I want a nice .357 too. A nickel plated one with a white grip. It was the first gun I ever fired and man did I have a good time with it. I don't even know who makes em, but that is a beautiful hand cannon. I live in wild northern wisconsin, so I can justify it any number of ways: Bear, Wolves, Mt Lions etc, you name it, we have it. No jews tho. Not that you actually need a gun for any of these predators, but it'd be fun to bang around with here & there.

The best starting gun is a .22lr rifle. I can just about guarantee if you like shooting that will be the one you shoot most. The Mossberg 702, Remington 597, and of course Ruger 10/22 are the first to come to mind.

Possibly the best .357 for the money is the Ruger GP100 series. They're a tad over $500, but supposedly worth it. If you really need to stick to the budget, a Ruger SP101 can easily be had for less than $500. As far as shotguns go, an Interstate 982 (imported Chinese copy of the Remington 870 12ga) can be had for under $200 and works quite well. Fixed choke, though.

Desert eagle .40 cal. It's reliable safe, discrete, and it doesn't have that much of a recoil because of It's double spring. It is also $500 and you can get one online.

>>14432
>.22 rifle
I second this. A lot of people think "oh I don't want a .22 to start it doesn't have that STOPPING POWAH," but a .22 is a great way to familiarize yourself with the mechanics of a firearm. Also you will be able to get tons of practice in because ammo costs almost nothing. A Ruger 10/22 is a great choice and shouldn't cost more than $250 dollars. That way you can learn to shoot on a solid gun (that you'll always have fun with at the range, even years later).

Shotgunwise, it sort of depends on what you want it for. It sounds like you're thinking primarily home defense, in which case I'd go with a 12 gauge pump with a fairly short barrel. If you're looking at hunting or target shooting, you'll want something different. I've got a 20 gauge over under that I use to shoot trap that I absolutely love.

>>14433
I don't recommend this.

I think you have already made a wise choice. If I could only own one firearm it would be a shotgun. It's the most versatile. Look at the Mossberg 500. Great all around, hunting, trap or defense.
Whether as a nightstand gun or target practice the revolver is awesome, .357 is powerful for defense and .38 wadcutters are great, cheap target. A revolver can sit for years in a drawer and work flawlessly, never jamming because unlike an automatic there is no tension on a spring that can malfunction. Get the 4" barrel, small enough but still acurate. If your thinking primarily about home defence look at The Judge by Taurus. 410/.45 long colt. The shotgun shell will hit intruder without penetrating walls and hitting someone in next room. .45 long colt will stop/kill anyone it needs to. Check this site to help with shopping choices.

http://www.gundirectory.com/

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Yeah I want its primary job to be home defense. But I do want to take it to the range and shoot when I can. The Mossberg 500 was the shotgun I had my eyes on at the moment and the .357 I saw had a 6" barrel.
>>14433
The only reason I would get anything from magnum research is to be a copycat of this man
>>14437
A .22lr rifle was something that came into my mind but like I said stopping power is what I want first. I understand where you are coming from but I don't think it will the best for me on a tight budget.

>>14443
STOPPAN POWAH is immensely overrated. Time and time again has proven good shot placement matters far more than having a bigger boolit. A CNS or atrial hit from a .22 will stop a threat far faster than a lung hit from a .357 (given sufficient penetration from both).

If you're on a tight budget, that's all the more reason to get a rimfire. I personally recommend you get the Interarms shotgun and .22 of your choice. Both together should cost far less than $400 and the two complement each other very well. If a skeet range will let you shoot with an 18" barreled pump (it helps to ask nicely), you'll develop instinctive point-shooting skills and recoil management while range time with the .22 will help you develop trigger control and quick acquisition of sight picture much more cheaply than with a centerfire. Once you've gotten good at shooting, you should have enough cash saved for a sexy sidearm of your choice. But for now, work on fundamentals and rely on the scattergun for defense.

Of course, I would tell someone who isn't a shooting enthusiast and thinks range time is a chore to get the biggest .357 revolver they can find, learn the basics over a weekend, and put it somewhere kids absolutely positively cannot get at it. Something tells me you aren't one of those people, though.

>>14444
Well my only opposition to a rifle was the size. But I just only googled the Ruger 10/22 and its about the same as the shotgun would be. So I may in fact take the advice about the .22 and the the 12 gauge.

>>14445
I'd go with a 10/22 at your budget. If you had around $200 more you could get a DPMS 5.56 AR, but for $500, get a 10/22 and you can customize it as well.

