Your choice

R

rmocarsky

New member
Gunners,

There is reason to believe that your life and your family's may be in peril.

You have called the Police and they answer, "Call us if he comes to your house."

You own both. Now, that the seriousness is the first time in your life, which do you place within reach, your S&W Model 66 or your 1911A1?


You have 2 magazines.

You have a speed loader.

And please, don't say both.

I want to know which one of the two you would choose.

Rmocarsky
 
There is reason to believe that your life and your family's may be in peril.
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I'm going to have one and someone in "my family" who is there is going to have the other.

Since I'm equally proficient with both guns and they're equally effective, the gun I end up with would depend on who else in my family was there and which gun they were most proficient with.

which do you place within reach
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If I'm in my home and I seriously believe that I may shortly be needing a gun within my reach, it's NOT going to be a handgun.
 
Assuming they’re both reliable guns I’d probably go with the 1911 since I could potentially have 17 rounds versus 12 for the M66.
 
Quote:
"rmocarsky Gunners,
There is reason to believe that your life and your family's may be in peril.
You have called the Police and they answer, "Call us if he comes to your house."
You own both. Now, that the seriousness is the first time in your life, which do you place within reach, your S&W Model 66 or your 1911A1?
You have 2 magazines.
You have a speed loader.
And please, don't say both.
I want to know which one of the two you would choose.
Rmocarsky"

Great exercise in imagination.
I'm curious as to what you think you might learn from answers to the question.
 
Last edited:
Jeager106,

OP here.

I guess I really wanted to get a concensus of which handgun would be preferred in a situation that could not be more grim.

Rmocarsky

P.S. About 30 years ago this situation happened to a house down the street from me. Cops said "call us if he comes to your home.''

He did. They called. He pistol whipped the husband unconcious.

And went through the house until he found the hidden wife and shot her dead.

Then the police arrived.
 
Assuming that there are no other options, both guns are reliable, and that it's 12 shots of 357 -vs- 15 shots of 45, I'd go with the wheelgun. A dozen 357's is about the same as 15 45's in my mind. Plus, I shoot revolvers better.
 
If you are in your home what possible reason could you come up with to grab a handgun when you could grab a shotgun or rifle?

These kind of situational questions are always asked by someone that has not had to fight for their life. Hopefull you never will.

There is nothing wrong with asking, but there is a problem with giving the answers you require to be repeated back to you. (you MUST answer either A or B)

If you limit the answers you are under the assumption that such a situation could be realistic. You however didn’t give a lot of info to have a basis to answer from.

“Your family is in danger”
OK…….
From what enemy?

One man?
2 men?
A gang of men?
A gang of well armed military men?
A pack of dogs?
A rabid bear?
A rampaging drunk crashing a car through your front wall?
What?

Any of these are better answered with rifle fire.

A handgun is for the times when you can’t carry or pick up as rifle.
Think not?
Then ask why EVERY SINGLE ARMY ON EARTH arms it’s soldiers with rifles first and handguns second. (or uses no handguns at all)
Why?
Because rifles work better at killing the enemy. Easier to hit with, faster to kill or disable.

I can tell you that a few (often very few) rounds fired from a rifle is not as damaging to your hearing as a lot of rounds fired from a handgun (especially a magnum handgun)

There will be those that chime in that a rifle is too loud.
Not it’s not (and yes it is). So what? It’s combat, not sport shooting!
You can deal with that after you make the shot.
Did you see I said Shot, not shots?

If you used a deer rifle and you keep cool you will fire more than one shot if you have more then one enemy as a rule. If you have only one enemy and you keep your cool you will not likely need a 2nd shot.

A good handgun can do the job very well if you make a good hit, but again I ask why would would grab one if you could grab a rifle. If you are defending your home You know the battlefield better than the enemy. Use your brain. Don’t panic. Keep cool and stay calm. Aim carefully enough to make a good hit and end the fight.

