Two stories in the caliber range under discussion that may shed a little light on handling. I have told both of them before, so the longer-term members of the Band of Fellers may skip this post if they wish.
I must have an honest face or something. There have been any number of occasions at the local gun shop when total strangers have asked my opinion on a gun they were considering buying. The most recent was an older black lady (in her seventies at a guess) who had just completed her NRA Basic Pistol course and qualified for her pistol permit, and was buying her first-ever pistol that she intended to carry concealed. She had fired a bunch of pistols in the course of her training, and had discovered she fired the .380 ACP most accurately. The clerk had four pocket pistols out on the counter for her consideration. She couldn't make up her mind. I was waiting to buy some ammo, and she turned to me.
"Excuse me, but do you know anything about pistols?" she asked.
I allowed that I did.
"Do you own any?"
"A few," I said. The clerk hid a smile. This gun shop has sold me many pistols over the years in everything from .22 LR to .45 ACP.
"If you were buying one of these pistols for self defense, which one would you buy?"
I looked at her four finalists. I didn't pick any of them up or opine on any of them I simply asked her two questions.
"Which of these pistols fits naturally in your hand and points naturally for you? And which one has controls that you can find in pitch blackness, or with your eyes shut?"
Without hesitating, she picked up the Bersa Thunder .380. "This one."
"Then that's the one you should buy. There's an old saying among pistol shooters: 'If it feels good to you, it will shoot good for you.' Get it with two spare magazines, and get a clip-on holster made to fit in your shoulder purse if that is where you intend to carry it, to keep the gunk that accumulates in a lady's purse out of it. Buy two kinds of ammo for it: Critical Defense for carry, and FMJ for practice, and fire a magazine of the Critical Defense once in awhile so you don't forget what that feels like in case you ever have to use it."
She said, "Thank you very much," and took out her wallet as the clerk smile at me over her head.
I was at the range one day just practicing with my Yugo Model 57 Tokarev. I was getting decent groups at 10 yards, the distance I train at since I don't have a CCW. (If the NYSRPA v. Bruen case forces the Peoples Democratic Republic of New York to go to "must issue," I will fix that, but in my county the only people who are granted concealed carry are LEOs, security guards, and active duty military.) A deputy a couple of stations down from me had his S&W Model 29 with the 6 1/2 inch barrel out and was doing double taps with it: Bang, Bang. I was doing the same, but unlike the real-world Model 29 (as opposed to Harry Callahan's in the movies), my Model 57 was going bahWHOOM, bahWHOOM, and sounding just like the movies' "most powerful handgun in the world."
He came over and asked, "What in the world are you shooting, that is so bleeping LOUD?" I think he was expecting me to tell him I was shooting a S&W Model 500, or one of the rifle caliber Thompson/Center Contenders in a heavy rifle caliber. When I showed him my Tok, he couldn't believe it. We made a deal: We'd swap pistols, and I'd shoot a cylinder of .44 Magnum factory standard, and he'd shoot 10 rounds (9+1) of milsurp 7.62x25 Tok.
He liked the Tokarev. The sights are excellent for a military pistol designed back in the 1930s, it grouped well for him, and I think he liked the bahWHOOM that will make any bad guy think, "Ohmigawd, he's got Harry Callahan's gun!" When he asked, I told him the model and where he could get one. I saw him at the range a couple of months later, he remembered me, and sure enough, he'd gone and bought himself a Model 57. He said that even though it was a standard size pistol, it was thin enough that he liked it for concealed carry off-duty. I guess he'd done his homework and figured that any pistol built with the criterion that it had to be able to kill a horse at 25 meters with one shot would work just fine on a bad guy; and with almost no felt recoil or muzzle rise it is easy to shoot accurately.
End of stories.
I recommend the Tokarev, the Yugo Model 57 as first choice, to anyone with small hands and a dislike for felt recoil. As I said, good government-issue sights, almost no felt recoil, next to nonexistent muzzle rise (and you can eliminate even that little if you live in a state where you can replace the issue barrel bushing with an aftermarket muzzle brake made for the Tokarev), and at pistol combat ranges, more terminal energy delivered on target than the 9mm NATO round. What's not to love? The only flies in the ointment are you may have to special-order 7,62 Tok ammo, not every gun shop carries it; and if you buy a Model 57 with the same controls as the M1911 Colt (less the grip safety), the magazines are proprietary, and expensive when you find them, and are not compatible with any other Tokarev. The Yugoslavs were making a statement by not making them compatible with other ComBloc Toks. But the pistol performs so well, in my opinion it is worth the effort to find and buy extra magazines for it.
