← The Colion Noir Podcast
The Colion Noir Podcast
Why You Should Carry Cheap Guns
00:33:01
Colion talks about the pros and cons of carrying a cheap firearm and if you should have your life depend on it.
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A
I think if open carried was more of a standard, was more of a standard way of carrying more people, I think more people would actually probably spend more money on their guns than they do now. Now at the same time, I. It just. The reason why I'm hesitating is because I've seen some security guards and I've seen some of their carry guns and I'm like, you sure about that? You sure about that? You sure about that? But I stopped myself because I'm like, it could just be if I financial thing. Everybody doesn't have thousands of dollars to put in to. To handguns, which I totally understand. But I also have seen a lot of situations where people would cheap out on their handgun. So for them it's like, well, let's just get a gun. A gun is a gun is a gun and they'll cheap out on it. And I'm like that. I don't understand. They have the means to buy something better, but they choose not to. Now if it's reliable and it works and you shoot it, well, I can't say. But if you're just, if you're just being cheap to be cheap on a gun that you're probably gonna have that, that you, that if you had to protect yourself, you would probably have to rely on that gun to do it. Ah, doesn't make a lot of sense to me. This episode of the Cole on the War podcast is brought to you by Vetter Holsters. What's going on, folks? Cole on Noir. And welcome to another episode of the Coleon Noir podcast. This is going to be a solo podcast, as you can see. All right, all right, all right. So what are we going to talk about today? So what I wanted to talk. I came across a post recently and I don't remember exactly where it was. I thought I'd put it in my phone. You know, there's always so many different ideas and stuff that I need to do for videos. I have a running list and sometimes I think I put it in and then I go back to look, it's not there. And then sometimes I think I put it in. And I never actually did put it in. That goes without saying. But I saw a post and largely it got me to thinking. What the post talked about was the idea that you don't want to keep an expensive gun as your carry gun or gun that like you keep in your car, that you want to have like a beater gun, so to speak. And, and that, that's, that's a gun that like, is a gun that if you ever had to use it in self defense and you had to and the cops had to take it for evidence or whatnot, you wouldn't be without that gun. Or like if you had it in your car and somebody broke into your car and Jesus told me, I think I turn all the stuff off, it's still on. If somebody broke into your car and then stole a gun that you had in your car, now you're not out of a really expensive gun. And I remember I was my, my initial, my initial thought process to that was. I don't really necessarily completely agree with that. Like I understand the thought process. Like logically it makes, I guess it. Logically it makes sense. It's like if I'm going to end up losing something, I'd rather be something that I care about less than something that I really care about. However, now the car, we can look at this in two ways. The car side of it, I understand more than I do the carry gun side of it. And, and I've heard this before. Like even when I first got into guns, that was one of the first things I heard. It was, you know, it was a concern that people always had. It's like, I don't want to carry a really expensive gun because if I ever have to use it in self defense, it's going to be locked away in evidence for a long time and then I won't have access to that gun. And therefore I'd rather have a gun that I don't really care about that's cheap that I could just. That if I lost, I don't, it's like, whatever. All right. So I've got to give a quick shout out to Vetter Holsters. They're now sponsoring the podcast. I've been using their light tuck Kydex inside the waistband holster. And what I really like is how adjustable it is. You can tweak the ride height and can't to get it exactly how you want. Plus they've got holsters for over 450 gun models in 75 different colors. So you can pretty much find whatever you need. But here's the thing that really sets them apart. Their customer service. I've heard so many stories about how they've gone above and beyond to make sure you're happy with your holster. And with a lifetime Warranty and a 30 day money back guarantee, it's clear they stand behind their products. If you're in the market for a great holster, check them out@better holsters.com. i don't necessarily subscribe to that. I have always wanted to carry the gun I shot the best, if that makes any sense. And, and usually speaking, that gun typically tended to cost a noticeably more than the other guns because generally speaking, when you say you, you, when you, when you talk about a gun that you might use and that you might lose as a result of using it in self defense, you're talking about a gun that probably going to be really not, I guess, more or less kind of cheap, maybe affordable, but more or less kind of cheap. And