back on topic....
My fiance has the 340pd for carry in her purse or in a leather pancake holster. she loves it. i have the 360pd with the desantis clip grips (or whatever they are called) and it is honest to God the MOST comfortable thing to carry of anyhting i have tried this far. that plus a speed loader or two and i am set.
has anyone used speed strips? no experience with them, but am interested in learning
Let me start by saying I've had a 340 pd since it first came out. (I won it at the IDPA Winter nationals in a raffle. )
While I've grown to love the gun, it was intimidating at first, and I shoot about 800 rounds per month. So my question is has your fiancé ever shot it?
It's a terrible women's gun. At the risk of over generalizing, most women have smaller hands than men. Their hands and upper bodies also tend to be weaker. The j frame and the 340 inarticulate has several things working against it that are exacerbated by a woman's generally smaller frame.
1) heavy trigger. My 340 is well over 10 lbs with a long stroke.
2) short grip that doesn't allow her to use her entire hand to control recoil
3) short bbl that flips more than a longer bbl, which tends more to push straight back.
4) extremely light weight simply amplifies everything else
5) magnum power cartridge
My wife is a decent shot. She's competed a little with my Glock 34 and at 5'1" is not very big. But she is a swimmer and a triathlete, so she's probably stronger than most women.
She shoots the Glock great
She shoots my friends 9mm 1911 REALLY well
She hates my KAHR pm9 because she can't get her pinker on the grip
She likes my KAHR P9. Hmm. It doesn't seem to recoil much less than the PM to me. But to her, the difference is night and day. But the recoil spring is too stiff for her to comfortably run the gun.
Oh and her least favorite gun is the 340. For all the reasons I mentioned above
Most women don't carry on their body. In that case I really think that something like a Glock 19 is a great choice. She can manipulate the slide and shoots it reasonably well. Although the gun isn't small, it's relatively light.
Just my .02
But with all that's aid, if you practice frequently with it, for short duration each time, you can get pretty good with a 340. I can shoot it all day with 38s. I'll typically shoot 15 rounds of 357 to finish everything up. When I started I only fired 2 shots of 357 before I put it away. I didn't want to develop a flinch with the gun.
One thing that helps a lot is making sure you grip it as high as possible. That means the back upper part of the blackstrap is really pressed against your hand.
I hope this helps.
