mcbethr

I think you can go one of three routes. If you want an all-metal gun, I would go with a 1911. This does two things: #1. You keep commonality of caliber so are not buying a second type of ammunition. #2. If you buy a 1911, you can also buy a .22 Caliber Conversion Kit for the gun. This will let you fire cheaper .22 caliber ammunition. #3. You will find it surprisingly similar in ergonomics to your XD. *Or* look into the Beretta 92. 9mm is cheaper to shoot than .45, and you can get a .22 conversion kit for the 92. I would personally stay away .40 caliber guns. I have nothing against the caliber. It's fine if you are law enforcement and get free boxes from your department. But it doesn't bring much to the table over 9mm and costs $2.00 more per box. You already have a fine home defense gun with your Springfield XD 45, there is no reason to augment it with a more exotic caliber. *Or* like this_is_nascar said, look into a .22 caliber revolver. Its cheap and fun to shoot.

I would add a little to that: $200 in $10 bills. The ATMs might not be working and stores might run out of change. If you need X and it costs $5.00, and all you have is a $20, it's going to cost you $20. So $200 in 10's is best. 3 days worth of prescription medications. If you live with a woman, tampons (yes, really). An extra pair of glasses and an eyeglass repair kit. A small sewing kit Paper maps of New Jersey and your county. An extra cell phone charger.

I would suggest getting some 9mm Snap Caps or Safe-t-trainers. You can get them online at Brownells. These are basically inert dummy or training rounds and they are important for 3 reasons #1, You can practice loading / unloading the gun and get a feel for trigger before you even get to the range. And note its usually best not to fire a gun on an empty chamber, although this depends on the gun. #2. You can find out if you are jerking the trigger or anticipating the shot of the gun by having a friend secretly load a snap cap. If you flinch as you pull the trigger, you know the problem is you and not the gun. #3. They are good for practicing immediate action or tap, rack ready while you are shooting. Have a friend load a magazine with 1 or 2 snap caps in the magazine. Shoot the gun at a target. When the hammer goes 'click' instead of 'bang' you've just simulated a dud round or a jam. Slap the magazine, rack the slide, and get ready to engage the target again. This does two things. It helps you get to know the feeling between slide lock (your magazine is empty) and a jam/dud round. And it also gives you the muscle memory to react instantly to a jam or dud round.

I've fired +P out if my Auto Ordnance 1911, and it is considered one of the lower-end models. If my memory serves correctly, I fired exactly 30 rounds of the Hornandy Critical Defense. The gun was just fine. Honestly, I don't see how it could harm it as long as you are not doing it every day. And anyway, most of the +P rounds you can find will be hollow points from Corbon or Hornandy, which are expensive to shoot in the first place, so odds are that you will only shoot those rounds a couple of times to get confidence that your gun feeds them properly. That being said, a 230 grain bullet traveling at 830 feet per second is already one big wrecking ball. I don't see how speeding it up by 20% is going to make that much of a difference in the target. Would you rather get hit by a freight train traveling at 60 miles per hour, or one that is traveling at 72 miles per hour (20% faster)? The end result is that you were still just hit by a freight train. If you are weighing .357 vs. .45, then I would actually weigh it by possibilities for practice. With the .357, you can shoot cheaper .38 caliber rounds. But of course with the .45, you can get a .22LR conversion kit. So as always...Buy the gun that you love. Since you mentioned the Ruger 1911 by name, and didn't mention a specific .357, I can only conclude that you really want the SR 1911 and are trying to be practical. This is New Jersey. You can't afford to be practical here because if you get buyers remorse buying what is practical rather than what you love, you will have to wait at least 30 days until you can rectify your mistake. Go with the 1911 if you love it. It will eat +P just fine and you will be happier in the long run.

Ever since I bought my 1911A1, I have yet to purchase another box of 9mm ammunition. There is something *about* it. The 1911 has a soul. It's hard to explain. It's a man's gun. Big, heavy, large rounds. It's a gun that means business. Are you giving up anything not getting the Sig? Yes. You are giving up about $5.00 to $7.00 per box of ammunition since .45 is way more expensive than 9mm. But you are buying a piece of history with a 1911. Like Axeman_g said, once you feel that trigger, nothing will be the same.

There is a post on here where someone mentioned problems with a Blade Tech holster, and a rep from Blade Tech actually joined the forum and offered suggestions. They literally have a person who searches forums all day looking for problems. That's what I call customer service. I've already decided that my next holster will be a Blade Tech just from that conversation alone. I don't see how you can go wrong.

