Good friend's wife. Never like firearms. Had an incident at work with a crazy client and decided it was time to protect herself.

Goes to gun shops, gets pushed into the normal rigmarole of buy a snub, buy a glock 9, buy an LCP, buy this, buy that. Was very confused and intimidated. My friend is also not a "gun guy" but he owns one.

So I offered to take her to the desert and let her shoot some of my collection to get an idea of what SHE wants.

Started off with the Ruger Sr-22. Taught proper grip, stance, sight picture, and trigger control. Absolutely accurate on steel targets at 15 yards. 10 for ten after the second mag for 7 mags worth. She had a smile on her face.

Shot this for a while until she was comfortable.

Went to the LCR 22WMR. Was ok with recoil but did not like trigger and sights. Just wasn;t a fan of the revolver much to my dismay but it's her choice right?

Moved her to the 442 so she could experience 38sp. Even with 148gr wadcutters, did not like recoil and the sights and was completely inaccurate and uncomfortable with the trigger pull ( which is sweet and has been worked over by Nelson Ford). Hurt her hands. So removed boot grip and threw on pachmayr. Still didn't like it.

Went to the P3AT. Could not rack slide. Hated sights. hated recoil. Hated grip. Could barely pull the trigger. Same thing with LCPII although trigger was a little better. Hated both of the mouse guns.

Moved up to micro nines. Nano, 43, and LC9. Did not like the recoil on any of them and was scared of them. Had a hard time racking slides. Wasn't a fan.

Gave her G26 with extended grip. Still hated trigger and recoil and grip. Could not rack slide.

After a some time out there which I let her dictate how much she shot, she informed me that she was scared to come out in the beginning but starting off with the 22 made her feel way more comfortable and she was still sacred of the other handguns. So we went back to the SR22 and worked on accuracy and manipulations.

She felt more comfortable with the Sr-22 for these reasons:

1. She could rack the slide
2. The grip was comfortable
3. Recoil wasn't scary
4. Manual safety and magazine disconnect made her feel safer ( which I feel is important for a new shooter)
5. She could easily load the magazines

So after discussing with her the trade offs of using 22LR as a self defense round I told her that she should go with what she is comfortable with and actually enjoyed shooting, rather than buy something she could not manipulate and was scared off.


I have seen so many who were not gun people get pushed into bigger guns they could not shoot accurately, properly manipulate, or felt uncomfortable with and ended up either abandoning the sport or just throwing it in a drawer never to use again or rarely using it.

She isn't anti-gun just scared of them. Now she is all excited to go shooting with my wife and I am 100% sure that after a few months of practice, her confidence and skill will build and she may want to try a larger gun on her own terms instead of being pushed into one. Plus it will be cheap to shoot and she can go with us as we go out weekly to improve her skills.

After observing her skills and fear of recoil, I think I made the right recommendation so as not to scare or lose someone new to the sport.


So yeah, I recommended a 22 LR for the first time ever.