When deciding on a home defense solution, many new shooters take the ill-informed, but well-meaning advice of armchair commandos, gun salesmen, and their uncle Bob. Which is to say, buying a pump-action shotgun and if confronted with an intruder, simply rack the action to scare them away. This is not only very bad advice, it’s also extremely dangerous and relies on the assumption that an attacker will be logical.
Many criminals and especially home-invaders are hopped up on some form of chemical stimulant or opiate and their brains aren’t firing on all cylinders. They’re angry, aggressive, and oftentimes so drugged up they can’t feel pain or fear. In this scenario, nothing short of a well-placed bullet will stop them.
And one of the most reliable ways to place that bullet where it needs to go is firing it from a compact, lightweight, light-recoiling carbine.
Four Benefits of Pistol Caliber Carbines for Home Defense
1. Accuracy
While the majority of home defense shootings occur inside of five yards, that doesn’t mean a shooter doesn’t need an accurate firearm. While five yards may seem too close for a shooter to miss, look at police shootouts at similar distances where dozens of rounds are exchanged, yet only a handful find their mark.
This is because most of these shootouts involve handguns. Handguns are great for home defense because they allow shooters to keep a hand free for operating lights, opening doors, or escorting loved ones out of harm’s way. The biggest problem with pistols is that they’re difficult to accurately shoot without training. Also, they often have limited ammunition reserves.
The former is because shooters only have two points of contact with their pistol at most. This makes stabilizing the pistol more difficult than with a shoulder-fired firearm, both in shot accuracy and in recoil control of subsequent shots.
By picking a pistol caliber carbine, shooters benefit from increased stability and recoil control — the latter of which makes follow-up shots a breeze compared to traditional handguns. After all, pistol caliber carbines, by definition, are chambered in rounds designed to fired one-handed. The felt recoil impulse on something in 9mm like a SIG MPX, or CZ Scorpion EVO, is much more manageable than the recoil of a standard handgun, a 12-gauge shotgun of any variety, or even a 5.56mm carbine.
Which brings me to another advantage of these soft-shooting lead-slingers: cost of proficiency.
2. Cheap Proficiency
This section’s title might raise an eyebrow or two given the high cost of ammunition, but like Einstein’s theory of time, it’s all relative.
Many people like to quote Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, where he suggests it takes 10,000 hours of practice to functionally master a skillset. While that may be true, few gun owners have the money or time to invest that much in shooting.
The good news is that it only takes a fraction of that time to become proficient at any skill set. While I personally believe deliberate practice trumps rote learning, different methods work for different people.
Regardless of whether you spend 10,000 hours of 50 practicing with your chosen home defense firearm, pistol caliber carbines reduce that cost tremendously.
For example, look at the standard 30-round magazine used by the CZ-USA Scorpion EVO (shown in the image above), the magazine itself is pretty inexpensive. More than that, filling said magazine with 9mm ammo is magnitudes less expensive than firing the same amount of ammo through a pump-action shotgun.
Also, new shooters tend to master pistol caliber carbines with fewer repetitions, since the recoil impulse is much less than centerfire rifles or 12-gauge shotguns. And don’t forget about the volume of the shot itself, which brings me to our next section.
3. Most Pistol Caliber Carbines are Suppressor-friendly
With the exception of calibers designed specifically for suppressors like .300 blackout, pistol calibers are literally, exponentially quieter than their rifle-caliber counterparts.
Our military’s standard round, 5.56x45mm, fires a very small, very light bullet at incredible speed. This high velocity is what makes the round effective against two-legged predators and enemy soldiers. The only problem is that the round’s super-sonic velocity makes even suppressed guns very loud. Not, damage-your-hearing loud, but certainly unpleasant, especially indoors.
Pistol caliber carbines, on the other hand, can be borderline movie quiet when equipped with a quality sound suppressor. This is because most common pistol calibers can be loaded in subsonic varieties without negating their effective terminal ballistics.
So if you’re running a 9mm SIG MPX carbine with its 20-round magazine filled with 147gr subsonic hollow-points, and a nice sound suppressor like the GemTech GM9 from SilencerShop, indoor gunshots won’t damage you, or your loved one’s hearing.
This may seem like the last thing on a homeowner’s mind when they hear a window shatter at 3 a.m., but it’s important because you never know if that intruder was alone or not. Firing an unsuppressed shotgun or rifle will destroy your hearing entirely for a few hours. Deaf, and possibly blind from a bright muzzle flash in a dark house, it would be very easy for another attacker to sneak up on you. Plus, who is going to take the time when they’re scared half to death, to put on a pair of earmuffs or plugs?
4. Shared Ammunition (and sometimes magazines)
Very few handguns are chambered in full-powered rifle cartridges. The only one I can think of offhand is the Ruger New Model Blackhawk in .30 carbine. But truthfully, .30 carbine is hardly considered a full-powered round, and the Blackhawk is single-action only — making this six-gun a poor choice for home defense.
That said, plenty of carbines are chambered in common pistol rounds, so shooters can swap ammunition between guns or just simplify the logistics of purchasing ammunition. Some pistol caliber carbines like the Kel-Tec Sub 2000 or Beretta’s PX-4 Storm even use pistol magazines. So a shooter could keep a backup on their hip, and a carbine at the ready. If either firearm malfunctions, they can take the magazine out of one, and insert it in the other.
