Worst Carry Pistol Option

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There are certainly plenty of BAD CCWs. Most of the time anything other than the preferred caliber of the guy you're talking to is a bad choice (there's one at my local Academy who's a .40S&W guy and if you ask him to recommend a personal defense weapon he'll hand you a Glock .40 and won't hear a word against them).

I think the worst choice for a CC handgun would be one of those tiny .22 revolvers. Sure they work and man are they concealable, but their effective range is just slightly outside arms' reach; I would feel safer with a knife.

Other bad choices (all of these assume you actually do carry it):
- A compact/ultra, when you can get away with something larger
- Any gun too big to hide convincingly
- Any gun that is uncontrollable, large or small (if you can't shoot it one-handed with reasonable accuracy, don't carry it)
- .380/9mm Short (the round just doesn't have the necessary oomph to do the damage)
- .32ACP - ditto
- Any gun, if you are never willing to use it to kill
- Any gun, if you are looking for a reason to use it
 
I'd say that the worst CC's are the ones that don't run, that don't feed/fire, that just don't do the job they should - expel a bullet from the barrel and feed the next round in some way and be able to fire it. The use of NAA revolvers is pretty small, I'd say. Kind of hard to deploy or fire fast. It's a fantastic deep-concealment piece, very hard to recognize as a real gun in case you're not technically allowed to have one.
 
.22 for Concealed Carry, why? :barf:
jlbraun,
Actually, a .22LR revolver is not a bad deep concealment piece. The less than reliable primer isn't a factor in a revolver.
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I have a .22 Revolver that's about useless for anything but misfires. The very fact that people count on a cartridge ignition system that is known for misfires just boggles the mind. If you are going deepcover, at least get yourself something marginal like a .380.

Jamie C.,
As for .22 rimfire being so useless... go tell it to the fellow mentioned here. I think he might have an argument or two in favor of having a .22 in your pocket.
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Interesting. The BG was arrested, at the hospital, with non-life threatening injuries. Good. All this does is prove to me that even when fired point blank, the lowly .22 cannot be counted upon. The guy who shot the BG with the .22 is lucky to be in one piece. :what:
 
Ze,
That was the one. Seriously that may be the only firearm I've ever tried where I'd feel better using it as "brass knuckles" rather than trying to shoot with it
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Yup, I bought it as an impulse buy for my first handgun. It was the only one in the store under 200 bucks. Fired maybe 500 rounds through it. This was the one where the firing pin disappeared.

Glad you got rid of it. I know it had some sentimental value but it was just a temptation to try and overcome a fundamentally screwed up gun.
(EDIT: not a Taurus bash btw, just commenting on an especially f-ed up gun)
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Nah, no sentimental value at all. It was always on my "list" of guns to sell when I wanted a new one. Wierd thing is, I only lost 10 bucks on the deal. That's unheard of for a Taurus (NOT a Taurus bash, one knows that Taurus pistols don't hold their value at all. Used Tauri can often represent exceptional bargains, when they work (ok, THAT was a Taurus bash)).
 
Gnat, you'll notice that the .22 scraped the BG out from around the fellow's neck, and that although the article said the wound was "non-life threatening", the BG is in "critical condition" this morning?

I dunno about you guys, but it seems to me that you can't ask much more of a defensive handgun than that.

Oh, and I know an officer with the local S.O. that used a NAA mini-revolver in .22 lr to kill a man that attacked him and his wife. One shot, center-mass, did the job.

But anyway... that just gets back to the point that if you know how to use it, and it functions properly, there's no reason not to carry it. It doesn't have to be the latest "super-pistol" is some genocide-inducing caliber.

Oh, btw... I've never had the failures with .22 lr that i hear many folks speak of... new-bought ammunition seems to work just fine. Now if it's old, and has gotten wet it might have a few misfires, but I'm pretty much convinced that it's the heel-type bullet that's responsible for that. ( They don't seal the cartridge as well as a conventional bullet does. )


J.C.
 
Gnat, you'll notice that the .22 scraped the BG out from around the fellow's neck, and that although the article said the wound was "non-life threatening", the BG is in "critical condition" this morning?

I dunno about you guys, but it seems to me that you can't ask much more of a defensive handgun than that.
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We don't know enough to say why the shot worked. The BG could have been responding to the sound as much as anything. A firearm should be capable of dealing with an attacker who is more "assertive" in his efforts. Many people have died as the result of attackers who were already on their way to the grave, but had enough fight left in them to finish the job.
 
well if you have anything bigger than a 22 then by all means use it. but a 22 will do the job. personaly i dont get the whole lowly/unreliable. iv never had a problem killing anything that i shot with a 22 and have had very few ftf
 
I'm gonna have to go with a knife on this one. As several of my relatives have said "NEVER carry a knife to a gun fight!"
 
About the .22LR: In a semi-auto, no. In a DA revolver, sure, provided it's decent ammo, like Stingers or Velocitors, and not the cheap-o stuff. Not my first choice but definitely something I wouldn't dismiss as useless.

Now, here's a former carry piece of mine. Although some may say it's on the bulky end of the spectrum, that isn't the reason I posted it here. Since I've been hanging out here at THR, I've learned that, "for real stopping power, nothing beats a .45." :neener:
 

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My first suggesting was going to be a Desert Eagle in .50AE but that was mentioned in post 2, then my next guess was the Ruger Alaskan (that opinion is invalid in bear country). My 3rd guess would be a Smith and Wesson model 460 with the 14in BBL that would be REALLY tough to CCW.
 
A real lemon....

When I delivered papers as a little kid, there was a big, mean dog that used to give me problems. The owners were very careless with the thing, not securing him well sometimes. So, I got some lemon juice in a plastic lemon container. He came charging one day and I let him have it in the eyes. He ran away yelping. He came charging again the next time he was loose and again, I let him have it with the lemon. It happened 3 times and he always backed off. But, he still tried to get me the next time he was loose. Finally, I went big bore and got some lime juice in a plastic lime. Again, he charged and again he got it in the face. That time he really howled. The next time he was loose, he growled but he didn't charge. From experience, I can honestly say that plastic lemons don't have enough stopping power for a carry piece. Go plastic lime, at least.
PS: Plastic limes are good bully stoppers, too.
 

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