A few days ago I got an email from a long-time correspondent asking a question that would have rocked me back on my heels, had I been standing up.
“What is the best 9mm pistol for concealed carry?”
I estimate that approximately half the articles ever written for gun magazines have titles similar to this, and they all consist of lines of nonsense words.
In fact my first impulse was to ridicule the question. Why not ask what’s the best car? The best ballpoint pen? And anyway, who ever mistook me for an expert?
And then it occurred to me that the question does, in fact, have a brief answer that isn’t “It depends.” If we make one assumption, that the questioner just wants a good serviceable pistol and isn’t at all invested in the standard ‘gun nut’ arguments, the answer is simple.
If you just want a good solid reliable compact 9mm with no tricks or style, without having to shop around, you want a Glock G26 or, if you can go a little bit bigger, a G19. Either is a very good choice for concealed carry. Unless you need to go very concealed, in which case there are smaller guns but they’re correspondingly harder to shoot well and I’m not quite as confident about reliability.
And even then, I wasn’t aware that Glock does make a smaller 9mm or I’d have mentioned it. But that’s my point. There are a million different models, they all work alike, they’re all ugly as mud fences, and they’re all perfectly good.
Mind you, I’ve never even owned a Glock. Prior to adopting a big-bore revolver as my EDC gun due to special circumstances, I was a confirmed 1911 guy because I’m old and that used to be the right answer*. And I prefer the trigger. And Glocks are ugly.
But let’s face it: If you just want a gun that does the one thing a gun needs to do and does it well enough, that’s pretty much the gun. Would I rather drive a Dodge Viper than a Honda Odyssey? It depends. 🙂 If you’re just interested in getting home with the kids and the groceries, the minivan makes more sense.
What can I say? Glock has become the Japanese minivan of handguns. It has taken decades for a fossil like me to get around to noticing, but it really has been for a long time.
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*well, it was the conventional answer.
Glock may be a nice gun but I’m not a fan of firearms with no externally hammer or safety. Personally I’m a fan of the 1911, the Sig 226 and the S&W Model 19 all of which I have owned for decades with no trouble. There are too many accidental discharges with Glocks for my taste.
Thank you Joel,
Yes, we did our homework, and came up with the same decision as your recommendation. Three youngsters and a Mom are now armed if they want to be, but still driving in that minivan. 🙂 I was glad to have your more informed opinion than my own concur.
I don’t own a glock. I was raised (literally) with a 1911. Having said that I have found a Tupperware pistol I like, S&W M&P. The grip angle is much more to my personal liking than the Glock and as far as I can tell they are as reliable. My wife carries a full size one every day. I have a PRO model to play pistol games with and so far they both have been 100% reliable with all loads including my reloads. I have no problem with the Glock except the grip angle just don’t do it for me. They appear to be very reliable and affordable. Some of the M&P’s have a thumb safety as well as the hinged trigger for the folks that want it.
I still grab one of my 1911’s most of the time…
There are 3 passive safeties built into a Glock.
https://us.glock.com/technology/safe-action
The weapon is built so that it fires only when the trigger is pulled. Now when some moron puts it in his waist band with no protective holster and blows his anatomy off or severs his femoral artery when he somehow gets something on the trigger it’s his own fault. It’s not rocket science it’s common sense. Some of us don’t need protection from our own stupidity by using a lawyer-ized gun. We just use our brain.
What a few call “accidental” , the rest call “negligent” and properly so. Keep your booger hook and any other item that can get caught off the trigger and it won’t go off. PERIOD. I own more than one and that’s what I carry.
And for those who care, there is now a G43, also in 9mm, which is essentially the same size as the little G26 but being a “single-stack” design (6+1 capacity) is even skinnier than the G26. It essentially disappears in an IWB holster. Snappy to fire? Of course . . . but this is not a gun for an afternoon at the range and 100+ rounds for fun. It’s a gun in the smallest “serious” caliber that you will likely carry instead of leaving it at home because it’s too “clunky” to easily carry/conceal.
Yeah GLOCK is a reliable pistol,as are most of the other brands on today’s market. We really are fortunate in that respect.
That said,my 9mm’s are a Sig 320 Compact,striker fired,modular & about the size of a G19 or a G26 depending on how I configure the changeable grip modules.
For single stack, Springfield Armory XDs9. The Croats got there before Gaston and managed to hold an additional round.
45acp is Sig P220 & XDs 45 respectively.
My carry gun is a S &W 60 in .357. Sure it’s a wheel gun. I carry it loaded with 180 gr hard lead for EDC because I’m much more likely to need it for a large bear than a scumbag.
Yeah, that would be those special circumstances I mentioned…
Interesting thread. Amusing, too, how familiar much of the extant commentary sounds. 🙂
Completely agreed on the core observation: one is simply not going to go wrong with a hip-pocket answer of “just Glock up and be happy” to any non-enthusiast’s inquiry. For me, it is actually the recent arrival of the G43 single stack which clinches that; that piece is functionally no different than a half-dozen others already on the market and proven, but it is a Glock, and it does indeed solve the “feels like a two-by-four” problem for small hands. Any remaining objections quickly trend toward trivial.
What makes me smile, really, is that there are so many truly viable options on the market today. Aside from Joel’s point about the inherent unconfusion of going to Glock exactly because the line is so unified, it is nonetheless inspiring to see so many different flavors of Things That Will Do The Job Well, conceived and produced across the industry exactly because of–wait for it, now; it’s become a quaint notion, so let’s savor it–market demand. (Ahhhh.)
I appreciate Joel’s observation specifically because I do tend to enjoy (ready for the irony?) the personalizing details of generalization in a world of choice; I can get myself in trouble sometimes by going to the details when I should just use a hip-pocket solution. Sometimes it’s because the inquirer simply doesn’t care about my enthusiasm; other times it’s because I underestimate the amount of investment against my available time.
It’s not likely going to change me from my emergent opinion that the idealized answer to “what one pistol for everything?” may well be the XDS 4.0 in .45ACP, but…if one stipulates both 9mm and concealment, I’m not sure I could argue against a G43, or even a G19 if the hand size is there. I suspect this is going to become a useful tidbit in my own stable. 🙂