The wife finally gets it. II

[Rebel Gunman HK]

Went to a movie at the mall on Sunday and stoped in at Oshmans as I normally do with the wife in tow. As Im looking at what they have my wife says "I like that one". Points to a S&W 908. My wife never says she like any gun over the next. So I ask the sales guy to see it. Turns out I agree that it fits her hand very nicely being that it is a single stack & she has smallish hands. She also has problems with D/A trigger pulls on some of my pistols, but not this one. It was real light. Plus being at Oshmans the price was right so I asked her if she wanted it. She also wants another diamond ring, so she was very conflicted. She askes for time to think about it and we go home. Soon as I lay down for a nap she decides she wants it. So we head back to the mall and she buys it in her name. We grabbed some ammo and headed out for the desert. She shot very well with it but she did have a couple problems.

First it is nearly impossible for her to lock the slide back using the slide release w/o a empty magazine in the gun. I had to do it for her. Her grip just wasn't strong enough. Finally I just had her putting an empty mag in and pulling the slide back to lock.

Second was she was kinda limp wristing it a bit. We had no ftf but the casings were flying straight back into her face. When I shot it they extracted out to the right just fine. Other than working on the grip is there anything that can be done about this?

Third and last problem was loading the magazines, not a big prob. I can help her with that. Im just worried that since this is "her" gun and I am training her to carry this for personal defense, I want her to be able to manipulate all of the controls effectivly. Hopefully with practice this will all work itself out.
I had wanted to get her a revolver because of her strenth but she was excited about this gun so hopefully we can get it to work for her.

 

[Waffen]

Glad to hear about the wife getting her own pistol. Unfortunatly I had a really good buddy get a NIB S&W 908 with nothing but troubles. It fit his hand really well but thats about all it did well. No matter who shot it, or what type of round shot, the gun would shoot unpredectibly. He eventually traded it for a Springfeild 1911 and never looked back.

Like I said before I am quite glad your wife has gotten into shooting, there is nothing the sport needs more than women shooters, however I just wanted to let you know there might be a better suited gun out there.

 

[pax]

Reb,

Congrats to you and your wife.

First it is nearly impossible for her to lock the slide back using the slide release w/o a empty magazine in the gun. I had to do it for her. Her grip just wasn't strong enough. Finally I just had her putting an empty mag in and pulling the slide back to lock.

That method works okay, but if she ever has to clear a double-feed when you aren't around, she will need to get the slide back and locked by herself.

I'd suggest that her weak hand just holds the slide in one spot while she pushes the gun itself forward with her strong hand to rack the slide. This is much, much easier than trying to pull the slide back with the weak hand.

Also, have her push up the slide latch while she racks the slide, rather than trying to hold the slide all the way back while she fumbles around for the latch.

Those two things together should make the job doable for her.

Third and last problem was loading the magazines, not a big prob. I can help her with that. Im just worried that since this is "her" gun and I am training her to carry this for personal defense, I want her to be able to manipulate all of the controls effectivly. Hopefully with practice this will all work itself out.

Although she should be able to load her own magazines, this isn't as big a deal as her being able to lock the slide back by herself -- because you could simply buy a plethora of magazines, and keep them loaded for her. There's no chance that she's going to get into a firefight requiring more than three magazines, is there?

pax

 

[Sam Adams]

Why not get her one of those thumb-saving devices that load mags? Then, as Pax said, she can keep many mags loaded so that she won't have any problems.

You might also get her to do some exercises to strengthen her hands. The only potential problem with that is if she got ticked off at you and decided to use her new strength , but then again, she's got a gun , so getting choked or something like it is among your lesser worries.