Great Article: 10 Lessons Learned......................

PhillyCheese

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10 Lessons Learned from the Worst gun I ever Owned:
Author: Melody Lauer
Link: http://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/10-lessons-learned-worst-gun-ever-owned/

This is a really great article.
Each lesson is explained in the article.
The following are the titled lessons, but viewers need to read the article to fully understand the context of each lesson.

Lesson 1 — Defensive calibers don’t have to start with “4”.

Lesson 2 — Capacity is cool.

Lesson 3 — Safeties are irrelevant if you are not safe.

Lesson 4 — It doesn’t have to be made of metal.

Lesson 5 — Reputations can change.

Lesson 6 — Find reputable sources of information.

Lesson 7 — Good customer service makes loyal customers.

Lesson 8 — If it doesn’t fit, it frustrates.

Lesson 9 — Looks don’t matter (but they kind of do).

Lesson 10 — Nothing is more fun than a gun that runs.
 
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My take on the article... the gal was stubborn and pig headed.... wouldn't listen to advice given to her and had something to prove.

In the end, she couldn't shoot the snappy .40 cal short Kimber and the malfunctions may likely have been due to limp wristing.

I'm glad to see she stuck with it and found something she liked and could handle. But at the end of the day, there were people who tried to steer her clear of an inappropriate (for her) firearm and she wouldn't listen because she knew better and had her mind made up.

Not too terribly enlightening to me, other than to not bother giving helpful advise to people who think they already know everything.
 
Love this article.

One thing it really highlights, to me, is the incredible difficulty a naive consumer faces when she tries to research her first gun.

When she was new to guns, this woman did what nearly all new gun buyers do:

  • She consulted with an experienced shooter that she trusted (her husband)
    .
  • Based on his information, she made a list of features that she'd like to have on her gun
    .
  • She discussed that list with a trusted, experienced shooter (husband)
    .
  • When her trusted, experienced friend made a list of potential purchases for her, she worked her way through the list until she found the one she liked.

She was even smart enough to realize that the person paid to sell guns might not have her own personal best interest in mind when he recommended a product for her -- which was why she stuck to the list of recommendations from her trusted other. That's pretty good for a first time purchaser. (Of course, the advice the gun clerk gave her was every bit as bad, or worse, than the advice she got from her trusted other. A lightweight snubby remains one of the worst possible purchases for new shooters: nasty recoil, heavy trigger, short sight radius, vestigial sights, low capacity and complex reloads. Snubbies are experts' guns and should be reserved for experts, not thrown willynilly at every woman who walks into the shop.)

To me, the brilliant part of this article was how she admitted her stubborness on the caliber issue. This is one I see all the time in classes: women relatively new to shooting, whose old-school husbands have recommended "calibers that begin with .4-", and who take pride in "being able" to shoot a larger caliber. What I also see in class is that beginners who start on a .40-caliber pistol nearly always develop a nasty flinch pattern that becomes very difficult to overcome as time goes on. The longer they stay with that caliber, the more difficult it is to teach them to shoot well.

Can these women shoot the guns they're so proud of being able to shoot? Oh yes. They can point the muzzle at a target and yank the trigger easy as pie. But they can rarely shoot do it as well or as quickly as they would be able to do, had they started with a caliber more suited to learning. And because the recoil tends to be too much for them at that stage in their learning, they do often induce malfunctions in guns that would be reliable more experienced hands. (My perspective: 9mm or .38 usually work best for newbies, .45 okay but not great, and .380 either wonderful or awful depending on gun design. But .40 nearly always sucks for newbies, regardless of platform. YMMV.)

The funniest part of this article is reading the comments. Guys seem to think they've discovered something nasty about the author when they say stuff like, "She was just stubborn" (when she herself says flat-out that her stubborn insistence on sticking to the gun her experienced-shooter husband recommended was part of the problem).

Or they get down on her for "not doing her research" when in fact she did her research in exactly the way that most new shooters do.

Or they insult her for not asking someone who really knew what he was talking about to recommend guns for her or guide her own research. That one's the funniest and most tragic of all the responses I've seen to this article, because for naive consumers, it's so dirty-word impossible to find good and knowledgeable gun recommendations.

People think the guy behind the counter at the gun store is an expert. He's (probably) not. He's just a guy who sells guns.

People think the guy who likes to shoot on Saturdays is an expert. He's (probably) not. He's more likely the moron who drives sales of the [really popular but sucky firearm].

People think you can just go online and ask for recommendations in a gun forum. Notsomuch; the voices of the idiots always outnumber the voices of those who actually do in fact know what they're talking about. Add in a few fun little academic concepts such as the Dunning Kruger Effect and Advice Discounting, and the naive consumer has a genuine problem finding trustworthy information.

For most people, the first gun purchase is little more than a crap shoot. It's frankly a miracle when anyone gets it right the first time.

