Same Caliber - Size of pistol

[vasanthm]

Thanks to everyone on this forum for the advice given, I purchased a JD Taurus yesterday..

When I was at the gun shop I saw many other .32 Caliber weapons like Atal, Capricorn etc and was surprised to see that they were all so much more compact.. I'm wondering what disadvantage do these compact pistols have when compared to the the pistols that's are physically larger of the same Caliber? Or do the larger one have any specific advantage?

[Vineet]

I'm wondering what disadvantage do these compact pistols have when compared to the the pistols that's are physically larger of the same Caliber? Or do the larger one have any specific advantage?

Smaller the pistol, more difficult its to use. Medium sized pistol like Taurus are easy to use. They fit better in hand, recoils less, double stack magazine so more rounds, easy to access features like safety, mag button, easy to rack the slide, bigger sights, ambidextrous safety etc

Single stack compact pistols like RFI are easy to carry….

[timmy]

This depends on the size of a person's hands, but I've found that a normal sized 25 Auto is a very difficult pistol to shoot reliably well. I can't get very much of my hand on the gun to control it.

My CZ 70 is much better in that regard, and it is a better fit for my hand than my Tokarev-"Star" in 9mm, as well. The Tokarev is not an especially pleasant pistol to shoot.

A larger pistol is easier to control and recoil is less of an issue, although 32 Auto isn't a very recoil intensive cartridge.

Most 32 Autos have similar length barrels, but a longer barrel will have some ballistic advantage in providing a little more velocity, everything else being equal. This would be true up to 100 mm to 125 mm, which would be the longer end of 32 Auto pistols. Short "mini" pistols with 60 mm to 80 mm could be expected to provide less velocity than longer barreled pistols for the same loading.

My advice is to choose what you can conceal in your normal carry clothing, remembering that there will be some advantage to control with the larger pistol. Of course, if a certain pistol "prints," or is visible, then that is not desirable, either.

Vineet notes that you should be able to operate the various functions of the pistol comfortably -- and he is 100% right. Make sure that you can operate the slide release, safety, and magazine release without excessive effort.

There are reports that compact pistols sometimes do not operate reliably, and ammunition choice may play a role in this, as well. Some pistols "like" some ammunition better than other kinds of ammunition, although if you are largely limited to full metal jacket rounds, ammunition choice may not be a big issue.