was in law enforcement for 35 years and during that time I never criticized or cared what anyone's choice of duty weapon was or, if they carried a backup, cared what it was or if the calibers matched. Never thought it was any of my business. Feel the same today.

When I first came out of the academy we were issued a S&W Model 28 or you could provide your own as long as it was from a reputable manufacture and in .38/.357, 9 mm, or 45 ACP. The .40, .357 Sig and 10 mm calibers were added later. I carried the issued Smith with two speed loaders. I never carried a backup but worked with many who did. If you carried a backup or off duty firearm you had to qualify with it and you were limited to the above calibers. They later added .380 and .32.

In the trunk of my patrol car I carried a range bag that contained a thermos of coffee, assorted gift cards from Subway, Arby's and other sandwich shops. No I didn't have any doughnut gift cards. I also had a Browning Hi Power in a duty holster with two magazines and my off duty gun a .380 Walther PPKS. The Hi Power was my "just in case" gun.

If anyone here wants to carry a Smith 629 44 magnum and a Beretta .25 ACP as a backup that's a personal decision that I, nor any one else, should care about or comment on.

scaatylobo said:

And yes I let them know as too often they would leave their gun at he station after making an arrest,then NEED to help me clear a building with their empty holster.

Click to expand...

I was guilty of this once and only once and it was a very scary moment!!

My EDC is a Rohrbaugh R9 carried in my right front pocket.. If I could have afforded a second one, that would have been my backup. I do carry a backup, a Remington RM380 in a wallet holster in my back pocket. The RM380 is almost identical to the Rohrbaugh R9 including the trigger.

I do have a SAR B6P in my car holstered on my center console

Usually it will be a different caliber. Most often there will be a 25acp in a pocket regardless of what else I might carry.

scaatylobo writes:

And yes I let them know as too often they would leave their gun at he station after making an arrest,then NEED to help me clear a building with their empty holster.

Click to expand...

I armed a brother officer with my sidearm because of that once. Found an unlocked door to an office building, and he came to go in with me, sans revolver. I gave him mine and went in with my shotgun and had moved my ankle gun to a front pocket. This building was left unlocked by its proprietors so often that we basically used it for midnight-shift "training" more than we ever expected to encounter an incident there.

Another time, it was me booking a prisoner with my sidearm locked up when a "shots fired" call rang out for the apartment complex directly across the street from the station. I threw my guy in the cage and ran outside, knowing my car was right outside the door. I stopped at it to retrieve my shotgun, then hustled across the street to assess while the other guys were coming.

It was pretty much a retirement complex, and some old codger had lit off a few from a Beretta .22 after some kids cutting through had mouthed off to him when he yelled at them to get off the property. Yeah, he went back across the street with me.

Mr. Mosin said:

I know several gents that conceal a 1911 Gov't. One or two more that conceal a G19. Do they print occasionally ? Most certainly. Buddy carries a G42, in pocket. It prints. It also resembles a phone. Most that I know carry either a snub .38/.357 or a subcompact 9x19 AIWB. No printing, no being made, and easy to access.

Click to expand...

I'm curious. What are you using as a primary and what BUG do you use? Or are you feeling out others to see what they carry for a BUG? How many rounds does your primary hold?

Mr. Mosin said:

I'm feeling out what others carry.

Click to expand...

Great. But what is your primary carry?