The Golden Era of Every Day Carry

By Mike Keleher, Pseudo Public Firearms Historian, Chronicler of the Ages & Half Assed Firearms Analyst

While always on the lookout for musings, stray non-obsessive observations or firearms news to write about, this week it occurred to me we are in the absolute Golden Age of Everyday Carry (EDC) Pistols.

There are more ultra-modern designs and utterly dependable EDC pistols in the market than ever before. Brand new, out of the box these new guns are expected to be dead nuts accurate and dependable with zero failures. The days of “oh you just have to shoot a few boxes through it to get it to settle down” are over.  The only comparable era may have been in black and white detective movies from the 1950s where snub nosed revolvers were featured in the pockets or hands of every bad guy, cop and noir private detective!

Oh sure, some of our older readers can toss out the idea that sawed off single action cowboy guns carried by Sheriffs and bartenders in the old west were compact and prevalent- but they were not common. Some of the people who write in comments on the blog site might even say the black powder Philadelphia Derringer (a cut down Kentucky pistol design) used by John Wilkes Booth showed EDC, but puh-lease today’s offerings are flooding the market to the point they make up the bulk of pistol sales nationwide. (…and hey for some of you readers who may have been there, Lincoln, was he a cool guy to hang out with?)

The Evolution of EDC Pistols

I can assert (I am writing the piece after all) the “modern” Everyday Carry Pistol historical champion has to be the S&W Model 36 “Chief’s Special” chambered in .38 Special. It was first introduced in 1950 and is still in production today in a wide variety of variants and metals and with or without hammers or hammer shrouds. That’s 75 years of success and remains a solid choice for EDC.

Why was it so successful? It is small and fits marvelously into holsters, pockets and glove boxes. It is utterly dependable and also holds five pretty powerful .38 Special rounds. The pistol weighs just over a pound at 19.5oz and has a tiny 2” or 3” barrel. Even with the shortest barrels those guns are routinely more accurate than most people who shoot them. Colt made the similar Detective Special, a six-shot offering slightly larger than the S&W from 1927 to 1996.
Another observation on the popularity, how many used Model 36’s do you ever see in the used gun section of your local gun store? Very rare. People buy them and keep them. They are just too darn handy.

On the downside, the tiny revolver only holds 5 rounds, is slow to reload even with speed strips and “6 Second Speed Loaders” and the skinny wooden grips were routinely awful and twisted hard in recoil. Hogue came along and offered larger rubber grips and probably added another 40 years of popularity to the S&W Model 36.

A word here about small frame revolvers chambered in .357 Magnum. This was a trend for a while, to bring more potency. Also, you could shoot both the magnum round and cheaper .38 Specials in the same pistol. (you can’t put .357s in a .38 frame). The problem with magnums comes down to physics. Putting a magnum or even +P ammo into light weight revolver frames, can and usually causes considerable suffering at both ends of the gun. The recoil and stinging hands are summed up in the well-known Red Neck Physics Law known as “Welp. Let’s not ever do that again.” Stick with the .38s. Most people with a small .357 Magnum chambered revolver somewhere in their house have a box of 48 pristine magnum loads.

Over in Europe post WWII, they pursued many more compact semi-automatic pistols than the Americans did. Anything smaller than a Colt 1911 .45 ACP was much easier to conceal. European designs like the Walther PP in 1929, the Makarov PM in 1945, baby Colts built by FN and many small Berettas were fielded by plain clothes police as well as smugglers and petty criminals. The downside to these designs, were they were chambered in uniformly awful calibers like .22 short, .25 ACP, .32, 7.62, 9mm Kurtz and/or .380.

Many older timers may remember the historic event when “M” and Major Boothroyd of Q branch made Bond turn over his favorite .25 Beretta claiming he was going to get killed using it since it did not put down bad guys (very true) and gave him a Walther PPK in .380 which “Has a trajectory like a brick through a plate glass window.” Which of course it doesn’t. Sorry Bond.

