When it comes to owning a firearm, whether a rifle or a pistol, there are certain steps that I recommend in order to make the best purchase you can make. This involves research and careful thought on your part. As with anything you get, you want to make sure it is what you need and want. Believe me, I wish I had a plan for researching firearms when I first got into them. It would have saved me alot of time, money, and frustration just to by doing a little research. I cannot tell you the details of everything here because it would take forever. But what I can do is give you in a short discussion of general subjects and why they are important. This is not an article made to hold your hand through a purchase, but rather basic guidelines to think about. You still have to make your own choices here.
The first step in owning a firearm is deciding that you want to own one. Just like buying a vehicle, the first step is to decide that you want one. This is true whether you’re looking to buy your first vehicle, or you are looking at buying your 50th. It is always recommended to do a little research and ask yourself what you want the firearm for, and what kind of job it’s going to have.
TASKS/JOBS
Just like buying a vehicle, you gotta figure out what the firearm will be used for and the jobs you will need it for. Is it for hunting? If so, what type of animal and at what range? Is it going to be just for shooting at a bullseye target mindlessly to burn off stress? Is it going to be for self defense and training to defend yourself and others? There many things you have to look at when making these decisions. Deciding on the purpose is the most important step in finding out which gun you are going to purchase at the end of all of this.
When it comes to finding the right firearm, you first need to recognize that there are three main types of firearms. There is the pistol, rifle, and the shotgun. Pistols are typically best suited for personal defense, but are sometimes used for hunting. Rifles are often used for hunting at a long distance, but a good majority of the semi-auto rifles on the market make good target and hunting rifles as well. Some of these rifles are even used by people for home defense, and there is a huge part of the market that makes rifles for this purpose. And lastly, we have the shotgun which is often considered to be the most versatile firearm out there. It is a design which can be used for hunting all types of small to large game, and has been known for being very effective in a self defense role.
It is on you to decide which firearm most suits your needs, but that is the main options in a nutshell without going into the different styles and how they work. We will save that for another time when we can focus on these specific subjects individually.
CALIBER
Caliber selection is going to be a very important consideration when choosing a hunting rifle and an effective pistol for self defense. There are alot of calibers to choose from, and you need to make sure the caliber you get can do the job you need it to do for you. I will use my vehicle references for comparison. If you are wanting a vehicle for commuting that has good gas mileage, your research should show that a small hybrid car will be the most efficient vehicle out there. But say you also regularly find yourself needing to haul heavy and over-sized cargo? In this case, you are probably going to be forced to look at pickup trucks with a good haul and towing capacity that get higher gas mileage. This again is why you wanna take into consideration what you need the firearm to do. If you are just looking for a simple home defense gun, things will be pretty straight forward. But if you should desire to have a gun to carry on you daily and still use it for home defense and hunting, your research is going to take longer and you will have to be very careful about what you get.
Deciding on a caliber is going to be your first taste of dogmatic views and your first exposure to people basing their decisions off of myths and cool factor. I recommend you stay away from these viewpoints, but it is hard when you do not know what caliber to go with. Say you are looking for a self defense pistol and now you need to choose a caliber. There are dozens to choose from, but the ones most often recommended are 9mm Luger, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP. If you were to ask several people about which of the 3 calibers is best, you will never get a consistent answer, and often times you may end up getting told a magical fairy tale by someone about why their caliber recommendation is the best.
The best thing you can do for yourself is take a crash course in firearms ballistics. I cannot, for the sake or keeping this short, tell you more than this. If you are interested in learning about how to choose a good caliber, for whatever purpose, I simply recommend that you do some legwork and look for information about these calibers from several different sources. You may see a variance in the answers, but that is on you to decide which one to believe and follow. Once you decide the caliber of the firearm you are looking for, you are ready to go out shopping around and looking at your options.
MAKE A LIST
Once you have found out the purpose of the firearm and the caliber, you can use the good old internet to find a list of firearms that might suit your needs. There are many different things about each firearm that will set it apart from others. Make sure that you have a list of guns that seem to have traits that will be most advantageous to you and your purposes. Perhaps you are looking for a rifle to hunt with and you find out about a rifle that has a bipod for stabilizing your shots. Perhaps there is another rifle that has a scope that comes with it for the same price as the rifle that comes with the bipod. Little things like this can make your decisions difficult, but should be considered when you make your list.
GETTING A FEEL
When it comes to going out and checking out the guns on your list, make sure that you adhere to a few things. First off, you need to be forgiving of looks and general feel if you are new to shooting. How a gun feels is not important if you have zero training in the proper handling of a firearm. First thing I would look at, if I were new to shooting, is how easy it is to find and use the controls and safeties. As a beginner, you will find that this is probably one of the only things you can judge. If you desire safeties and options, you merely need to make sure the controls are easy to operate and that they do not take too much force to use. After all, you are going to have to learn how to use this firearm, so the controls shouldn’t be too hard to use or the learning process may be harder than it has to be.
DECISIONS, DECISIONS
After you have checked out some of the firearms on your list, you should have a good idea of what you like and what you don’t like about each firearm. From here, you can conclude the research by narrowing down your favorite guns and debating which gun will suit you the best in the long run. Heck, you may even find that you have another need and perhaps even desire another specific trait that will help narrow down your search. Research may take some time, but it is worth it. Even though I have a generous amount of experience with firearms, I will research everything I can about the firearms I am interested in. The more you know and the more you are educated, the easier it will be to make a wise choice. Good luck and remember to always practice safe handling procedures with a firearm.