Decisions...Decisions...

[D.B. Cooper]

EDC guns come and go, there is always something new or better every year.

However, if your XD-E is in .45ACP, then buy a second one. I don't anticipate any other manufacturer offering a similar size subcompact 45 with the same features.

9mm. I'm not really a fan of 45ACP. (The 9 v 45 wars are over, and 9 won.) But I think you're right, and I'll raise you one: I don't anticipate any other manufacturer offering a similar size subcompact, in any caliber, with the same features. The XD-E will likely live on as an example of commercial failure, in league with the Ford Pinto.

 

[D.B. Cooper]

Well this was timely. According to John Corriea, no need for most gun owners to own a duplicate firearm.

 

[trackskippy]

If youre a high volume shooter, I think its definitely a sensible thing. Why wear out in practice what you are betting your life on? The more you shoot it, the closer and closer you get to a problem popping up. Will that be in practice, or a bad situation when you really need to count on it? Is it worth that worry?

Even if you dont shoot a lot, I still think its a sensible thing. You never know when something might go south, having an exact duplicate available just makes sense.

I shoot a lot and have two duplicates of what I carry. One for carry, one for practice, and one as a back up spare.

When you get down to what ammo costs are, the guns are the cheap part of the equation, and not really a big deal in the scheme of things, cost wise anyway.

If you're buying guns of known quality and durability, your probably going to be fine with just one, especially if youre not shooting it a whole lot. The one Glock I use in weekly practice didnt have a parts breakage until it was 5 or 6 years old, and in the 90K range. And even with the breakages, it was still working "sorta" (trigger return spring broke, gun still worked if you held the reset), not that you would continue to carry it that way and wouldn't want to get it fixed. It didnt have a failure that was more or less critical (broke a rail) until right around 150K. Glock replaced the frame and rebuilt the gun at that point too, and Im still shooting it today.

And just to put the ammo vs gun cost into perspective, What I spent in ammo, just based on my reloads costs in the 10 years or so I was shooting the gun before it broke the rail, I could have bought somewhere around 51 new 17's with the money spent on ammo. 35 or so if I used factory ammo. In the long run, the gun is cheap.

 

[Archie]

One thing the 22S will never be is a "collector arm" and for many it is doing well to be a "using arm".

One never can tell. When I started collecting .32 automatics, part of the appeal was they were cheap. No one else seemed to want them.
That didn't last too long.

All that aside, people should buy anything - including a firearm for some reason. "They're popular" is possibly a reason for some, but it's not my reason. "My Dad had one" I understand. "There's an elephant that keeps stomping my petunias" (I'd check that out were it my business) is an excellent reason to buy an "elephant gun". Buying an old gun and waiting for it to become desired is a long shot.

Look for what one likes. Including, of all things, use.

 

[SwampWolf]

Buying an old gun and waiting for it to become desired is a long shot.

When you get to be eighty years old, buying any gun and waiting for it to gain in value is a very long shot indeed. The "wait" might test what little patience you have left on this side of Jordan.

 

[Mosin77]

I think a lot of people are inclined to buy the guns for the volume of shooting they wish they shot, rather than for the amount they do shoot.

Example: the lady in that video shoots 10k rounds per year. All participants in the conversation agreed that it’s unambiguously high volume, a lot, way more than the average dedicated gun owner who trains. 10k rounds a year is about 4 boxes a week. Which honestly sounds great -an ideal or even relatively low volume that many of us would love to shoot …hitting the range early Saturday morning with a few boxes of ammo. It doesn’t sound excessive at all, but statistically, it is. It’s easy to think “with the amount I’d like to shoot, I should get a second gun.” The unanswered question there is whether I actually shoot enough to make that reasonable. I constantly have to fight against my own temptation to double up. I also think the bogeyman of inaccessibility is a big part of it. “They discontinued this model, I may never see another, I should buy this one now, the price is reasonable.” It’s a powerful argument because it makes spending money on something I don’t really need feel like prudence, wisdom, and even thrift. To counter this I have a long-standing quest to wear out a pistol. Thus far, no dice. I’d say my guns are barely broken in.

 

[JR24]

Well, I have a deep and abiding disgust for the S&W22A platform, so it would be an easy choice for me.

Don’t care for them much either.

As for a spare carry gun, I like a second set up the same for practice and dry fire. That way I don’t have to constantly unload/load my carry gun for daily dry fire or weekly shooting.

I still do shoot the CCW once a month or so anyway.

Of course, dry fire can be done just fine with other guns too and still be perfectly effective, so I’m not super worried about a spare CCW, I’ll just get one if I happen to have the opportunity (last time it was a convenient trade I did not go looking for).

 

[JERRY]

Decisions decisions....

Night sights on 3 of my guns (one Glock and two S&W revolvers) with a holster for each and a red dot for an ar15 , or.... another gun like a police trade in G17 or one of those Turkish 1911 clones?

 

[D.B. Cooper]

Decisions decisions....

Night sights 3 of my guns (one Glock and two S&W revolvers) with a holster for each and a red dot for an ar15 , or.... another gun like a police trade in G17 or one of those Turkish 1911 clones?

If a Glock or a 1911 was your carry gun, then sure, I could see saving some money and using a clone as the trainer. My preference for the DA/SA trigger narrows my options.