Hey guys im not a gun expert like most of u guys.but i would like to know which is the best combat handgun in the world? The parameters are a)it can be a pistol or revolver b)it should be semi auto or auto c)can include military or civilian caliber d)it should function with JHP and FMJ rounds e)cost and availability is not a consideration f) it is meant for a holster so need not be concealable g)the gun should be reliable(frm personal experience only, that is pls dont tell that the gun was around for 96 yrs so reliable). H) expected for 10 to 25 yard range i)considering the user is avg size 5ft 10 inches medium built with availability to practice around 7 hrs a week. Thanksx in advanceI know I should be there to mentor and nurture and provide helpful advice to the new kids. But it gets hard sometimes...
Any service caliber with JHP's designed for the law enforcement market is going to offer substantially identical performance: ~12" of penetration and >.6" recovered diameter, with good weight retention even after defeating barriers.
Pick the caliber name you think sounds the coolest, and then get it chambered in the gun that will most impress your friends. You can tell a pistol is good if a lot of people have it mentioned in their signature lines on this board, or have tattoos of the manufacturer's logo. Also, do a thread search here to see which ones have been mentioned most often in threads entitled "_______ RULEZ!"
You're welcome.
Sigh.
I think part of the problem is that everybody has a modem now. It used to be that if you asked a rifle question at TFL, it would probably get answered by Gale McMillan. Talk about Cor-Bon ammo, and tERRY mURBACH would be there posting from Cor-Bon's shipping department computer with his damned caps lock key stuck on.
Now the gun boards are overrun with Counterstrike Kiddies and MSN TV customers. You'll still see posts from serious folks, the occasional word from a Pat Rogers or Mas Ayoob, but it just seems to get buried in the dross.
Sigh.
I'm too young to be pining for "The Good Ol' Days"...
Stupid Question - Paraphrasing from HIGHLANDER " THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE" and TAM you know what it is - THE one and only Colt 1911 as The Lord Browning designed it in any caliber starting with the Holy Number 4
ReplyDeleteOr a Glock 9mm. Or a USP .40. Or a whatever. It's just a handgun.
ReplyDeleteClearly, Anonymous, the best combat handgun is the Glock 40. That's what the Intarweb keeps telling me, anyway, and the Intartubes are never wrong.
ReplyDeleteNow you see why I can only do TFL in small bits before I lose my mind. If I read one more thread about "I can't sit with my back to the door" by some REMF I swear to Buddha that my head with COME OFF.
ReplyDeleteDon't you have a term paper to write? Or perhaps a college party to go to?
ReplyDeleteSorry, I couldn't resist.
Silly rabbit. Everyone knows the best round is the mighty 10mm - after all, it was too powerful for teh FBI!!!111
ReplyDelete(This post brought to you in honor of Robb Allen, who normally would be championing the 10mm, but who is currently otherwise occupied...)
Ah, with the economic crisis, we (real people of the gun) need lots of fanboys wandering looking for cool stuff to buy and brag about - if they ever get to the point of learning how to care for and shoot it well the schools and instructors can use the business and make them safe shooters. One would only hope.
ReplyDeleteThank heavens...I thought I was the only one getting pi$$y about the "gunnies" on the boards as I got older.
ReplyDeleteI used to spend upwards of 2 or more hours a day on THR or TFL or arfcom. Now I might check in to the boards 3 or 4 times a week and I bet my post count has gone from 5X a day to maybe 2X per month. I can't take the repetitive questions that look like the screaming headlines on the cover of Guns n Ammo.
I've been ashamed that I don't have more patience and think "everyone has to start somewhere". I was afraid I was losing interest in guns...but in fact I'm just becoming a curmudgeon. It explains why I spend my time on the blogs now...
That kind of sounds like someone who might be writing a story, needs some cool bit of hardware for their hero's kit.
ReplyDeleteDuhh it's teh Glock 20!!111!!
