This is largely just a set of videos by a firearms instructor who has clue. It gives a rough overview of how different guns are operated and general guidance about how to choose one over another. He also has lots of videos about different specific gun types in more detail should one type catch your interest.
If you are a gun nooby this is a good place to start. If you are experienced, this review can be helpful.
This first video does more “show and tell” on guns types:
Part 2 is more about legal issues, practice, storage and such:
Here is his top 5 guns for beginners / training. Note that the small Ruger Bearcat is a $600 gun. The recently introduced Ruger Wrangler fills the same role at $200.
These guns run to .22 LR and while it does end most attacks it also does not stop 1/3 of attackers (where “self defense” calibers fail to stop an attacker 14% of the time. Yes, even .357 Magnum has trouble with folks on PCP some of the time. A difference of 19% more “failure to stop” for the 22 LR.) While I’m ok with that statistic, if you are not, then it is a centerfire for you. The 14% is pretty much a constant from 380 ACP / 9mm kurtz or corto up to .44 Magnum. How many die on the first shot changes. Percent stopped at all not so much. I’m willing to accept potential “hand to hand” with someone I’ve put 6 rounds of .22 LR into already while I wait for them to notice or bleed out. You may not be.
Then, his top 5 guns for home defense.
Remember that your needs, abilities, budget, and local laws can dramatically change your best choice.
The short shotgun is very hard to beat. A home defense pump is relatively cheap and stops just about anyone who can be stopped. My pattern when things look horrible is to load up the Defender shotgun and put it near the bedroom. That’s the major defensive action. Then a small pistol goes in the pocket. IF anything goes nuts, the pistol is fast and has 66% to 86% probability of being enough (depending on .22 or bigger) then lets me fall back to Stage Two. Your plan will vary.
Musings from the Chiefio 
With a firearm, it is about accuracy, not caliber.
Practice, and you can be effective with just about anything.
JMHO, and also most of the police dad folks who were part of my son’s classes.
@Ossqss:
That’s why I’m quite comfortable with a .22 or .32 ACP as my first line of defense. I can hit much more accurately with a .22 and put 2 in a row rapidly in the same spot. There’s a reason it is a preferred silenced assassination weapon, if very accurately shot.
That’s also why I suggested the Ruger Wrangler as a first self defense gun. It improves your skill fast and well. It is “good enough” for the most likely circumstances, while you get good enough for “more gun”. Link to Wrangler discussion:
There is much on firearms here. https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/search/label/Firearms
All very pro Trump. Latest post on Cobol programing.
I’m a big fan of Mr. Paul Harrell. His patient explanations, his deep knowledge and most of all his deadpan delivery, full of unacknowledged jokes. Of course, I am not allowed any gun other than an airgun of restricted power or just maybe a shotgun if I can justify a need. (The population of the nearest city coming out into the countryside to take my stuff doesn’t count.)
But if I was allowed, that Walther PPQ M2 with the five-inch barrel looks pretty good, and I’m in the camp that thinks 9mm is usually enough, no bears or hogs here and the deer are 18 inches tall.
Nice collection of videos for the topic, Noobs To Gun Ownership, E.M.
It seems that collectively, we’re not complete dummies. We’ve brought out all of what Mr. Harrell presented in those videos in comments here, but it’s scattered about in different threads and over a period of years. Paul Harrell wrapped it all up and put a nice big bow on it.
@Compu Gator – Well, there ya go. Just under 2 hours of video watching and you have all of the info you need to start looking for a firearm that suits your particular situation and the scenarios you think you will most likely encounter. Lot’s of safety tips in there, too.
Paul Harrell is also of the “Get hands on training with a good instructor” school of thought, but in one of those videos, he recognized the difficulty of that under our current Wuhan Flu madness situation. You’re smarter than the average Gator, so if you’ve decided to buy and your choices are limited, I think there’s enough info in those videos for you to pick the best solution for your situation out of a limited selection.