But isn't "having to" buy another gun, and another, and another, a big part of the fun?

pax
 
Good post, Pax, as usual. I especially liked:

A lightweight snubby remains one of the worst possible purchases for new shooters: nasty recoil, heavy trigger, short sight radius, vestigial sights, low capacity and complex reloads. Snubbies are experts' guns and should be reserved for experts, not thrown willynilly at every woman who walks into the shop.

I am a mere male, but I have been married for over 30 years and I have two grown daughters, and I have never understood why there is always someone on these forums who recommends a revolver for a woman because of its simplicity, as if the female brain is too feeble to understand the safe operation of a pistol. One of my daughters has a master's in civil engineering, specializing in structural engineering, and is part of a firm that designs buildings for well-known addresses in New York City. I dare anyone to tell her that she can't comprehend the function of a pistol after the work she does. When she comes home, she almost always want to go shooting with her old dad, and she shoots as well as I do with way less practice. The kind of people who tell women to buy revolvers because of their simplicity walk by, glance at her targets, do a double take, then walk away shaking their heads. I wish I could say that they learn something from it, but probably not.

My apologies for the thread veer.
 
The medium-frame revolver is the best choice for a beginning shooter.....if you are living in the age where your choice in semiautomatic pistols are the 1911, the PPK, & the Beretta 92.

Today's striker-fired pistols are a lot easier to learn and maintain.
 
My standing offer: if you ask nicely, I'll let you shoot whatever I'm shooting at the range. You learn by trying new things.
 
My take on the article... the gal was stubborn and pig headed.... wouldn't listen to advice given to her and had something to prove.

Really? That's what your take on the article. It's not mine.

Here's a young lady who couldn't wait until her 21st birthday to buy her first handgun. Man, do I remember when I turned 21 - I could totally relate! She had some experience with handguns, did her research and had a good idea about what she wanted.

So, she decides to get a Kimber in .40. Kimbers are nice looking guns and you will get a lot of people telling you that they are good guns; some say they are no good, but that goes for almost ALL guns you read about!. Never having owned one myself, and having a lot of experience with many kinds of guns I don't know enough about them to proclaim they are "good" or "bad". In any event, I don't fault her for buying a Kimber.

The first handgun I bought when I turned 21 was a S&W Model 10 .38 special. I ended up not liking that gun and selling it a couple years later. The second handgun I purchased was a Taurus PT-99. It broke after owning it 6 months; and the nickel coated slide got tiny rust spots on it within that same amount of time. $400 down the tubes on that gun and I believe me I know how she felt about her POS Kimber!

It wasn't until I purchased my 3rd handgun, a S&W 659, that I landed upon a gun I really liked and could shoot the heck out of. I still have that gun today.

So, it took me three tries and several years to land upon the first handgun I really enjoyed. She figured this out in a lot less time than I did (but of course this is the age of the internet).

I remember people recommending that I buy a llama 45; a Taurus .357; "it's gotta be a .22" and a bunch of other guns that I'm glad I didn't buy. EVERYONE has an opinion on what should be a newbie's first handgun. Only some think its "pig-headed" when the newbie doesn't take his/her advice. Not me. I remember the fun, the agony and the triumph of going through several guns before you find one you really like. It's a process. Hardly anyone ever buys their first gun and says "Yep - it's perfect", even 10 years later. So let people enjoy the experience of wondering through the maze of buying their first gun. I enjoyed reading her blog on this.
 
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What I think is a short cut to a reasonable gun is to try several and see what works for you. An indoor range near me has approx 20 handguns for rent. It may be a bit pricy, but in one afternoon you will be able to try several guns.

At a larger range in a nearby state, there was an annual “factory shoot”. Several distributers brought in the latest items, and some current stock that customers could handle and following a range employee, actually fire off 10 rounds. I used to love attending this and kept the targets with notes on which gun and a personal score of 1 to 10 that I wanted to buy that one next.
 
Skans, well said man.

It is not always that easy when choosing a firearm.
This is true even of experienced and knowledgeable shooters.
Even more so when brand new to the gun market.

There are so many variables.
- Cost.
- Hand Grip.
- Sights.
- Caliber.
- Overall size and weight of the gun.
- Choosing the right ammo.
- Quality Control.
- Holster options.
- Etc..............

I think most new gun owners make effort towards research.
Most listen to experienced gun owners, speak to salesman at gun shops, read gun magazines, check out a gun show or two, and use the internet to research as much as possible.

I suggest the top factors in choosing a firearm for any new gun owner are:
1. Cost.
2. Caliber.
3. Brand name recognition.

I believe the author of the article did everything right.
She researched, she purchased based on brand quality and listening to advice.
She identified that this handgun was not for her and remedied the situation.
There are good lessons to be learned from the article.
 
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