bannockburn
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A SIG P226 will serve you quite well in the HD role. My own choice for that is a P229R with a SIG STL 900 laser/light module attached to it.
Pistol for home defense
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Gentlemen this is a knowledgable site. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to reply. I MUST remember to tell my friend about adding a good flashlight to the package. I may not have the Sig yet but I do have a good flashlight right there on the nightstand next to my carry piece.
I have a P226 in 40 S&W that really shoots great, I think that gun works just a little better with the bigger caliber 40 than the 9mm. I like the Sig P225 or P228 / M11-A1 in 9mm better than the P226 in 9mm. For me, the CZ-75B, Glock 17 or BHP suit me better as full size nines better than the P226; just my humble "O".
Captain33036
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Any good quality, high capacity 9mm, with a rail that is 100% reliable will do. Glock 19, FNX and FNS 9's and of course the SIG.
To me, a light on the rail is a must. I do not want to have to grad two things in the night and have to use both hands to hold something.
I like the SIG because it is SA/DA. You can chamber a round and, if you like, keep it under your pillow, and feel perfectly safe. Glocks have no safety, so, would have to be on the night stand, only. FNX FNS, have safety's as do M&P's.
If you live in a state that only allows 10 round magazines, I am not sure I would chose a 1911, .45acp. 10 round mags for them ...*can* be unreliable. And....not sure if you have ever woken in the middle of the night and grabbed a gun, but, there can be a certain amount of muscle weakness at first, and so a heavier gun might put you at a disadvantage.
Also....and JMHO.....a 45 is going to be slower to bring back on to target for accurate, follow up shots, or multiple shots in a multiple attacker scenario.
That might give the nod to a lighter weight, 9mm gun. To me, agility is important, when faced with an adverse, defense situation.
The one advantage a Glock has....you can mod them 'till the cows come home. Including adding a safety (there are two types).
My personal choice order would be:
SIG 226R 9mm
FNS/FNX
Glock 19
1911 .45acp
Hope this helps
To me, a light on the rail is a must. I do not want to have to grad two things in the night and have to use both hands to hold something.
I like the SIG because it is SA/DA. You can chamber a round and, if you like, keep it under your pillow, and feel perfectly safe. Glocks have no safety, so, would have to be on the night stand, only. FNX FNS, have safety's as do M&P's.
If you live in a state that only allows 10 round magazines, I am not sure I would chose a 1911, .45acp. 10 round mags for them ...*can* be unreliable. And....not sure if you have ever woken in the middle of the night and grabbed a gun, but, there can be a certain amount of muscle weakness at first, and so a heavier gun might put you at a disadvantage.
Also....and JMHO.....a 45 is going to be slower to bring back on to target for accurate, follow up shots, or multiple shots in a multiple attacker scenario.
That might give the nod to a lighter weight, 9mm gun. To me, agility is important, when faced with an adverse, defense situation.
The one advantage a Glock has....you can mod them 'till the cows come home. Including adding a safety (there are two types).
My personal choice order would be:
SIG 226R 9mm
FNS/FNX
Glock 19
1911 .45acp
Hope this helps
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I disagree with this. (unless by "feel" perfectly safe you are admitting that it is just a feeling because, in reality, you are NOT perfectly safe)
My advise to anybody willing to take it would be...do NOT put a loaded gun under your pillow while you sleep.
Olderbutwiser
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Tarosean~~Thank you for reminding me about that ruling. You're absolutely correct. He did overrule the 7 rd capacity. Now, we're back to 10 rd capacity limit in NYS, from what I understand. Lots of confusion about the so called' Safe Act' law. :-(
Captain33036
Member
Warp - good point.
Relatively safer. A Loaded weapon in DA mode (since the SIG has a decocker) is IMHO...relatively safer than a loaded, round in the chamber Glock would be.
Or, kept in a case, under your pillow.
Not sure why...but ...the gun on the night stand concept bothers me because if you are asleep and someone sneaks into your BR, they then have access to the weapon, before you do.
Relatively safer. A Loaded weapon in DA mode (since the SIG has a decocker) is IMHO...relatively safer than a loaded, round in the chamber Glock would be.
Or, kept in a case, under your pillow.
Not sure why...but ...the gun on the night stand concept bothers me because if you are asleep and someone sneaks into your BR, they then have access to the weapon, before you do.
With some training, and some more training, and a lot more training virtually any gun can be a good home defense gun. Training means shooting a lot, and shooting a lot means a lot of expensive bullets, or a lot of reloading. Unfortunately I think a lot of folks worry more about which gun to get, and don't spend enough time doing some quality practice.
And I mean more than just standing still making holes in paper targets.
Having said all that your buddy will be fine with his Sig. Personally, I feel that Sig's barrels sit too high for my taste, but their grips fit my hand nicely.
I tend to keep my home defense auto with a loaded mag and an empty chamber. If the bad guy won't leave after hearing the gun go into battery then I guess he wants to see what's coming next!
