The Best Beginner Handguns for New Shooters in 2023
Travis Olander 08.10.23
Becoming a responsible gun owner means more than just stepping into your local sporting goods store, asking the gun counter what pistol they recommend, and then taking home a new handgun. You’ve got to learn the fundamentals of marksmanship, and to do that effectively, you need a handgun that’s friendly for beginners. That means picking a handgun that has an appropriate cartridge, that’s sized right for you, and that includes easy-to-understand and easy-to-operate safety functions. Before we look at our top picks, let’s clarify some key points on beginner handguns for new shooters in 2023.
What Cartridge is Best for Beginner Handguns?
Stick with good ole’ 9mm. The 9mm cartridge is arguably the best for any new shooter, for plenty of reasons. It’s easy to control with modest recoil, but it also provides plenty of power for every shooting scenario. It’s cheap, too, and the guns that shoot it tend to be affordable. It’s available in a plethora of loads that vary in grain weight and powder. That means you can start off with lighter plinking loads and work your way up to heavier JHPs (Jacket Hollow Points) and +Ps.
The 9mm cartridge is also the most popular handgun round, maybe ever. Practically every single “beginner handguns friendly” firearm comes chambered for this cartridge. Many small and female shooters prefer .380 ACP. Also called “9mm Short,” the .380 further reduces felt recoil. It’s found in dozens of smaller compacts and subcompacts, too – two classes of handguns that petite shooters gravitate towards. All the pistols we recommend in this guide are chambered in 9mm or .380 ACP.
Which Rounds for Practice: FMJ or JHP?
New shooters should practice with both loads. FMJ (Full Metal Jacket) loads are excellent for high-volume fire. They’re cheap, reliable, and provide greater accuracy than JHPs (Jacketed Hollow Points). JHPs shouldn’t be avoided, though. Hollow points are more likely to introduce failures to feed and eject which provides opportunity for new shooters to learn how to diagnose and correct these issues quickly and safely. JHPs are finicky at distance, too. This forces new shooters to improve their fundamentals of marksmanship for better accuracy.
What Size is Best for Beginner Handguns?
Other publications argue that new shooters should stick to full-size handguns which typically means wrapping your digits around a double-stacked magazine well while aiming a 5″ barrel. They’re wrong. New shooters should practice with a handgun size they’re comfortable gripping properly. It makes little sense for a 4’11”, 105-pound shooter to struggle with stretching their hands around a Beretta 92 when a G43 provides significantly better grip. With these key points considered, let’s look at our top picks for beginner handguns.
Glock 19 (Best Overall of Beginner Handguns)
GLOCKs aren’t masters of anything, but they’re great at everything. Which model best balances accuracy, comfort, capacity, recoil impulse, and size? The GLOCK 19 stands above the rest. There’s a reason it’s the company’s most popular handgun. The G19 is the perfect beginner handgun because most of its safety features are passive. There’s no need to learn how to properly engage a lever or grip safety, and the trigger safety disengages with nothing more than an appropriate trigger pull. All the other controls – the slide stop and mag release – are unmistakable, easy to reach, and intuitive.
Basically, the GLOCK 19 allows a beginner shooter to simply grip the gun, rack the slide, and start shooting, but that’s not the only reason why the G19 is arguably the best of beginner handguns. It’s also an everyman’s piece. Its size, weight, and capacity are made for the masses. You’d have to be an extreme outlier in height or body size to argue the G19 doesn’t fit you well. Although, this is a polymer, striker-fired pistol, it manages recoil and accuracy incredibly well. It’s got just enough heft with a full mag to reduce that “snappy” recoil impulse felt with smaller plastic guns. It’s not bulky nor too heavy for even the most svelte users to wield.
Beretta APX A1 (Best Full-Size for Comfort)
I’ve put about 400 rounds through the APX – it affords, in my opinion, the most comfortable grip you’ll find on any polymer or striker-fired handgun. The molded 1″ grip fits hands large and small. At around 1.8 pounds loaded, the APX A1 – like the G19 – effectively reduces muzzle rise and felt recoil without feeling heavy in the hands. Beyond its raw weight, the APX A1 has an excellent center of gravity. The grip is tucked a fair bit inward relative to the slide, placing more weight atop the palm and wrist. The frame above the mag well is subtly contoured to promote appropriate grip. The trigger pull on the APX A1 is long, but light. There’s little creep and take-up – just a bit of travel to conquer. All other controls are intuitive, and easy to reach and manipulate. The APX A1 sticks with passive safeties to keep things simple. The slide catch and mag release are tucked close to the grip, allowing for easy operations for smaller hands. This writer enjoyed how easily the slide racks, too – it has a light spring weight, but doesn’t feel snappy when fired.