usually in the price range that you're not worried about losing a gun. The gun's not the greatest gun and you probably don't shoot it that well because for me, my thing is the most important thing is your life. So why not have the thing you shoot the best that you feel most comfortable with that is most reliable to protect your life? I don't want to rely on the entry level aspect of firearms to protect my life. Now there's something to be said about finding that middle ground, but I've literally heard people saying like you buy a beater and then that's the beater you use for defense. And then all of the fancy guns, those are the guns you keep tucked away. I don't agree with that. I don't. I've always wanted to have the most like the guns that I carried. Even when I first got a gun. My first gun was a Ruger SR40. I bought that gun largely because that was a gun I could afford at the time and because I felt it was the best bang for my buck in terms of my price range. Right. It was a really good gun. It was a reliable gun. I shot it well. But eventually I changed. I moved up to something else. At one point, I think I had a HKP 2000, which is noticeably more expensive than the Ruger SR40. And that was a gun I was carrying for a while. And then I went to a HK USP compact and that's an expense. Those comparatively, I mean, we're talking like 304, $300 difference between the two, between the Ruger SR40 and the HKs that I was looking at. At one point I was carrying HK P30. You're probably seeing a theme here. But I, the way I looked at it was I was like, no, I want, I want what is considered to be the best at the time. Now my knowledge set at that point was bit lower. I mean, I still had a pretty decent knowledge set. But for me at the time, those were the guns that were considered the best, right? HK had that notoriety, HK had that, that reputation for being, being incredibly reliable, being overbuilt, like a tank. And I'm like, damn, then that's the thing I want to defend my life with. And that's a gun I want to train with. I don't want to. If I'm going to shoot. Like if I'm big on training and like they tell you to train with the gun you use, if you have a beater, you're not going to train with it. I promise you what's probably going to happen is you're going to get a, get, you're going to get a beater gun and then when you go to go train, you're going to train with the gun, you're going to train with your, with your like high end guns, right? Like you're like the guns that you really want to shoot because training is fun and you want to have fun and enjoy the training. So you go and you utilize the gun that you felt that you, you're going to have the most fun with. And so I, I don't, I just for me, I can't. I don't. Not really. I'm not buying it. I'm not. Now if you buy a beater gun and you can tell me that you can shoot the hell out of that gun and that gun is perfect for you from a shooting standpoint, by all means, carry a beater gun, carry the beater. But I'm always trying to maximize my shoot ability. That's the thing. For me, I very much look at this like I look at cars. There are cars in the car world, it's pretty much the same shit. In the car world you got people who will buy cars and they never drive them. They'll have a daily and then they'll drive their fancy car every once in a blue moon. And I get it like, of course there's something, there's something to be said about, okay, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna rack up a ton of miles on this more high end car just to drive to and fro from work. But then there's another mindset that's like, well if you're going to have to drive to and fro from work, I'd rather drive something that I'm going to enjoy driving every single day. But then there's also another component to that that's like, well then after a while that car will stop feeling special. So you want to reserve that for just certain moments. So that car always continues to Feel special. I tend to fall somewhere in between. I'm of the mindset I want to enjoy what I'm driving every single day if I'm having to do that if I'm having to drive. Now recently I picked up a cybertruck and I don't do very much driving when I drive the cybertruck. I don't really. I think I use full self driving on a Cybertruck 99% of the time. And the irony is it's actually made me fall in love with driving my other cars more. So now when I do get in those other cars where I actually have to drive, I actually enjoy it more because the experience is more novel now. But going back to the gun side of things, like I like right now my go to carry gun for the most part is my Hellcat Pro, right? This is kind of like my go to as far as. As far as console carry. And the reason for that largely is because it's it one is the size to capacity ratio I love but then also two it carries really well against my body and then three I shoot it really well. I shoot it really well. Do I shoot it the best? No, the gun I shoot the best at least for right now from a carry standpoint. And this is. Keep in mind I have a carry rotation though too. So I have a, I have a litany of guns that I use as I carry that are in a rotation of guns that I carry depending on what I'm wearing, how I'm feeling