You have requirements for your ideal conceal and carry pistol. Each person has their own set of these to make sure that the pistol that they pick to start carrying will fill everything they desire. Sometimes desires for your pistol may need to be added to, modified or eliminated if they end up not being very realistic. You can make a list of requirements for your gun before you even start the process of evaluating them. You have to know that the list has to be changeable because of things that you discover about pistols as you go through the process of training for and starting to concealed carry.
During your training for concealed carry your instructor will point out various attributes of pistols that can effect what you keep on, add to or remove from your list. The modification of your list will come from your experience with pistols. As your knowledge grows so also will your refinement of your requirements for your concealed carry pistol. Making a final decision about a given pistol should really be based on some accumulated knowledge that you have been able to get from your instructor. Your ability to make such a decision is made stronger if you are given the opportunity to handle and fire several pistols that might be considered your choices for concealed carry. Making your list of requirements available to your instructor will help them to expose you to guns that will fit your requirements. You should make the effort to have the opportunity to do this as part of your decision to actually purchase a pistol.
There are some attributes of your pistol that should carry more weight than maybe some others. You will have to have a pistol that you can easily conceal. If you can't conceal it, that defeats part of the purpose for having the pistol. Physical dimensions of the pistol will tie in closely with your ability to conceal it. The overall length and height of the gun and its weight has a great influence on how well you can conceal your pistol. The grip has to be comfortable for you to hold. You need to have a pistol that is also comfortable to shoot. And one that can give you sustained accuracy. You will need to give some consideration to the way that you will conceal and carry your pistol.
Since you are carrying it for protection you should consider it's stopping power at the top of your list. Each pistol will have a certain amount of stopping power, they are not all the same. You should select one that has enough stopping power to knock down an attacker. Some pistols just do not have enough power to do the job. It should be your goal to have a pistol that will help you easily stop an attacker. Some pistols have manual safeties, others do not. Many experienced people who carry pistols do not prefer that their gun has a safety. They say that turning off the safety is another step you have to go through to defend yourself when time is of the essence. Others say that a safety is another level of self-protection. You should have a through explanation of the differences of these from your CC instructor and make your own decision.
Deciding on what kind of stopping power your pistol should have means that you should have a caliber that is big enough to do enough damage to an attacker to stop the attack. You may say that having the larger caliber bullet means more damage would be done to the attacker. That is not always the case. It is true that a larger caliber bullet has more power that a smaller caliber. But in some cases the smaller caliber will do more damage than a larger caliber. It depends on the construction of the bullet itself how much damage is done when it is fired. If a bullet has a soft core and a full metal jacket around it, it will not expand as it enters the target. Without expansion of the bullet there could be very little damage to the target. This bullet will pass through the attacker and probably not do enough damage to stop the attack. By passing through this bullet could possibly injure a bystander. This could be a .45 or .40 caliber bullet that is large.
But if your pistol fires a smaller bullet like a 9mm or a .380 caliber you could be shooting a bullet that does not have a metal jacket, but has a hollow point. This means that the soft core of the bullet is exposed. This is the type of bullet and caliber that is best for concealed carry because it will mushroom when it hits the target causing enough damage to an attacker to stop an attack. By mushrooming it will keep the bullet from going through the target and hitting innocent bystanders.
You will have to consider all the differences of pistols to decide what is the best combination of attributes you need to cover your list of requirements from your concealed carry pistol. You should depend greatly on a well qualified and certified instructor to point you in the right direction.