SIG Sauer P320 (Best Modular of Beginner Handguns)
SIG’s P320 won a military contract for good reason: it’s a superb pistol in every way. It runs buttery smooth, it feels solid and comfortable, and its controls are ergonomic with a crisp, short trigger. Most importantly, the P320 isn’t just one gun – its modular chassis allows for swapping frames, slides, barrels, and cartridges. With dozens of variants available, any new shooter can pick up the standard full-size P320, get confident, and begin upgrading internals and swapping parts. After some range time, swap your P320 from a 5″ 9mm setup to a compact 10mm for daily carry. Or, go bigger and sling some .45 ACP downrange to practice recoil control and follow-through. Being able to swap frames and slides allows for tuning the P320 to fit your needs and experience as a new shooter, while sticking to a single handgun. Swapping components isn’t terribly expensive, either. Frames and barrels run between $120 and $200 while OEM-type slides start at $300.
Walther PDP (Best Trigger and Action)
The Walther PDP is as much a great beginner pistol as it is an advanced marksman’s sidekick. The PDP is refined for smooth functionality and it has arguably the best trigger found on any polymer, striker-fired handgun. The slide spring weight’s been reduced by 20%, too – perfect for new shooters who want something easy to rack and clear. As a leftie shooter, I often find slide stops and right-sided mechanisms lacking on most pistols. The PDP’s oversized slide stop and large, knurled mag release make left-handed functionality a breeze. Once more, all safeties are passive. The PDP also provides further ergo factor with its modular backstrap. OEM and aftermarket straps abound, providing the perfect palm feel. The grip itself is incredibly comfortable from personal experience with subtle molding for your digits to rest.
The PDP fits in the Goldilocks zone for weight, about 1.75 pounds, affording a good balance of weight and recoil mitigation. Like the Beretta APX, the PDP’s mag well is biased forward a fair bit providing excellent center of gravity and good lock-up against the webbing betwixt your fingers and thumb. This writer argues the PDP is, in fact, even more comfortable than the APX A1 in its full-size configuration. Paired with a 5″ barrel and weighty slide, the PDP provides amazing accuracy within 50 yards. For its German manufacturing, the PDP is affordable – around $700 at the time of publication.
Ruger GP100 (Best Beginner Revolver)
Who ever said revolvers weren’t still great beginner guns? They’re simpler than automatics, and they’re generally more reliable. Revolvers almost universally sport better triggers – thanks to their traditional hammer-driven SA/DA actions – and they tend to provide better ergonomics and recoil management. Not all revolvers are excellent beginner handguns though (you wouldn’t hand a .454 Casull to a newbie). Ruger understood this when they produced the GP100, a beautifully functional, simple, comfortable-to-shoot .357 Magnum.
With nearly a million built, the GP100’s proven to be one of the most popular revolvers, perhaps ever. Its factory grip is adequate, but there’s a huge aftermarket filled with dozens of overmolded, rubber grips for supreme comfort and recoil mitigation. It may not be one of the cheapest beginner handguns on our list – it averages about $1,000 out the door – but you’re getting what you pay for: high quality construction, a triple-locking cylinder with a crisp-as-glass trigger, and dutiful accuracy with factory “Litewave” high-visibility fiber optic irons. Overall, the GP100 is simply a pleasure to shoot. Start off as a new shooter with some cheap .38 Special, then work your way up to .357 Magnum loads. You’ll be a confident marksman wielding this classic, sexy wheel gun in short order.
Smith & Wesson M&P380 Shield EZ (Best Beginner .380)
Lovers of “9mm short” (.380 ACP) rejoice! The Shield EZ provides a perfectly sized package for the .380 class of pistols, coupled with good ergonomics, a surprisingly tuned trigger, and ambidextrous thumb safeties with a traditional grip safety for those who prefer manual stuff. At just 1.04″ wide and weighing in at 24 ounces (1.5 pounds), the Shield EZ is the go-to handgun for new, petite shooters. It’s a perfect choice for those with small frames who want to practice with a micro-compact they’ll also be able to comfortably carry. For its budget price – around $650 – the EZ comes with plenty of features: TruGlo sights, a loaded chamber indicator, under-slide rail, and reversible mag catch for lefties. Smith & Wesson says they also reduced the slide spring weight without impacting felt recoil and reliability.
Read our in-depth review covering the Shield 380 EZ.