And I mean more than just standing still making holes in paper targets.
Having said all that your buddy will be fine with his Sig. Personally, I feel that Sig's barrels sit too high for my taste, but their grips fit my hand nicely.
I tend to keep my home defense auto with a loaded mag and an empty chamber. If the bad guy won't leave after hearing the gun go into battery then I guess he wants to see what's coming next!
If that happens you are are doing it wrong and you are completely screwed no matter what.
Do you not have an alarm?
No dog(s)?
Not even the little battery powered $5-$10 adhesive-mounted alarms you can put on doors and windows that sound off if contact is lost?
Hullraiser
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I'm a huge fan of Sig, but if you relied on a pistol for home defense only the Taurus Judge or similar would be a good choice too. Maybe even alternate 45LC & 410 ga w/00 buck in the cylinder.
7 round limit was struck down as unconstitutional, it's 10 again.
Hullraiser
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thefamcnaj
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Yes the sig would be an excellent HD gun. I use its little brother, the sig p229 elite for nightstand duty.
hAkron
Member
I think most people's objection is that these 410/45 Colt revolvers don't hold many rounds for how gigantic they are, and many initial reports were that 410 out of a handgun isn't as effective as one might hope (this is ammo dependent and somebody may have produced something that works well in this platform by now). 45 Colt is a stout round, but again, not too many great defense choices, and it doesn't have much of an advantage over higher capacity guns in 45 ACP. The S&W governor is a slight improvement in that it holds 20% more rounds (6 shot vs 5 shot) and it can shoot 45 ACP, but for the cost, you might as well get an N Frame 25/625 in 45 ACP if you are intent on using a 45 revolver for SD.
I would say a 410 revolver like the Judge or the Governor beats no gun at all, but in my personal opinion, you would be better off with a more traditional hand gun and a 410 Mossberg 500 near by.
Any handgun would be a good choice - reliability is important, capacity isn't so much. Most home intrusions don't have a lot of rounds fired, once the perp is aware the homeowner is up and armed they evacuate. And not because they heard them rack at shotgun. 
Home invasion is just the latest permutation of TEOTWAKI. Hence the cautions about "I don't want to do that when somebody sneaks into my bedroom." For a large number of the people on the planet, somebody beating in the door, clumsily navigating their way thru a dark, unfamiliar house interior, and then getting past the household pets, wife, and kid's toys left in the hall to get to an exposed gun on the nightstand - in the dark - is internet fantasy.
Most perps won't enter a building if the owners are home, they were looking to get in while they were away. They may not be the best and brightest, but they are smart enough to assess risk and avoid confrontations. They were looking for an easy score, no effort, high profit target.
So - why is your house even on their radar? Poor personal habits, lousy building security, and quite often some display of ostentatious wealth they personally found offensive. So you are getting robbed - in part - to put you in your place. You don't rob the obviously poor, you rob the notably well off.
At this point there are more problems than buying a handgun will fix.
In the real world, most home invasions are due to you stealing your drug dealers stash and selling it out of your home, harboring a thugs girlfriend who's bad enough to come in and take her back, or some procedural screwup, LEO or gangbanger.
Don't encourage the first two, and help make your house more obvious to authorities it's not the correct location. Like, put a number on the house. Review you activities, do you have dozens of strangers hitting the doorstep at odd hours? Are your doors and windows that easy to break in? The notion that houses should have grates over the windows and even rolling shutters over the doors can help in hurricane and tornado zones.
Another method of keeping perps out of your neighborhood is by creating a watch zone and staffing it. Or, MOVE. If you are experiencing break ins and intrusions in your area, time to reconsider - can you afford to sell (cheap, most likely,) or stay up some nights in crime time to report it?
Sometimes things are more screwed up than a gun will fix - work on them first. And work on how to protect yourself and your family in the home - know where you can or can't shoot. Where are the kids, and in the reverse, are they behind you where the perps will be likely firing back if armed? No sense putting them into the line of fire.
Lots of stuff to figure out.
Home invasion is just the latest permutation of TEOTWAKI. Hence the cautions about "I don't want to do that when somebody sneaks into my bedroom." For a large number of the people on the planet, somebody beating in the door, clumsily navigating their way thru a dark, unfamiliar house interior, and then getting past the household pets, wife, and kid's toys left in the hall to get to an exposed gun on the nightstand - in the dark - is internet fantasy.
Most perps won't enter a building if the owners are home, they were looking to get in while they were away. They may not be the best and brightest, but they are smart enough to assess risk and avoid confrontations. They were looking for an easy score, no effort, high profit target.
So - why is your house even on their radar? Poor personal habits, lousy building security, and quite often some display of ostentatious wealth they personally found offensive. So you are getting robbed - in part - to put you in your place. You don't rob the obviously poor, you rob the notably well off.
At this point there are more problems than buying a handgun will fix.
In the real world, most home invasions are due to you stealing your drug dealers stash and selling it out of your home, harboring a thugs girlfriend who's bad enough to come in and take her back, or some procedural screwup, LEO or gangbanger.