I don’t know your particular financial situation, but Mr. Harrell did point out some guns where you could buy a .22 version and an identical version in a larger caliber. We pointed out here that there’s even a BB version of some handguns, so you could buy BB, .22, and say 9mm and have three identical guns to move up through as you gain skill and experience.
You can practice in the back yard and shoot a lot for little money with a BB version. Practice a lot at a range or on suitable acreage for only a bit more money with the .22 while further developing your safety habits and accuracy. And then hit the range with with the large caliber gun if you think you might need one. That’s pretty close to ideal, but it does cost a bit. If you have the money, I’d say that is a good way to go. If not, you have the info to buy one gun suitable for you.
Just plain old shooting is fun, too. It’s a skill activity like billiards or golf and there’s a lot of satisfaction in getting better and faster at putting 10 shots through the same hole or hitting moving targets. The fun aspect should not be ignored.
@Rhoda:
The UK situation is sad. One would think the UK would have remembered WWII when the USA was the “Arsenal of Democracy” and American civilians donated thousands of personally owned firearms to the UK as an emergency measure (since you’all were unarmed facing invasion…). Sad to think of those donations now crushed.
Similar thing going on in Australia.
Oh Well. Good luck with the next time. Until then you can at least watch from afar.
Yes, I like his patient explanation style, even if sometimes it’s a bit slow for me. When I need it slower, it helps ;-)
@H.R.:
What I think is particularly useful for Noobs is that you get to see him operate different gun types and get “experience by proxy”. So intuitivly grasp relative speed to reload revolvers vs semiautomatic or just what 5 round vs 15 rounds looks like in action. Or how complicated is a Double Action semiautomatic vs a Glock.
He’s come out with a new “Top 5” video for the changed environment of rioters by the dozen. Basically it emphasizes high capacity magazines. Not useful for me as Kalifornia limits to 10 rounds since they don’t like effective guns. (So I got a much bigger caliber instead insuring “one shot stops” (or at least “1 shot much bigger holes”… ) with .40 S&W).
The intro is basically saying that his usual top five is for the normal nutjob breaking in your door and not mobs, but now we have mobs. Then he shoots and shows the guns. At about 19 minutes he touches on a different case. The matched carbine / pistol and out in the country. He has a whole video on just those sets.
In this one he just covers one. M1 Carbine in .30 carbine, with matched Ruger Blackhawk in .30 carbine. Enough gun for the deer, mountain lions, black bear, and small feral pigs of the West Coast. He touches on the way a single action revolver lets you do top up reloading. I don’t need to empty all the rounds at once.
FWIW, my preferred “bug out kit” is very similar. Ruger Blackhawk, but in .357 Magnum with matching 9mm cylinder. Lets me shoot most any .38 caliber rounds (yes I know .38 S&W is 1/1000″ bigger, but it shoots…) and military 9mm. The rifle is a Marlin lever action. It shoots the same ammo, minus the 9mm. (.38 S&W only if hand fed one at a time. Too short for the magazine mechanism. .38 Special magazine feed fine). Again, just enough for the feral hogs, black bear, mountain lions, and deer found locally. The high capacity carbine being the mob gun. The lever action tube magazine also allows top up loading, so magazine capacity is your pocket size…
I have become a fan of pistol cartridge carbines. I use them in practical shooting comps and find them much more easily to be accurate than pistols and just about as handy. I now own two carbines, one in 9mm and one in 45acp. My pistol of choice is a 1911 45acp which makes ammunition supply easier. I have also become a fan of high intensity green laser spotting sights by Crimson Trace. Moving in a middle guard position to keep full situational awareness and to accurately place shots on the move makes this laser shine.
Practice is required for proficiency.
I highly recommend both the use of airsoft or BB guns, though I recommend airsoft with plastic bb’s over BB guns with metal bb’s. One bb disintegrates over time and the other does not. Airsoft is also not as damaging to paint and glass. Using airsoft inside the house is not an issue where BB guns can cause serious damage.
