Hello everyone,

 

 

I am a web developer and database administrator, and have been working on a firearms-related personal project called WhichGun.com. The site was just launched on April 15th, and has information, specifications, photos, and user ratings and reviews for over 1,000 firearms, with more guns added daily. The semi-automatic pistols section is complete, and the revolvers section is about 50% complete. The rifles and shotguns sections are being worked on, and should be added within a week or two.

 

There are also a couple of firearms articles published, with many more on the way. These will be published once all of the firearms information sections are completed. Some of the planned article categories are Choosing Firearms, Firearms Safety, Firearms Care & Maintenance, Ethical/Moral/Legal Issues, Shooting Skills & Marksmanship, Ammunition & Reloading, Self-Defense Stories, Hunting, and Firearms History.

 

There will also be a national directory of local shooting ranges, firearms dealers, training facilities, and gunsmiths. The shooting range directory is almost complete, and the other sections will be added as they are completed.

 

I hope you will find WhichGun.com to be an excellent resource to help you compare different firearms, and to guide you towards finding the right guns for you to purchase.

 

Please visit WhichGun.com when you get a chance. If you have any comments, problems, questions, or suggestions please let me know.

 

Thank you!

 

-Justin L. Franks

Owner, WhichGun.com

[email protected]

Good work on the site. A couple of suggestions, i would like to to see aggregate filter terms.

 

For instance, i've been shopping for a .22 pistol, in a compact or full size frame. It would be great if i clicked on "Caliber .22", then "Compact" or "Full Size" to give me the .22 pistols in those categories. Currently, the site does not allow for that.

 

The other filter category i'd like to suggest is "Magazine Capacity", as it would be nice to find out which guns are a native 15 round magazine for us NJ gun owners. This would be helpful to NY, CT, MA and CA gun shoppers so that they can make sure that they can search within their 10-round magazine restriction.

Wow, great idea and site. Very well done.

 

I really like the ability to browse all the guns from one place.

not sure you are completely programmed correctly yet, i searched by .45 calibre, on the left it breaks down manufactures of those found, clicked on taurus and 9mm,380 and 22 pistols also showed up, alot were multi calibre including .45 but some were not .45 calibre..

 

The AMT hardballer is a long slide not 5 in.. in the description under barrell length add both..

 

I really like the site.. great idea..

Nice website Justin, bookmarked it and will look around some more later.

 

Harry

The search filtering needs some work, but the site is looking good.

 

Good luck with it.

 

K

Great job Justin!

I agree with the filtering, but you've done a great job.

 

Good luck!

Thanks everyone for the feedback. Improving the filtering/search options is already on my to-do list. When I was writing the code, I thought that one filtering option would be sufficient. I grossly underestimated the number of different firearms that are available, and did not expect that there would be over 125 SIG Sauer pistol models, close to 500 full-size pistol models, etc.

 

My plan is to allow any number of filtering options, so you can easily see all full-size 9x19mm Smith & Wesson pistols, all compact .45 ACP Kimber pistols, etc. The URLs would look like /firearms/pistols/manufacturer/smith_wesson/caliber/9x19mm/type/full_size, /firearms/pistols/manufacturers/kimber/caliber/45_acp/type/compact, and so forth.

 

Magazine capacity is a possibility for an additional filtering option. I'll also look into that.

I've just finished rewriting the filtering and sorting code this evening. It still needs to be properly tested, but I think I've got it, and it should be added to the live site tomorrow. The URL's are going to look like '/firearms/pistols/type:full-size/manufacturer:smith-wesson/caliber:9x19mm', '/firearms/pistols/type:compact/manufacturer:kimber/caliber:45-acp', etc.

 

I'll post again once this enhancement is live. It will make things much easier to narrow down your search or find a particular gun.

its cool but i'd check the CCW factor calculation... there is no way you can give a desert eagle and a compact gun similar factors...

its cool but i'd check the CCW factor calculation... there is no way you can give a desert eagle and a compact gun similar factors...

 

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I'm constantly tweaking the formula as I find things like that. It's difficult because concealability and firepower generally have an inverse relationship -- higher concealability generally means lower firepower, and higher firepower generally means lower concealability. I'll do the best I can with these calculations, but I've already concluded that no matter what I do, not everyone will agree with the results.

Justin,

 

If you have the time, take a look at the search function on B & H Photo's website . There are some nice features that make a drill down search fairly simple, and once you get to the sidebar searches, you can select multiple items from each filter category. It might be nice for people to be able to search for S&W AND Ruger when looking at .357 Stainless revolvers with 6" barrels.

 

I know it's a complex data structure, with multiple characteristics applied to each item, but it's very responsive and user satisfaction is high.

 

Just a thought.

Justin,

 

If you have the time, take a look at the search function on B & H Photo's website . There are some nice features that make a drill down search fairly simple, and once you get to the sidebar searches, you can select multiple items from each filter category. It might be nice for people to be able to search for S&W AND Ruger when looking at .357 Stainless revolvers with 6" barrels.

