Mas Ayoob writing on handguns for people dealing with age-related infirmities:
"Arthritis hits different folks to different degrees. A lot of my friends who are past 60 have gone from .45 to 9mm, at least in part because it simply beats up their hands and wrists less in extended shooting sessions. A student who trained with me many years ago returned to take a refresher a few months ago. In his mid-80s now, he was struggling to work the slide of his Colt Commander, and could no longer reload it with the lightning speed he had 20 years ago. Cumulative nerve damage and arthritis had taken their toll. Some lighter loads and 10-round Wilson magazines helped, but I tried to steer him toward one of his polymer 9mms with double stack magazines, or his Browning Hi-Power.
The older shooter with impaired hand strength and dexterity doesn’t have to work a slide with a revolver, but some arthritic fingers find it harder to run a double action trigger than in their younger days. Hips and lower backs start getting precarious as time erodes us, too, and heavier guns go from “less comfortable” to “uncomfortable” to “downright painful.”"
I know people whose hands and wrists are tore up from a lifetime of high-volume handgun shooting. Don't take my word for it, listen to the words of Pat Rogers from his well-known article on switching from .45 ACP 1911s to the M&P9, "Putting Down the Man Gun":
"There were two reasons why I decided to make a change. First was the fact that as I moved along in years, shooting .45 ammo became painful. Years of shooting as well as accumulated injuries had left me with tendonitis in both elbows and arthritis in my hands."
Coincidentally, Pat made that choice about the same time I made that exact same switch. I'd like to think that I probably extended my useful pistol-shooting shelf life by years that way.
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| Pat is not impressed. |
