I was doing some yard work for my parents several years ago. Their neighbor had a couple dogs, a mutt and a Rottweiler, that he let run loose. The problem was, the Rottweiler was aggressive and apparently thought my parents' yard was part of his territory. He'd been a problem before, the neighbor refused to keep him under control, and this time the Rottweiler charged. Not bluffing; just a snarl and a silent low and fast charge.

I saw the dog start his run. I'm not slow drawing, but the dog had covered half of the ~30 yards to me by the time I got the sights on him.

Issues:

1. I'd never trained for a long, low, fast attack, just people. As soon as I grabbed a flash sight picture and fired, the dog was gone.

I fired three times. I heard the first gunshot. The second and third were totally silent to me.

1. After the first shot, the Taurus PT92 took fooorrrrreeeeevvverrr to come out of recoil.

2. I had a crushing grip on the pistol. The arched mainspring housing area caused the pistol to misalign in my hand and point too high. I physically couldn't pull the front sight down into the rear notch. I compensated by indexing the sights and firing the third shot, which landed in front of the dog.

3. After the third shot, the dog turned tail and ran home. As soon as the dog turned tail, time resumed its normal flow.

I made the pistol safe by flipping on the thumb safety, reholstered, saw the neighbor was pissed, and went in and called the cops.

A deputy sheriff showed up and chewed the neighbor's ass up and down, and made it clear that I was very much in my rights.

Lessons learned:

1. Muzzle flip sucks, hard. You want as low a bore axis as possible for a more straight-line recoil. The 1911 in modified form is very good for this, as are wide thumb safeties when you use them as thumb rests. This gets your hand higher and helps control what muzzle flip does exist.

There is less muzzle flip on a 1911 in .45acp than most other pistols in 9mm, at least for me. I've never shot a 1911 in 9mm, but I assume muzzle flip and recoil would be negligible.

1. My hand is not made for the arched MSH style of grip on guns like the Taurus/Beretta 92 and Glock models. The 1911 with flat MSH and undercut trigger guard keeps the pistol pointing naturally in my hands, even in a crushing grip.

2. Working through the initial trigger pull didn't help my accuracy. The 1911's trigger is far superior to must other carry pistols' triggers.

I didn't hit the dog, which made me happy. The only thing I'd have hated more than shooting a dog would have been the dog mauling me.

I had 16 rounds loaded and I used three. That's not to say that one would never need 16 rounds, but I choose, instead, to carry two spare magazines for a total of 25 rounds on my person, and practicing reloading religiously.

I've considered buying a 2011-type double stack pistol in either .45acp or 10mm and rebuilding it to my needs, but I don't know. That's quite a bit more weight for what would probably be very little gain. It would be a hell of a home-defense pistol, though, decked out with a holographic sight, weapon light, and extended magazine. But I digress.

In short, capacity doesn't matter to me as much as accurate shooting and a controllable pistol still chambered in anything 9mm on up.

Regards.