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home defense pistols

What's The Best Home Defense Pistol? Here Are 6 Solid Candidates

What makes for the best home defense gun? The same attributes that make for a great carry gun, like accuracy, reliability and being easy for you to shoot.

However, since the typical home defense gun lives in a safe or holster mount most of the time, this is where that beloved service pistol can come good. If you want a tactical wonder gun, a home defense gun is what you do with it.

What are some of the best? Here are 6 incredible home defense handguns that anyone can feel better having about in case of emergency.

Glock 17: Classic Duty Pistol Makes Excellent Home Defense Pistol

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The Glock 17 was the original plastic fantastic when released in the mid 1980s and today it still has a whole lot to offer. It's simple, with only an integrated trigger safety to worry about. It's endlessly customizable, with an incredible amount of aftermarket support. You can add a laser, a reflex sight, a suppressor and barrel, whatever you want if so inclined.

On top of that, it holds 17+1 of 9mm. One of the selling points was also that it is lighter and easier to handle - for some people - than other Wonder Nines such as the Beretta 92 or Sig P220. It also isn't too terribly expensive to acquire, either.

There's a reason why it's one of the most popular service pistols on the market.

1911 Made A Great Sidearm, Still Makes A Good Home Defense Handgun

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The 1911 has a pedigree that need not be repeated. It is definitely a viable platform for personal protection, and a great use for that Government frame in .45 caliber that you may not want to carry on the daily is as a home protection gun.

It carries 7+1 or 8+1 of .45 ACP (depending on the magazine) and some people fret about capacity. However, the truth about most defensive shootings that happen in the home is they they are over quick and only involve a few shots. Given the ergonomic excellence of the 1911 and relative ease of shooting a bigger bullet (the heft of the metal frame helps) it's an easy pistol to handle. Anyone who squawks about the manual safety hasn't handled one; it's incredibly intuitive.

Make no mistake: it's one of the most proven implements of personal protection out there. Don't think it's tactical enough? Laser grips are easy to get and install, or you can get a railed model and add whatever light you wish.

FNH FNX 45 Tactical: A Home Defense Handgun For When You Aren't Kidding

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Want a big bore but want something a little more tacticool than a 1911? The FNH FNX 45 Tactical is pretty much of the top of the heap.

Worried about capacity? It carries 15+1 of .45 ACP. It's double-single action, but you can cock and lock it if desired or de-cock it safely; the safety mechanism does both. It has a rail, so you can add a light/laser. It comes with an extended barrel for use with a suppressor and taller sights for shooting with it. It comes with pre-cut for an RMR sight. Swappable backstraps ensure that you get a good fit.

It's a Cadillac of tactical handguns, and you'll pay for it (MSRP is $1,349) but you get incredible quality for it.

Ruger GP100: .357 Magnum Always Works As A Home Defense Pistol

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For some people, a plastic fantastic is just no good. Get it out of here and it's embarrassing to be seen with it. Same goes for that puny 9mm cartridge. For just such a person, the Ruger GP100 is a great home defense gun.

The GP100 is a tank of a pistol, built from the ground up to handle any of that watered down swill the factories call .357 Magnum ammunition up to handloads that would rattle Elmer Keith's ancestors.

There are 3-inch, 4.2-inch and 6-inch barrel models available, along with a number of finish and grip combinations. The standard is 6 of .357 Magnum, though a couple of 7-shot models in that chambering are available. You can also choose 6 of .327 Federal Magnum, 6 of 10mm (with moonclips) or 5 of .44 Special, though they make a couple target editions in .22 LR.

This is for the serious person who demands a serious pistol.

H&K VP9: The People's Home Defense Handgun

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If you want a poly-frame striker gun with smarter design than the others, the H&K VP9 is the ticket. It's something of a Goldilocks gun, being certainly service pistol class in size but being svelte enough to CCW if you felt like it. Plenty of people do, as it happens.

The VP9 (volkspistole or "people's gun") has smart, ergonomic features that make it far more comfortable to handle and easier to operate than many comparable pistols. Several sizes of palmswell to give you a perfect fit, taming recoil and making the pistol astoundingly intuitive to point. Charging handles at the rear of the slide make racking it astoundingly easy, and a full length rail lets you add a light or laser if you wish.

You get 15+1 of 9mm, and while it may ask a bit more upfront than other poly frame striker guns, the devil is in the details. Most reviewers and owners have hailed the VP9 as being the best of the striker guns in terms of feel and easily the best striker trigger on a factory gun comparable only with Walther.

Sig P226: A Home Defense Gun That Will Run For Decades

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A home defense gun must, of course, be reliable. When it comes to reliable, the Sig Sauer P226 is often believed to be one of the most rugged and reliable pistols you can buy. It's easily one of the all-time great pistols.

The Sig P226 was created as a double-stack 9mm counterpart to the single-stack .45 ACP Sig P220, and features many of the same features such as the grips, ergonomics and so on. It also features what many consider to be the most logical control scheme for a DA/SA pistol yet devised, with a decocking lever in easy reach of the thumb so you can carry with the pistol ready to get into the fight.

It carries 15+1 of 9mm, and the base model is offered with a rail for mounting accessories. That said, many iterations are available; carry models for easier toting, tactical models with threaded barrels for suppressors and RMR cuts...whatever you like. Sig makes many options available to the buyer. They better, because the MRSP ($1,000+) is a bit much.

For that, however, you get one of the finest fighting pistols known to man.

Have you shot these firearms? What did you like, and what didn't you?
Let us know in the comments below!

About The Author

Writer sam hoober