[Mr_Shamrock]

My mom came into town this past week and during one of our conversations she said she would like to get a firearm to keep at home for protection. She lives 800 miles away in a large house and has, at times, felt a little uneasy being there alone. So as you can imagine I was eager to talk guns with mom. I showed her a large S&W .357 that I had as well as my Ruger LCP that I always have on me. She instantly thought the LCP was the gun for her. I suggested a trip to our local range that has an open rental program. Basically for $25 you can try any of there rental weapons. On the way there I told her I would like to see her with a revolver and .38 was probably the calber I could see her getting comfortable with. She is a small framed woman at about 5'6" and roughly 120 pounds. I know there is a huge debate on defense calibers and semi auto's vs. revolvers, but my personal preference for someone who will not spend a lot of range time and just wants a defense weapon is a revolver. I don't want to start a debate, but that is just my opinion.

We arrive at the range and she has to watch the safety video. After the video I take her over to the rental cabinets and pick out a Ruger LCR. I had never shot one and had actually been wanting to check one out for my wife. We pick up a box of .38 and .380 (I brought my LCP as well), a few targets, and in we go. After a 10 minute crash course on both weapons she shoots the LCP first. She did NOT like it at all. For her weaker grip she did not feel comfortable at all with how snappy it was with not a lot to hold on to. She also didn't like how small the sights were. 7 rounds later she puts it down and says "This is definitely not the one!" I then walk her through the loading process of the revolver and she instantly tells me she likes how easy it is to load. She then begins to shoot it. I watch as she falls in love with this little revolver. She loved the sights, there was more to hold onto compared to the LCP, and it was still small enough to stick into a purse if she decides to go CWP later. She went through about 40 rounds out of the 50 round box. She didn't want to put it down. I was also surprised to see her get a few sub 2" groups @ 7 yards. I know that isn't a great distance, but figured would be somewhat accurate for a defensive situation. At one point she pushed the target back to around the 12 yard mark and still had a very nice grouping of around 5". Not bad for a woman who has only shot a couple times in her life! She definitely got comfortable with it quickly.

She made a comment on the 5 round capacity of the LCR so just for comparison sake I go back out and get a S&W Bodyguard .380 thinking it looked to have a little more to hold on to vs. the LCP while still having the 6+1 capacity. It does slightly have more to hold, but in both of our opinions has the absolute worst trigger. I have shot many different guns in my time and have to say that it was a HUGE disapointment. To get the trigger to move initially is very hard and once it starts moving you swear it will never fire. It feels like it has to actually press against the rear of the trigger guard to fire. For her hand size/strength it was very difficult to get it to that point and she only fired it twice before putting it down. The built in laser was cool and hopefully with some trigger work it will make a decent weapon, but as is it is not a fun gun to shoot - and this is coming from someone who can have fun with just about any gun. It was interesting to see how much the laser moved to get the trigger going. Even when I shot it, it was extremely hard to keep the laser on target during the initial movement of the trigger.

So all in all it was a great day at the range with mom and she returned to Florida today and will be purchasing an LCR in the next couple weeks. I plan on taking the wife to the range to shoot one as well, but am fairly certain it will be added to our arsenal pretty soon.

Sorry for the long post. Hopefully this will shed some light on a couple different pistols.