I also highly recommended attending practical pistol matches by such as the USPSA for practical shooting on the move against different targets as they become visible. Stationary shooting at a single target has it’s place, but is not a good real life simulation for moving through the rooms of your house and engaging targets while on the move.
@Ed Forbes:
I really like them too! I’ve got a .22 LR set with Ruger Single Six (with .22 Magnum cylinder also) and semi-auto rifle.
I had a .45 ACP set, but it has gone to the son. Was looking to get a 9mm carbine to match my 9mm pistol, but about then had income drop while existing inventory completely filled the gun safe and my probable lifetime use was dropping toward zero. I mean, really, I’m already prepared for anything that might happen so it really is just buying a new toy at this point. Low priority.
Now if someone just made a 12 gauge pistol to match my shotgun 8-‘)
I just got back from picking up a .380 derringer. It’s a situational purchase for after my shoulder surgery.
E.M. mentioned the tip up barrels so I wouldn’t have to rack a slide, but this was $139.99 and $150 and small change out the door, tax, title, and license. The cheapie tip up barrel semi-autos they had available (display cases were about 50% less compared to normal times) were either too far on the low end and I wouldn’t trust them to operate reliably, or a few better ones that were a lot more expensive than the derringer.
I’m actually thinking of sewing a pocket into my arm sling and it the need arises, I’ll just slip my hand into the pocket and shoot through the fabric. The derringer should do better than a semi-auto as the pocket may interfere with the slide.
I’ll go back to my regular concealed carry 9mm a few months after surgery..
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2 bits of news
1. No .380 auto ammo at the store. .380 is very hard to find right now.
Other common ammo was available, 9mm. .40 and .45, .22, .38 and .357. They were limiting purchases to 2 boxes per customer per day, though.
2. Paul Harrell mentioned in one of the videos that the normal 30 – 40 minute wait was stretching out to as much as 10 days. That happened to me.
All other guns I have purchased under the instant check rule were about a 30-ish minute wait to approval and then I walked out of the store with my selection.
I was really surprised when, after about a 45 minute wait for this check, the sales guy came out and said their was a hold on my background check. Odd, but he said the gun could be picked up today, the 13th. I bought it on August 7th, so that’s a 6 day delay.
I just wasn’t expecting that because all prior purchases sailed through, and I underwent an FBI background check when I got my CCW permit. I’m a know quantity.
Anyhow, I suspect the Powers That Be are just making it a hassle to discourage all the newly interested 1st-time gun buyers. The PTB really don’t want everyone armed. And I don’t think my suspicion is far enough out there to require a tinfoil hat.
@H.R.:
I think it more likely that the queue to buy has just blown out so far that the next available date was then. Every gun site I’ve visited has been mostly “sold out”, so clearly volume is way high.
Decades back I adopted a policy of “caliber variety” to be able to “use whatever was available”. Lately I’ve scaled that back some as several “variety calibers” were given to the Son. OTOH, I can still utilize over a dozen calibers, and no, I’ve not figure out what all of them are… Just about all rimfire. Just about all .38 / .357 / 9mm. (The 380 went to the kid…) and several others.
It’s interesting to me to see that “policy” having utility now ;-) But, since I can also reload 3 or 4 types, not really an issue.
Good luck with the arm!
BTW, Kalifornia has a mandatory 10 day minimum wait, so I never get anything “same day”. I suspect I’ll be getting a Derringer when I’m moved to Florida just to enjoy the process ;-)
The idea of a “pouch in the sling” is an interesting one. Make it with an open end and you can just “shoot from the cast” ;-)
Seems like that would make a good scene in a movie ;-)
FWIW, on my “someday list” is a black powder single action revolver. Why? Well, first off, just the fun of it. Then, secondly, hard to say “no ammo” when you can make your own with a bullet mould and a can of black… (or knowing how to make it from BBQ fixings, fruit fungicide, and stump remover… not that I’ve done it… lately… 8-)
$150 out the door? You mean, like, 3 tanks of gas? OMG I’m in trouble now ;-)
E.M.: “FWIW, on my “someday list” is a black powder single action revolver.”
