OK, first thing first is always training. Being able to deploy your weapon in a timely manner, getting solid hits rapidly and knowing the manual of arms like it’s second nature. That’s a given, but it’s not the topic of this article. This is about selecting the weapon to get that training with.

The criteria we’re discussing are, in strict order: Reliability, Comfort, Precision and Power. Let’s address these individually.

Reliability

This is the single, absolutely non-negotiable quality a carry-gun needs to posses. You are very unlikely to need it, but if you do you’ll need it very badly. It needs to work, and it needs to work with your carry ammo. 100%. Period. Everything else is the icing on the cake. The icing is important, but without the cake it just isn’t going to get the job done.

Part of reliability is that the gun needs to stay reliable over time and through all of that training you’re going to need. This doesn’t mean you need to spend a lot of money, but thousand-round reviews are good to see and take note of. You also need to pay attention to your gun to make sure it keeps working.

There are guns across the entire spectrum of price that will exhibit the desired durability; don’t make the mistake of thinking that throwing money at your choice is a guarantee, or that an economical option is necessarily not going to be up to the task.

Comfort

This matters. A gun you can carry comfortably in a variety of situations and seasons is a gun you are more likely to carry. Some folks can carry a full-size steel-frame service pistol in most situations without wrecking themselves. Some can’t. If you live in a place with seasons you may need to be able to carry under very light garments in the summer, so for many a smaller gun may be a necessary compromise.

In regards to weight most people will be more comfortable more of the time with a light-weight gun. But whether your final choice is light or heavy a quality gun-belt can be a life-changing experience, and a good holster is a must. That holster needs to be comfortable too. For IWB carry I am a big fan of Kydex holsters. I find them more comfortable and I like that they don’t collapse when the gun isn’t in them; makes re-holstering easier and arguable safer. YMMV; find a holster or holsters you can wear comfortably for as long as needed.

There are people that maintain that it isn’t important that a gun be comfortable to hold. that it doesn’t matter if it is unpleasant to shoot. ‘You won’t care in the moment,’ they say, and they are correct about that, but they are otherwise absolutely wrong. Training is important, and most people are unlikely to train with a gun that is unpleasant to use.

Find out what works for you. You may need to experiment and perhaps even change your choices.

Precision

A great many people feel that a carry gun doesn’t need to be particularly accurate. I disagree. Time and again it has been proven that hit location is vital in stopping a determined attacker. There have been people dropped in their tracks by a single hit from a .22 and others not stopped by multiple hits from .44 Magnum hollow-points. The difference is hit location. Hit location means accuracy under stress and in a hurry. A self-defense gun needs to be capable of accurate rapid-fire because that’s what you need to do.

In most instances of civilian armed self-defense the baddy will flee if hit anywhere, but you cannot afford to count on that. The ability to get multiple bullets hitting where you need them in a hurry is critical. Historically speaking repeated center-mass hits is the recipe for success, whether you are at point-blank range or forty feet. A gun you shoot easily and well is important.

Against a determined attacker you need to place shots with reasonable precision. The fewer shots your gun holds and/or the smaller the caliber the better you need to be. Most weapons are more accurate than the person shooting them, but some guns are notably easier to rapid-fire accurately than others. This is variable to a degree on an individual basis, but I don’t know of anyone that shoots and Airweight .357 Magnum J-frame as fast and as well as they can shoot a similarly sized semi-auto pistol.

Sights matter. Decent sights make it easier to get good hits even at close range, though sometimes things happen so close you may not have a chance to use them. Red dots can be useful, especially at extended distances. But practical testing has shown that at very close range they are neither faster nor better than iron sights. They can be a good thing for a variety of reasons but they are not, strictly speaking, vital.

Obviously training is crucial, but not every gun works equally well for every person. Yes, you can overcome a lot with training, but why select o gun with qualities you need to overcome? There are a lot of very good guns out there. Find what works best for you.

