Recommendation for women

[synchro]

Pick up a copy of "Effective Defense : The Woman, the Plan, the Gun" by Gila Hayes. An EXCELLENT book for defense in general, but it covers issues particular to women carrying and applying firearms for defense. She is an excellent writer and instructor too. I have taken classes by her and read this book. I had originally got it for my girlfriend, but ended up reading it because I liked the class Gila taught. Amazon.com carries it i know.

One other thing I would recommend for your GF is to take a firearms training class if there is one available locally. Even an NRA basic pistol class would be worthwhile if a self defense related firearms class is not available.

[manygunner]

Originally Posted by qballwill

I must disagree with this post, I have a SW99 which is S&Ws version of the P99 and it is a great gun. I dont see any lack of quality craftsmanship and I have never had any problems or malfunctions with it at all. Ergonomics are wonderful and it has a great factory trigger pull. Maybe I just got lucky and get a good one. But I do trust this gun enough that it was once my duty weapon. But like he said, these are all our own opinions, go with what feels right to her.

A couple of years ago one gun mag did a side by side of SW99 and P99 made in germany. The P99 was more accurate and had better trigger. The SW99 groupsr were at least 1.5 times the size of the P99 groups. Overall the writter thought the P99 was much much better then the SW99.

Also I bought a SW99 in .45 ACP shortly after they came on the market. I took it to the rnage, loaded it and fired. Got splatter all over me as the the headspace was not correct, the idiots at S&W short chambered the bloody barrel by about 1mm. This was not obvious form casual inspection and took me a bit to figure out. I am just glad I only got minor splatter rather then a catastrophic failure of the case head or chamber. I got rid of that gun in a hurry.

Further I bought a S&W 4563TSW for home defense. Was looking for a good defense load too. Anyway, read a bit of them manual and found out that they are not rated for +P ammo. I called S&W to check on this and was told by them not to use +P ammo in that gun. My thoughts were WTF, if this is supposed to be a man tactical gun with an accessory rail why can it not take +P. Anyway, my opinion of S&W quality has goen down considerably.

I owned a P99 serial #40XX imported by Interarms, manufacture date code was KK I think. . Was a nice gun, just could not get used to the major difference between the DA and the SA trigger. Also later in life it went full auto on me once. Had to get the trigger/striker mechanism worked on. I also was not fond of the way it pinched my trigger finger between the trigger and the guard. But it was much better then the stuff S&W is pushing out now with the Walther logo. I got rid of it as I got my XD-9 and was not shooting the Walther that much anymore.

BTW, here is a good source of info on the P99. http://www.praxagora.com/lunde/WaltherP99FAQ/

[bigjakern]

My advice is for after the purchase, be sure she keeps it where she can get to it ... I got my wife a taurus 38 snub, she loves it, shoots well with it, but leaves it in her purse, at the bottom of the jumble, in the car while she gets out and pays at the pump, or into the grocery store with just the wallet because the purse is to bulky with junk ...

[jedi573]

Further I bought a S&W 4563TSW for home defense. Was looking for a good defense load too. Anyway, read a bit of them manual and found out that they are not rated for +P ammo. I called S&W to check on this and was told by them not to use +P ammo in that gun. My thoughts were WTF, if this is supposed to be a man tactical gun with an accessory rail why can it not take +P. Anyway, my opinion of S&W quality has goen down considerably.

For what it's worth, Les Baer Custom (makes pretty good semi-production 1911s) says not to use +P ammo either, but a fair number of folks do. I'm pretty sure it's just a liability issue for the Baer, so it might be the same thing with the S&W.

Andy