The smallest kick handgun.

My favorite mousegun is the discontinued Beretta 950. Lightweight, 8 shot, tip up bbl, mild recoil. Not a very effective round but you have 8 of em.
 
If you have the hand strength to operate the slide and hold the gun, a steel frame 9mm is a very easy shooting pistol.

My wife has low hand strength and low recoil tolerance due to a medical condition. I've looked around and had her handle & shoot a wide variety of firearms.

Revolvers in typical defensive calibers simply don't work for her. Either the recoil is too much for her or the trigger pull is too difficult. She's done pretty well with full-sized 9mm pistols although she has difficulty operating the slide in some cases. The Ruger P95 is one that she can work easily and that doesn't recoil too much for her.

She also has a Beretta model 86 in .380. It's a relatively large .380 which helps with the recoil, but the nicest feature is the tip-up barrel which means you never have to operate the slide.
 
Let's see, small hands and arthritis...

I have a Beretta Tomcat in .32acp that shoots very softly (kind of a heavy gun for the caliber, but that just means it eats up the recoil), and with the tip-up barrel, you don't have to worry about hand strength to rack the slide. The same should go for the similar Beretta .22LR designs (just make sure you use quality .22LR ammo, the cheap stuff may not be primed properly- in a revolver you just pull the trigger again, but in a semiauto it's more of a problem).
 
Are you in a chair or ambulatory? That makes a slight difference in what you can/could carry (assuming a license here). The .32 Beretta Tomcat is your best bet if you want a semiauto - tilt up barrel, single or double action trigger, heavy enough to reduce felt recoil - and, you can get some very good defensive .32 ammunition. A revolver is also an excellent choice if you can pull the trigger (trigger pull on some revolvers (esp the airlites) is rather heavy) - maybe one of the older .32 H&R chambered revolvers or the newer .327 Federal round wheel guns if you are concerned with recoil. My progressive arthritis has forced a change from my semiautos back to a revolver. Sure, a .357 round out of an titanium/scandium airlite will hurt; one - you don't use it for range time (that is what cheaper .38s are made for; and two - if SHTF you won't have time to think about whether or not the second round is going to sting or not. Good luck!
 
Are the larger .380s an option? In such a pistol, the size and weight should greatly reduce the felt recoil of a fairly mild cartridge, yet you are getting a more effective round. With something like a SIG 230, you can cock the hammer for easy slide operation to chamber, and then use the large frame-mounted decocking lever on the side to safely lower the hammer. Other .380s in this size range use a small, hard-to-operate decocker on the slide.
 
Have you ever tried a Bersa .22?

I use mine to start training new shooters. It is small, but not so small it is hard to hold. It is no target pistol, but isn't as hilariously inaccurate as some very small .22 pistols.

It is virtually recoil-less. It has the advantage over the old CX-22 walther-ish copy of being made of real metal.
 
There are some older .32s in larger sized that have lower recoil like the relatively rare Sig 230 (contracted for a Japanese agency I have heard) or Surplus Walther PP. The CZ50/70 are good but have horrific triggers.
 
+1 on the 4" K frame suggestion. www.mastercast.net makes the lightest recoiling .38 round on the market...a 100gr DEWC. while not a powerhouse by any stretch, they will make a nice .357 cookie cutter hole in a BG.

Also, a buddy of mine has a walther pp .32 it is very soft shooting also.
 
I fall in the revolver recommendation camp. I think a medium frame 357 which you would load with 38spls would be the best all around choice for ammo and powe availability. My choice would be 3" Ruger GP100.

An alternative would be the Ruger SP101 in 327 mag loaded with 32 H&R's. It shouldn't be bad recoilwise at all and still should be an adequate home defense firearm.

I would say 22LR or 22WMR, but I'd get boo-hoo'd.
 
A Beretta 86 Cheetah (i think thats the name of the model) comes in .380acp, and is large enough that it would absorb the recoil. Plus Hornady came out with some knew self defense ammo. Best of Luck:)
 
another alternative

Pricy, but articles claim the FN 5.7x28 pistol is almost recoilless, and it does carry 20 rounds. Not a light gun, like the 21A. Might be worth it to rent one, along with some of the others.
 