American designs in the 1950s to 1970s remained with large caliber large frame guns. Some Browning Hi-Powers in 9mm and 13 rd mags leaked in, but they still had a full-sized barrel. Colt cut down their GI length 5” barrel 1911 in 1950 to a 4.25” barrel and called it the Commander. It was easier to carry and conceal but used the same grip length and GI 7d mags as the full sized 1911. It wasn’t until 1985 when Colt introduced their Officer’s Model .45 ACP, still single action, in a shorter frame, that a truly concealed carry Colt was a viable option.

The concept of the everyday carry pistol kicked up when Glock hit the American Shores in 1986-1987. The 17 round, polymer frame Glock 17 was a huge change in design and capacity. It was wildly successful (you may have heard about it already. Hey, don’t wait around for me to tell you!) It was just about the same length as a Colt Commander- and by today’s concealed carry standards is considered to be “Huge” or full sized.

Next up, in 1988, Glock hit paydirt with Glock 19, it was a cut down version of the G17 with a four-inch barrel, a 15 round double stack magazine and the same dependability as the original G17. With the polymer frame, the empty fifteen shot G19 only weighed 21 ounces while the champion 5 shot S&W Model 36 weighed 19.5 ounces! The G19 dominated concealed carry sales for a couple of decades and was only outclassed in 1995 by the Glock 26, a micro compact offering in 9mm with a 3.4” barrel, 10 round magazine and weighing only 19 ounces! The G26 and .40 G27 remain viable, accurate and concealable EDC pistols.

EDC has undergone a radical transformation in the last decade. Once dominated by compact revolvers, the market now favors micro-compacts with double-digit capacities, modularity, and optics-ready slides-in 9mm. This shift reflects not just technological advancement, but a cultural redefinition of what it means to carry daily.

Following studies of actual shootings by Greg Ellifritz and later very closely matched by the FBI Firearms division, statistics have shown shooting to stop incidents with a modern hollow point 9mm, a .40 S&W or a .45ACP are all statistically nearly identical. The FBI looked closer and found their agents shot the 9mm quicker and more accurately than the issued .40 S&W and the 9mm held more rounds, and if lethality was so similar they changed from the .40 S&W back to the 9mm.

You may like and argue that the .380 is viable with modern hollow point ammunition for EDC. Good for you. I am not a fan, and if you can stuff a 9mm Parabellum into the same sized frame as a .380, take the 9mm every time.

Citizens have so much access to the “news” they are bombarded daily with horrid stories about gang banger drive-bys and routine big city shoot outs, and limited capacity slow to reload pistols and revolvers are just not a big draw anymore. Striker fired polymer frame systems and FCUs with no external safety were all the rage for the last two decades, and of late hammer fired guns with metal frames and swipe down safeties are re-emerging.

S&W came out with a micro compact M+P 9mm Shield semi-automatic pistol in 2012 with a 3.1” barrel and 20.9-ounce weight which held 7 rounds. It was very trim and an obvious alternative to their 5 shot Chief Special derivative revolvers and proved to be very dependable. S&W is still building compact and micro compact pistols evolving from this design, some with their EZ recoil spring system built in for shooters with less hand strength or dexterity.

Chasing the same market, Glock came out with their slimmest and smallest micro compact two years later in 2014, the G43 in 9mm. It was only about an inch wide and had a 3.4” barrel. It weighed 17.9 ounces- about two ounces less than a 5 shot revolver. It was clearly made as a semi-auto offering to replace snub nosed revolvers, but they only engineered it to hold 6 rounds. This was ultimately not a great engineering decision to have only 6 rounds- the public wanted more capacity and was pounced upon by all major manufacturers introducing more modern designs.

The rise of the Sig Sauer P365 in 2018 marked a turning point. They provided a very slim micro compact striker fired pistol with or without external safety could sell like hotcakes. With a 3” barrel, 17.8-ounce weight and 10 round magazines it was a success. Shortly thereafter they added 12 round and 15 round magazines, different sized grip modules and can be had with external safety or no external safety (like a Glock). It proved that high capacity and concealability were no longer mutually exclusive. The P365 outsold Sig’s most popular seller, the P320 due to its smaller size and became the nationwide best seller for many years. Other manufacturers raced to match or exceed The Sig P365.

