list your top 5 favorite conceal carry weapons
 

I am in the market for a handgun that will be used during my conceal carry class and afterwards. I have been looking at the following guns.
1. 9000s beretta in .40
2. S&W j frame .38 special hammerless
3. 8040 minicougar beretta .40
4.8040 cougar f beretta .40
5.Sigarms p229 in .40

Tell me what your top 5 are

1. S&W J-frame hammerless, M640 specifically. Not the most powerful, or most capacity, but easily concealable, rugged, and acceptable accuracy
2. Glock 19 - a tad big, but relatively slim, well rounded, great capacity
3. Colt Commander - proven design, accurate, various solid loads
4. S&W 3913 - good design, fairly slim, accurate, reliable
5. Seecamp's .32acp nose gun - Weak round, but an undeniably concealable package and great manufacture

Too many guns marketed as conceable are not. Most staggered magazine autos are horrible for concealment purposes as the butt of the gun is simply too wide. I personally look to reliability first, then size second, and shooting characteristics third. A powerful gun is useless if it does not conceal well, and a solid shooting and concealable gun is useless for carry if it is not dead reliable.

My list represents two guns I own and thus trust, the first two, two that I respect and have fired, 3 & 4, and one that I have handled and know the reputation of. The Seecamp would not make it on my list due to its' anemic performance if it were not for the fact that some folk may have a valid need for a truly small gun.

Taurus Titanium .38

If it is strictly a concealed carry gun there is no other choice. :D

battle axe
sword
long knives
nicely balanced razor blades that are great for throwing
barehands ;)

Glock 26
Glock 27
Glock 29
Glock 30
Glock 33

my TOP FIVE, ALL TIME FAVOURITE CONCEALED WEAPONS are...

fists (with rings).
knees.
forehead (although not easy to conceal).
teeth.
and keys.

I think a glock 27 is the way to go not to big to hold not too small to get away from you when you shoot.

carrying guns is asking for more trouble than it's worth in my opinion.

maybe it's the 15 years of martials training talking, but I think I can respond with my hands and feet faster than I could draw a gun from a concealed holster.

once in awhile I'll carry some throwing knives if I'm in an exceptionally dangerous neighbourhood... but that's only for if they're getting away from me ;) heh heh joking

great weapon = hot cup of coffee

I would hope that 15 years of martial arts training has taught you that you are not faster than a bullet...

You should first decide how you are going to carry. If it is in a fanny pack or somethong along that line or if you are going to holster inside the waist as the cylinder of a revolver will cause extra bulk and is limited to 6 rounds with slow reload. Size of your hands is also a factor. I have an average hand size and dress business casual always so I carry in my front pocket mosy often. even though yo appear to be leaning to .40 s&w by your list. The practice rounds get expensive and if you hit what your aiming at 9mm is more than adequate with a good personal protection ammo being around 370 ft/lbs of energy /knockdown
I carry a KAHR arms P9 9mm auto pistol ( available in S&W .40 cal) as a pocket gun. I like it but it can be hard on the hands aftert 200 rounds of practice ( especially with +p+1500 fps Cor Bon loads 400 lbs /ft of energy). I would choose a glock 26 or 27 over the Sig for shear dependability in a pinch ( thats why nearly ALL cops have glocks, it'll never let you down.) The sig is a great gun but slightly more finicky. Both the Kahr and the Glock are hammerless and have no additional safety which must be considered, but ultimae saftey belongs to the carrier. Keltec makes a 22 ounce .9" wide 9mm but it has about 11-12 pounds of trigger pull vs 5-6lbs on the glock and 8lbs on the Kahr ( especially important on the 2nd shot ). Kimber has an out standing compact series of .45's and even have some that can be ordered with .40 s&w( but then a 45 is a great gun with excellent knockdown.
Final suggestion is to go to a range that has a gun rental ( if there is one around you) and shoot them all, it is worth the $ up front to know what you are comfortable, after all it's all about being comfortable and confident with your weapon. That is what will make you shoot well and shooting well is more important than shooting big. otherwise you will end up like me with 8 different guns. I love em all but it does get expensive.
Good luck.

i see someone likes their glocks

Beretta 92 Compact-L
Benchmade Auto Axis
Bare Hands
Knees
Teeth

:icare:

I'm a big guy so I can easily conceal larger handguns. With that said my choices (only from the guns I own) are:

1911-A1 Fullsize (carried IWB)
Taurus Millennium .45 SS Slide (also carried IWB)

Mostly it depends on the weather. If I'm carrying in jacket weather I can use the 1911, if it's only shirt weather I can still carry the Taurus. I prefer the 1911 just because I'm more proficient with the single action trigger as opposed to DAO, but I can hit what I'm aiming at with either. Someday I'd like to add a .357 snub-nose to my carry collection, but since I just got married and bought a house I don't see that happening any time soon.

