Magnum Wheel Man
New member
it's not often that I get the chance to help someone choose their 1st gun... last week, it came up in conversation between my boss & myself ( I'm a plant manager, he's an out of town CEO ) that I had a permit to carry ( we were discussing plant security )... he must have been eagerly awaiting our meeting today, changing th town we meet in, saying he had to stop by Cabela's... I didn't consider it unusual, as he has a couple boats, etc...
during our meeting, he brought up my CCW, & mentioned that he was thinking about buying a gun, to keep in his home, with the thought of also getting a CCW for himself... he had gotten a $100.00 off coupon, & one of his buddys had talked him into putting a S&W M&P in 40 S&W on layaway, & what did I think...
1st I asked him what his wife's position was on guns, & he said that she was in agreement that "they" needed to get a gun "while they still could"... so whatever they got, she would be practicing with it as well...
... as you can likely tell by my forum name, I'm a revolver guy, but I tried to offer unbiased comparisions of all the possible uses... the biggest constraints being his tiny wife shooting the gun, the fact that he was seriously thinking about getting a CCW, the fact that he had already gotten a range membership, & planned to take whatever he bought to the range once a week to practice with, & the fact that neither of them had any expirience...
... so after our meeting, we went & looked at the M&P... ( he had never even held one ) I explained bout loading the magazine, & then wracking the slide... he was sure his wife would never be able to, as he could barely do it... so I explained the benifits of a revolver for new shooters, & we moved down the counter a bit to the revolver section... next we pulled out a shouded hammer Air Weight S&W in 38 Special, with crimson trace grips... we discussed that one for a while, I expressed my only concern was the shorter sight radius, & the light weight frame, both as far as recoil, & as far as durability as a regular use range gun ( he doesn't want to have to buy more than one gun right now ), so I spotted a 3" barrel 357 Ruger SP-101 in stainless...we talked about shooting 38 specials in the gun regularly, with the option of +P or 357 mag...
if they would have had a Crimsion Trace grip on hand, he would have bought that as well, but he ended up walKing out with the 101, with plans to order the laser grips after they got to shoot it a bit...
so... how'd I do ??? I think they got the most versitile gun they could have considering all the variables...
during our meeting, he brought up my CCW, & mentioned that he was thinking about buying a gun, to keep in his home, with the thought of also getting a CCW for himself... he had gotten a $100.00 off coupon, & one of his buddys had talked him into putting a S&W M&P in 40 S&W on layaway, & what did I think...
1st I asked him what his wife's position was on guns, & he said that she was in agreement that "they" needed to get a gun "while they still could"... so whatever they got, she would be practicing with it as well...
... as you can likely tell by my forum name, I'm a revolver guy, but I tried to offer unbiased comparisions of all the possible uses... the biggest constraints being his tiny wife shooting the gun, the fact that he was seriously thinking about getting a CCW, the fact that he had already gotten a range membership, & planned to take whatever he bought to the range once a week to practice with, & the fact that neither of them had any expirience...
... so after our meeting, we went & looked at the M&P... ( he had never even held one ) I explained bout loading the magazine, & then wracking the slide... he was sure his wife would never be able to, as he could barely do it... so I explained the benifits of a revolver for new shooters, & we moved down the counter a bit to the revolver section... next we pulled out a shouded hammer Air Weight S&W in 38 Special, with crimson trace grips... we discussed that one for a while, I expressed my only concern was the shorter sight radius, & the light weight frame, both as far as recoil, & as far as durability as a regular use range gun ( he doesn't want to have to buy more than one gun right now ), so I spotted a 3" barrel 357 Ruger SP-101 in stainless...we talked about shooting 38 specials in the gun regularly, with the option of +P or 357 mag...
if they would have had a Crimsion Trace grip on hand, he would have bought that as well, but he ended up walKing out with the 101, with plans to order the laser grips after they got to shoot it a bit...
so... how'd I do ??? I think they got the most versitile gun they could have considering all the variables...