So you want to buy your girlfriend/wife a gun

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1858remington

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Having worked in a couple of local gunshops through the years, I have encountered many a man with this desire. If you are thinking along these lines, there are some things you need to consider.

01. Has your lady ever shot a gun? If not, do her a big favor and have her go through a safety course before you think of buying.

02. What experience does she have with firearms? Take her to the range and have her shoot guns of varying size, type, and caliber. you wouldn't buy a car without test driving one first. Sure the .380 has fancy grips and a gold trigger, but maybe she's more comfortable with the Glock 19. Neither of you will know unless you shoot both.

03. Listen to her not your buddies. This could save a marriage or relationship. If she says she wants a 9mm, dont buy a .380. Unless of course you want to hear about it every time you both go to the range. with enough trial of firearms she will know what she wants.

04. When you go to buy, take her with you. Men, women like to look things over before they buy. My ex-wife took over an hour to inspect coach bags before she bought the right one. The same goes for when she is buying her gun.

05. Dont just think, small wife = small gun. Small guns can be uncomfortable to shoot. If she's made uncomfortable, she wont shoot it. If she wont shoot it, Then its you with the girly gun on the range with your buddies. Dont forget women tend to be great shots. I've seen many small woman handling large caliber guns with no problem.

06. Dont go cheap. Your girl likes good things much like you do. You go cheap and you will hear about it over and over and over. If you truly love her, show her.

07. In case I didn't mention it, Listen to your woman!! Buy what she wants, in the caliber of her choosing.
 
Well, like I have been saying lately in the converse (or is it inverse) thread "what gun do I get my wife"

Go ahead and buy that gun for her...
I am sure you will look great in those diamond ear rings, and the Prada Bag that she buys you.

Ask her, take her, let her buy her gun. After all, how would you feel if she bought you "your" gun.


Great post Remington, and something that many men don't bother to think about, how can the interwebz tell you better than the person who is supposed to shoot it, what they will like.
 
I agree.
It's like guys don't consider their wives/girlfriends to be actual people with their own tastes and preferences or something.
It's a basic respect thing. Just let them choose their own guns - or maybe even no gun at all if they're totally against it.
 
Agree completely. My wife's first reaction on her first trip to the range when I showed her how a revolver operates was "Oh, they built one for ME!" (she is not mechanically inclined and all the buttons on my autos confused and intimidated her). She spent a year shooting S&W's, Colts, Taurus's, and finally settled on a Ruger GP161 with small grips and light springs.

Her next purchase was a Ruger 10/22 with a Jacaranda stock (it's pretty), and a red dot (this is neat). She HATES pink and when I showed her a S&W M&P 15-22 she said "It's nice and this is probably silly, but I like wood."

Now we're looking at entry level shotguns in bantam and youth sizes. The main contender so far is a Mossberg Silver Reserve O/U Bantam because, yup, you guessed it "It's pretty".

Oh, I should also mention, she shoots some of my milsurps with reduced loads. Her favorite is my M96 Swedish Mauser with a 6.5 x 55 load of 17 grains of SR4759 under a 140 grain A-Max because, yup, "They're pretty. They remind me of painted fingernails." The load she asks me for at the range? "Did you bring any 'Lady Fingers'?"

Upshot? She has gone from gun-hating liberal to a total range rat. "I know we need to reload a bunch of ammo, but do we have enough for ANOTHER trip today?" Now she found another teacher at work who is a gun-nut. They're already talking trapshooting together. This is going to become expensive.:D
 
One problem with letting your lady pick out her own firearm is you might well find out her tastes are as expensive as your own. My S.O. has decided she wants a .357 revolver (has rented/shot a few) and when she came upon a S&W performance center 327 TRR8 fell in love. I won't disparage her tastes, but :banghead:.

I got lucky luring her into firearms. She loved my Buckmark and she now loves her gifted and tweaked "just for her" all the more. She just bought her first self-purchase, firearm and I'll be tuning up that 10/22 for an Appleseed date for the two of us in the spring. Golly I love this gal :).
 
I'd say whatever works, there aren't any rules. My wife said she wanted a pistol 30 years ago, so I got her a stainless, .38 S&W Chief's Special. Last summer she said that she wanted another pistol and I got her a Dan Wesson VBOB. She likes and shoots both of them.

Had her out shooting when I got my FN SLP shotgun this spring and she really got into blowing things up with it. Just purchased a 26-inch barrel for it and took her out trap shooting for the first time this past weekend. Now she wants trap shooting lessons ....


You have to go with the flow and just be attuned to the entire relationship.
 
with enough trial of firearms she will know what she wants.
Click to expand...

I think that about summed it up.

Someone here recently gave three steeps to helping a woman buy a gun, he said.

