EDC Skills – How many carry guns do you have?

Galatians 6:9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

Paul in his letter to the Galatians writes of working faithfully in doing right, for the reward will be reaped if we can remain consistent.  Applying consistency to training will also find our reward in due time, as we will be able to perform our desired task well.

Now I’m not going to make many friends with this article, but the benefit of not being sponsored is I can argue this claim: you don’t need a bunch of carry guns, because constantly switching things up is unlikely to make you better.

I would suggest the fewer different handgun platforms you carry, the more you set yourself up for success. The key to success is consistency, and if you are switching between types of handgun constantly you are decreasing your consistency. 

This isn’t to say you can’t run multiple types of handguns well. I understand that I commonly done. Most gun guys and gals can.

So what do I suggest? There are a few good options to choose from I believe. The first is to assess your needs and pick one handgun that will do all of those jobs and do the main job fairly well. Simple: one and done. It’s like my half ton truck, it does all of the things I need a vehicle to do: drive me to work, haul stuff, pull stuff, and go in the mountains. It doesn’t do a single one of those things all that well but it does all of those things well enough.

The second option is to pick a platform that has multiple size options. For instance the Glock line has 40 S&W pistols in four size options 27, 23, 22, and 35. The differences is simply the length of the grip and length of the barrel. You could pick something on the same frame size for concealed use and something on the large size for open carry or on the farm.

You should practice from each way you carry, for example: open and concealed or different levels of retention holster. I carry a defensive handgun on the belt in the 3:30 position, I want it the same every time. This is also the same position as I carried on my gun belt and have spent the most time training on, remember consistency.

My hunting revolvers are always in the cross-draw 9:30-10:00 position. I carry only single action Ruger revolvers and I have trained to cock the hammer on a cross draw. These are used in a different context, and best covered in another article but there is enough carry over they warrant consideration if I don’t want to cause myself training issues.

Is this a perfect solution? No I don’t think so, I likely would be further ahead to further limit myself to either use the Glock or the Ruger platform. But in the interim I will have to settle on spending more time training on both.

I understand the allure of having many different options, but at the end of the day I enjoy knowing I will either carry a big Glock or a little one depending on if I want to be concealed or open carry. The backup magazine is the same and at least one holster I use can carry both equally well. The controls are the same, the training between the two is easy. If I were to start over  I would get a midsized pistol and use it for everything. It’s not perfect for every scenario but it’s choose.

Consistency builds muscle memory, which makes a stressful situation that much easier to get through.

-Joe