Gscuttles

I am in the market for recommendations regarding a good all purpose hand gun. I want to have a house gun as well as one that is relatively cheap to shoot and good for small game. I have experience with shotguns and rifles, but not much in the handgun area. I would appreciate your feedback and criteria for your recommendations. Although cost is a criteria, I will save it for later...lol.

paulyseggs

my suggestions would be a good 357mag double action, personally i;m a ruger fan, i do have a smith and wesson but the trigger pull on my ruger is smoother and better suited to me, i also have a colt trooper which is the smoothest shooting stock pistol i;ve shot, but thats mine, with the 357mag you can shoot 38special 38special +p or 357mag so you;ve got a wide spectrum of velocity to choose from.

i;ve done some small game hunting (showshoe hares, foxes, bobcats) with some 38wadcutter match ammo and they worked great, i;ve also bought some heavy 165-180 magnum 357 ammo for deers, then you;ve got the 125grain 38+p or if you want even better the 125g 357mag hollowpoints for personal defense,

the options are enormous for 38/357, you can;t go wrong

ohh one more thing, since semi auto is the way to go these days you can find very nice used 357 mags for almost nothing

"smile, life could be worse.. i could be datin your daughter."

diyj98

I'll go along with paulseggs. A nice .357 revolver will do about anything you'd ever want to do. I'd pick a nice 4" barrel within your budget and you can't go wrong.

TScottW99

I'll also give the nod for a good wheel gun in .357mag. Another option you might want to look at is a Ruger Single Action convertable. It comes with a .357mag cylanider allowing you to shoot .357mag & .38spcl plus a 9mm cylanider. Three good rounds with the 9mm costing around $10.00 for a 100 rounds at wally world in the white box and .38spcl going for about the same or a little over. If you don't like the single action the S&W 19, 66, Ruger GP100 and Taurus models are all good shooters. Good luck to ya'.

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hornetguy

I'll make it unanimous... a 357 mag... preferrably stainless steel. A 6" barrel will be a little more comfortable to shoot, and a little more difficult to carry, if you so choose. It will have considerably less muzzle blast than a 4" barrel, and it might seem to balance in the hand a little better, depending on which 4" you are comparing it to. I heartily recommend the Ruger GP100.... they are absolutely bulletproof, and usually very accurate. The single action trigger pull might not be quite as nice as a Smith and Wesson, but it is not bad at all... this is also a good time to be buying a revolver, as the fad for now is the semi-auto.... but, truth be told, most people would be as well served, if not better served with a 357 revolver.

"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness..those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Santayana

Nomercy

Monkey in the wrench....Ruger Redhawk in .44 mag. Double action for when you need to pump a couple .44 spcl rounds into a burglar, and stout enough that you can hunt deer and bruin with it if you'd want to. If you never want to graduate it up from small game to deer or such, then I'd go ahead with the .357 in a Ruger redhawk.

As far as all that goes, if you're just going to use it for home defense and small game (bunnies, and other varmints, probably not coyotes though, unless you're lucky) I'd say get a pistol. No wheelgun's going to defend a home better than a .45 acp, you're gonna get a faster cycle rate, less recoil, and more shots. I've hunted bunnies and some coyotes with my Argentinian 1911 knockoff, and have had good luck, not many shots over 30 yrds though.

Screw the 10 ring, keep them in the zero!!!

frizzellr

"No wheelgun's going to defend a home better than a .45 acp, you're gonna get a faster cycle rate, less recoil, and more shots." Again your logic is flawed. Since Gscuttles admits to being unfamiliar with handguns that probably means that he is also unfamiliar with how to clear jams and all those other little things you need to know to be proficient with a semi-auto pistol. Anyone can pick up a double-action revolver in the heat of battle and fire it without having to worry about things like, is the safety on, is the hammer cocked, is it going to jam, etc. A good 357 Mag round will be as effective as a 45 ACP. As far as more rounds I can think of two different 357 Mag revolvers that hold eight rounds. Besides, if you need more than six you aren't in a gunfight, you are in a war and need to call in an airstrike. The recoil of a good medium weight or heavy 357 Mag is not going to be that much more noticeable than that aggrivating muzzle jump of the 45, and if the shots are on target, who gives a rat's butt about cyclic rate.

thndrchiken

Well I have to agree with the majority, the only two handguns that I own are a Ruger GP100 4" and a Springfield Armory 1911 45, for a home defense gun i would suggest the 357 if for no other reason than the option to shoot .38 loads which I feel are better suited for home defense and with the weight of the Ruger you'll have barely any muzzle flip at all.

MR300WM

I have to agree with the majority here. I believe the best all around handgun is the 357 mag. I carry a 45ACP but this is not an all around gun as I have others to play with <img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle>

Nomercy

Ok, I'll be the first to admitt that pistols can jam while DA revolvers can't, but I never plan on mine jamming, and don't worry about it, because it doesn't happen. Sure there are a lot of cheap pistols out there with old magazines that will jam every other round, I've owned a couple. If you get a good pistol, the only round you have to worry about jamming is the one you feed, namely the loading round. I don't know what revolvers you've been shooting, but almost every home defense round I've ever shot in .45 acp have kicked less than .38spcl rounds (less muzzle hop that is). Also, have you ever seen the tests that glock did on their pistols, including unloading it, freezing it in a block of ice, thawing it and firing a full mag, never jammed or misfired, left it in the desert for a week, loaded it and fired a full mag, never jammed or misfired, left it in salt water for a week,loaded it fired a full mag never misfired or jammed. Think I'd count on a glock if I took good care of it for D@mn sure.

Who cares about cycle rate....well, when I wake up at 4am and there's someone in my house, even in my room, I don't want to have to worry about what if I miss, I want to put as much lead in them as possible.

As far as home defense goes, basically we're talking about killing people, who does this for a living....military and police, no military faction has issued a revolver for duty since the late 70's.

Screw the 10 ring, keep them in the zero!!!