Originally posted by Ghost Tracker:Like my dear ol' Pappy once told me - "A good golfer practices & a bad golfer...buys new clubs". Brother, it's not the arrow, it's the Indian!. Get settled then get GOOD.
That's the truth! I've been seriously attempting to improve my defensive shooting skills alongside someone else. We both started this "quest" at the same time. For the purpose of extreme familiarity, I have stayed with one gun for the process. I won't say what it is, because as long as it's reliable and quality-made, it doesn't really matter.
The other person has tried 3 different guns. All of them of reputable manufacturer and huge followings in the shooting community. They've been really searching for the pot of gold at the end of the personal defense pistol rainbow. Adjustable sights, custom gunsmithing, fitted match-grade barrel, the works. Then it was holster choice. Which one is faster on the draw? Holsters were changed frequently, trying to find the "fastest" one.
Who's the better overall shooter now? It's me, by a noticeable margin.
I put my focus on one thing. Learning the fundamentals of handling that particular gun. Choosing a single, quality holster to stay with and practice draws from. Learning the intricacies of the trigger, how to go only to reset and make that a completely automated task even under pressure of time.
My point from the outset was to make myself the only variable. The gun was the same, the holster was the same, the drills stayed the same. Any improvement would only be attributable to skill increase. If I'm always bringing out a new gun or a new holster to use in the beginning, how will I ever know that I'm getting better?
What I can tell you that I learned is this. For me, the standard holster placement at 4:00/4:30 is too far back for efficiency. Same for the magazine carrier placement at 8:00/7:30. The reach is just too awkward for my physique. Now, my holster is at 2:00, and my spare mags are at 10. I'm working on the muscle memory on the mag changes, but the new draw was almost automatically adopted by my brain. The shooting fundamentals remain the same, though.
What you can glean from all this is to just choose a gun, all of your options listed would work fine. Don't shoot anything else while you're learning. Build up the muscle memory. Otherwise, you're going to simply be lost at sea.