that day, so forth and so on. Now there are a lot of people who probably say well that's dumb. Why would you change your carry gun? Because it's just because I, I'm dynamically just every. It's just my, the way my lifestyle is, I can't always carry the gun that I want to carry and I'm somebody who's really big on making sure my gun is absolutely concealed and you can't tell that I have a gun on me. So if I. For instance, let's take, let's take this guy here, right? This is the C4X from Staccato. I end up buying this. I bought this gun because I, I 1 I like the way the gun looks of course, but I love the way the gun feels in my hand and I shoot it really well. As you can see when on the video that I did about it. I shoot the gun really really well. And when I bought it I, I remember I bought it actually Me and Joe Rogan were actually at a gun we were shooting at the range, and we were shooting these for the first time, and we both kind of fell in love with it, and we both decided to buy, buy it. And I remember when I bought it, I was like, man, I, this is gonna be. Probably gonna creep up there to my top two carry guns, because like I said, I, I. It shoots incredibly flat. It shoots really soft. And I love the way it feels in my hand. Like, ergonomics is so important to me when it comes to a gun. Nothing, nothing sucks more than putting a gun in your hand. And the gun just feels off, doesn't feel right in your hand. And then there's nothing that can compare to a gun that just naturally feels really good in hand. And that's what this does. Like, especially with this, this, this, this Magwell here, it just creates such a positive grip on the gun for me that when I do go to shoot, it feels incredibly natural. It lines up incredibly naturally for me in ways that most guns in this class don't do. Now, the problem I ran into is the gun is kind of deceptively small. No, it's deceptively big. Is it deceptively small? It looks, it look, it, it carries bigger than what it looks, which is unfortunate because I can't carry it as much as I want to, and it also weighs more. So though I want to carry this gun more, I can't because it, it just makes the carrying aspect of things not the greatest all the time. Now, when I do get to carry it, I'm happy because I know this is the gun that I shoot. The. I currently kind of shoot the best. In a perfect world, I'd be able to carry this massive behemoth of a guy, which is a staccato xc. Now, this, this thing here is massive. I never carry this because it just doesn't make sense for me to carry it. But I shoot this phenomenally well. Phenomenally well. However, the gap between that XC and this in terms of shootability is like that. So this makes the most sense. Now, I could just as easily carry this and shoot well enough to defend myself, but I'm always about maximizing shootability. So if I can carry this, I'll carry this. But. But even though this costs almost 2, 3 times more than this, and, and I know what some people are saying, well, yeah, you, you have a lot of guns, and you sometimes have companies send you guns and stuff like that so you can afford that. My, like, my investment isn't the same in that regard, but I disagree with that. Because back when I was getting into firearms, I was scaling my firearms up. I went from a Ruger SR40 to start to carry like a P30 or a US P9. Those weren't cheap guns because I knew those are the guns that I want, I could shoot really well. And that to me had that reputation of reliability. But, but even then I just wanted to carry the best. And if it so happened that I lost that gun for a period of time due to an investigation, if I had to use it in self defense, so be it. But at least I knew I had the gun I was most confident with to protect the thing I cared about the most, which is my, my life. So that, that's. It just never was a big thing for me. Truth be told. I never really. It's not something that really crossed my mind as much as people thought about it. Now I understand. If you literally can only afford one gun, if you only have the funds to afford one gun, it really doesn't matter either because whether or not you buy a beater or you buy a really expensive gun, if that gun gets taken, it's taken. You could only afford one gun anyway. Then I guess you could make the argument that if you could only afford one gun, at least if the beater got taken, then you could. It's easier for you to go back and buy another beater gun. That, that, that much I can understand. But I, for me, I'm like, I want to be able to have the gun that gives me the most confidence in terms of my shootability, in terms of reliability, and also just that, that kind of genesee qua of knowing I have the best gun I could possibly buy that I can personally buy. That's gonna be different for everybody, right? There's some people, they'll, they'll buy a Glock and that's. And they'll. And they will maximize it to the umpteenth degree and that will be their best gun, right? So like for instance, like you take this, this Glock 45 and then you take this Glock 19X for all, since the purpose is the same gun, more or less, but this one has been uberly modified by DEFCON 3, right? There's a lot going on here. And, and then also I think another thing I saw in the post what the person was saying, I can't remember who it was, unfortunately, but they were talking about how like people buy these Glocks and then like spend all this money to modify it when they could just have a Glock and that these modifications don't do anything. Like they're just. They're just. They're almost trivial. Or they're just. What's the word I'm looking for? They're nothing more than ornaments. And I disagree. There's a noticeable difference in shooting experience, shooting ability, running this gun versus me running the stock. 