Quote Originally Posted by sol1821 View Post
The point of a home defence gun is that its left in your house loaded for when you need it doesn't necessarily need to be cocked as that only takes a fraction of a second to do. The thing is the guns going to be sat there until its needed or is taken out to clean. I've never shot q real pistol but common sense and gcse physics tell me that if the spring in the mag has been depressed for a long period of time its not going to function properly. And i would imagin a lot of stopages are caused by the mag not doing what it should be.
so unless i had time to have a few spare mags and rotate the full one around on a regular basis id just go for a revolver.
You should be doing a certain amount of practise and drills with it, even if it is to be kept at home. The magazines tend to be built with longevity in mind, so it would take a bit longer than a few days to damage the springs.

I think the G17 only has around 34 parts overall, so one can maintain them quite easily. As a budget option, people recondition them from S/H. Revolvers certainly have their benefits, but pistols have had a good century to catch up, and the ammo has improved too...

Hmm, I say all this about self loaders, and have just spent an afternoon struggling to get one (shotgun) working.