Power

This is listed last for a reason; while it matters it is less important than the previous qualities. A gun/bullet combination needs to meet certain criteria to be effective under less-than-ideal circumstances. It has to have the penetration needed to reach the things you need to break so it can break them, and it should be able to do so under a variety of conditions and from any angle.

Cartridges like .25 ACP, .22 Long Rifle and .32 ACP can do this, but they are sub-optimal because they create small permanent wound cavities and can sometimes be deflected by bone. Yes, larger calibers can experience deflection too, but it’s significantly less likely.

So, more power is better, right? Only to a point, and that point is where recoil interferes with accurate rapid-fire. In the right gun I would be happy with .380 ACP if it gave me greater precision in rapid-fire. It has adequate penetration and with the right ammunition can be quite effective.

Typically the best choices are in the range of service calibers, those being .38 Special, 9mm, .40 S&W, .45 ACP, .357 Magnum and calibers in the same size and power range. Statistically speaking none of these cartridges are significantly more effective than the others in real-world gunfights. In absolute terms I am certain that some are better than others, but there are so many variables in a gunfight it’s difficult to demonstrate this statistically. All of them, however, have proven adequate when using modern defensive ammunition.

For the average shooter using modern defensive ammunition 9mm seems to be in the sweet spot, balancing power and shootability. Ammos is also cheaper than the others, meaning practice will be more affordable and thus is more likely to happen.

It is not bad advice to use the most powerful caliber that meets the first three conditions I discussed here, but don’t get hung up on that. Reliability, comfort and precision matter more, and if you need to accept a ‘lesser’ caliber to get those then do so.

Other Thoughts

In designing a Main Battle Tank you need to balance Protection, Mobility and Firepower. Sacrificing any of these qualities compromises the usefulness of the vehicle. With a concealed-carry handgun there is a similar balance needed, but on an individual basis there is less flexibility.

An MBT works a a piece of a larger formation with support from infantry, artillery, smaller AFVs and airpower. This can offset the disadvantages of a compromise. But in a civilian self-defense shooting you and your weapon are all you’ve got. You simply cannot afford too many compromises. If I had to compromise on any of the qualities I have discussed the most negotiable one is Power. I will accept less power to optimize Reliability, Comfort and Precision. Within reason. I have a large-ish .25 ACP that I can shoot 1-1/2-2″ rapid-fire groups at 7 yards all day long, but that doesn’t mean it would be a rational decision to EDC it. Most people will not need to compromise Power that much. There are many, many genuinely compact firearms with significantly more power.

Most of us will need to make situational compromises. It is unlikely that any single gun will fill every possible need for all or even most of us; there are times when more or less gun is mandated by circumstances. If you can only afford a single gun then you’ll probably need to get something smaller than you might prefer to meet the broadest possible spectrum of needs.

There is no single answer for everyone. Fortunately we live in a veritable Golden Age of concealed-carry pistols, and likely with a little due diligence you can find what you need.

My Choices

My primary EDC is a sub-compact 1911 9mm. Why? Because it meets the criteria for me. It doesn’t sacrifice Reliability, Comfort or Power and it absolutely shines in Precision. The compromises are in other areas; Capacity being the main one. It holds 7+1, but I feel that this is offset by the precision and familiarity with the platform. Over the last four decades I’ve put tens of thousands of rounds through 1911-based guns. The manual of arms is practically hard-wired at this point and I can reload on autopilot while my attention is elsewhere.

My secondary EDC is the Taurus G2C I purchased for the $200 Defensive Pistol challenge that I documented on You Tube. It has proven ultra-reliable, and while it is only a 1/2″ shorter than the SC 1911 even with the light mounted it is over a quarter-pound lighter. It is also thinner and as I am a large man it can be pocket-carried in a surprisingly discreet manner. It gives up less in the way of precision than you might expect too. It makes a very good alternate in specific circumstances.