Grew up shooting one. Dad bought a high quality replica Colt Navy .44 cap and ball revolver.
He made a beautiful walnut fitted case for the gun and accessories (powder flask/measure, percussion cap dispenser/loader, cleaning rod, etc.) and mom lined it with felt.
My oldest brother has it now. I got dad’s S&W .22 ‘Kit’ gun. It’s a smaller frame, 4″ barrel revolver that you packed in your camping or hiking ‘kit’ bag for snakes, varmints, rabbits, plinking.
Anyhow, back at the .44, the smoke plume and blast and smell of black powder, well there’s nothing quite like it. You can almost hear the powder burn back to front.
I think I was about 8 when he let me load and shoot it. The powder flask had an adjustable measure. You set the dispense tube to the volume you wanted, put your finger over the end, opened the internal gate with a lever, turned over the flask and the powder filled the nozzle. You let go of the gate lever, turned the flask back upright, and you had a premeasured load of powder ready to dump in the cylinder.
Dump that in, place a patch and a ball on the cylinder and ram it home with the plunger lever. Add your percussion cap and you were good to go on to the next cylinder. Talk about old school!
The beauty of those guns was you could change powder loads on the fly, perfect for detuned loads for an 8-year old and then add some oomph for my older brothers. We enjoyed the loading process as dad taught us how to do it and then let us do it ourselves.
The recoil on that heavy hog leg with a detuned load was no problem for a kid. Dad’s criterion for letting us shoot it was if we were strong enough to hold it up and steady. I think my sister – girls are a little ahead in the early years – got to shoot it when she was about seven.
Look for a lightly used, good quality replica .44 or .45 from the ’60s – ’70s. I looked for one a couple of years back, since I wasn’t the one to get the .44. They are a bit hard to find, but they are out there and fairly reasonable, $300-ish then but that may have changed, higher or lower depending on current interest.
Hey, they might be easier to find in Florida. Someone older who bought one way back when for historical interest may just be ready to call it a wrap and sell it, particularly since the young’uns nowadays aren’t particularly interested in that old stuff so their kids don’t want it.
I sold my black powder cap and ball .44 Dragoon a couple of years back that I bought in the mid 70’s. Should have kept it. It made a full size 1911 45acp look small.
These are NOT a Restricted firearm. Can be transferred and shipped without restrictions. I had to educate the local UPS shipping office on this point, but after their main office got evolved, they took
the shipment.
In the current California environment, I can see a place for a weapon that is outside of normal firearm rules in some aspects.
Buying extra cylinders, one can reload a cap & ball fast by changing out the cylinder. It is very quick and easy in many of these revolvers to change out the cylinder.
Aha, Ed! You definitely know what I meant when I said that dad wouldn’t let us shoot his .44 until we were strong enough to hold it securely. Those things are quite a hunk of metal, eh?
I had forgotten about the spare cylinder aspect. Dad didn’t buy one for that gun, but I recall he did mention it when we (smart ass kids) noted how slow it was to load as we imagined ourselves in an old time gun fight.
BTW, that gun always drew over other shooters at the range when we were using it. There’s just something about black powder and they couldn’t resist having a look. Did you find that your Dragoon attracted other shooters to check it out. Ed?
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Black powder rifles are a thing in our State. Deer Season is a couple of months if you are using primitive weapons; bows and muzzle loading black powder rifles. Deer Gun season, with modern weapons, is only two weeks. Our State just added black powder rifles to the primitive weapons category a few years ago (10? 15 years?) and muzzle loader sales took off. Before that, it was bows only.
Black Powder deer seasons also spawned a whole new class of “modern muzzel loaders”.
https://www.outdoorlife.com/8-best-modern-muzzleloaders/
Note some of these are bolt action cartridge case driven. So primer, case and powder in the breech, ball in sabot down the muzzle. 500 yard accurate range.
