Best Home Defense Pistol

While I advise against using just a pistol for home defense, I understand that not everyone wants their own personal armory to deal with potential threats. I say this because, historically,  most handguns pale in comparison to rifles or shotguns in fight-stopping power. The good news is that modern handguns are vastly more effective than old guns.

But there are so many out there that it can be a daunting task for a new shooter to decide on one. The great news is that all modern handguns from reputable companies will work well for home defense. The real issue shooters need to concern themselves with is caliber. Think of caliber like you would think of an engine on a vehicle. If you're worried about appropriate uses for a gun, first concern yourself with caliber. If a vehicle has a four-cylinder engine putting out 120 horsepower, there's no great way to turn that vehicle into a tow truck. Similarly, a .22lr caliber firearm will never be a realistic choice for long-range precision shooting or big game hunting.  With that in mind, let's look at some basic types of firearms and the best calibers for home defense.

This is a very common question that has several right answers, but in the broadest sense, the best gun for home defense is one that a shooter is proficient with. Don’t get me wrong, mechanical aspects like caliber, method of operation, and capacity are important as well. But if a shooter can’t effectively use their home defense gun, no amount of gear can guarantee success.

That said, if a shooter is proficient with a given weapon or weapon platform, then the smaller details become increasingly important. So, we’ll start with some basic aspects to narrow down our selection process and add more constraints until we can hone in on a few guns that fit the bill.

If you’re like me, you’ve heard dozens of gun store clerks and armchair generals espouse 9mm as the best home defense round and even the best pistol cartridge overall. While I wouldn’t call it the best, because objectively, there are better options in terms of terminal ballistics, it is still a fantastic choice. 

9mm is a great choice for home defense for several reasons. First off, it strikes a great balance between capacity and stopping power. While other rounds like the .357 magnum, are more likely to stop a threat with a single well-placed shot, most guns chambered in this round hold fewer than eight rounds. In fact, the vast majority of pistols chambered in .357 magnum are revolvers and thus limited to a scant six rounds of ammunition.

This limited capacity is tolerable in a concealed carry gun where overall size is a critical aspect of a design. Still, in a home defense gun, it’s like leaving money on the table. That is, if money is ammo. Think of it this way: with a home defense pistol, you aren’t restricted in the overall size of your handgun by the need to conceal it. Anything you can effectively weld is fair game.

That’s why you see some guys with a full-sized 9mm Glock 17 with an extended 33-round magazine sticking out of the bottom of it. It gives a shooter a ton of spare rounds in case they face multiple attackers. 

If you don’t want a giant extended mag hanging off your pistol, plenty of standard-sized 9mm handguns now hold between 17 and 20 rounds of ammo in either flush-hitting or barely extended magazine. Combine this capacity with the 9mm round’s mild felt recoil and inexpensive cost - which lends itself to more economical training and thus a better-prepared shooter - and you have a recipe for a great all-around pistol cartridge. 

Alternatively, some shooters prefer larger calibers like .45 ACP, which offer a heavier, slower projectile that tends to do a little more damage to soft targets than 9mm. However, most of the advantages of .45 over 9mm have been mitigated by better ballistic science and round construction. This is fantastic since it means shooters no longer have to decide between capacity and stopping power. (A standard 1911 holds either 7+1 or 8+1 rounds of ammo, while a Glock 17 holds 17+1 in a similarly-sized package.)

Truly, the introduction of quality defensive ammo was a game-changer for defense pistols, and it was a huge deal. What’s interesting is that a similar phenomenon occurred just a few years back that shifted the balance of capacity vs power to near equilibrium. 

Enter the .300 blk AR-15 pistol.

You absolutely can, and in many cases, should use 300 blackout for home defense. Specifically, I recommend running subsonic rounds through a short barrel on an AR-15 pistol because an AR-15 pistol chambered in .300 blk has all the capacity and controllability benefits of a 9mm with a boat-load of stopping power mixed in. Yes, sometimes you can have your cake and eat it too! But how does the round achieve this? Let’s look closer.