Step 1: Go to the gun store and give her the credit card
Step 2: Back away from the counter
Step 3: Shut up

I would also add to be ready to buy another gun in a few months, she will most likely either love the gun and want another or she'll hate it and want another.
 
my wife picked up every gun she thought she might like in the 1000+ table gun show. She ended up with a kahr 9mm. :)
 
On the other hand, go out and buy one of each, revolvers, semi autos,single action, 1911's, compact, polymer, stainless, nickle,blued, .22 to S&W .500. Blindfold her and put each one in her hand and let her choose. You get the leftovers.I've done this for 4 wives, and now own 83 hanguns.
 
DeepSouth for the win with his 3 rules. That's how my wife gets her guns, the only thing we discuss before hand is price limit.
 
Those 3 rules nail it, BUT you have to be careful about the clerk trying to push something on her that just won't work.

My Dad pushed my mom into buying a Beretta Tomcat which she did not like but is happy with a .38 revolver.
 
My gf has become my range buddy. We go every weekend and she loves my autoloaders but a guy at the range was trying out his new .357 smith and when she saw that muzzle flash she fell in love.

Bottom line, i thought she would want an autoloader but she loves the classic look of revolvers. In terms of what she wants...S&W 686 in stainless steel and some cocobolo grips. I had no idea :uhoh:

she says revolvers are like Harleys and autoloaders are like Kawasakis.
 
Never Tell Girlfriend what to buy

I don't tell her what guns to buy. She had range duty with the Old Guard and also supervised quals for the MP battalion she was assigned to.

As my daddy told me before I entered OCS always listen to your competent Chiefs and senior enlisted. They can either help you or f you over real bad.
Girlfriend is USA retired E-7.

I dont tell her what cars, trucks or tractors to buy. Only advice I give is on repairs and reliability.

She is currently on a quest for a nice O/U for sporting clays, another for hunting and a nice 9mm for carry. She chose a SCAR 17 for when it all goes to hell and for zombies.

Now I know all her sizes and know La Perla, Agent Provocatuer, HK, Browning, Beretta, Jimmy Choo, Aston Martin, and Laboutin will get me out or trouble.


Va Herder
 
She just wants me to make this decision.

Here's the deal...
01. Yes, many different sizes, types, and calibers.

02. A bit. Every since we've been together, she's shot as much as I could encourage her to do so. She's not the type to initiate a range day, but if she's in the mood when I'm going, she'll come too and she enjoys it.

03. She has no idea what she wants. She has tried several rentals and every gun that could be borrowed or lent. She never can come up with any type of decision. She wants a tiny gun that weighs nothing, but not a .22 rimfire, and she doesn't want it to recoil at all, but wants it to be a man-stopper.

04. We go together, but she wants me to run the show. She wants me to pick the handguns that I think she'll like and then she handles them. If we walk into Gander Mtn, I take the kids and tell her that I'm going to look at hiking boots and I tell her to go look at handguns, she refuses. She does not have enough of an interest to 'shop' for herself, and when she's holding a pistol, she doesn't know what to look at, look for, nothing. She wants a small one that will disappear while carrying and she wants me to tell her which one is best.

05. I'd give her a thousand dollars if she would just make a decision. I don't care what she wants, just come to a conclusion. We were watching Edge of Darkness... the daughter kept a Kimber in her nightstand, so my wife thought it looked cool and wanted a Kimber, until she held one.

06. Price is of no concern.

07. I'm listening, but she's not saying anything.
Click to expand...

She says that she really wants to carry a handgun. She's been saying that for many years though. She's taken a concealed carry class and a women's NRA Basic Pistol course. She's tried many different guns, but she can't decide what she wants. She only knows that she wants a tiny, weightless man-stopper that doesn't kick. I'm supposed to take that information and find her a gun.
 
Her expectations don't sound realistic.
We all want a tiny, weightless manstopper that doesn't kick.
But tiny weightless manstoppers kick like hell.
And tiny weightless guns that don't kick like hell might be OK, but they are not manstoppers.

I've heard the .327 Federal is a relatively respectable cartridge with not much recoil, but haven't tried one personally and probably never will since I already have a gun that does that job. You might try a Kel-Tec P-32 for the tiny and weightless requirement. The recoil on them isn't bad, they're surprisingly accurate in my experience, and they're cheap. Not exactly a manstopper, but I'd carry one.
 
Her expectations don't sound realistic.
Click to expand...
That's my point.

My wife wants to carry, but not bad enough to do any real searching or evaluating. I want her to carry, but I'm not going to shove an XD in her purse and tell her that she's good to go. She's just not motivated enough to move forward at a consistent pace. She's also too indecisive to come to a conclusion. So back to the title of the thread...
So you want to buy your girlfriend/wife a gun
Click to expand...
Yep, sure do. Unfortunately, none of the advice that I've received is getting us anywhere.
 
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