Springfield Armory brought out the Hellcat 9mm micro pistol in 2019 and heavily marketed the fact it was factory designed to hold 13+1 rounds of 9mm making it the highest capacity micro compact 9mm pistol on the market.
Both the Sig P365 and the Springfield Hellcats have been routinely modified and offered in new variations nearly every year to include adding pre-cut optics mounting plates, selling with factory mounted red dot optics, adding longer barrel lengths and grip lengths combined with increased magazine capacity. Slide mounted compensators are the 2025 flavor of the week- like you need a compensator on a 9mm!

Sig seems to offer a new P365 variant weekly, and the most recent one I saw now offered a longer frame which houses a 17-round magazine! I personally think they have gone too far with this. With optics mounted on the slim frame and long slides and barrels added in to longer grips you now have a pretty large “micro compact” pistol. But the consumer gets to pick and choose what they think they want and what is right for their needs.

I shoot and own an undisclosed number of small guns (my wife quit believing I just had “a couple” years ago) and personally have EDC Sig Sauer P365s and depend upon them. My original P365 made me a believer in the micro platform being able to shoot well and comfortably. I could carry several other brands and feel good about it, but I like the P365 the best.

When Sig brought out the P365 XL one of the many persistent bells in my head rang out! It fit my hand better than the original, and I liked the longer barrel and sighting radius. More radius more accurate I find. It is only half an inch longer, but it was a better fit for me than the original. If you pick up a gun, even a highly regarded gun and it doesn’t fit your hands or your body’s natural pointing ability then it may not be the gun for you.

(What fit is right for you? Micro sized pistols feel different than full sized pistols with longer sight radius.) If you have an area where you can point a safe and unloaded gun, look at a safe target point on the wall or floor, (SAFETY, SAFETY, SAFETY- Treat every gun as if it is loaded!) Close your eyes while gripping the gun and raise it to your original aiming point. When you open your eyes, the gun should be pointed pretty close to that aiming spot. If not, then you will have to spend more time training to the point of aim than a pistol which naturally points better for you.)

The P365XL also carries with a 12-round magazine with a 15 round back up mag on my belt. Plenty. This is much more compact yet similar capacity to my 25 years working for the GOV toting a 15 round Sig Sauer P226 full sized pistol around the globe.

All modern EDCs are now cut for optics from the factory or sold with optics already affixed. I added an optic and get over the minor amount of bulk it adds poking into my historic and well-known muffin tops. It is a Holosun 6MOA with a green dot if you must know. We are very happy together. Green is supposed to be easier to see in the daylight, and battery life is somewhere into the 2030’s or beyond.

In 2025, the carry pistols are light weight, high capacity, buildable and customizable platforms.

Here are some of the best available:
Sig Sauer P365 Series Variants: P365, P365XL, P365 XMacro, P365 Fuse
Caliber: 9mm MSRP: $599 Capacity: 10+1 to 17+1
Why I think it is one of the best: The P365 remains the top seller in the U.S. It has a user replaceable modular grip system for bigger and smaller hands, night sights, an owner adaptable fire control unit, and optics-ready slide. The new variants get more options and bigger capacity nearly weekly. Huge amounts of user installable after-market parts are available.

Springfield Hellcat Series Variants: Hellcat, Hellcat Pro, Hellcat OSP
Caliber: 9mm MSRP: $569 Capacity: 11+1 to 15+1
Aggressive grip texture and ergonomics, good dot sights, and an optics-ready slide. The Hellcat Pro offers a longer sight radius similar to the Sig P365XL. Longer barrel is better and rarely makes much distance in concealability in a decent holster.