45. Even though they're inherently the same guns at the same underpinnings. But this has just been modified. Right. For instance, the grip. People underestimate how much the grip plays a part in your ability to shoot a gun. That's why I love this guy here, because this guy here just feels so naturally good in hand. But then also, you go. You get down to things of like improving the trigger, right? Improving. And then in changing, especially in Glocks, changing that grip kind of changes the way the gun naturally points. Where some people struggle with the stock Glock and how that points. So for me, this is. This is a gun that if I had to choose between the two, I'd carry this one. The only time I would otherwise do the opposite is if the modifications start to infringe or. Or start to devalue some of the reliability. Because the reliability component is top tier. Top tier. But if you have enough rounds through the gun where you feel comfortable enough from a reliability standpoint, I don't see. I don't see a problem in having modifications that allow the interaction with the gun to be a better place. And I understand the idea of you don't want to put too much money into your carry gun because if you lose it, then you've now lost that money or you don't have that gun, and it's like they're bigger. I think there were bigger things to worry about at that point. If I've had to go to my gun, like I said, and I keep repeating this, I had to go to my gun and use it to. To protect my life. Well, I had the best thing I thought I had that I needed to do that, which was this gun that I had modified the exact same. The exact way that I wanted it to be modified. And I'm a big proponent to somebody who's. I'm a big proponent of being proud of your carry gun. I get it. Nobody sees it. Nobody sees your carry gun except for you. Because if somebody sees your carry gun, you're dealing with a whole different dynamic of problems right then and there in that moment. That's, That's. That's for absolute certainty. I think, though, things would change. I think things would be a lot Different. If more people open carried, if open carry was a standard, I think you'd start seeing a shit ton of people putting a lot more money into their guns, their carry guns and the guns that they carry. Because now you're, it's, it's a representation of you. It's putting yourself out to the world. This is the type of gun that I carry. And what does that say about yourself? That's when I think things will start to get into the way things like cars are. Like cars now are kind of representative. They tell the world kind of who you are a little bit. People use that to determine the type of person you are. Whether they should or shouldn't is a different story. But people do it. And I think if we, I think if open carried was more of a standard, was more of a standard way of carrying more people, I think more people would actually probably spend more money on their guns than they do now. Now at the same time I, it just. The reason why I'm hesitating is because I've seen some security guards and I've seen some of their carry guns. I'm like, you sure about that? You sure about that? But I stopped myself because I'm like, it could just be a financial thing. Everybody doesn't have thousands of dollars to put in to handguns, which I totally understand. But I also have seen a lot of situations where people would cheap out on their handgun. So for them it's like, well, let's just get a gun. A gun is a gun is a gun and they'll cheap out on it. And I'm like that. I don't. They have the means to buy something better, but they choose not to. Now if it's reliable and it works and you shoot it, well, I can't say. But if you're just, if you're just being cheap to be cheap on a gun that you're probably going to have that, that you, that if you had to protect yourself, you would probably have to rely on that gun to do it. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me personally. I'm just saying. But now on the issue of the car thing, the car thing is where things kind of get a little dicey, right? Like for instance, like went back when I had it, I had my, my trx, When I had my trx, I used to keep this guy, this Takato XC in my truck. Like it would stay in my truck. And the reason, and I know a lot of people, like I would tell people that sometimes and they look at Me kind of puzzled. They think, well, why would you do that? Like, why would you have such an expensive gun as like your truck handgun, so to speak? And the reason why is because that's the gun that I shot the best. That's the gun that I felt most comfortable with. And because I can't carry it, I'm going to put it in the thing that I'm in the most, which is a vehicle, right. And I like the idea of having also a full size gun. And for me, and I've shot the shit out of this gun so I know where it lives from a reliability standpoint. But then I also know what I can do with this gun from a shooting standpoint because I've shot the shit out of it and I shoot this gun very well. I've always said, if you're gonna, if you ask me and you say, hey, I want you to demonstrate your absolute best shooting ability, pick any handgun you want, it'll be this. Because I shoot the shit out of this gun extremely well. And arguably it might even be this at this point. Because the more I shoot this, the more the better I realize I am at shooting it. Which at the same time it begs the question, so then why is this my go to? Why is the Springfield Hellcat Pro my go to? And the reason why is because it is, it does really good at a lot of the things I need it to. And the biggest aspect of it is carryability, considering the, the ammo capacity to the size of the gun. So for instance, like this is 17 round mag. A 17 plus one here that is about, from a link standpoint is about a little bit longer than. Well, when you put a magazine in here, that's a different story, but it gives me the same kind of profile, so to speak, of Glock 45, but is a lot thinner and width and thickness for me is a big deal when it comes to the way that I carry. Because of the way that I dress right now I tend, I'm starting to wear, I've been wearing a lot more oversized shirts now. So carrying stuff like this is a lot easier than it used to be. But back when I was carrying guns that were a little more tightly fitted or wearing T shirts that were a little bit more fitted, this was, this was really my go to. And it still is by and large because for some reason the way this gun is shaped, it works well against my body. Everybody's going to be different. Everybody's going to have a gun that works in terms of the way it carries against Your body if the like. When this NIST C4X kind of starts getting on my nerves from a carry gun standpoint, I know this won't, I know this won't. But then also too, it's the perfect size in terms of. Yeah, sure, another gun in my carry rotation is the. The six hour P365. The P365 is a gun that is. I can carry almost all the time anywhere, no problems at. No problems at all. The problem is. That sounds like an oxymoron because I just said no problems at all. But the thing is, is getting to the gun is where I start to question things. You see, because when people start carrying these really small guns, one thing that they forget is you want to be able to get to that gun quickly, but then also get a good grip on the gun because nothing would suck more than being a situation. We had to get to your gun quickly and you grab it and you got nothing but daylight here. And so the gun feels weird in your hand and it's awkward in the moment when you're dealing with a lot of stress and adrenaline. But the reason why is because the gun's so small, so you're almost fishing for it and you kind of grab it and you got to find it. That slows your draw time down. But you get the benefit of the fact that it's really easy to conceal the gun so that there's always these trade offs. Right. And for me, this is the like almost perfect size where it's small enough where I can carry it 90 or 80, 85, 90% of the time. But then also I can get to the gun and get a good grip on a gun consistently good draw on a gun consistently with it because of the size. Now again, going back to the car thing, I have measures in place to keep a gun from being stolen out of my vehicle. Like when I had my trx, I had a fully built in safe in the truck that I bought online. And when I wasn't in the truck, I put this gun in there, lock it up, and you'd be hard pressed to get into that safe. I'm not saying it's impossible, but, but that, that's what I did. And I was okay with the risk factor involved with having this inside of that safe ready to go. Now I also, whenever I, if I'm in a vehicle that doesn't have the ability to have that kind of custom built out safe in it, that's when I start going to my life pods like the, the vault tec safes that I sell on my website because I can tether those to my vehicle, I can put it inside, I can lock it again. Nothing is foolproof, nothing's perfect. Pretty much any case, you give it enough time, you might in enough tools at your disposal, you'll probably be able to get into it. But what I'm trying to stop is snatch and grab shit. I'm trying to stop somebody who's pressed for time, who's trying to be low key, doesn't have all time in the world to spend in there. And I've had those situations where my case has stopped somebody from stealing my gun. So there are ways to kind of mitigate having what you consider to be your expensive gun and, and leaving it in your car. And I'm not saying not having to worry about it, but you mitigate it mitigates enough of that risk that it is that you can feel comfortable carrying or having the gun in your car that you feel is the best of what you can afford. And so I, I just, I found that interesting when I saw that post because I thought now, now you know, I get it. Some people are like, nah, give