The 10/22 is advantageous over a shotgun because not only can the 10/22 be used easily for home defense, it's a lot easier to go shooting at the range with as well. You'd need a range that has a section specifically dedicated to shotgun shooting if you bought a shotgun (i.e. a range that offers skeet shooting)

.22 ammo is Cheaper Than Dirt, takes up little space (easy to stockpile in your house without filling up the place), so you can plink the hell out of that rifle.

Finally, in a home defense situation, lets say you panic or something, and your shot placement goes to shit. With the larger magazine of a 10/22, you can just pump a few extra rounds into the intruder. If you screw up your initial shot with a revolver, you only have 5 shots left. If the intruder somehow managed to find cover in the worst-case-scenario and it turns into a prolonged shootout, a revolver isn't ideal at all.

Hell, with $500 just get a Mossberg 500 12 gauge AND a Ruger 10/22. Ruger for range and Mossberg for HD.

>>14444
I work as an EMT and in my experience, the .45 is the most deadly caliber. Now this is only anecdotal evidence, but in the firearm deaths that I deal with .45 is the most deadly pistol caliber.
This is not saying that .22 won't kill a person, because it will. In fact, I've seen more people dead from .22 rounds than from a .45.
The difference being, the single bullet kills? They're .45's.
The worst performing bullet, in my moderate experience? The .32 special. Low bullet weight, coupled with low velocity makes for a bullet that can make for a tiny firearm, but can't reliably kill a man.
Now STOPPAN POWAH is mostly a myth, but if I'm going to recommend a /pistol/ it's going to be something in .45. Probably a 1911 or a Hi-Power, but that's only because I am a Browning fetishist.
All that being said, dude, get a 10/22 or a mossie 500, because both of them can be got for cheap, and they are excellent firearms for their price.

Now that just about everyone ITT has come to the same conclusion, I feel like contributing to a nice derailment is as good a post as any.

>>14450
I agree with almost everything you say, the exception being .45 acp is the deadliest pistol caliber; granted it's very likely the deadliest of the common semi-auto pistol rounds. My primary complaint with the .45 acp is bullet construction. To feed well, most semi-autos have round-noses or hollowpoints. The inadequacy of round-nosed bullets' terminal effectiveness is widely accepted. Hollow points function well only if there's sufficient velocity behind them to insure expansion AND proper penetration. Too often, a hollowpoint striking bone will fail to reach a major blood vessel before running out of steam. I feel the .45 acp's velocity is too low for a comfortable margin, especially compared to other rounds. IMO, the ideal self-defense handgun bullet is the wadcutter as it causes almost as wide a permanent wound channel as a hollowpoint but with much better penetration at the same velocities. Unfortunately, wadcutter-type bullets tend to hang up on the feeding ramp in semi-autos. Thus, I think the best pistol caliber is a stiff .357 magnum with a hardcast wadcutter out of a revolver with a 4" or longer barrel. The deadliest has to be the 500 S&W, but that doesn't make it a good self-defense round. :P

On the subject of ballistic lethality, here's an excellent article that was very eye-opening for me. It was written by a professional safari hunter and uses extensive examples from the African field and the book "Gunshot Injuries" by Colonel Louis La Garde, United States Army Medical Corps. If you think about it, stopping both home invaders and charging dangerous game are similar situations differing mostly in scale.
http://www.shakariconnection.com/bullet-wounds.html

>>14455
BTW, I wish a very merry Christmas to everyone. May y'alls stockings be stuffed with weapons-related goodies!

Buy a Nugget. It's a great surplus rifle to start with, and additionally pick up a cheap .22 like a plinkster.

This is likely to be an unpopular opinion - but my first gun was an HP 995ts, and I would recommend it fairly strongly for anyone who is just getting into guns.

As firearms go, it's cheap as fuck. It can be had, fully accessorized - flashlight, laser, mag clips, side-mounted picatinny rails, foregrip, optics and recoil compensator (if that stuff appeals to you) for less than $400-$450 (if you don't care about that stuff, it's more like $250-275 naked). Which puts it well inside your price range. It looks much better than it's ugly-as-sin predecessor, and it's a fairly lightweight all-rounder (I'd be confident with it in a HD situation, and it's great for 50-75 yard plinkan). Though it is considerably heavier with all of the aforementioned niceties attached. The increase in weight was most noticeable when I attached loaded mags to it using the mag clips - although I'm not a huge guy (5'10.5, 220lbs) and it was still more than acceptable for me.

By now I've put more than a couple of thousand rounds through the thing, and have yet to experience any significant problems with it. It's pretty much my go-to whenever I want to hang out with some buddies and blast some shit.

