My Hot Take on Handgun Fitment

I have a confession to make. I've never tried a handgun before buying it. This is apparently sacrilege in some circles. You're always supposed to go to a range and rent a handgun to ensure it fits you before you buy it, right? No.

Before I dive into my rant, I want to make it clear that I don't think trying a handgun before buying it is a bad idea. My objection is with how that recommendation is becoming almost holy writ to some. I also think the idea of handgun fitment is largely bullshit. There are definitely handguns that don't fit some people. Take the Glock 21 for example. It's a large handgun. It's almost the perfect size for my long fingered hands. It's too large for my wife to hold comfortably. That is an instance where a handgun obviously doesn't fit. But that's an exceptional case. More importantly, you don't have to shoot it to figure it out. Just holding gun, which you can do at the gun store counter, makes it apparent. Besides those obvious exceptions, most handguns can be handled by most people.

Before I dive too deep into my rant, I should define what fit mean in this context. But I can't because there is no definition of fit. This is my first complaint with this piece of advice. How do you know when a handgun fits you? Supposedly a handgun fits you when you shoot it accurately. Therein lies the problem with the definition. Accuracy is effected by many factors.

Let's say you go to a range and rent a Glock 19, CZ P-10 C, and a Walther PDP Compact. You put 50 rounds through each and are most accurate with the PDP, does that mean you'll always be more accurate with the PDP? Not at all. The first variable is how worn the guns are. Rental guns are typically treated like rented mules. The range paid money for those guns and intends to squeeze every penny out of them without regard to the guns' well-being. If, for example, the Glock 19 has been rented thousands of times and has had hundreds of thousands of rounds fired through it while the PDP has only had a few hundred rounds through it, there's a good chance the Glock 19 is going to be less accurate due to wear and tear. The second variable is ammunition. The accuracy of a gun can depend on the type of ammunition you're using. Some guns are more accurate with one type of ammunition and less accurate with another. When you rent a gun at a range, they typically require you to buy their ammunition and they typically have one or maybe two brands of ammunition available.

The biggest variable though is the shooter. This advice is most often given to inexperienced handgun shooters. Inexperienced handgun shooters are the least able to judge whether a gun fits them because much of their accuracy comes down to luck. This is because shooting a handgun is a difficult skill to learn. An inexperienced handgun shooter often doesn't even know how to grip a handgun properly. They also almost always suffer from what is referred to as flinching, or jerk the gun in anticipation of recoil. Minor misalignment of sights often go unnoticed by unexperienced handgun shooters (this isn't relevant with red dot optics). Since the sight radius of a handgun is short, a minor sight misalignment can be difficult to detect but translate into a significant shift in the point of impact at any notable range. If you give an inexperienced handgun shooter the three above mentioned guns, the most accurate one will often depend entirely on luck. If you don't believe me, take an inexperienced handgun shooter to the range several times, rent and have them shoot the same guns every time, and record which one was the most accurate each trip. I suspect you'll see some inconsistency in your results.

Handgun accuracy largely comes down to experience. The more experience you have with shooting handguns, the more accurately you can typically shoot a handgun. This is obvious when you read it. I own many different handguns. I have revolvers, 1911s, Glocks, and a bunch of others. I'm most accurate with the Glocks. This isn't because they fit me. It's because a vast majority of my trigger time is spent with them. That wasn't always the case though. I used to be most accurate with my revolvers. This is because my first handgun was a revolver. I had the most trigger time on my revolver for a long time. It wasn't until I started shooting Glocks in competition that I became more accurate with them than with my revolvers. I'm still decently accurate with my revolvers and if I started shooting them more than my Glocks, I would likely become more accurate with them than with my Glocks.

That was a long winded way of highlighting my next point. You can become accurate with almost any handgun (obviously within reason since a worn out or poorly manufactured handgun will be inaccurate regardless) by training with it. If we return to the above scenario where somebody rented a Glock 19, CZ P-10 C, and Walther PDP Compact and shot the PDP most accurately, that doesn't mean the shooter can't become more accurate with the Glock or CZ. If they train with either handgun consistently over time, they will become more accurate with it than with the PDP.

This brings me to what is possibly the biggest flaw with the advice that somebody must shoot a handgun before buying it in order to know whether it fits them. The amount of data you collect from one or even a handful of range trips with a handgun (really any gun) is so small that it borders on being irrelevant. This is especially true if you rent the exact same (as in the same individual guns, not just the same model of guns) guns every time because you don't know how worn one is compared to another. You likely won't have an opportunity to test different types of ammunition to see what factor that plays in each handgun's accuracy either.

I will close by reiterating the fact that I don't think trying a handgun before buying it is a bad idea. If you have the opportunity to shoot a handgun before buying it, by all means take it. But don't be afraid to buy a handgun because you haven't had a chance to try it first. If you really want to buy a Springfield Echelon but none of the ranges in your area have one for rent, don't be afraid to buy it. If you buy it and train with it consistently, you will become good with it.

The dictionary definition of advice that most fits here is a "recommendation regarding a decision or course of conduct." The key word is recommendation. It's not a holy writ. You can disregard advice.