I have often said that you can't go wrong with a Sig 226, Beretta 92FS or Glock 19. It's a solid gun. I've fired it, but prefer my Beretta 92 and 1911. That's just me and my personal preference. The best feature of the 226 is its conversion kit so you can fire .22 LR. This gives you two guns in one. Like I've said before, buy the gun you love and you'll never be disappointed.

I remember back when people advocated Governor Christie as a possible presidential choice. I didn't think it would happen, just for this reason alone. Firearms are just too important to most of middle America for them to roll the dice on Christie. The funny thing is that you have to respect Governor Christie, he's a man of principle. If you take a look at Governor Romney on firearms, he would say anything ("avid varmint hunter") to be president. You take a look at Governor Christie, at least you know what you are getting. He's not going to hurt us, but he's not going out of his way to help us either. But he's going to have to pull a full Jim Zumbo if he want president or vice.

Training is one of those "sounds like a good idea" elements. I have a feeling that the state would make the training requirement so onerous that it would turn "shall-issue" back into "may-issue" by making the standards unacceptably high. Or instead of "Shall-Issue" it turns into "won't pass." Like PeteF said:

I think just about everybody would agree to the background check law. I agree with having to be 18 years old to purchase weapons and ammunition as well. I'm going to say one aspect I would agree with is a training requirement for CCW. It's not that I'm afraid people can't shoot, it's that I want them to be darn sure they know what constitutes deadly force. The only problem I can see is that if NJ ever got "shall-issue," I could see the training requirement becoming so onerous that it becomes the new unreachable "justifiable need" standard (must be able to hit a 75 yard target, in the 10 ring... offhand...)

It's funny, I've never heard any gun owner say "packing heat." It seems a somewhat flippant way to describe an awesome responsibility. But I see "packing heat" in the newspapers all the time. It seems like a strange word, like it should be in a 1930's gangster movie: "Is one 'o you goons packin' heat, Bugsey?" Come to think of it, I know about 4 people who have a CCW in either PA or Texas. They always call it "carrying." Or say "I carry." In a sentence, it always seems to be: "I had to find the right shirt so I could carry at the picnic this weekend."

Eil na rafa na la.

I suppose if you could "lend" him the gun for $1.00 and the two of you could fill out a COE, making him the owner of the gun. When he returned form the range, he sells the gun back to you for $1 dollar and you re-do the COE to make you the owner again. But... you better trust your friend, because once you sign that COE, he owns that gun, and you can only do it with longarms.

I think that the "hobby within a hobby" idea is correct. I really only have two hobbies... cigar smoking and shooting. If I add reloading into there, I will have to spend less time smoking cigars... and something tells me doing both at the same time is a bad idea. I do have that Hornandy reloading book, mainly because I really wanted to understand the dynamics of cartridges.

.38 Special tends to be on the pricey side. Brass is the costliest component in a cartridge and the .38 Special casing has a lot of it. You are also buying ammo from the range, and in retail, the maxim is to double everything. I believe that .38 Special at Dicks Sporting Goods is about $18 a box. So that price is about right for range ammo. They have to keep the lights on at Shore Shot and since the margin on selling guns is about 10%, they have to do it with the range.

Maybe I am slightly younger too? I remember dial phones... pay phones... having to go to New Jersey Bell and *rent* a home phone. I remeber only having one TV with 3 channels. Five I suppose if you counted Fox 29 and Philly 57. I remember all of the bad Kung Fu movies they used to play on Saturdays on Fox 29. I remember Van Halen's 1984 as the soundtrack to high school, playing it on a tape in my friend Jeff's 1985 IROC-Z. I remember seeing Die Hard in the theater and that's when I first fell in love with the Beretta 92. I remember Stella, the Man-eater from Manayunk. I remember going to Crazy Eddie's for my Hanukkah present. I remember going to my father's office and being fascinated by the real-to-real magnetic tape machines that stored data. I still have one of my father's magnetic tapes in my office. I used to play ring-toss with the plastic tape-write protect tabs and a Scope bottle my dad kept in his desk. I remember back when K-Mart sold guns - even in New Jersey. I remember being afraid that the Russians would start a nuclear war and I remember the adults walking around bleary-eyed after "The Day After" ran on ABC. I remember when Saturday Night Live was funny. I remember when a gallon of gas was $0.69, and I remember how my mother bought the first minivan. I remember being told not swim with someone who had AIDS. I remember writing handwritten love letters to my girlfriend when she moved away. I remember Betamax and Hands Across America. I remember my father boycotting French wine when he found out that the French refused overflight to our F-111s as they flew to bomb Libya. And finally, I remember the first "portable computer," a Compaq Portable that you carried around in a box the size of a sewing machine with a 5 inch green screen. I now have more computing power in my phone.

