Question for the gun folks

[digitaldiscipline]

As part of the pilgrimage to Phoenix to visit mighty_man in a couple of weeks, one of the places we always stop is a gun range. I'd actually like to give some thought to my choice of rental weapon, with an eye towards pursuing ownership.

The weapon we always rent, and with which I'm accurate out to 25m, is completely impractical; the FN-PS90 submachine gun. *laugh*

What are your favorite handguns for personal use? What are your reasons for that preference?

If it helps in the recommendation department, I have average-sized hands (I wear a "medium" in most gloves) and relatively light forearms. I suspect that a .45 or .357 is not going to be easy for me to control; something in a 9mm or .40cal (or some other caliber with which I am unfamiliar) might be more manageable.

What I know about guns:
- They are always loaded. I don't care if I just emptied the magazine downrange, it's still loaded until the clip is out and the slide is open, and even then, it might still have a round in it, somehow.
- Only point it at something I am willing to destroy. Paper targets, zombies, home invaders, or the floor.
- They are always loaded.

Comments

[vatine]

Well, strictly speaking, he was talking about other small wee folk, but the easiest translation to English is probably "ammo fairies" (I think the actual phrase used was 'och när du inte tittar kommer ammotomten och laddar om' ("when you're not looking, the ammo gnome/fairy comes and reloads")).

I think the world would be a better place if all firearms instructors talked about ammo fairies (there are similar fairies planting discontinuities in fuze and placing loaded caps on the line for your electric blast caps, but they're explosives fairies and not ammo fairies and thus slightly out of scope).

[sloot.livejournal.com]

Gnomes sound a little more hardcore than fairies, and of course anything in German sounds more hard core thN English.

Still, the story of ammo fairies will live on!

[vatine]

I wouldn't know about German (the text snippet is honest-to-ghu Swedish :). The tomte is the tiny ritter that hides on a farm, should be served warm milk and porridge and will groom your animals in exchange for that (and, lately, in a larger version, delivering christmas presents once a year).

Maybe "brownie" is the right mental translation? But "ammo fairy" sounds more memorable.

[sloot.livejournal.com]

I almost put in a disclaimer of 'or whichever language that actually is' but decided against it.

now I look the fool.

It's amazing how every culture has the same stories of small humanoids who do things when we turn our backs.

[vatine]

'S OK, Swedish is an East-Norse language and pretty typical for "Norse-derived" and "Germanic" (heck, I could muddle through German text well before having my first German class, but there's quite a few false friends hiding for the unwary).

[najalaise.livejournal.com]

"Ammotomten" has such pleasantly repetitive sounds, though- it seems better not to translate it at all!

[vatine]

As long as you remember that the "tom" part has a rising (at least I think it's rising, it's changing fershure) tone... Without that, it turns from an ammo fairy to a plot of land, designated for ammo.