@Tim, here
That link is a good one, thanks.
Interesting bit, his note on gun inventories:
Several months? Are gun makers shut down?
I’d also suspect this means “non-self defence” calibers are more likely still available. Like .22 rimfire and .32 ACP. Both of which are adequate with good shot placement. (Brady and Reagan were both hospitalized by one round each of .22 LR from a hand gun).
Golly, just checked a few online sites. Even black powder revolvers are “out of stock”.
I’ve occasionally mused over getting a .44 BP Revolver. Some (not the best, brass…) were down in the $200 range. Looks like a lot of the better ones are now $400+ though being sold out makes that moot.
I suspect folks in areas, like Kalifornia, with mandatory 10 day waits on regular guns, may have bought a BP gun while they waited…
https://www.emf-company.com/store/pc/1858-Army-and-Sheriff-Models-c111.htm
While I’m not fond of double action only and striker fired guns, getting an effective self defense gun that’s simple to operate from a name maker like Ruger for $240 is a pretty good deal
https://www.basspro.com/shop/en/Ruger-LCP-Semi-Auto-Pistol
Why not DAO? Double action trigger pull tends to be longer and harder than single action (as it must compress the hammer / striker spring) and that makes precise aim harder.
Neither one of those is horrible, and the controls are simpler for noobs (no double to single transition, no hammer or half cock) buf I’d need to feel the trigger first.
OTOH, the 380 caliber (9mm short) is a very effective caliber, widely available, and the gun is easy to pocket. At normal self defence ranges of 5 to 20 feet, point and shoot is more likely than aimed fire anywsy.
Uhhhh… .E.M.? .380 is not widely available right now. Matter of fact, it’s scarce as hen’s teeth. I just have to disabuse you of the notion that .380 is widely available at present. Maybe later, but not now.
I went out to shoot the new .380 derringer today (picked it up yesterday, remember?).
There’s a State Park shooting range out in the boonies that we went to in the late ’50s early ’60s and still go to here and there up to present day.
There’s a gun store and bait & tackle shop up there about a mile from the range. It’s a named, one 4-way stop sign not-even-a-village now and I stopped in to get a range pass. I knew they’d have some .380 and they’d be the only store within many, many miles with .380 (trust me, I know).
Yes, they had .380 but were limiting purchases to one box of ammo per day per person. No selection. They had 10 boxes of target .380 and no self defense loads. They now have at most, 9 boxes.
Oh, and the range is closed, so I got a box of .380 and my annual range pass, but still have yet to fire off the derringer.
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BTW, in our State, an annual range pass that’s good at all the State ranges – and there are quite a few – is $24.00. That’s good for all day shooting if you want to empty your gun safe and fire everything you’ve got. First come first served at a shooting station.
They also have a clay bird range with several stations and there’s always an open station. Bring a shotgun and your own clay bird thrower to amuse yourself if you have to wait for an open rifle or handgun station.
1 hour of range time at the various indoor ranges around town and in the ‘burbs is running $20 – $25, so the range pass is a great deal, particularly since I’m already halfway out in the boonies and it’s about 25 -30 minutes to that range.
Ha! In Florida, the Mrs. and I went to a gun store to pick up some ammo that was hard to find at home, and the drive there on surface streets with traffic and stoplights was longer than that.
The next nearest State range is about 1 hour and 15 minutes away, but hey! I’m retired so a nice little drive out in the country is a bonus, not a barrier. I’m going there Monday to give it another shot, so to speak.
.380… hen’s teeth… take your pick right now ;o)
Widely available is a general statement of market segment size, currently in stock in a location is a variable condition.
For comparison my 9mm Makarov, 7.62 Tokarev, and .357 Sig are gun store only and often not stocked at all. Not widely available. .38 S&W was hard to find 20 years ago and the store that had it is now gone. They were also the only place I found BB Caps and CB Caps (imported from Germany).