 

I know it's a complex data structure, with multiple characteristics applied to each item, but it's very responsive and user satisfaction is high.

 

Just a thought.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I agree it is a good system; I'll definitely look into it.

You forgot some awesome firearms... in this awesome caliber... called the 45 GAP.

 

glock 37, 38, 39, both in regular and 4th gens.

 

and Para makes made a 45 gap of the small warhog? series.

You're website told me I need a Minigun. Do you know how much those cost? There's less than a dozen in the transferrable registry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You forgot some awesome firearms... in this awesome caliber... called the 45 GAP.

 

glock 37, 38, 39, both in regular and 4th gens.

 

and Para makes made a 45 gap of the small warhog? series.

 

Glock 37, 38, and 39 are already there, along with the .45 GAP versions of the Springfield XD.

 

http://www.whichgun.com/firearms/pistols/caliber:45-gap

It looks like the guns are rated by the users of the site. What I don't see is an option to write a review. A written review would be alot more helpfull to those looking to purches a new gun.

It looks like the guns are rated by the users of the site. What I don't see is an option to write a review. A written review would be alot more helpfull to those looking to purches a new gun.

 

There is a space for comments and reviews at the bottom of each firearms page.

Justin,

 

If you have the time, take a look at the search function on B & H Photo's website . There are some nice features that make a drill down search fairly simple, and once you get to the sidebar searches, you can select multiple items from each filter category. It might be nice for people to be able to search for S&W AND Ruger when looking at .357 Stainless revolvers with 6" barrels.

 

I know it's a complex data structure, with multiple characteristics applied to each item, but it's very responsive and user satisfaction is high.

 

Just a thought.

 

I did some experimenting this afternoon and was pleased to find out that with the changes I already made to allow multiple filtering options, it is fairly trivial to allow multiple values for each filtering option. On my development machine, as shown below in the attached screenshot, I am now able to view all subcompact or pocket pistols made by Kel-Tec or Ruger chambered for .380 ACP or 9mm at /firearms/pistols/type:subcompact,pocket/manufacturer:kel-tec,ruger/caliber:380-acp,9mm (this of course will not work on the live site yet). The results returned are the Kel-Tec P-3AT, Kel-Tec PF-9, Kel-Tec P-11, Ruger LCP, and Ruger LC9 as expected.

 

Now I need to redesign the interface, adding checkboxes next to each filtering option, and all should be good. If all goes well, this will go live next week.

Finally got around to looking through the site... Very well put together. Kudos on such a quality resource!

Finally got around to looking through the site... Very well put together. Kudos on such a quality resource!

 

Thanks j0n! I hope you find the site useful, and any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

Really nice site. I would like to see a filter for single action, double action, decocker, double action only, and striker.

Really nice site. I would like to see a filter for single action, double action, decocker, double action only, and striker.

 

Added to my to-do list, thanks for the suggestion.

I like the improvements you've made. It's a noticeable change since launch. Good job!

I like the improvements you've made. It's a noticeable change since launch. Good job!

 

And plenty more are on the way. I think you'll like the next update to the filtering system.

 

Well, it took a lot more work to update the filtering system than I first thought, but it is done. You can now make multiple selections for each filtering option via checkboxes. I've also added a way to change the number of results per page from the default of 20 per page -- there is a dropdown to select 10, 20, 50, or 100 firearms per page.

 

Since I had to rip out and rewrite quite a bit of code to get this working, some bugs are probably present. If you notice any problems -- whether you receive an actual error message or something just doesn't work the way you'd expect, please let me know about it.

 

Sample: All subcompact or pocket pistols, manufactured by Kahr, Kel-Tec, Ruger, or Taurus, chambered for .380 ACP or 9x19mm.

 

http://www.whichgun.com/firearms/pistols/type:subcompact,pocket/manufacturer:kahr,kel-tec,ruger,taurus/caliber:380-acp,9x19mm/sort_by:ccw_factor/sort_direction:desc

 

It's looking and working great. Nicely done.

It's looking and working great. Nicely done.

 

Thanks! Now I can concentrate on finishing the revolvers section, and get the rifles and shotguns sections up and running. After that I'll be working on writing articles, and then I will start work on the directory of local gun shops, shooting ranges, gunsmiths, firearms training facilities, etc.

 

If you have any other suggestions for the site please let me know.

Really nice site. I would like to see a filter for single action, double action, decocker, double action only, and striker.

 

I've just completed the work to allow filtering by trigger type (DA/SA, DAO, Striker-fired, etc.). I'll do some more testing tomorrow (Tuesday 05/10/2011), and if all goes well, will launch that evening.

I've just added the ability to filter by trigger type (DA/SA, DAO, etc.) as requested. This should make it even easier to narrow down your search.