PSA doesn't work

I tested out my friend's .25 cal PSA today, and I was unable to neither rack the slide back, nor pull the trigger. I assume that pulling the trigger is the most important part of shooting a gun :rolleyes:, and I couldn't do it on that handgun.
I'm going to continue testing out different handguns(both semi-auto and revolvers) that you all have suggested. I really like the ones with the tilt up barrel. That seems like a good idea.
 
First, I appreciate your situation.

2nd, I tried to find a gun for an elderly arthritis person.

I ended up buying her a revolver and had some lightening up (Reworked) the DA trigger.

TBS, I also bought a Beretta 22LR Bobcat 21A afterwise.

The Beretta jam's on a regular basis, but I'm sure it can be fixed to, not been done yet.

TBS, I shoot that 21a all the time, and it's a great gun, it's just that from what I've seen, 22lr handguns/semi's can be ammo specific/finicky.

I just need to tweek it a little.

TBS, I could shoot off 9 rounds in about 2-3 seconds.
 
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"some people believe that .22 rounds aren't deadly, and shouldn't be used for defense, but for me, any round is better than no round."

With that sound logic, I think you could do well with a Ruger Standard Auto. It is highly reliable too and easy to load and use. It's not light but not too much to lift and aim, recoil is slight. Use hollow points for social work and anything for inexpansive practice.

NOTHING is very useful for home defense if you aren't so well experienced with using it that you can do it almost without thought of the weapon itself. Any center fire is MUCH more expesive to shoot than a .22RF, it's about the same cost as reloaded centerfire ammo!
 
With that sound logic, I think you could do well with a Ruger Standard Auto. It is highly reliable too and easy to load and use. It's not light but not too much to lift and aim, recoil is slight. Use hollow points for social work and anything for inexpansive practice.
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I'm not so certain I'd suggest Ruger autoloader .22s for this particular application, respecting the arthritic limitation that the OP has. We considered the Ruger MK II/IIIs for SWMBO. She tried them at the range. She loved shooting them. But she just couldn't work the slide or load the mags. What we did find that she could handle, slide, mags and all (although she still prefers that I load the mags) is the S&W 422 that we got for her. The slide is MUCH easier to manipulate. The recoil action spring is MUCH lighter and easier for her to operate. Sadly, the 422/622/2206 product line has been out of production for over a decade. But at least there a mags available for them, they take the same mags as the model 41. And you can still pick them up used for a reasonable cost, if you can find them. They are kinda odd looking, though. One nice thing about our 422 is the weight. It weighs in at a svelte 22 oz, and that is in a 6" model.

Regarding the ammo suggestions: I agree with the suggestion pertaining to practice ammo, but I for one am not in the .22 hp camp for SD. I'm not convinced that a .22 hp will penetrate sufficiently assuming that it expands. SWMBO keeps our 422 loaded up as backup to her S&W 15. It is loaded up with CCI MiniMag solids, as there is no question that those will penetrate enough to actually hit something vital. I feel that a .22 solid hit that hits something vital is better than a .22 hp hit that doesn't make it deep enough.

NOTHING is very useful for home defense if you aren't so well experienced with using it that you can do it almost without thought of the weapon itself. Any center fire is MUCH more expesive to shoot than a .22RF, it's about the same cost as reloaded centerfire ammo!
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I'll agree with all but the last statement. Even reloaded centerfire ammo is more expensive than cheap-o bulk practice .22lr.

Nothing beats the price per pop of cheap-o bulk .22lr without dropping down to pellet guns, BB guns and such. And those, of course, are worse than useless for SD.
 
She also has a Beretta model 86 in .380. It's a relatively large .380 which helps with the recoil, but the nicest feature is the tip-up barrel which means you never have to operate the slide.
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This is the one I would recommend. Years ago, I bought a Taurus PT-22 for my wife because of her RA deformed tiny hands. With the tip-up barrel, she wouldn't even have to rack the slide. She tried, dammit, but alas, she couldn't even work it, as her hands are now all but useless. Had she had larger hands, or even a bit more dexterity, I certainly would have liked that Beretta, as it's chambered in a decent defense caliber.
 
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