YOU are the weapon. All guns are just the tools you use.

If you can do a good job with any gun you will do better than having “the best gun” but not making good hits from loosing your cool.
 
The choices you make with regard to how you work the problem will matter more than which gun you choose. Make smarter choices.

How about we don't be home when the gunfight goes down, for starters?
 
Option C: A long gun, preferably with: (a) backup magazines; (b) the 1911 on one hip; and (c) backup magazines for the 1911A1 on the other. If, by chance that doesn't do the trick, I never had an armament problem in the first place, but a planning problem.

However, in order to not color too far outside the lines of the OP: Assuming that the two options given by the OP are my only two options, I'd go with the 1911A1. I think I'd shoot it better, and reloading would definitely be faster for me than with the revolver.
 
I would choose Option C: Long Gun. I would want my AR if I knew a bad guy was about to breach my door. Of course if you have this amount of time, I would have called the cops, and told them exactly what was going on.
 
You have called the Police and they answer, "Call us if he comes to your house."
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I'm a bit confused here: If the intruder is not yet at your house, I would assume you have time to gather everyone and get out.

If, on the other hand, this is a case of 911 apathy, and the guy is breaking down your door, my first choice would be the revolver; It's a matter of pick it up and pull the trigger when the guy breaks in. I don't see where you would have the necessity to reload if your first or second shot hits its mark.
 
Um, some of you guys assume that everyone has both handguns and long guns at their disposal. A LOT of non-gun people (which is most people) buy a gun/handgun for home protection and shoot it a couple of times a year. Just because a lot of people here carry or shoot regularly, doesn't mean most people do.
 
Onward Allusion said:
Um, some of you guys assume that everyone has both handguns and long guns at their disposal. A LOT of non-gun people (which is most people) buy a gun/handgun for home protection and shoot it a couple of times a year. Just because a lot of people here carry or shoot regularly, doesn't mean most people do.
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If that is the case, hopefully they are smart enough to figure out that they need to be heading out to buy a long gun as soon as they hang up from the cops telling them "Call us if he comes to your house."

If they're not smart enough to figure it out, I guess we just have to leave it up to Darwin.
 
My wife is more comfortable with wheelguns, so assuming she's also home in the hypothetical situation, I'm grabbin' the 1911 and she can have the M66.

But, actually, I'm probably grabbing the 1911 anyway. Assuming its my gun, and I've vetted it for reliability.


Of course, that's just answering the question asked. Real life I'm either gettin' out of Dodge, or grabbing the 12 gauge and/or AR15.
 
If you are in your home what possible reason could you come up with to grab a handgun when you could grab a shotgun or rifle?
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You make a decent argument and you put a LOT of energy in to your post and reasons, but it doesn't make it the catch-all and "only correct" answer.

Besides the extremely obvious one of what anyone in the same position might actually HAVE at their disposal, there are still going to be very good reasons to choose a handgun over a rifle in a -home- defense situation. Maneuverability in tight quarters is likely my biggest reason, not to mention the fact that I don't have a decent long gun that I can reliably and sufficiently operate with one hand if/when I may need to use my other hand for light or phone or door or child or ________.

No such thing as the "average" gun fight. I think it's a serious reach to sit on a high horse and claim that only the right answer exists and you already have it. Having JUST returned from your (absolutely gorgeous) part of the USA, I can tell you that a very large percentage of folks that live where I do simply don't have rifles. Part of that is our land/terrain and part of that are some ignorant DNR & hunting laws that make rifles a no-go for the most popular of hunting. (deer)

Where you live, most gun people own guns as tools for outdoor activities. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that where you live, even the NON-gun people own a long gun or two as a necessity. Where I live hopwever, a larger percentage of people own handguns for social use and can't discharge a firearm legally without taking a sufficient drive directly out of the populated area. Shooting for you may very well be a walk out the back door (or front door!) Shooting for me is a 110-mile round trip.
 
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