…getting dressed this morning. Waiting for the first cup to kick in. I’ve got three pistols I actually use, but for EDC There Can Be Only One. And I’m no longer certain which it should be.
This is my Taurus Tracker .44 Magnum. I’ve had it for about a year and a half. It’s not an expensive pistol but it’s accurate, light to carry, has a good single-action trigger and okay sights. It’s not perfect: It has timing issues that can cause clicks instead of bangs in rapid double-action fire, but that’s not the way I shoot so what the hell? Best of all it’s enough gun to hide behind when scary things happen, which, in the boonies, they occasionally do. If I ever have to climb under another house looking for a bear, this is the gun I’ll bring. With my Peltors. Because I’ve become more and more reluctant to fire the Tracker casually. Because it’s really damagingly loud. I’m already half-deaf and have permanent tinnitus, because when I was young I was stupid. I carry earplugs with me all the time but if I have time to screw in earplugs before taking a shot, it couldn’t have been much of an emergency. Honestly, the muzzle brake is cool but I’m learning to regret having fallen in love with this pistol.
This is my franken-Mak, the Prole-Killer. It’s my go-to-town gun when I don’t feel like dusting off the 1911, and it was my fall-back EDC gun for several months after I hurt my shoulder because it’s so snubby I could draw it. It’s surprisingly accurate for what it is, though those tiny sights aren’t much help to ol’ blind Joel. Uses scarce ammo, because I don’t reload for it. Doesn’t sound like the world’s ending when I pull the trigger. Some days I carry it even when I’m not going to town, because it’s reliable and close-range accurate and not a hassle.
And this is my old faithful Ruger 22/45. I’ve had this gun since the turn of the century. I clean it every year or two, when it gets so gunked up it stops working, because it employs the patented Ruger what-the-hell-were-they-thinking reassembly procedure. It’s a .22. I’ve killed more things with this gun than with every other gun I possess combined, because most things I want to kill are small. I trust this gun. Except when scary things happen. Which, in the boonies, they occasionally do. Because it’s a .22. Which is why I normally carry the .44. Which is hurting me. Which is why more and more often I carry the .22.
I probably shoot to kill more often than you do, but it’s never a gunfight. Most commonly it goes like this: I want to explain to a squirrel’s next of kin that they should stay the hell out of my pantry, so I draw the gun I’m carrying and kill the squirrel. I have to do it quick. I do it casually if I’m carrying the Ruger. Somewhat less casually with the Mak, because scarce ammo and besides I’ll miss. I’ve grown reluctant to do it at all with the Taurus.
🙂 This is as close as a desert hermit comes to a philosophical conundrum. I just don’t want it to lead to an existential crisis. Y’know?
Aw, what the hell, somebody has to say it . . .
For “local” carry, wear the Taurus AND the Ruger. There are several approaches to this and I’ll not go into them as you’re probably already aware of most of them.
Everybody likes a two-gun paranoid recluse. It’s such a neat mental image.
😉 😉 😉
Those are three nice pistols, Joel. I don’t have that particular Taurus revolver, but I do have several in .357 and they are good, honest working guns. I have two Russian Makarovs and one Bulgarian Mak, and they work as advertised.
The Ruger is a nice working gun too. I have started carrying a Walther PPK in .380 ACP during my walks at the lake or the river, it’s too hot for a shoulder holster rig here right now, so I have to carry something small and concealable inside a light shirt.
I’m with Kentucky. With the correct assortment of holsters, you could carry all three so there’s no question about having the right one for any situation. 😉
😀 Yeah, but who’s going to come around and help me up out of my chair?
Honestly there have been (very private) times when I’ve played 2-gun Joel, back when I was caretaking J&H’s property and he wanted all rabbits killed on sight. Shooting a small cottontail with a .44 Special is kind of messy. Even completely alone I felt silly, and even without multiple firearms I fight a never-ending battle to resist the urge to add yet more stuff to my already rather crowded belt.
So just make sure you always take LB with you, and make a “saddle holster” to strap on him!
}:-]
But make sure he’s on a very short leash so the gun on his back ain’t outta reach just when you need it most…
This is quiet the conundrum you have. carrying more than on pistol has it’s advantages but then there’s the need of suspenders to keep one’s pants from falling down. I know there will be those who say don’t carry the .22 as you EDC but if it is the one called into action the most then it is the most useful.
When looking at the .22 for self defense from two legged creatures remember that the humble .22 is used for the majority of wet work (assassinations) around the world and 75% of all the Russian soldiers killed by Chechens were killed with .22s. In looking at various records of .22 being used for self defense I have yet to see any cases when after being shot the bad guy kept coming. Not to say that they don’t always but the trend seems to be the bad guy being shot runs away.
https://www.buckeyefirearms.org/handgun-stopping-power
Dealing with animals is a totally different matter. For animals I would say the majority of the time a .22 is fine. Depending upon placement a .22 will usually stop or scare a small to medium sized critter off. There have been times when a .22 has been used on large animals as witnessed with Bella Twin:
“Bella Twin, an Indian girl, and her friend Dave Auger were hunting grouse near Lesser Slave Lake in northern Alberta. The only gun they had was Bella’s single-shot bolt-action .22 Rimfire rifle. They were walking a cutline that had been made for oil exploration when they saw a large grizzly following the same survey line toward them. If they ran, the bear would probably notice them and might chase, so they quietly sat down on a brush pile and hoped that the bear would pass by without trouble. But the bear came much too close, and when the big boar was only a few yards away, Bella Twin shot him in the side of the head with a .22 Long cartridge. The bear dropped, kicked and then lay still. Taking no chances, Bella went up close and fired all of the cartridges she had, seven or eight .22 Longs, into the bear’s head. That bear, killed in 1953, was the world-record grizzly for several years and is still high in the records today. Which only goes to show that in an emergency, strange things are possible, but who wants that kind of emergency?”
http://www.angelfire.com/on2/LandOwner/misc/Grizley1.html
So now you should look at how many times you needed the .44 verses the .22 and make your best guess.
This is one conundrum I’m glad I don’t have. When I go off the hard surface there’s a 12 G with a 12 inch barrel in my pack. Don’t get me wrong, .44s are nice but a 12 slug or 00 buckshot from a shoulder controlled weapon is more accurate.
Can you work out a low power shotshell load for the .44 that you’d have available for small animals?