The Best Concealed Carry Handguns

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When it comes to CCW handguns, currently consumers are suffering from an embarrassment of riches. They have been the most popular segment of the firearm marketplace for over a decade, and the number of quality handguns suitable for concealed carry out in the market right now that I would or could recommend is in the dozens. Modern firearms have never been better designed, better manufactured, or more reliable than they are right now, and as a rule, with anything made by any of the big-name manufacturers you’ll likely bankrupt yourself buying ammo before you manage to break the gun or jam it up.

That said, there are a handful of choices on the market which I recommend wholeheartedly without reservations. All of them are striker-fired pistols with polymer frames, and all but one of them is chambered in 9mm.  I’ve shot every gun on this list, own most of them, and carry one of them regularly—my SIG P365 is my gym gun—so I stand behind all of these recommendations.

Smith & Wesson M&P Shield Plus

If it wasn’t for the original Smith & Wesson Shield, introduced in 2012, the SIG 365 wouldn’t exist as we know it today. It paved the way for all the modern sub- and micro-compact 9mms.

The M&P Shield was a small, concealable 9mm built to the same tough standards as the full-size M&P, and was a huge hit for S&W.  With the Shield Plus, I think Smith & Wesson has introduced a version that will now become the standard.  Unfortunately, in this very crowded marketplace, it doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves.  It is available in many variations, with or without a manual thumb safety, optics ready or not, etc.  Prices start at $499.  If I didn’t already own a Shield, I would have bought a Shield Plus…and still might.

Hovering somewhere between a subcompact and compact in size, the Shield Plus has nearly all of the same specs as the original Shield.  The biggest difference—really the only difference between the two—is magazine capacity.

The original M&P Shield in 9mm was fed by flush 7-round magazines and extended 8-round magazines.  The Shield Plus is fed by flush 10-round and extended 13-round magazines.  That’s a huge increase in capacity, but perhaps even just as impressive is the fact that the grip of the Shield Plus is only one-tenth of an inch thicker than that of the original Shield.  You can see the difference in thickness between the two guns, but you probably won’t be able to feel it in your hand.  The grip still is slender, and you won’t have any issues reaching the trigger.

The M&P Shield Plus has a 3.1” barrel and according to Smith & Wesson weighs 20.2 ounces empty, up 1.2 ounces from the original model.  It has a 6.1” overall length, 4.6” height (with flush magazine in place), and 5.3” sight radius.  With the flush magazine in place it will fit in a cargo pocket, but it really is meant for a holster.  

The Shield (both Plus and original) is narrower than a standard M&P in every way.  The slide is roughly the width of the grip, which means the pistol is very thin for its size.  Which makes it perfect for concealed carry, and for its size, even with the flush magazine in place, it is very shootable. (www.smith-wesson.com)

SIG P365

If you had to pick the single greatest success in the firearms world in the last decade, that title might go to the SIG P365.  Introduced in 2018, this little pistol didn’t offer any one feature that couldn’t be found elsewhere, but its combination of size, weight, caliber, capacity, features, and price quickly shot it to the forefront of most gun owners’ minds. I believe the SIG P365 finally dethroned the Glock 19 as the carry gun against which all others should be judged, and it started a subcompact arms race that continues to this day.  It is still SIG’s biggest seller.

Success breeds competition in the gun world (which is good for all of us), but it also means that a popular design will soon be followed by additional models.  The original SIG P365 was just the base compact gun, not capable of mounting an optic and fed by a flush ten-round magazine.  

The original P365 sports a 3.1-inch barrel.  Overall it is 5.8 inches long and 4.3 inches tall, is an even inch thick, and the flush magazine holds 10 rounds of 9mm.  I prefer the extended 12-round magazine as it allows me to get all my fingers on the gun, and in fact that’s how I carry my personal P365.  It weighs 17.8-ounces empty.  New popular variations of the P365 sport the longer XMACRO frame, which take flush 17-round magazines and stretch the barrel to 3.7-inches, but I still think the original P365 with an extended magazine is perhaps the best package for carry.

The P365 has a Nitron-coated stainless-steel slide and a polymer lower half.  Technically the P365 has a stainless-steel chassis and a polymer grip module.  Like the SIG P320, the serialized part is the steel chassis inside the polymer “frame”.  However, unlike the P320, SIG doesn’t want you removing the frame from the grip on the P365, and you won’t find any instructions on how to do it in the owner’s manual.  

The P365 has good sights, a very good trigger, and excellent capacity, all in a package that is not just shootable but eminently concealable.  Currently prices at your local gun store start at $500 for the P365, and if you want bigger/fancier models, you have no shortage of options. (www.sigsauer.com)

Smith & Wesson Bodyguard 2.0

S&W’s new Bodyguard 2.0 isn’t even a 9mm, it’s a .380 ACP, but this pistol is so good that it absolutely had to be on this list.  As small as some of the other pistols are, the Bodyguard 2.0 is smaller, while still having amazing ergonomics.  In photos it really doesn’t look like anything special; it’s only when you get your hand on the gun, and feel how small—and yet perfect—it is, that you’ll understand.