Glock 43X and Glock 19 Gen 5
Caliber: 9mm MSRP: G43X $449 G19: $599 Capacity: 10+1 (43X), 15+1 (G19)
The 3.4” barrel 43X is very slim and of course Glock reliable, while the G19 remained the most popular Glock for concealed carry this micro package was very welcome. Aftermarket parts like upgraded triggers and sights abound.

High-End Selections
Wilson Combat EDC 1911 style double stack Caliber: 9mm
Capacity: 15+1 to 18+1 MSRP: $3,210 Top quality construction and accuracy

Stacatto HDP4 2011 style double stack Caliber: 9mm
Capacity: 18 rd 4” barrel MSRP: $2499 Buttery smooth action. I saw an article this week by a very knowledgeable writer saying this was the best pistol for a female shooter. Excellent guns, but I thought it should have said it may be best if you happen to have a $2500 budget!

Kimber CDS9 1911-ish style double stack Caliber: 9mm
Capacity: 10, 13 and 15 rd MSRP: $795 Terrific textures and ergonomics

H+K CC9 Caliber: 9mm
Capacity: 10/12 rd MSRP: $700 H&K’s smallest pistol. NATO torture tested

Budget Selections
PSA Dagger Series Caliber: 9mm
Capacity: 15+1 MSRP: $250-$300 Palmetto State Arms builds this budget friendly clone of a Glock 19. Almost all parts are replaceable by Glock OEM parts or other aftermarket G19 parts.

Ruger LCR & LCP Max Polymer frame revolver and a semi auto Calibers: .327 Federal Magnum, .357 Magnum, .380 ACP
•Capacity: LCR revolver 5 rds MSRP: $579 LCP Max MSRP: $399 10+1 semi auto. The LCR series has a very light-weight 5 shot revolver polymer frame. The .327 Federal cartridge is very interesting but seems to be fading rapidly with limited ammo still available in the market. The LCP Maxs semi auto is a featherweight semi auto .380.

Ruger RXM Caliber: 9mm
Capacity: 15 MSRP: $350-$400 The RXM is a 2025 Ruger clone of the venerable Glock 19. Most parts are interchangeable. Initial reports tell of improvements to the G19 platform, good accuracy, good sights, swapable grip module and terrific budget price.

Other notables.

FN Reflex Series Caliber: 9mm
•Capacity: 11+1 to 15+1 MSRP: $599 FN’s first micro-compact from a manufacturer with legendary durability and heritage.

Canik METE MC9 and METE MC9
Prime (ported) Caliber: 9mm
Capacity: 12+1 to 15+1 MSRP: MC9 $439 Prime $649 Canik is Turkish made and uses very modern ergonomic and manufacturing designs drawing from Walther among others. Stand out accuracy, comfort and budget pricing. The 2025 MC9 Prime goes toe-to-toe with Sig P365 and Springfield Hellcats at a similar price.

We are lucky to be living in this golden age of EDC. Concealed Carry licenses are plentiful, even California got smacked down by the courts this summer for slow rolling permits, and 38 states have no carry permit at all.
Guns, ammo and holsters are all researchable and widely available.

If you want to check the best nationwide commercial gun price use gun.deals in your search browser, no http: just type gun.deals and hit enter. This site allows you to type in a particular new manufacture firearm and searches nationwide to show best price and availability, usually from multiple vendors. If you are eligible for sale, you can purchase online and have it shipped to a local FFL to handle the federal transfer paperwork. Ammo Bot and some other search engines can do similar searching out best ammo prices.

Shopping for good guns is one of my daily treats. I have many arguments in my head about prices and practicality to include how many of the same or similar guns do I already have!

Consider new EDC pistol shopping as part of a conversation about 1) what do you want this pistol to do for you? 2) Does it hold enough ammunition? Does your state have restrictions on magazine capacity? 3) Is it bulky or heavy? 4) Do holsters exist for it? And of course, 5) Price. The real price, not the price you tell your spouse you actually paid.
Is there a best EDC? Well sure there is. It is exactly the one you have with you when it is needed and not left at home in the safe.

Let me know if you like or dislike the guns listed above or if you have a favorite which serves you well.