I recently purchased a self defense pistol as a birthday present for my wife. She has been carrying a Ruger MKI for most of our married life in .22 long rifle. I load it with hyper-velocity rounds for her, but those are still not really a self defense round. She just does not like shooting the .45 acp I carry and felt more comfortable with the Ruger .22 pistol.
I have been looking at several large capacity magazine 9 mm autos and settled on the new Taurus PT809 as the most gun for the money. This is a modern polymer/steel pistol with some really neat features. It has a right side and left side magazine release, slide release and safety/decocker, in other words it is fully ambidextrous. It comes with three different sized interchangeable back straps to fit the grips to the shooter. The front and back of the grips are checkered and grooved for a non-slip grip. The pistol has a front rail for lazer or light attachment along with a wide smooth faced trigger and a polished feed ramp. Three dot sights are standard for instant sighting in low or normal light situations. Along with a magazine that holds 17 rounds the pistol has a beveled magazine well for secure and fast loading. The metal parts have a Tennifer finish which is supposed to be a high tech kind of case hardening that is more stainless than stainless steel.
In this day of bargain box store ammo I have noticed in some lots of ammo failure of some rounds to fire. This usually means waiting a few seconds, clearing the round and running it back through the next magazine to see if it will fire. The Taurus PT809 pistol has a unique second strike ability, if a round fails to fire just pull the trigger again and in most cases the round will fire. This could be a life saver in a bad situation. I however recommend that you only load the best and most reliable ammo you can obtain when you are counting on the firearm for self defense. Save the bargain brands for plinking and target practice.
All in all after shooting this pistol and having my wife get familiar with the way it shoots I am impressed with the function and accuracy of this little gun. It came in a hard case with two magazines, a mag loader, bore brush, lock key and three grips all for around $350.00 at most box sporting goods stores. You could spend a lot more for a lot less gun. As always I had to buy this gun with hard earned money just like you do and I get nothing for this review. It is what I have my wife carry so you know what I think about it.
Good shooting, Wild Ed
If you would like to read more about the Taurus PT809 here is a link to the Taurus website http://www.taurususa.com/product-details.cfm?id=602&category=Pistol