Don't encourage the first two, and help make your house more obvious to authorities it's not the correct location. Like, put a number on the house. Review you activities, do you have dozens of strangers hitting the doorstep at odd hours? Are your doors and windows that easy to break in? The notion that houses should have grates over the windows and even rolling shutters over the doors can help in hurricane and tornado zones.
Another method of keeping perps out of your neighborhood is by creating a watch zone and staffing it. Or, MOVE. If you are experiencing break ins and intrusions in your area, time to reconsider - can you afford to sell (cheap, most likely,) or stay up some nights in crime time to report it?
Sometimes things are more screwed up than a gun will fix - work on them first. And work on how to protect yourself and your family in the home - know where you can or can't shoot. Where are the kids, and in the reverse, are they behind you where the perps will be likely firing back if armed? No sense putting them into the line of fire.
Lots of stuff to figure out.
Ed Ames
Member
I think most of the criticism of the judgeoids is specious or obsolete. People slapping each other on the back about not having a judge in their tactical wheelbarrow, while missing major changes in ammo availability. I still don't see it as relevant here. It isn't 9mm. It isn't a semi-auto. Whether good or bad, it doesn't fit in this conversation all that well.
But it isn't as specious as this:
That is a nonfactual blame-the-victim assertion. Poor people are far more likely to be the victims of crime, including robbery.
But it isn't as specious as this:
That is a nonfactual blame-the-victim assertion. Poor people are far more likely to be the victims of crime, including robbery.
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Captain33036
Member
These days, only about 20% of households are two parent families with children. So, that leaves 80% of households with no toys for bad guys to trip over.
And from 2005 to 2010, 1.4 million guns were stolen in household burglaries.
In So FL, the number of break in's, with people home, is on the rise as bad guys feel they can target older people more aggressively.
The concern for leaving a gun out in the open, is no internet myth.
I have a good security system. But I am also very thorough about preparedness and security, since I used to do it for a living.
Thanks
And from 2005 to 2010, 1.4 million guns were stolen in household burglaries.
In So FL, the number of break in's, with people home, is on the rise as bad guys feel they can target older people more aggressively.
The concern for leaving a gun out in the open, is no internet myth.
I have a good security system. But I am also very thorough about preparedness and security, since I used to do it for a living.
Thanks
Hullraiser
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^ hAkron. You're probably correct, it's just hard to imagine a 45LC or a 410 w/"00" buck not being effective at close range. I also suppose if were a group of invaders you may be lacking in round count. My wife has one , but keeps a j frame 38spl close. I've never shot it.
Personally I keep a Sig 1911C3 on my nightstand. There's also a mossy 500 cruiser 12ga w/00 buck nearby
I got the impression the OP was not real familiar with pistols and just threw that out there because of ease if use & greater odds of hitting something in middle of the night .
Personally I keep a Sig 1911C3 on my nightstand. There's also a mossy 500 cruiser 12ga w/00 buck nearby
I got the impression the OP was not real familiar with pistols and just threw that out there because of ease if use & greater odds of hitting something in middle of the night .
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While every gun mentioned so far will fill that role well, I would recommend a glock 20 or fnx 45 just because 15 rounds of 10mm or 45acp is a force to be reckoned with. In all actuality though any high capacity handgun 9mm or better would be ideal.
Olderbutwiser
Member
Thanks PPS43~~It was so noted in another post before yours. Hey! Glad someone reads these things. Yes, Back to 10 rds mags in NYS.
The Sig 226 comes in 9 mm, 357 Sig and 40 S & W. i would prefer the 40 but my friend shot my 40 and prefers the 9 mm with the 20 round magazine. Different strokes for different folks. I asked the question that I wanted and really appreciate all of the replies. I also mentioned to him that a good flashlight was a great idea. We have not discussed whether it should be attached to the accesory rail or not. Defense should be preceded by good thoughts. It is a serious step hopefully for serious people.
For those who favor the Judge there is an in depth analysis of the Judge for self defense in The Box o Truth. It was not rated very high. If you favor the Judge check out the article.
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot53.htm
For those who favor the Judge there is an in depth analysis of the Judge for self defense in The Box o Truth. It was not rated very high. If you favor the Judge check out the article.
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot53.htm
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Ed Ames
Member
krupparms
Member
I like the S&W, S.D.9. It started life as the Sigma but is now in its 4th.Gen. It is a accurate & reliable S.D. pistol. Holds 17rds.& cost a lot less! The grip is better than the glock for most. I have owned the Sigma & thought it was a good buy. But the S.D.is a great buy! I do like Sig. But my S.D. has never let me down! Check one out. JMO. Good luck with whatever you choose.
There is a huge difference between "out in the open" and "under your pillow while you sleep".
Do you not have a nightstand with a drawer? Or could you not get one?
Or one of the many quick access handgun safes?
I don't think you need to have a handgun under your pillow to avoid having one "out in the open"
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