Best First Pistol to Buy!
This is a loaded question (pun intended). When someone asks me what is the best pistol to purchase, particularly for their first pistol, a lot of thought goes into an answer. My first pistol I purchased was a
Taurus PT92. I think I watched the Lethal Weapon movie franchise like 100x as a teenager. I idolized Martin Riggs. A no nonsense dude who was in the business of getting shit done. What is not to like? He used a Beretta 92. But when money comes into things and with Taurus using an old Beretta factory to make their Taurus PT92's, why not buy one. Pretty similar and the PT92 did me well. I shot tons of rounds through it, increased my skills with a pistol and generally liked it. Then I decided to concealed carry. That is where my love of the Taurus PT92 ended. It just wasn't made, in my opinion, for concealed carry. There are better options out there and I was determined to find one of them.
I went on to purchase a Smith and Wesson Sigma 9mm. Thinking it was going to be better sized and much easier to concealed carry. Needless did I know the holster market was limited for this gun and it just did not strike my fancy. I shot the gun alright, but I was not in love with it. This is what happens sometimes to gun buyers. You get into a spiral of bad purchases. They best thing to do is outline what your trying to do. I knew when I bought the Taurus PT92 I was going to concealed carry down the road, but I did not factor that into my purchase as much as I should have. This was when magazines were more of a factor than YouTube and information was much more limited than today. So leaning on gun shops was more in Vogue than now. So I dealt with the Smith and Wesson Sigma 9mm for a while. I never carried it and it knocked my enthusiasm for shooting down a notch. Buying a gun that corners you into not being able to do everything you want sucks. I would still go shooting and hit the range, but my progression towards concealed carry was stunted.
Then one day I started to research concealed carry guns. YouTube and the internet in relation to guns was more around. I got lot's of good information. It was between the Glock 19 and a M&P 9mm. My father had a M&P 9mm and I really liked it and shot it well. But the trigger was not something I was in love with. I also at this time researched the holster and accessory market more. If I was to purchase a gun for concealed carry would it be able to be customized and could I find a bunch of different holsters to try? After all this research I purchased a Glock 19 Gen 3. I took it too the range and shot it well and generally liked it. It is a no thrills kind of gun. Compact and easy to concealed carry and it holds 15 rounds in it's magazine. That worked for me. I already had my concealed carry license, so I began to train with my Glock 19 for concealed carry. Doing drills and the such. Then I carried it and fell in love with it.
Now here I am a decade later or so and getting into customizing my one Glock 19. I have several now as I like consistency. The 9mm is a great round (not debating it being better than any other round,
etc.). My buddy Nate Murr one day years ago said something to me about stippling. I was like yea I heard about that. I was attached to not modifying my guns. I mean Glock molded them the perfect way right? Well he talked me into removing the finger grooves and stippling the whole gun. Wow, that made a huge difference. I shot it better since I now had a higher center axis grip with the undercuts he put on it. I cannot think of a better first pistol to buy than the Glock 19. It allows you to learn shooting, is reliable as hell, tons of aftermarket goodies and allows you to build upon it as your skills or desires increase in the shooting world. It could be a home defense gun, concealed carry gun, fun at the range gun. It really can do it all. You could do 98% worse if you purchased another pistol as your first pistol.