The AR-15 is an extremely popular firearm for several reasons, not least of all being how accurate, affordable, and controllable it is. The guns are very accurate because they have good barrel harmonics overall, and with the rise in popularity of the railed handguard, most AR-15s now ship with a free-floated barrel. Both of these aspects ensure the gun’s barrel stays exactly where it is every time the trigger is pulled and doesn’t have outside influences on it that could shift the point of impact, leading to an inaccurate gun.

The reason these guns are so affordable has to do with their rise in popularity and an economy of scale built around churning them out in tremendous numbers. Companies like Palmetto State Armory started building more guns than anyone else a few years ago and transformed an enthusiast’s gun into America’s favorite centerfire rifle.

Imagine a designer who sees the AR-15: It’s accurate, has low recoil, and now it’s cheaper than ever. But there’s one problem - the round it fires, 5.56x45mm AKA .223 Rem, depends on velocity over bullet weight to inflict damage. Any rifle chambered in this round needs a long barrel to get the most out of the round. Otherwise, it's just a high-velocity .22r. 

The solution: 300 Blackout. It shares everything with a standard AR-15 except the barrel, and because the round is larger and heavier, it doesn’t need as long of a barrel to achieve good terminal results. This opens the door to short-barreled rifles (SBRs) as viable defensive tools but opens up another issue for civilians - most don’t want to file for a tax stamp to get an NFA-regulated item. Along comes SB Tactical with their pistol braces, and suddenly, the perfect home defense pistol is born: a .300blk AR-15 pistol.

In a word, everything. At least anything within 100 yards, depending on the gun’s barrel length. That’s because subsonic 300blk from even a short eight-inch barrel generates more energy at the muzzle than a 9mm pistol with 147gr rounds. When paired with supersonic rounds with expanding bullets, this number climbs even higher despite being vastly more controllable than a handgun of equivalent power.

What’s better is that these AR pistols chambered in 300blk also utilize a 30-round magazine by default. So a shooter doesn’t have to sacrifice stopping power to gain capacity as is often the case with conventional pistols.

Plus, unlike these pistols, an AR-15 pistol can equip a vastly more powerful flashlight, a sling, and even an angled grip to give the shooter the maximum amount of control over the gun. So even if you happen to miss your first shot on a potential threat or, for that matter, if the first round fails to stop a threat, getting back on target and re-engaging is much easier.

Lastly, if a shooter wants to equip their home defense weapon with a sound suppressor, an AR-15 pistol chambered in 300blk is a much less awkward choice than a handgun with a suppressor. Because shooters can both equip the AR with a sling to allow them to keep it at a low ready or simply use both hands to support it from a point on the rifle that won’t give the gun mechanical advantage over the shooter’s arms.

Lastly, even if you happen to dump an entire mag of .300blk down your hallway and your assailants aren’t dissuaded, reloading an AR-15 of any variety is extremely fast and simple. But even still, a shooter should practice doing so with an empty gun and empty magazines in a dedicated area free of all ammunition at least a few times a night for several weeks. In virtually no time, you’ll be a veritable John Wick. 

Ultimately, the choice of the best home defense pistol is up to the shooter. If, for whatever reason, you are downright surgical with a Springfield trapdoor carbine chambered in .45-70 Gov and feel confident that you could hold the line Revolutionary War-style against attackers, you do you. The ability to fight, think, and move under pressure isn’t something that everyone is born with or capable of.

As I mentioned earlier, the most important aspect of self-defense and, by extension, home defense is having the will to fight and the motivation to survive. While the now-defunct Front Sight Academy had its detractors for very valid reasons, its motto (borrowed from the late Col. Jeff Cooper) has always struck me as poignant. “Any gun will do if you do.” If you are committed to victory, your odds increase exponentially. Have a plan and make the decision before you enter a gunfight that if one breaks out in your home, you are going to fight, and you are going to win. Everything else is secondary.