Now look on line:
https://www.cabelas.com/shop/en/handgun-ammo#facet:-7000000000000000015465156483265117116111109971161059932671111081163280105115116111108&productBeginIndex:0&facetLimit:&orderBy:&pageView:grid&minPrice:&maxPrice:&pageSize:&
That link is ugly but is Cabellas 380 with 11 choices listed.
BTW, in Kalifornia you can not buy ammo through the mail. They are doing back door gun registration. You can only buy ammo in the caliber gun for which you have legal ownership records in their hands and the Sale is recorded. So on line doesn’t help me.
Brownells shows it too:
https://www.brownells.com/ammunition/handgun-ammo/usa-white-box-ammo-380-auto-95gr-fmj-prod95261.aspx
So my point is just that is a common and, if you prefer, widely carried ammo type. Not some oddball like .455 Webley or .32 Short Colt.
@E.M. – My point is that .380 is in the Great Toilet Paper Panic situation at this particular time.
Under normal circumstances, it certainly is readily available.
Fortunately, I have a stash. I just didn’t want to dip into it for mere test firing and to get familiar with a new gun :o)
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That majorly sux that you can’t get ammo unless you have a recorded gun ownership in the same caliber.
If I were in that situation, I’d already have a brace of .44 BP pistols, 4 or 5 spare cylinders, a .44 cal ball mould, and I’d be haunting the dive shops for lead diving weights to melt down.
Stupid question: In what world is it logical to prohibit sales of ammunition to someone that doesn’t have a gun of that particular caliber? How can someone shoot ammunition for which they don’t have a gun?
Maybe I just want to throw the bullets at the baddies.
I don’t have a 20mm cannon. Maybe I just think the ammo would make cool paperweights? Oh, and there are cartridge collectors. Its a thing.
I’m not sure how a law like that withstands Constitutional scrutiny. Maybe no one has run it up through the courts yet.
It likely doesn’t, H. R.; but leftists (statists by another name, whether covert or overt) are tyrants. The Constitution means nothing to them if they can’t use it against free peoples. Yes, it sounds like our host should find a 2nd Amendment tort lawyer who’ll take these folk on, pro bono. Didn’t I hear that the 9th Circuit ruled in favor of large capacity (10 or more rounds per) recently)?
@cd – Stupid tyrants. They should have made it the law that you can buy any and all of the ammo you want, so long as you don’t have a gun of the same caliber.
Wait… no one is going to stockpile ammo for a gun they ‘officially’ don’t have, right?
;o)
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The NRA usually takes on these 2nd Amendment encroachments, but recently our evil overlords, aka elected officials, have been using lawfare to deplete the NRA’s legal resources. The NRA is being forced to use their legal funds on defense rather than on offense pursuing the reversal of unconstitutional gun laws.
The particular set of crap laws is just a couple of years old. It was already challenged (and tossed), then an immediate appeal for an injunction brought it back so still in process.
As decades back I though this might be coming, I’m all set up (and stocked up) to mold bullets and reload .38 / .357 / 9mm and 12 gauge. I’ve also got a brick or two of .22 LR and enough SKS food to reach EOL of my shooting career.
Now, one other bit of evil: the law includes a provision that all legal challenges to it are to have the defense funded by a fee on ammo sales. Effectively, gun owners must fund both sides of the legal fees. Also, bringing in ammo you bought out of State is illegal. Folks returning from gun shows in Nevada get pulled over and busted if any ammo is found.
One final twist:
Lead ammo is forbidden for hunting (so birds don’t use it as gizzard stones). Targets and self defense only. OK, you think, I’ll use lead free solder to mould them. Well, that has tin so if used in pistols falls under a law claiming it is too hard so armor defeating. Off too prison for you. Bismuth sales are up though ;-)
The goal, clearly, is to functionally make all ammo illegal and / or assure that all gun owners can be found guilty of something and their guns confiscated. Or just get someone to say they are scared of you having guns so under “red flag” laws they can just take them.
I’d be in Florida by now but for this lockdown crap.