EDC Gun Advice

Recently I saw the below social media post from friend and fellow Boondocks FTA™ instructor, Andy Anderson.

Andy makes it a priority to shoot regularly. His latest drill is the Card Challenge which requires him to place 5 rounds on a playing card from concealment at 5 yards away in under 5 seconds. After his last trip to the range, he shared the following.

“When someone like Tom Givens gives advice you would be wise to listen to them and do what they suggest. Tom has talked about having a dedicated Every Day Carry pistol that you don’t shoot very often. You should also have an identical clone to your EDC pistol that you use for practice. Well, that bit of advice paid off for me today. The last time I shot this pistol I put about 200 rounds through it without any hint that anything was wrong. Today, when I went to load it the slide would not move all the way back. When I took it apart I noticed the distal end of the guide rod had snapped off. If I had only one gun to train with and for every day carry, I could have been carrying a defective pistol that would have failed should I have needed it. BTW, This is an aftermarket tungsten guide rod and to the best of my knowledge, it only has about 10,000 rounds on it. 12,000 max.“

Granted, not many gun owners will ever put 12,000 rounds through their handgun, but I know a lot of people who stake their life on a firearm they rarely fire. I know others that have made major modifications to their handgun such as trigger, springs, slides, etc., that will put 50 rounds down range with the modifications and call it good. In my opinion, for stock firearm I would want 500 rounds of malfunction free performance with target rounds and at least 100 rounds with self-defense ammunition before I am comfortable carry the gun. I would want double that with any gun with internal aftermarket modifications. Chose your life saving device carefully and make sure it will go BANG when you need it too.