If the person has a gun out and ready to fire at you I would hope that your fire arm training has taught you that your concealed weapons is not faster than a bullet.

In my opinion, martial arts training is more valuable than your firearm in a mugging or rape situation.

I'll be sure to tell that to my 88 year old grandmother or 65 year old mother.

We can do a test. First, I put a paint ball gun to your head and you put one in a holster where ever you like on your person. I say give me your wallet, suck my dick, something like that, in turn you try to pull your gun on me. Lets see who gets the welt. Next, you put the gun to my head and I will use my martial arts to disarm you before you can shoot me.

Now maybe I am using a bad example so if you would like to post an example of when your gun is needed and could be used successfully and I will see how my martial arts will compare.

Lol and you think your 88-year-old grandmother can pull a gun on me quicker than I can take her purse and knock her ass out? Come on, let’s use some common since.

Yes, some common sense would be great.

Sure, if my gun is in my pocket and Bruce Lee gets the drop on me, I'll probably get taken out.

How likely is this to happen?

Common sense tells you that the vast majority ofl criminals are NOT smart and/or are martial arts experts and that an aware person can usually spot trouble coming in plenty of time to draw and fire.

Secondly, your statement is spurious since your whole position is that people are better off learning martial arts than having concealed weapons. Obviously this arguement is next to useless for the aged and physically infirm. (Mr. Myagi again notwithstanding).

This has been rehashed countless times.

1 - It is far easier to learn to use a gun that it is to learn a martial art. I would have no trouble placeing bets on a fight between someone with an hour of firearms training against a person with 20 years of [insert random martial art here].

2 - I can always shoot you faster that you can disarm me.

Glad we both agree.

Where else would your gun be if you got mugged or attacked? Do you walk around with it in your hand? If so then I agree you can probably draw your weapon before you are attacked.

Not likely

Exactly. Criminals look for the easy way to do things. Like getting a gun. I never said the criminal would be the one with martial arts skills or proper gun training for that matter. Please document cases where people new trouble was coming and drew their gun before hand. Also document whether or not they were arrested for pulling a gun in public for no reason. You cannot draw your weapon without do cause.

The aged and physically infirm could not draw a weapon fast enough to stop a mugging either. Which is why whistles, alarms, and pepper spray on key chains work so well.



I guarantee you that if you are within distance to mug me I can disarm you before you could shoot me. I also guarantee if I was mugging you at gunpoint I could blow you away before you could draw your concealed weapon.

Keep your guns because they make you "feel" safer but do not argue that martial arts training is not far superior at protecting yourself than a hand held weapon.

Use logic. A hand held weapon that could be taken away from you or your body as a weapon. Which is better, more efficient, and easier to conceal.

I would just like you to show me some examples of ways you can use your weapon. I am not someone here trying to get into an argument about if you should have guns or not. I only posted to reply to the comment


I know you gun owners are very defensive about your guns. That is fine. I just want you to understand that a gun is not always the answer and will not protect you in most real life situations. Crafting your body into something that will cause most attackers to think twice about attacking you and then having the skill to follow through just in case someone does is the key. I know you keep bringing up elderly and stuff but really I can't picture an 80 year old woman getting a pistol out of her purse in enough time to do anything with it.

I hope you can understand where I am coming from.

http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles/165476.pdf


Nonsense. With a gun I can choose the range at which the encounter occurs. With your body you cannot. Plus, you discount the fact that I have been properly and extensively trained in the use of a handgun in tactical situations. A large part of that is point shooting, weapons retention, and use of a pistol in close combat. Granted, most people do not have that level of training, but it isn't very hard to shoot someone off of your pistol...
If you had the drop on me I would not be foolish enough to try.

I love how smug you people get when someone challenges your sacred cow.

Again martial arts training takes years, is not terribly effective against a much larger attacker or multiple opponents, and is useless against an attacker at range.
Better - Gun
Efficient - Gun
Concealable - Body

One out of three isn't that bad...

hehe did you read the link you provided? One, there are no examples of gun use as a means of defending ones self, two it states that most of the surveys done were done by phone. The person was asked if they had used their weapon in a defensive way in the last year. With a phone conversation there was no way to know whether or not the victim who drew their weapon started the fight or was actually a victim at all.

Maybe you do not understand what I am saying. If you are the attacker then yeah, you can choose the distance. I am not talking about using a gun to attack people. I am talking about some guy pushes you into an ally at gunpoint and he wants your fucking wallet. How is your gun going to save you?

I can see how your gun can be useful if you hear someone in your back yard and want to scare him or her off. The visual effect of you holding a gun is great. Works well. I am not arguing that.