I seldom need to carry less gun than the G2S, and while my smaller options are seriously compromised in one way or another it’s axiomatic that any gun is better than no gun. Anyway, these two guns fill 95% of my needs on a daily basis between them.

Stay safe and take care,

Michael Tinker Pearce, 30 July 2023

So last week I laid hands on a bog-standard RIA 1911A1 GI in 9mm. I test fired it and it worked fine. It shot a little low and left as I had been told it would, but it wasn’t bad. Other than that it did everything you’d expect about the way you’d expect from a full-size 1911A1 in 9mm. Accurate and soft-shooting. Respectable performance right out of the box.

OK, I like shooting Action Shooting International matches. It’s a combat pistol competition organization with stages like pretty much any combat pistol league. Except there are to shooter class ratings, no prizes or any of that. They don’t even post rankings at the match; if you wonder you have to go to the website later and see. Frankly I’ve never bothered; I know how I did and where I need work. It’s all about fun and personal improvement.

They do have different classes for different pistols, but people largely ignore them. They have caliber restrictions, which are also ignored; I’ve seen people shooting tricked-out Ruger .22s. I think if your gun or caliber is outside the classifications you don’t get ranked. No one cares.

In the spirit of fun I have shot matches with guns like my Detonics Combat Master .45 and Webley Mk.1 .45 revolver. But last year I decided to build a Race Gun to compete with, and it works very well. Mind you with one thing and another I haven’t gotten back to actually shooting matches since COVID, but I intend to. The .45 is really good, but I found myself thinking ‘Wouldn’t it be better in 9mm?’ So when the chance to swap for a stock RIA 9mm came up I leapt upon it with glad cries. Within hours of test-firing the gun I went to work. You can read about the start of the project here: https://tinkertalksguns.com/2023/05/11/ria-9mm-project-begins/

There are things we do when we set up a 1911A1 for Practical Pistol matches. Commander hammer, beavertail grip safety, trigger with an overtravel stop, full-length guide rod and maybe a fancy recoil spring, adjustable or high-visibility combat sights, an ambidextrous safety, a trigger job and any number of other bells and whistles. Many modern guns, even budget 1911s, come with a lot of these features these days but this one was GI, with the spur hammer and milspec grip safety. I immediately assembled a must-have parts list and realized I didn’t know how I was going to budget for it. OK, start with what I can do myself and piece the rest together as budget allows.

First thing the grips had to go. Not only were they tacky but they did not provide the level of grip I desired. I grabbed some Goncalo Alves wood and made replacements with the sort of texture I like and the Maker’s Mark I use for my handmade knives on one side.

I had already radically flat-topped the slide, undercut the trigger-guard and did hand-cut 20 LPI checkering under the trigger-guard and front of the grip-frame. I had also blended the flat mainspring housing to the frame, and since the first post it has also received 20 LPI checkering. On to the new stuff…

Someone gave me an H&K adjustable rear site and I planned to put it on this gun, but it just wasn’t suitable. The GI sight now stuck up much further because of the flat-top so I enlarged the notch, flattened the back and cut 30 LPI serrations. Came out to be surprisingly effective. I fabricated a front sight from aircraft aluminum and cut a new dovetail for it. My match ammo will be cheap 115gr range ammo, and to my shock it shoots precisely to point of aim with both Fiocchi and Magtech at seven yards. OK then!

OK, about that hammer and grip safety. The grip safety was not as comfortable as it could be, so until I decide whether to get a beavertail I cut it higher and reshaped it a tad. It’s a lot more comfortable now and allows a higher grip on the gun. I also bobbed the hammer and cut 30 LPI checkering across the top. This not only lightens the hammer and fractionally reduces the lock-time, it will keep the spur from chewing a hole in my hand (which it would sooner or later.) This is the only GI-style 1911A1 that didn’t do that to me, but I don’t trust that to continue.

I had a long aluminum trigger lying around so I fitted that. I have long fingers and it’s just better for me. The magazine well was only technically beveled and I had a Klonimus mag-well funnel in the bin so I fitted that and reshaped the back to my preference.

