GUNS Magazine Finding the Sweet Spot for CCW

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Flying brass, muzzle orientation allow Mas to demonstrate the “shootability” of GLOCK 19.

We all remember when Goldilocks entered the three bears’ home, Papa Bear and Mama Bear’s beds and food didn’t suit her but Baby Bear’s stuff was “just right.” Since this is the handgun column instead of a criminal justice column, we’ll disregard the fact Ms. Goldilocks is a juvenile offender prima facie guilty of burglary and look instead at the middle ground her needs and choices symbolized.

For all of us, there are homes and vehicles too big or too small and the same is true of concealed carry weapons. In my younger days the guy who was satisfied with a .25 pocket auto thought the guy with the snub-nose .38 was paranoid, and the guy who packed a .45 auto thought they were both wimps. We still see something similar today. It’s as if there was a rule of the gun-related Internet forums requiring us all to assume, “If you carry less than me you’re a pathetic sheeple, and if you carry more than me you’re an insecure mall ninja.”

It’s a balance of comfort, discreet concealability, adequate power and “shootability” at speed. A balance of current needs and abilities. Let’s look at some examples of proven “sweet spot CCW” handguns.

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Colt CCO .45s, plain and fancy. Each will group in 2" at 25 yards.

The 3" Round Butt Revolver

In the ’70s and ’80s, Lt. Frank McGee and his successor, Lt. Tom McTernan, were the role model leaders of NYPD’s Firearms and Tactics Unit during times when cops in that city were firing a thousand rounds a year on the streets in the line of duty and were still limited to .38 Special revolvers. They popularized the 3″ barrel S&W Chief Special as an off-duty and plainclothes gun. Before them, another NYC gun maven, Chic Gaylord, had recommended something similar from the Colt line, a round-butt Police Positive Special or Detective Special with a 3″ barrel he called “The Metropolitan Special.” By the 1980s, the FBI had taken the same approach to the K-Frame Smith & Wesson: Their last issue service revolver was the Model 13 .357 Magnum with a 3″ tube and round butt. Great minds, similar directions …

They were on to something. A round butt grip still fills your hand and conceals pretty well, and if you’re not working from an ankle holster or pocket, the extra inch over a true snubby doesn’t hurt concealment appreciably but definitely aids in “shootability.” A bit of extra velocity from an inch-longer tube helps the .38 be a little more “Special” and a .357 be a little more “Magnum,” too. Also very worthy: current Colt King Cobra, Ruger SP101 and Kimber K6 all in the compact 3″ .357 format.

The Mama Bear 1911

In the latter 1990s Colt debuted the CCO .45. The letters stand for Concealed Carry Officers, which always struck me as strange since it’s bigger than the Colt Officers, that were intended for … wait for it … concealed carry. This aside, it comprises the 4.25" barrel/slide assembly of the Colt Commander that’s been around since the mid-20th Century with the short butt and aluminum alloy frame of the Lightweight Officers. Six- and seven-round .45 ACP magazines are available for it.

When the CCO first came out, fellow gun writer Ray Ordorica dubbed it the ideal concealed-carry handgun. For a 1911 .45 aficionado, I can’t disagree. I wound up with two of them, one plain and one fancy. When my lower back goes out and sciatica kicks in, one or another becomes my go-to carry .45. I have a steel-frame version by Nighthawk, the T3, too: they all shoot extremely well, and conceal as easily as snub-nose .38s in the right holsters. The shorter butt costs only one round of .45 ACP capacity compared to a full-size version.

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A stock compact GLOCK 19 Gen5 allowed Mas to win against l
arger service guns. Shootability in a concealment package.

The Ubiquitous GLOCK 19

There is a reason the G19 is the most popular GLOCK: Listed in the catalog as a Compact and comparable in size to an old-school .38 snubby with Pachmayr grips, this 16-shot 9mm shoots like a service pistol. When NYPD went auto in 1993, the G19, the SIG P226 DAO and the now-discontinued S&W 5906 were the authorized choices: More of those coppers chose the 19 than both of the others, by far. It was light and compact enough for plainclothes and off-duty carry, yet more than serviceable as a uniform duty gun. I can shoot the smaller 3.6″ barrel G26 about as well as the G19 until I get past 25 yards, but for pure speed I can reload the G19 faster and carry it more often than the 26 or the bigger 9mms.

Others in the hotly contested striker-fired polymer pistol market have followed the G19 formula. A good example is the Smith & Wesson Military & Police Compact.

Defensive concealed carry weapons are compromises. Each of us will have different needs and perhaps come to different choices, but the principle remains the same. The middle ground, sometimes, is the most solid ground.

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