You made a good choice. Although they are personally not my thing. You can't go wrong with a G19.

IMHO as you start shooting more you will discover a need for components. I went from a backpack to hold my gun and a few boxes of ammo, and hearing and eye protection, to two sets of hearing and eye protection. To that plus a bottle of oil. To that plus a multi-tool. To that plus a bottle of water and some snacks. To that plus a first aid kit after my slide bit my finger. To that plus shoot-n-see targets. To that plus my own staple gun. I think I basically have a range trunk now... A few weeks ago, I was at Ft. Dix and somebody had a squib round in the barrel of their AR-15. Wouldn't you know... I had a wooden dowel to help get the round out... and I don't even own an AR-15...

I think that's a good way to describe it. I think if I'm just going to buy one gun to keep in the house for home defense and shoot once a year, I would get a Glock 19, M&P9 or Springfield XD9 or Ruger GP100 revolver. Point and shoot. No manual safety to worry about. Can't go wrong. But I like guns with wood and metal. I can't ever imagine passing a Glock or an M&P9 down to my son when I get old. But I can certainly imagine giving him My 92FS or my 1911.

I bought my 10/22 for $209 from Dicks. I think that the base gun you get for $200 that you eventually spend $200 more dollars on getting it to the way you want it to be (Sights, sling, trigger). At the end of the day, you've spent $500 and darn it, it's still a .22. If I did things over again, I would have gone with the tactical model, or I would have bought an M&P 15-22.

I just bought an Auto Ordnance 1911A1 off of a forum member a few days ago. I fired it last night. The Auto Ordnance is sort of like the Honda Accord of 1911s. It think its lower priced, but not the rock bottom ATI/RRA level. Personally, I loved it. There is something about the 1911 that is very... mechanically satisfying. The last time I shot a 1911 was 17 years ago. I've been firing a 9mm Beretta 92FS ever since and I considered myself a "Beretta Guy." Shooting the 1911A1 was an amazing experience. Now I realize why people think that John Moses Browning was such a genius. I "get it." Yes, the ammo is expensive. But I think you have to shoot it to "get it." Magazine capacity... well that is an issue, but its a trade-off. Bigger bullet, smaller capacity. A hit with a 9mm is better than a miss with a .45 any day. I don't ever see myself using a gun for self defense, so capacity isn't an issue for me. But if you are at the point in your life where you have the money to have a gun in a collection or as a hobby, go for an inexpensive 1911 and just enjoy the way it handles. Keep the M&P for home defense, it's a fine gun as well, but it doesn't have "character." So you show the 1911 to your friends. You show the M&P to your enemies.

Buy the gun you love, not the gun you think you should have. You are covered for home defense with your shotgun. You are covered with plinking with your .22 pistols. Buy something you love because you want it and you'll never regret it. If you love the SR9, buy it.

The - is the an engineering change so you are correct that it's a generation number. I'm not a structural engineer, but if you are living in a recent townhome, you should have a concrete firewall between units. If you are using your Model 19 for home defense, and .38 special rounds, I wouldn't worry much about penetration into the next dwelling. Take a look in your attic. You should see a concrete or cinderblock wall seperating your house from your neighbor's. I would do .38 Caliber hollow points from any reputable manufacturer. IMHO, I would stay away from the .357 cartridges. You'll get more control out of .38 and a .357 will be LOUD inside without hearing protection. Your choice is just fine. I would not feel under gunned with a Model 19. The best gun for you is the one you are most comfortable using. Welcome to the forum. Now go to nj2as.org and join the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, we need your help because not every town is as good about permits as Gloucester Township.

Kind of makes me wonder if a police officer even knows what an NJ CCW permit even looks like. Lets say that you were a valid CCW permit holder and a police officer asked to see it, and he didn't believe you. My guess is that NJ's CCW permit probably looks a lot like our FID - typewritten with a Polaroid picture. Maybe laminated, maybe not. When I first got my FID, years ago, I was shocked that it looked so... old and so easy to forge. You would think that they would throw a hologram on their or something... or at least make it wallet sized instead of *just slightly* bigger than a credit card. Where are police departments even getting typewriter ribbons now?

IMHO, the Sig P226, Glock 19 and Beretta 92FS are the best handguns on the planet. You can't go wrong with any of them, they all have .22LR conversion kits, and they will all last forever. Buy the gun that feels right to you.