Neat little pocket pistol by Beretta, not new but rarely seen & appreciated, especially for ladies, its ability to load the chamber without racking the slide --


It has the attributes of big autos like single & double action & seen in the pocket pistol calibers of .25, .32 & this one .22 LR ----->

My vote: The 3914 DAO simple to use, thin & (relitively) light.


Big Dot sights are easy acquisition

digiroc

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Shoot Well My Friends

My wife owned a Bobcat which she liked, as did I, but she wanted something with a bit more authority so she moved into an LCP.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

Lady Smith airweight .38 Special revolver.

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USS Brewton FF1086
SWCA#3597

I just bought this one chambered in .32ACP for my young daughter. I wanted to give her my 432PD in .32 H&R Magnum, but she's tiny, and would have to carry it in a purse or bag and I am not a fan of off-body carry. She has an almost impossible time racking a slide, so the Bobcat it is. The one down side of the Tomcat is a lack of an extractor. If a round gets stuck in the chamber, well, times will sure get interesting.

Regards,

Dave

Attached Images

Beretta Tomcat.jpg (114.6 KB, 59 views)

I do not want to sound flippant but I would say it depends on the lady! Given a chance to try out a variety of handguns I'm sure she would find whats best for her.

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Stay safe people!

There's no stock answer. Depends on the woman and the situation.

I used to know Jo Anne Hall when she was Ladies IPSC Champion...of the world.Very fast and accurate with Colt .45 autos and carried a Colt .380for lighter needs.

My favorite fiction heroine, Modesty Blaise, carried a Colt .32 (probably a Cobra or Courier), a Star PD .45, and S&W .41 Magnum as the need varied. Sometimes used a Luger taken from a foe. Also deadly with .303 and 5.56 mm rifles. And was always plausible.

My brother's stepdaughter is a street cop who carries two Glock 9 mm's. (One is a Model 26 for backup use.)

Those little Beretta .32's have a reputation for cracking the frames. The .22 and .25 versions don't do that, to my knowledge.

Let me ask a counter question. What's the best gun for a man?

I have much older blue 3032 I bought used about 10 years ago. My dad's wife has a stainless 3032 for about 6 or 7 years. They were re-engineered about the time the stainless came out and are thicker and heavier than my older one. All the newer style I held seem to have a very gritty trigger, while my older model has a butter smooth trigger.

I have been beside 3 or 4 women shooting 3032's, they all were terrible shots at 5 yards couldn't keep 5 shots on 8.5 x 11 piece of paper (passing "score" for NRA basic handgun course, many use as part of CCW course in Ohio). These women often limp wristed the guns and cringed with every shot. There is very little recoil with ball or premium ammo, I believe it is noise that scares them!

I like to have non-shooters start with a few cylinders of target velocity 38's, then they have a reference on recoil. 22's and 32's are then very mild in their limited experience and will then hold on and not Flinch!

Ivan

Come to think about it - The Beretta 21a that I recently bought did orginally belong to the seller’s Ex-wife.
I hope it’s not carrying some bad Mojo!

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Sig P250 in 380. Simple to use and easy to rack.

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Release the Kraken

Had one of those Berettas, it would shoot around corners. Returned it.

3914LS is also a nice lady's gun

If we can include wheel guns here's a Lady of another caliber:



digiroc

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Shoot Well My Friends

One of Ruthie's targets:

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

That's a loaded question. I finally got my wife to the range to help her determine what type gun she would like to use, then get her CCW. I had pre determined that I thought she should have a J Frame 2" revolver, and specifically a 431PD (32 H&R Mag) she could shoot 32 Longs for practice and carry the 32 H&R Mag. All wrong, didn't like a revolver at all, and she finally decided on my 9mm Shield. She can rack the slide. My fear is I know she won't practice, and will forget the complexities of a semi-auto operation. I hope to get her out again and impress the simplicity of a revolver.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

My wife with her favorite shirt at the NRA Museum.


She carries a 4" 66-3 loaded with 158 grain .357 Magnums.

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Keep on Chooglin'

The women I know that carry .. 9mm is the smallest caliber carried one carries a 45, 2 ladies carry 40's and the other 6 carry 9mm ..