me a throwaway gun, give me a, not that way, Jesus, but give me a, give me a beater gun. And then all my other guns that I have that are high quality and that are expensive, I'm gonna keep those at home. Those are going to be my, my home defense guns, which makes perfect sense. I, that I get also. But I don't know, for me I'm like, I want the best gun that I can shoot and is reliable to be the gun that I have at my disposal when I'm more than likely, where I'm more likely to run into a potential situation where I have to defend myself versus not, I don't want to have to be relegated to a beater gun in a self defense situation. I don't. So I'm always and have always been someone who try to scale up whatever gun I had to the best, to my best, to the best of what I perceive to be the best in terms of carryability. Now we do live in an age and time now where there are a ton of guns out there that will do the job just fine and they're not crazy expensive. And you know, for instance, like the hellcat, like at the end of the day all that I'm saying and talking about my go to so far they're gonna carry the most is this gun. This is what a 600 gun for 500, 600 gun compared to say this where in its entire setup the way you have it, see it here, this is about a four thousand. This is not about. It is, it's a four thousand dollar gun, right? But I still find myself carrying this five hundred gun. Not because it's better than this gun. I shoot this gun way better than I shoot this gun noticeably. The only reason I don't carry this gun is because it's harder to carry than this one, you know, and more so with this. Because it's the weight that is the issue more than anything and because it doesn't carry against my body as well. But because I still shoot this gun really well, I still carry this one the most. But in a perfect world, in a perfect world I'd be carrying this, I'd be carrying this full size Sacado xc. Because it's the gun I shoot the most, I missed the gun I shoot the best. It's the gun that feels the best in my hand. It's a gun I trust the most just because of the amount of rounds I've had through it and that I've shot and I've seen it run dry and still run like a champ. And I've never really been somebody who shot Glocks very well. Let's just call it, let's call a spade a spade. Which is why Glocks aren't really in my carry rotation. Glocks are great guns. 19s are phenomenal. My favorite is Glock 19X. And I really, really like the 19X. But the reason why I don't carry it or it's not in my carry rotation, so to speak is because the size issue, like I can, what I can do with this, I can do with this. And it's thinner and. And then as far as somebody saying well then get the 48. I don't like the 48. 48 feels weird. 48 just feels off to me. I can't put it in my brain. Something about the 48 just feels off. I don't like it as a. I don't personally care for it very much. But everybody's different. Everybody's going to be different. Some people are. I've seen guys run completely stock Glocks and shoot it way better than people coming in with fancy ass 2011s. It just. What does your body mechanics, what does you as a person lend itself? What type of gun do you that are you do. What type of gun is best for you with respect to all of those factors and really honestly, the only way you'll be able to tell and learn about which one is which is simply just going out and shooting a bunch of different guns. And you'll be surprised about which guns you shoot the best. Like you'd be really surprised because the gun you shoot phenomenally well somebody else can't shoot for. And so for me that is the, that is the important thing. I, I do factor in how much you're going to cost, but at the same time I don't because if it's a gun I shoot really well, feels really good in hand, is reliable, that's kind of all I care. That's kind of all. And I can care and it carries really well. That's all I care about really. If I have to lose the gun due to using in a self defense situation and they have taken it for evidence, so be it. I'll deal with that when, when that, if that time ever comes. The car situation is a little bit different, but still kind of in the same realm. I still, I'm not really making a decision about which gun I keep in my car based on the price of the gun. I do what I can to mitigate the theft of the gun, but I don't necessarily look at it and say, well, this is a cheap gun so I'm just gonna, I'm put this one in a car and then I'm gonna keep this one here because of the price. That's just, I, I've never been like that, even when I was flat broke. Now. Call that what you want? I don't know. But when I saw that I thought this would be a good point of conversation for me. So tell me, tell me what you guys think. I want to know in the comment section how you guys feel about the idea of not carrying an expensive gun because of the possibility of losing that gun if you use it in self defense or keeping gun in your car for that very same reasons. I know it's going to be kind of varied and all over the place. I kind of know where it's going to skew. But nonetheless, I still want to hear from you guys and tell me what you think. All right, that was another episode of the Cole on the WAD podcast.