In photos it looks like a Shield or even a full-size M&P simply because of its proportions, but in truth a Shield is significantly larger than the Bodyguard 2.0.  As for what I feel will be the Bodyguard’s main competition, the Glock G42, the Bodyguard 2.0 is smaller in every dimension, and lighter, while holding 40% more ammo.  As far as I’m concerned that’s a good thing, .380 pistols should be small.  

Smith & Wesson’s Bodyguard 2.0 is a polymer-framed striker-fired pistol, and comes with one flush 10- and one longer 12-round magazine that has a grip extension.  With the flush magazine in place it weighed 11.4-ounces according to my digital scale, and is 5.6-inches long and 4.1-inches tall, with a 2.75-inch barrel.  This pistol is very thin—at its thickest point, the magazine release, it is 1.0-inches thick exactly.  But the grip is only 0.89-inches thick, the slide is 0.75-inches.

There are a lot of models of the Bodyguard 2.0, but other than finishes the only functional difference is whether or not it has a manual thumb safety.  I am opposed to manual safeties that you can’t flick off with your shooting hand naturally as part of your draw, which means I’ve never liked the flat/stiff safeties on S&W’s Shield, and you get that same safety with the Bodyguard 2.0 TS (Thumb Safety) model.  Prices start at $449 and go up from there.

 You’ll find the Bodyguard 2.0 has the same duty-grade features and controls as a full-size M&P even though it no longer has an M&P in the name.  And the sights are incredible.  The front sight is a wide day/night model from TruGlo.  There is a high-visibility orange ring around a tritium insert, so you’ll be able to see it no matter the lighting conditions.

The rear sight is plain black, serrated at the rear with a healthy U-shaped notch that puts a lot of daylight around that big front sight.  Interestingly, the front of the rear sight has a vertical segment, so you will be able to rack the slide one-handed on a hard surface. Both the slide and the barrel are stainless steel with S&W’s “Armornite” finish, their version of black nitride.  The slide has quite a matte finish, which helps make it grippy.  Also helping with that are the generous directionally-angled slide serrations.  They cover the front and back of the slide, and wrap up over the corners on the top.  

The Bodyguard 2.0 has the standard safety lever on the trigger to keep it drop safe, but the flat lever atop the flat trigger does look a bit different.  The trigger breaks at 90 degrees and the trigger pull on the Bodyguard 2.0 was excellent.  It was as crisp as a striker-fired trigger pull gets, with a total weight of 4 ¼-pounds on my sample, and I’ve found most guns are similar. Between the great sights and great trigger and home run ergonomics (especially that very low bore, which really helps to tame recoil), you can shoot this micro-compact .380 ACP almost as well as you can a full-size gun, and that’s not something I actually thought would be possible. (www.smith-wesson.com)

Glock 43X

The Glock 43X is probably the most boring conservative choice on this list, but it deserves to be here.  It doesn’t have some of the fancy features other guns on this list do, or the capacity, but it is an excellent, solid choice that will provide legendary Glock reliability in a package small enough to easily conceal under a t-shirt while offering double-digit capacity.

The 43X uses Glock’s newer slimline frame that works great if you’ve got smaller hands or are looking for a gun which conceals better.  It is fed by a flush 10-round magazine although you can find aftermarket magazines which provide substantially more capacity, but they don’t have the same reputation for reliability.

With the 43X you get a 3.41-inch barrel and a grip long enough for just about everybody to get all their fingers on it, unlike the original Glock 43.  The 43X is three-quarters of an inch taller than the original 43, which was fed by flush 6-round magazines.  Not only was capacity lacking in the 43, most people couldn’t get all their fingers on the gun.  Both of those issues were fixed with the 43X.

Real world prices of the 43X (looks like $485 or so right now) might seem high for as basic as this pistol is, but people are willing to pay it because of Glock’s well-deserved reputation for reliability. (www.us.glock.com)

Springfield Armory Hellcat

Springfield Armory’s Hellcat was the first pistol to come out after the SIG P365 that was a direct competitor.  And it was very competitive, which is why it has been so successful.  It has better (perhaps best-in-class) sights, a different (and arguably better) grip angle, and more capacity (when comparing original models).  Just like with the P365, the Hellcat’s success has given rise to a number of new models, most of them larger so you can get your whole hand on the gun.  The Hellcat has proven itself to be very reliable—the only consistent complaint ever heard about the gun is that the trigger pull is heavier than some people would like, and that’s been tweaked a bit with the latest generation of pistols.

The original Hellcat paired a 3.0-inch barrel with a short grip that fit 11 rounds in a flush magazine.  The Hellcat Pro stretches the barrel to 3.7-inches.  The grip has been lengthened as well to fit 15-rounds in a flush magazine, but you have to decide how large you want to go on your carry gun.

People who regularly shoot the guns they carry (which unfortunately is a minority) have discovered that while sub- and micro-compact pistols are convenient for carry, they’re not that fun or easy to shoot.  As a result, many companies are now offering slightly upsized versions of their micro 9s—enter the Springfield Armory Hellcat Pro, the Glock 43X, the SIX P365 XMACRO, etc.  Hellcat models start at $599. (www.springfield-armory.com)

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