Something like the Bobcat might well suite someone with hand problems that were unable to rack a slide but an able bodied woman would be unlikely to pick such a pistol to carry due to the caliber size of them ..

I do find interesting at least from the ladies I know, the younger ones like the smaller size 9mm's and the older they are the bigger the size of pistol they carry .. going from a compact to full size .. the lady that carries the 1911/45 is a retired older woman and is probably the oldest woman I know that carries daily .. I'm 5'11 and she is at least 5 inches taller and she can shoot lights out with it !! The other thing I find from the women I know that contradicts many articles I've read saying many women were buying revolvers as their first gun due to not having to rack the slide .. non of the women I know carry revolvers or own one .. 5 usually carry on body and the other 4 in a purse or some other type of bag or I think what they call a clutch or evening bag ..

It depends, for my wife it is not so much the pistol, but the silver bullets that you need to mindful of.

I just finished reading through the ongoing Boy Scouts thread. After reading through all the comments I'm thinking maybe there shouldn't be a "best lady's pistol" or a "best man's pistol", there should just be pistols.

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- Change it back -

Wife has a 21-A for pocket book, and M-65 for bedside. 21-a's were rated best pocket pistol a few years ago-we've had 2 of them=both very accurate. At the distance a pistol like this would be brought to bear, it would be very effective IMV.

I just got a Nemesis pocket holster for my Beretta 21a.
It’ll drop right into an empty jeans front pocket.
But in any case, you should be able to operate the piece you carry.
If you cannot Jack it, do no pack it!

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My wife can out shoot me in accuracy with any gun she picks up. She loves steel challenge and USPSA. I taught her how to shoot (introduced her to the sport) about 6 years ago. She has her CCP. She can has and will shoot any thing from a S&W 500 to a little Beretta Bobcat that was shown above.
She carries a Shield 9 or a SIG P238 for defense. My point is do not assume you know what a lady needs to shoot. My wife would not own a revolver as a rule. When she buys a pistol sometimes I get to come along and give opinions but she has always been in charge of acquiring her own hardware since she knows what she likes and how they work. She has purchased several guns without me there at all. She wil also walk out of a LGS if they try to push her into a revolver after she tells them she is not interested. I have written about this in the past...women need men much less than we like to think when it comes to firearms.
All that said...that Bobcat was purchased and sold as a .22 . It couldn't hit a target with any consistency.

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John 1:17
NRA Life Benefactor

My wife has carried a pre model 30 in 32 Long for at least 10 years. It is her birthday gun and she is very fond of it. I bought her a couple other pistols but she likes that little I frame.
Some people think it's a little light for self defense but she is deadly with it. She shoots it at least once a month and has no problem putting all 6 rounds in a 6" pie plate at 25 feet.

I think the most important part is that it's what she has confidence in. She knows how to handle it and she sure knows how to shoot it. She does have an advantage over most ladies that are her age (65) in that she has competed in trapshooting for about 35 years and she is as big a gun nut as I am.

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NRA Range Safety Officer

My neighbors petite young daughter carries an AR in her trunk.
With a puzzled look and a shake of the head I've thought: "If she drives up on a situation... She might become the situation!"

FWIW they did a test in last months American Rifleman. Revolvers came in dead last. The top picks might surprise you

American Rifleman | The American Rifleman Ladies Pistol Project

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BCCI Life Member #2068

My late wife of 65 years made all the little decisions; which gun, which car, where to go, stay, etc. The big decisions were left up to me, like war with N Korea, expedition to Mars, etc. Never any discord in our marriage ----->

Do you want your wife or girlfriend to enjoy shooting?
Do you want her to come to the range often?
Do you want her to feel confident that she can shoot well?
Do you want her to be able to clear a jam, be able to easily manipulate a slide, etc?
If so, I'd like to respectfully suggest getting her a good 22, like a Ruger or S&W victory!

She'll thank you!

Jim

I started in this hobby as a determined wheelgun gal, but it didn't surprise me that the SIG P238 placed first in the American Rifleman survey. It's a great firearm.