Now if someone is mugging you, they usually are within arms distance because they want you to hand them stuff, they want to pat you down and see if you got anything they want. So, when they pat you down they get a new gun. This is what I am talking about. Can you comment on this please?

No, the survey deals with that specifically. Reread the document. The questions were specifically worded to remove such false positive that were included in the Kleck report.
It's not. But chances are he isn't going to choose a person with a gun to go after, just in case that person is stupid enough to try to go for his weapon. Petty thieves do not go looking for confrontation, they can tell an armed person from a victim a mile away.
Why would you let someone get that close to you?

Criminals do not pat you down, they take your wallet and run. In the event that they did pat you down, let them have the gun, it's not worth your life.

I'm with dark. Most muggers don't go in with the thinking of killing someone. They normally use teh gun as force to get you to give them your shit. If you're in distance to give them your wallet, and you know martial arts, you could easily get the gun from him before he can do anything.

Try something for me. Find a ten year old kid, give him a cap gun. Now, stand anywhere within arms reach of him and see if you can get it away from him without hearing a bang.

If you hear one, then there is a bullet going somewhere, maybe into you, maybe not. You willing to take the chance?

Plus nobody has yet addressed the fact that it takes many years to become even passably proficient at any martial art, while it take a few weeks to achieve the same level of skill with a gun.

I have to go with Debaser's pick, a nice reliable no BS revolver... would prefer more power, but I can only handle so much in a small package.

Pricewise the Taurus seems really expensive for a revolver.

The bang would go into his (the attacks) lower body.

I teach a class that is 6 weeks long that goes over these techniques at the local community college. It takes a long time to make martial arts part of your life. It does not take that long to learn the basics that can save your life.

If you are telling someone with six weeks of college martial arts that he stands a snowballs chance in hell is disarming an attacker with a gun, you are signing their death warrant should they ever be in such a situation.

The only time you should ever attempt to disarm someone of a gun is if it is a sure shoot situation.

DarkBlack: Please stop threadjacking me. I want to know what people carry for conceal carry weapons. Please post my hands and body and go to politics.

You know what they say about teachers. :D

I agree.

Darkblack, if you insist on arguing your point, please post a new thread in "Politics".

Why would this go in politics? I feel martial arts are a better concealed weapon than a gun. This topic is about concealed weapons. It was posted that a gun is a better weapon than martial arts and I am protesting that. So are we aloud to tell people not to post to our threads? If so there are a few people I would like to keep off some of my topics also.


~edit~ thought about it and I will just move on. Pretty silly for me to fight to talk to people that do not want to talk to me hehe.

Thanks for the discussion.

stilleto

good points Darkblack to each his own. I'm a Retired cop with a blackbelt and I carry a Colt 45 officers model. pretty hard to defend yourself against a driveby or distant enemy which is what is often faced in today's hard world no matter what your skill set is. to each their own but like the old saying
goes

God made all men in his image
but Sam Colt made them equal

I'm currently carrying a Kel-tec p11, it's a semi auto 9mm, fully loaded the gun weighs 20 oz., it holds 10+1 rounds, and comes from the factory with MecGar magazines. It is Double action only, and it has a 9lb trigger pull. I hate the trigger, but considering that the long heavy trigger pull is it's safety, I deal with it. I have put probably 1000 rounds through this gun and have had 0 FTF's and zero FTE's. Should something go wrong with this gun, Kel-tec has a lifetime warranty on their pistols, and their customer service is well known to be outstanding. Yep...I'm sold on this gun for a carry gun. Keep in mind it's no target pistol, but it does what it's designed to do, very well.
Having said all that, I recently purchased a Kimber Custom Classic, full size .45 ACP and have been carrying that occasionally too, but it's difficult at best to conceal a full size 45 auto.

I don't have any favourites because I cannot and shall not carry unless I somehow become a dual citizen or something. I do have a question though: what about the PP or PPK? I know most of you aren't fans of 7.92 mm or whichever other calibres they come in, but if you shot someone two or three times centre mass with that calibre, they'd still go down wouldn't they?

I have a good friend with a concealed carry permit that bought the PPK- and he returned it, and swears he will never get another- accurate, but very very finnicky on what brand of ammo you use- some quite reputable brands would just not feed- also had some minior ergonomics problems, again because the gun was designed with specific and very tight parameters in mind- wound up getting a ppk clone, for much less, and is thrilled with it, feeds ammo well, almost as accurate as the walther model- do some research though as clones Varry wildly, and it does have to be well made to be worth a damn.....

I should also note that he originally bought 2 ppk's , both walthers, one for the wife, one for him, and had this problem with both of them........so it wasn't a one bad gun situation....