To take an analogy from the gun world, if a person of average height is a full sized Glock 17, I would be a a Glock 19. I’m not a midget, but at 5’6 I don’t exactly loom over anyone (with the exception of midgets). This has over the course of my life lead to the expected jokes about compensation when made in light of my hobby. Additionally, my three brothers all clear six feet in height (where’s the love?), and my college friends were not ones to pull their punches. This resulted in me hearing literally every short joke you can possibly imagine (on that note, go ahead and post them in the comments).
While I generally take the short jokes and associated ribbing with a sense of humor, it has also led to some uncomfortable realities that I’ve had to face in light of my hobby and my desire to exercise the RKBA. The most inconvenient of those realities is that is quite difficult for me to conceal a full pistol or revolver without putting significant forethought into the process. While I can conceal full sized firearms such as my GP100, the process is neither elegant nor particularly effective especially during the summer months.
This has lead my down the road of smaller pistols, of which I have the options of the micro .45s, the micro 9mms, snub nosed revolvers, and then your host of “underpowered” cartridges that you normally find in smaller guns. I don’t particularly enjoy shooting micro .45s or 9mms, which would mean that I would never put the necessary range time into them that you need with an everyday carry gun. I do like snubnosed revolvers, but for some reason don’t own any. I used to have a nice SP101 with a 3 inch barrel, I have no idea why I got rid of that gun.
Right now, my EDC is a Walther P22, although when the situation allows I will carry the GP100. I detailed why I love the Walther in a previous post yet there is always a certain sense of “gee, I hope this bullet is big enough to do the job” whenever I pack the little gun. Of course, if Walther would just respond to my emails and chamber a P22 in .380, all my problems would be solved. I had one gun, a Llama .380 that looked like a mini 1911. That gun would have perfect, except it had all these sharp edges that could cut my hand up with the recoil, so that was out. I just couldn’t justify spending $150 bucks on a dehorning job for a $200 pistol.
Some of you might remember my gun snobbery experiment which resulted in me purchasing a Hi-Point C9. I will state the following one time. Despite my success in getting the Hi-Point to reliably feed 6 rounds of ammo every time, I am more comfortable carrying my P22, which has fired thousands of rounds without a jam than I am carrying that particular Hi-Point. Because of the amount of tinkering I had to do to get it to run, I am less than enthusiastic about it as a carry gun – although it does make for a fine way to shoot 9mm rounds.
Maybe I should just bite the bullet and buy another SP101, I know I’ll like that. My problem really boils down to the fact that I’m always a bit uneasy when I’m carrying anything other than a fullsized pistol. Of course, since I can’t strap on an M9 and go wandering around without attracting some undue attention, it seems that I’ll simply continue my search for the perfect carry gun.