ReplyDeleteGlock 20 is the best handgun in the world. 15+1 shots of 10mm Auto, no external safties and the most reliable design that NEVER EVER BREAKS!!!...that's why I carry a .45 1911.....wait....
I still spend a little time hanging around TFL/THR(s), but more and more I find myself reading the blogs of the posters on those boards who I have found to be the most informative.
ReplyDeleteHint hint. :)
I read the S&W forum regularly. Blogs constantly. Arfcom once a day if that - it sends my blood pressure to dangerously high levels. THR ... dropped from my screen. Never got into TFL.
ReplyDeleteI am probably falling into the curmudgeon trap too, but I am so tired of the Counterstrikers/Airsofters babbling incessantly about "well my dad is gettin a trij acgo blah blah blah" and the only VFG is TD and on and on... I am a geezer because I don't care for Glocks, I like my hunting rifles (and ARs, but neither one is the be-all end-all of rifles), and even ... *gasp* revolvers.
Heck with the kiddies! Bring on the classics!
I think my reply to that poster would have been that it doesn't matter, because based on his/her spelling and grammer, he/she is clearly 12 years old and thinks he/she is on Myspace and is therefore clearly ineligible to be buying a firearm anytime soon anyway. Learn to spell, dammit.
ReplyDeleteCaptcha - emorpard - they misspelled "emotard"
Wow, What an indication of how our society has gone, where someone thinks that all that is required to be an expert is to have the "one and only" tool on their belt. All you have to do is buy the latest and greatest ultimate death ray and you will be magically transformed into a by god gunfighter. You moderate this? My head would explode.
ReplyDeleteBut... but... Ownership equals competence, right?
ReplyDeleteIs it a case of the people posting the questions are too lazy or cheap to buy a magazine or go to the library?
ReplyDeleteRegards,
NMM1AFan
In a world where you can buy the latest video game, download the cheats and go from a neophyte to a god in 4 hrs. of playing time, I guess it does. See, I'm a curmudgeon too.
ReplyDeleteI signed up on TFL this am with the idea that I would try to help the poster understand that the tool is a preference, the skill is required, but haven't yet done so. The quote about arguing with a fool keeps coming to mind.
grammer
ReplyDeleteGood one.
In fairness to the poor sod who inspired this bit of crankiness, he claims to be a medic in the Indian military. Assuming that's true, his (lack of) facility with the English language is understandable.
ReplyDeleteUgh. You don't have to be old to be a curmudgeon.
ReplyDeleteAfter 16 years on the internet (yes, I used 'gopher' in 1993), I've pretty much given up on anything resembling forums or most blogs and have gone back to small mailing lists specifically targeted to the precise item I need information about.
Preferable sources are those using an old interface such as listserv that an ijit with an AOL account couldn't figure out if their life depended on. Denizens of such places are usually even older curmudgeons who learned to carve their binary 1s out of stone because all they had were 0s.
To be fair, I think Mas Ayoob stopped coming by because people kept making fun of his hairpiece.
ReplyDeleteDitto BryanP.
Did you go look back?
ReplyDeleteIt looks like it's going to become a "best handgun caliber for leopards and tigers" thread.
I haven't been able to get excited about TFL/THR for awhile, unfortunately...I checked in on THR when all the lawsuit drama started a couple of times, and I've moved over to the new domain. On the other hand, I haven't bothered with APS- at least the main forum- in months.
ReplyDeleteLife kinda intrudes on it, ya know?
Regards,
Rabbit.
You think dealing with these strange little creatures on a gun board creates curmudgeonry, just think how much of a curmudgeon you'll be after having voted in thirteen presidential elections.
ReplyDeleteAdd that to ten years of moderating on a gun board.
Giggle-snort, as our friend LawDog is wont to say.
Art
I used to read rec.guns when Clint McKee and Dr. Kuleck posted, but I got tired of all the carping about how they were all about advertising and commercial advantage, so I quit.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea if the group still exists.
John, do not be silly. Your Indian speaks upon the English tongue most melodiously. Wath that spelling bee sometime.
