My daughter turns 21 in just a few weeks. She has been shooting handguns since she was 12 and has shot a wide variety of pistols and revolvers. However, despite shopping for HER handgun for the last 5 years, she still hadn't found the right one. As a starting point, She knows she doesn't like striker-fired polymers and 1911s. She likes my P226 SSE and my P220 38S and shoots great with both.
Monday I asked her to lunch and an afternoon of gun shopping. She ran through the list usual suspects: Sig Legion, CZ, H&K, etc... Then she saw the Beretta line-up. Out came a black 92 variant that I hadn't seen before. She ran the gun through the checks and said: "You have got to feel this DA trigger." it was smooooth. Zero stacking. Crisp break. Amazing. She was hooked.
Turns out to be a Beretta 92G Elite LTT. Just an amazingly smooth handgun.
It is on layaway until her birthday when she will make her first handgun purchase. She is thrilled and so am I.
Lesson learned. I would have never looked at a Beretta due to my own bias from previous experience. She found a gem because she had no bias.
Posts: 2034 | Location: Virginia | Registered: April 08, 2012
Let her pick her own gun is always the advice I give people asking the “what gun for a girl?” question.
I find that there are a lot of uneducated men who think they can go buy a gun for their wife/girlfriend/sister/mom as though the purple Bersa is the one size fits all woman gun.
Take your girl to the store and let her choose for herself.
“Everybody wants a Sig in the sheets but a Glock on the streets.” -bionic218 04-02-2014
Posts: 15284 | Location: Florida | Registered: May 07, 2008
We get the husband/boyfriend-knows-best dude almost daily. At some point it happened; I had simply given up prodding for the wife to choose and just resigned myself to roll with it.
-MG
Posts: 2265 | Location: The commie, rainy side of WA | Registered: April 19, 2020
She has chosen wisely. I’ve shot both the WC & LTT Beretta’s side by side. I prefer the LTT. The compact variants of the LTT are easy to carry as well. Freedom of choice, well done dad.
______________________________________________ Life is short. It’s shorter with the wrong gun…
Posts: 13868 | Location: VIrtual | Registered: November 13, 2009
Twelve years ago I let my wife try several pistols and she too chose a Beretta, although it was the model 86. Six years later, she adopted the P239 as her CCW. Three years after that she went with the Steyr S9-A1. Now she’s waiting for the Dan Wesson DWX Compact to see if she might prefer it, but I’m betting not for CC given its SAO. She occasionally goes back to the Beretta 86 depending on her outfit.
Funny how women shooting enthusiasts are like men when it comes to firearms!
Posts: 3395 | Location: Mid-Atlantic | Registered: December 27, 2002
Wife just took a beginner pistol class and is taking the CCW classes too.
I let her try out some of our pistols and explained to her the only way to find out if you will like something is to try it out and I made no recommendation.
For now her main shooter is our Browning Buckmark that she just loves. As far as 9MM she loves our plain Jane SIG P226 with aluminum grips and as a bonus we have the 22 LR conversion kit for it.
Right on, let them pick. I have sadly seen so many novice women show up for classes with a handgun that was chosen for them by a well meaning spouse or friend, or worse yet, chosen by a gun counter salesman. Ill informed, or biased choices are often a disaster. Often the gun does not fit them, or they can't work the slide, can't handle the recoil, etc. It has happened so often that I give instructions before classes that they should not buy a handgun before the class if they don't already have one, part of our program is for them to learn how to choose. I do have a bias of my own, though: Don't buy a damn Taurus.
Sounds like she made a great choice but the reality is what ever she chose was the right one for her.
I made the mistake years ago of trying to pick a gun for my wife before she took a women's only class.... after she went through the class of several days....she decided she really like one of the instructors pistols... A 1911, in 45acp of course.
Originally posted by burnetma: My daughter turns 21 in just a few weeks. She has been shooting handguns since she was 12 and has shot a wide variety of pistols and revolvers. However, despite shopping for HER handgun for the last 5 years, she still hadn't found the right one. As a starting point, She knows she doesn't like striker-fired polymers and 1911s. She likes my P226 SSE and my P220 38S and shoots great with both.