My only real complaint with the weapon is that it doesn't have any reliable high-cap mags. A company called Promag makes a 15 rounder (standard is 10) - but unfortunately, I've experienced nothing but problems with it - and many others will attest to their unreliability. I'd stay away from them if I were you.

The carbine also comes in .45 and .40 S&W variants if you don't mind spending more on ammunition.

ive got loads of guns. guns almost every type.
GET A 22LR.
what makes a better shooter is a good foundation, and more shooting. a gun you cant afford to shoot ALOT isn't going to do much good for you.

i would also advise against a handgun for a first weapon. get a rifle, pistols are great, you just don't wanna start there. youd be doing yourself a disservice. there's a reason why every armed service starts ppl out on rifles. its because they are better in every single situation you can effectively wield them in. it goes like this.. rifle/shotgun > pistol > club/spear > knife > rock > bare handed. about the only place a handgun beats a rifle/shotgun is diving headfirst into a Vietcong tunnel, and shooting people that are inside a car with you. take it from you uncles jules and vincent "we should have shotguns".

the 10/22 is great. get a take-down model.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMWTN-xQo_g

if you have to have a handgun in semiauto i would suggest the ruger mkIII or a browning buckmark.

however... if you're awesome. if youre confident in your penis size and dont need to compensate by buying the biggest damn caliber or magazine capacity known to man.
GET A 5.5" CONVERTIBLE RUGER SINGLE SIX. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3vLrOkZQD0
its a great gun to learn with, if feels great in your hand, it comes with two cylinders, you can practice with 22lr and when the shtf you can swap in the 22 magnum cylinder and get your point across. the single six also has the fun characteristic of being a replica of the colt single action army we all love from pretty much every western known to man. so if you do ever have to point it at someone they arnt going to be very happy about it. if the commies/zombies attacked, the guns id grab on my way out the door would be my marlin glenfield 70 (22lr), my Russian ak, and the single six. and the only reason id take the ak is so i could bury that heavy fucker with a can of ammo and trade it for anything i needed at a later date. just my 2 cents

as others have stated, get a .22lr. 10/22's are always recommended but I say a good bolt action would do you good too. It'll get you to aim more, and there are a lot less complications that come with it rather than a semiauto. Check the used section. You might be able to get a few if you've got $500 to blow.

Mossberg 500 gets my vote. It was the first gun I ever bought. Still have it. Still shoot it.

12 gauge Remington 870...very simple to use, reliable as hell, great for home defense, and considerably inexpensive. The reason the Mossberg 500 doesn't get my vote is because it doesn't have a steel reciver...but thats's just my preference. Many people seem to love the 500, including the US military. But if there's a shotgun I know will keep me alive and not fail on me, it's a remington 870.

>>14629

This is a good start. Do keep in mind that the sound of a shotgun shell being loaded, that iconic "shuck-shuck" sound, is JUST as effective as actually firing it at someone. Just keep in mind, that if you do pull a gun on someone, that you are well within your rights to do so, and that you will not hesitate if you need to fire. Just make sure you kill the guy with the first shot. Its easier to defend yourself if he is incapable of defending himself.

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>>14672
>Just make sure you kill the guy with the first shot. Its easier to defend yourself if he is incapable of defending himself.

explain this next time so i dont have too. if you shoot someone and you dont kill them and purposely dont kill them they can sue the fuck outa you. you are better off blasting them full of 00 buck shot then peppering them with bird shot and leaving them incapacitated. i forget what they charge you with buts its allong the lines of cruel and inhumane.


if you plan on using a gun in self defense you need to be prepared to kill what ever is on the other end

Keeping in mind that killing someone cause you don't want to lose "all ur nice stuff" in a lawsuit is a dick move...

>>14677
Rocksalt - Minimum penetration, maximum pain & considered humane. Legal repercussions, negligible.

>>14679
Go watch the hundreds of videos about the lack of penetrating power Rockne salt has

>>14679
Go watch the hundreds of videos about the lack of penetrating power Rockne salt has

>>14679
>Rocksalt - Minimum penetration
>>14680
>Go watch the hundreds of videos about the lack of penetrating power Rockne salt has

I'm not even sure what you're trying to whine about there, still, have you ever actually been shot with rock-salt?

Real World Experience > Google Gospel.

I got put in the nut house recently so yeah. I was going to get a Mossberg just because I didn't want my cawa duittee friends thinking I got the Remington from black cocks 2. Thanks all for the info and advice even though you all got side tracked about rock salt for whatever reason.

/thread