Oh yeah, I also cut a port in the slide, solid bushing and barrel. I cut this well back from the muzzle to increase venting duration. Rifling continues past the port so there is plenty of time to vent gasses before the bullet stops plugging the barrel. This was all done with files and hand-tools. The front sight is mounted behind the post so it doesn’t get blasted and lose the orange paint every time I fire. Yes, this shortens the sight radius to about Commander length. This might matter shooting at 100 meters or in Bullseye competition but since I don’t intend to do either of those things I don’t care.

The port works good. In the photo you can see a ghost-image of the gun halfway through recoil. This gun shoots seriously flat, which is very good for split-times between shots. A full-size 1911A1 in 9mm shoots pretty flat to begin with, but this is on a whole ‘nuther level.

The trigger-pull is 4.5 lbs, which might be OK for a carry pistol but it’s way too much for a competition pistol. My 1911 race-gun has a 1-3/4 LB. trigger. As a first step I installed an EGW sear spring, which instantly dropped the trigger-pull to 3 lbs. It also instantly made the hammer start sporadically falling when the slide slammed home. Usually this means you have to manually cock the gun between shots. Occasionally it means the gun goes into ‘Giggle Mode’ for a couple of shots while you are test-firing it. Yeah, no. I put the stock sear spring back and that solved the problem.

I also did something I’ve never done before and frankly question the value of in an action-shooting pistol: I tightened the slide to frame fit. I did this by the simple expedient of very carefully squishing the slide at the bottom side-to-side in a vice. Ever-so-slightly. This reduced the ‘rattle,’ which was not excessive to begin with, by about 50%. I question the value of this because what matters most is that the barrel maintains a consistent relationship to the sights, which is mostly dependent on the barrel-to-slide fit, and unless a gun is alarmingly loose it won’t have much effect. It also tends to make guns more sensitive to dirt, but this isn’t a service pistol so I decided to give it a go. I suspect that if it makes any difference I am not a good enough shooter to benefit from it.

Here’s The ‘So Should You?’ Part

OK, the conventional wisdom says a race-gun has a beavertail grip safety, a full-length guide-rod, commander hammer etc. Long experience has shown this to be true for a reason, especially in .45 ACP. But with this gun I find myself questioning that.

Yes, the ambidextrous grip-safety is a must. Sometimes you need it on a stage, and while you can do without it it’s a game of 1/10s of seconds and it’s significantly slower without it.

But despite the stock trigger the gun already shoots so well I question whether there is any real benefit to be gained with a beavertail grip safety with this particular gun in my hands, and right now saving money is a priority. Likewise a Commander hammer is a necessity because GI spur-hammers don’t work with a beavertail. I’ve already significantly lightened this hammer and shortened it enough that if I do opt for a beavertail it will work. Besides, I rather like the look of it, so more savings there.

I am also questioning the need for a guide-rod. Normally these add a bit of weight at the muzzle and keep everything running smoothly but with the porting and the way it shoots already I don’t seem to need more weight at the muzzle, and the stock set-up seems to be doing just fine. Perhaps this is another place to save money.

Despite the Patreon contributions from my wonderful supporters and other channel benefactors my budget is very tight right now, so saving money is definitely a thing. Some things like the trigger with an overtravel stop and take-up adjustment and the ambidextrous safety need to happen and will just have to wait for some disposable income. But other things? If they don’t seem genuinely necessary I’m just not going to do them. This pistol is about performance, not having the bells and whistles that bring the boys to the yard. If I get the performance I desire without bending the budget it’s all good.

That trigger though, that definitely needs work but I am going to wait for the permanent trigger before I mess about with it.

So that’s the state of the gun as I write this. I’m pretty happy with where it’s at so far, but there is still a way to go. There’s probably at least one more post before it’s finished.

Stay safe and take care,

Michael Tinker Pearce, 14 May 2023