Monday I asked her to lunch and an afternoon of gun shopping. She ran through the list usual suspects: Sig Legion, CZ, H&K, etc... Then she saw the Beretta line-up. Out came a black 92 variant that I hadn't seen before. She ran the gun through the checks and said: "You have got to feel this DA trigger." it was smooooth. Zero stacking. Crisp break. Amazing. She was hooked.
Turns out to be a Beretta 92G Elite LTT. Just an amazingly smooth handgun.
It is on layaway until her birthday when she will make her first handgun purchase. She is thrilled and so am I.
Lesson learned. I would have never looked at a Beretta due to my own bias from previous experience. She found a gem because she had no bias.
The Elite LTT is a very nice handgun. If you have the opportunity, have her try the Centurion version. Even better balance.
I've gone through quite a few guns for the wife, trying to get her to pick out her own. Like your daughter, she really liked the Elite LTT, but once I had her try the Elite LTT Centurion, she was in love!
Posts: 765 | Location: Athol, ID | Registered: October 07, 2011
I can't count the times I've told guys to bring the women in to try sundry guns for fit. I'd no sooner try to pick out a pistol for a woman than try to pick her out a pair of shoes.
CQB60, She tried the LTT & Wilson Combat side by side and preferred the LTT specifically because of trigger quality. I was shocked. LTT trigger is the real deal. Better than my P226 with the Sig trigger job.
We will see how she shoots it in a few weeks. If she likes it, I see a compact in her future.
Sprg03-A3, There are more trigger enhancements available for the LTT? Do tell.
Posts: 2034 | Location: Virginia | Registered: April 08, 2012
Yes. I took my sister gun shopping several months ago. I introduced her to the guy behind the counter. Then basically told her “if you have any questions he can’t answer, I’ll be WAY over there. “ This is after having over to the house to shoot several different varieties of handguns in various calibers.
Posts: 6350 | Location: East Texas | Registered: February 20, 2008
CQB60, She tried the LTT & Wilson Combat side by side and preferred the LTT specifically because of trigger quality. I was shocked. LTT trigger is the real deal. Better than my P226 with the Sig trigger job.
We will see how she shoots it in a few weeks. If she likes it, I see a compact in her future.
Sprg03-A3, There are more trigger enhancements available for the LTT? Do tell.
Nicely done! Regarding the "more" trigger enhancements, I'm guessing it's dropping the Langdon Trigger Job kit into a Wilson. I won a Wilson Brigadier and the trigger was better than stock but didn't "wow" me. I installed the Landon trigger job kit and holy smokes it's like night and day! I've since compared it to a Langdon LTT and they are the same. That trigger, whether from Langdon direct or the kit installed in the Wilson, is amazing. I've found it to be much better than the Sig trigger job on my MK25.
This alway pulls at my heart strings a bit. I've been a Sig guy for life but find myself carrying the Beretta more now. Someone needs to figure out how to make the Sig trigger what Langdon does to the Beretta trigger.
Posts: 847 | Location: Alaska | Registered: April 29, 2015
I agree with let them pick. However, in many of these threads the woman in question has almost no actual shooting experience. It’s like picking a pair of shoes out of a catalog and I don’t normally wear shoes scenario. This is the ideal case. She has been shooting since she was 12. She has known likes and dislikes.
The internet is the devil btw. The Beretta is obsolete. It jams. It’s huge. Ok, that one isn’t completely untrue, although the advent of the M9a1frame with the back strap cut and thin grips really takes the stream out of that one. Mags are junk. Etc. I picked up a bunch of those shitty checkmate mags that jam. They were like 6 bucks apiece. I love them. I also don’t shoot 5gem in the Iraqi desert. I drop them into dirt on reloads and have had zero malfunctions. The internet wants you to hate the 92. It’s probably my overall favorite gun. Especially my LTT’s. Good choice.
Posts: 7540 | Location: Florida | Registered: June 18, 2005