It was my first semi-auto purchase (thanks to my husband's persuasion), and encouraged my interest in that segment to grow.
I initially stayed away from bottom feeders because I perceived the slide as too difficult to use and their operation too complicated.
Living with the user-friendly P238 made me comfortable enough with semi's that I got the much stiffer Shield 9, and then the CZ PCR with it's harder to grasp low-profile slide.

The Beretta pocket autos with the mag release on grip ,get pushed in the pocket and drop the mag a tad making it a single shot. A 442 or no lock 642 with low recoil ammo are the best.

Just sent my daughter a S&W 638, she loves it. Wife prefers a Ruger SP101. One other daughter prefers her Kimber Micro in 9mm. Different personalities, different handguns.

Nothing but happy campers, both men and women with my mdl 10-6 4" HB. It's not too heavy & fits many different hand sizes. Being able to hit stuff is a BIG plus. For CC it's a whole other story, just like with men. I see lot's of people having trouble with the mouse guns, from: they don't fit, hard to operate, a bit complicated, especially for someone with weak/old/arthritic hands. You might have better luck trying to tell a Lady what shoes to buy.

My wife can handle anything in the safe, her purse guns are either a glock 42, a smith 649, or a kimber micro 9.

She's on a trip to Florida this weekend her truck gun for this trip is a glock 35 in 40 cal

After my best friend passed, one of the guns his wife chose to keep for herself was the Taurus PT-25. Like the Beretta, the easy loading pop-up barrel was a prime factor in her choice as she can't rack the slide on most semi-autos.
Don't worry, she kept a couple of .38 revolvers too.

If the topic is buying a gun for a woman who won't be shooting often and who has trouble manipulating a slide, I'd go with a Ruger LCR327. I bought mine for my wife, and it is utterly brilliant.

1. No slide to manipulate
2. Light and small form factor
3. Very light trigger compared to other DAO revolvers
4. Shoots every .32 variant, so the carry load can range from .32 S&W (feels like a .22) to .32 H&R (.38 SPL power levels) to .327 Mag (not quite .357, but HOT)
5. Six shots instead of the five in most J frames

The only cons are lack of ammo availability and cost. LCR magnums aren't cheap.

"I do not want to sound flippant but I would say it depends on the lady! Given a chance to try out a variety of handguns I'm sure she would find whats best for her."

Best answer here. My wife went through several j-frames, a Bersa 380, a Walther 32, and a H & K 4. Finally ended up on a G43 9mmm. Likes it so much she has two now=one EDC and one nightstand.

I started this, seeing couples buying a piece for her, buying his choice without checking her out on racking the slide, etc. I really don't have a wife's auto choice but in revolvers it's the Ruger LCR, simple & obvious & light weight ----->

The more I see the Lady Smith,the more I realize I got to add one to my collection someday!

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Life is short,live it fully.

I bought the wife this to start out with. She shot it today for the first time.


8 shot 617 3"

digiroc

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Shoot Well My Friends

Regarding racking the slide: I've put Tac Racks on most of my Glocks. Wife no longer has problems.

DA Revolvers: Wife had problems with a DA only pull-too much for her hands, esp on rapid fire. I found them VERY inaccurate--I opted for a 649 Bodyguard as a pocket revolver but mostly carried a Commander.

Depends on the lady.....You would think that if they can swing a 12" cast iron frying pan one handed with major league bat speed they can rack a 1911 slide

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Forum consigliere

I agree.....depends on the lady......I have one female friend who purse carries a 357 revolver and she is very adapt with that weapon...other prefer something a little lighter with better control depending on their strength and build.........it's all in the eyes of the holder.......

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Hipcocked & Locked

I used to have S&W 629 44mag with a 6in barrel and a Desert Eagle .50. my sister shot them like they were 22lr, and pretty good at it. Cost me some money even back in early 00s. She was in her teens at the time. When she was old enough I payed for her first gun (she did the paperwork). It's a Kahr P9. Nice compact 9mm that's small enough to carry concealed in most clothing yet big enough to hold and shoot. Well......she absolutely hates it. Not for any specific reason just because it's not a gigantic gun in a large caliber

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