ReplyDelete______________________
You know, I once met Lillian Gish. She was full of years and wisdom. No matter how big she got--and it was, you know, the movies that got small--she never spoke ill of the little red schoolhouse in Rising Sun, where first she trod the boards in 1902. Get it?
Since fully half those here rose (climbed down?) to the challenge, let me just say, Webley-Fosbery RULEZ. Thenk you.
"I'm not an expert..." And then proceeds to phrase a question in careful technical terms, setting parameters in a way that only an experienced gunny would...
ReplyDeleteHe's either a troll, or a bombthrower checking how long it takes for the discussion to degenerate into "does so...does not". He could care less about any answer, and isn't looking for one!
Why play with folks like that?
I'm there with you, Tam. Lately, I've been over there so little, I should probably turn in my keys to the Staph Lounge.
ReplyDeleteI'm in one of my periodic "...but it's worth fighting for!" moods; we'll see how long that lasts. The hole in the dike is ever so much larger than my finger.
ReplyDeleteTam ~
ReplyDeleteThe more you learn, the stupider the beginners' questions sound.
If you're really in a fighting mood, come write for me. The world needs you ...
It seems like I only visit the larger sites (TFL, THR, Glock Talk, etc.) once or twice a year now.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure they contain just as much good information and stimulating discussion as ever (it's just too hard to find).
Really bad signal to noise ratio, the gun board curse of success.
Personally, I think we should just have him go looking for that semi-auto or auto revolver...
ReplyDeleteKeep him out of trouble, give the gun shop guys some laughs.
Ermm ... that's a Glock fohty.
ReplyDeleteGotta spell it right.
BTW ... what is the best handgun for Bear?
Kbarrett,
ReplyDeleteIsn't that an AR15 with an 11" barrel or something?
Sometimes cyber-adulthood sucketh. The foregoing is too true 'bout the hangouts of our cyber youth. Not a frequent flyer anymore, upon the popular ether'Net boards, where and when learning and sharing was an adventure.
ReplyDeleteOTOH, I can run my cyber-trap line in fifteen twenty minutes, unless stopping to comment. As noted, the callow, the feckless, the ignorant,and those trolling fer good time just leave ya cold.
I do hope, tho, that at least some of them, in turn, learn to read and reason and research and write and become what our future needs.
Now I shall go polish the cyber mantle shelf and buff my electron trophies. snort/chortle
J t R
Tam has the right answer. Something has gone terribly wrong if I am using a pistol in combat.
ReplyDeleteI followed Pat and the others whose opinions I value over to the forums moderated by them, where the signal to noise ratio is much better, and the bubble gum quotient is ruthlessly expunged.
ReplyDeleteLike most of you, I gave up on the major gun boards for anything but entertainment and pictures of pristine safe queen M4geries.
I left TFL for THR when TFL was taken down, and never went back. I rarely visit either anymore.
If you guys think the Counterstrike commandos get on your nerves, you should try it from my perspective. I can't get taken seriously by anyone in the shooting world because of them. I'm 19, but I've been to something like 30 IDPA matches, including a TX state, I'm active-duty Army, and I'm currently waiting on my CHL in the mail, completed the packet and sent it off in Feb, but still I get no respect. Don't get me wrong, I usually just lurk boards trying to figure out how to flip the safety on my CZ-85 or something, I don't demand to be taken as an expert, but I'd really like people to stop getting that tsk tsk look on their face when I bring my .50AE Desert Eagle to the range, it's not like it's anything new, I'm sure some of you old-timers surely just had to have a S&W Model 29 after Dirty Harry came out, or couldn't live without a Colt SAA.
ReplyDeleteAt least take solace in the fact that for every 100 annoying video game tacticool ninjas out there, there's at least one young guy like me learning how it should be done
Mitsu,
ReplyDeleteAlthough I am a crone, I was young once too, and a girl, to boot. I feel your pain.
In person, you just have to win their trust with your charming personality, and then bludgeon them senseless with your blinding intellect. ;)
It's harder to do online...