This can also be handy if your spouse also has a firearm for home defense. It allows the two of you to swap magazines and ammunition. While handy, it’s likely you’ll never need this capability. Still, gun-owners don’t tend to be the sort of people to take unnecessary risks. Which might be why they own a gun in the first place.
Regardless of which caliber, firearm, or ammunition you choose — be sure to thoroughly test your chosen setup before employing it for home defense use. The best time to make sure a gun functions fine with a certain brand of ammo, isn’t during a firefight.
I own a PCC so I feel qualified to discuss. I disagree with the premise of this article of the alleged advantages. Bottom line up front, you’re paying a cost, size, and weight penalty of a rifle with the disadvantages of the pistol round. It’s a poor choice given all the other choices today. It may have made sense in the wild west for a rifle/pistol combo but not today. Point by point: 1. Accuracy? No, and irrelevant. Claiming a 9×19 is more accurate than a 5.56 is absurd, especially at range where the 9×19 loses juice fast. And long-range defense shootings are so rare it’s barely worthy of discussion. Compared to a pistol, yes, I agree that the 9×19 from a rifle does benefit from stability and more energy. But accuracy? Maybe, and maybe on follow-ups. But I doubt most shooters will notice. 2. Cheap proficiency? No. This is like the person that owns a car but buys a $15,000 motorcycle and pays extra insurance to save gas money. The math never works out. The cost difference between 9mm/.40/556/762×39 is maybe a dime. A whole separate platform, sights, accessories (how many folks outfit their gear) and magazines can easily run $1000. So a person would need to fire 10,000 rounds just to break even on the purchase in that scenario (e.g. 10000 rounds of 9mm is $2000 or 10000 rounds of 556 is $3000, hence the price difference of $1000 or the cost of a PCC). I’d rather have the 556 rifle and 10,000 rounds for training and use personally. 3. Suppressor friendly? Perhaps but mostly irrelevant. Suppressors are available in any caliber if legal in your state. The tiny fraction of people that suppress makes this point nearly moot. But I’d say that if you have a pistol and a rifle, perhaps this makes sense for 1 can. 4. Shared ammo and magazines? Eh, again if I’m relying on a rifle sized/cost platform, I want it to shoot a rifle caliber. Why pay the power penalty loss in a pistol caliber? Ammo/mag commonality is a poor reason for this in my view.
This Article is simply ” ON POINT! ” Logical and Concise ……. It is most certainly advise that any and all gunowners should heed and consider. Thank you for printing a Relevent Article that can be utilized immediately. Hats Off, B P.S. ….. VOTE YOUR FUTURE ??
I decided to go with the AR configured PCC. And as you have stated, I am able to use my Glock 9mm magazines, 10 round up to 33. And my wife enjoys shooting it more so than the 223 caliber.
The Sub2000 is a great gun at 4.5lbs to swing around in tight areas. I have a Gen2 Glock version. Finding one is tough! Demand is high. HiPoint has a 9mm carbine that can be bought for less than $300 and RedBall sports makes a great 20rd mag for it. They aren’t really loud with 115gr. A 147gr sub sonic would be quieter. The Training 147 by Winchester feeds reliably in the HiPoint. It is a round nose flat point. I have heard regular round nose 147 could be a problem. I haven’t tried a 147 JHP yet. The el-cheapo 115gr Remington UMC JHP rips out of a 16″ barrel at 1400fps. That is knocking on .357 magnum territory.
A submachine gun has long been a common weapon used by military and paramilitary forces, and would be very useful in the arsenal of the militia. Being suppressed would be a big step better. Important aspects of it though are a short barrel, which makes it maneuverable in tight spaces, and full auto or burst capability, which greatly increases stopping power, this being especially important with pistol rounds. Illegal government edicts make these features unavailable in a practical sense to most civilians; the same goes with suppressors. If a loyal American ever becomes President and loyal Americans take control of Congress, these illegal edicts will be lifted, and then you will see many very effective pistol caliber carbines available, and they will be a very useful addition to the arsenal of the militia. I think a 10mm carbine, selective fire between single shot and three-round-burst, with a suppressor, would be ideal. It would be even better if it could use Glock pistol magazines, so there could be interchangeability between the carbine and pistol. The same could be done with other calibers of Glock pistols, and I’m guessing the 9mm would probably be the most popular.
Pistol caliber carbines are very practical for CQB and up to 100 yards. One of my favorite rifles is an old M-1 Carbine .30 cal. Very fun to shoot, very little recoil and pretty accurate out to 100 yards. I don’t think I would want a .30 cal pistol though, for being rated underpowered the M-1 carbine has killed a lot of Japanese, Germans and North Koreans during WWII and the Korean War. It was even carried early on in Viet Nam, Very lightweight and ability to carry lots of ammo. I have a SIG P226 MK 25 Navy TB and an older P229. I went looking for a sub 2000 that took the SIG mags and never could find one. Since my P229 is an older model I can also run my P226 mags in it. I looked at the SIG MPX (Sticker shock) and the CZ EVO. I think the trigger on the EVO is horrible and I am a big CZ fan having owned numerous pistol models from them. I ended up buying a Hi-Point carbine in 9MM Desert Camo. The thing is built like a tank and Red Ball has just came out with 20 round mags for the Hi-Point. Carbine runs great with the new Red Ball mags. You don’t have to break the bank to have an affordable 9MM carbine, its about performance not looks.