Environmental Concerns
When choosing a gun for home defense, your home’s layout, surrounding area, and construction material should all be considered. I happen to live in a densely populated urban center in a house that is nearly 105 years old. Most of the walls in the home are still plaster and the doors solid wood. Realistically, my longest shot inside the house would be 25 feet, with realistic maximum engagement outside the house roughly the same.
Related: Pistol, Rifle, or Shotgun? How to Pick Your Home Defense Gun
There are two major reasons I view the PCC platform as being a better choice than an AR rifle. One, they are typically much shorter, and therefore much more maneuverable. We’ll get to that in a minute. The second reason I choose a PCC over an AR is the sheer noise and concussion from shooting inside.
The guys over at 9-Hole Reviews have done a brilliant job breaking this down in full detail in the video below, but the synopsis is: shooting inside (likely without ear pro) is going to suck. However, the larger caliber of an AR, especially an AR with a shorter barrel, is going to be exponentially worse.
This sound could be detrimental in a home defense situation, especially if you’re not prepared for it. An unsuppressed PCC will still be loud, but the concussion will be less. If you decide to add a suppressor, suddenly you have a very quiet and controllable gun.
Finally, compared to an AR or shotgun. the subject of over-penetration cannot be stressed enough in a home defense situation. Especially in newer homes where the building materials aren’t as robust as they used to be (hollow interior doors vs. solid wooden doors, for example), there’s real danger that a .223 round or 12-gauge buckshot could zip through a wall. This all goes back to the basic firearms rule of knowing your target and what is beyond – the “beyond” gets more important with more powerful ammo.
Lightweight and Wieldy
Another reason I love the PCC platform for home defense is these guns are lightweight, easy to manipulate, and wieldy. I’m no special operator or former LE, but I do get a chance to train with some movement a couple times a year. At that range, I’m fortunate enough to be able to shoot barricade drills, practice shooting behind cover, and shoot on the move. PCCs are among most accurate and reliable guns for those drills.
I haven’t shot a ton of rifles in the same manner, but even guns like the wieldy Steyr AUG bullpup presented more problems in terms of barrel clearance and weight distribution compared to the PCCs I have run. A handgun will be more maneuverable, but it gives you less control.
Lots of Ammo
Almost all the PCCs I have run take Glock mags. It’s a smart choice for these manufacturers, given the popularity of the pistol and the sheer number of aftermarket magazines. Sure, you can run both a 30-round Glock magazine and a Magpul GL9 drum mag in your G17, but I don’t find it as controllable as the PCC counterpart.
Part of that is the ability to have two points of contact on the gun, along with a sling, but I also find the drum mags on handguns change the weight distribution so much that it takes an effort to correct grip and point of aim. The PCC doesn’t have that issue.
That said, we had great success with the Magpul PMAG D-50 GL9 PCC. It’s a mouthful, but it packs 50 rounds and has been rock solid in every gun we have tested it on. That’s a lot of firepower in a home defense situation.
Accurate
At the realistic maximum shooting distance in my home defense situation, PCCs are extremely accurate. We did some shooting off a primitive rest just to get an idea of how they would perform, and all of them were able to eat the heart out of a target. Even when moving to the shoulder at an indoor range that is quite loud, the groups didn’t open that much.
Most of the PCCs I shot had optics, but I did decide to shoot the Armalite AR-19 with just the included flip-up iron sights. Even then, the groups stayed small and gave no indication that they would spread because of the lack of an optic. The fact that all these guns have proven to be highly accurate pairs nicely with the amount of ammo you can shoot quickly through them. Even shooting at speed the accuracy hasn’t decreased, at least not the same way as it would with a handgun for me.
The Grand Power Stribog I ran was the only one that didn’t have a brace. I decided to use a Magpul single-point sling instead. I thought this surely would cause the groups to open, but it wasn’t a significant change. All hits still seemed plenty good for self-defense.
Rugged and Reliable
Most of the PCCs I’ve run have been built like tanks. Even the affordable and stowable Keltec SUB2000 seems like it could take a good beating and keep on going. We’ve shot thousands of rounds through these guns, across many different contributors who write for Guns.com, and I have never heard of one being unreliable. Of the guns I chose, all were 9mm for the sake of simplicity at the range. I can’t say any had a malfunction.
I’m over 2,000 rounds on the APC9 and the only malfunctions I’ve had have either been due to bad ammo or a user mistake, like babying the bolt home. While I can’t speak to all these guns the same way, I’ve put at least 200 rounds through each of them. Minus the APC9 and Shield Arms SA9, these are all Certified Used, too. To say that none have had any malfunctions outside of some bad range ammo is impressive.
Finally, you only need look as far as the highest end users of these guns to know that they are designed to work in extreme environments. Whether it’s the APC9 with its military contracts or the SUB2000 with numerous LE agencies, these guns have a proven track record of success.
Accessories Galore
One of the best things about the PCC platforms is the variety of accessories you can add. Sure, you can mount a light and laser on a handgun, but the PCC gives you more options and greater control. There are many aftermarket parts for these guns that can make them fun to accessorize. The Stribog came with an aftermarket selector switch installed, which makes it easier to manipulate. The CZ Scorpion pictured above came with a Franklin Armory BFSIII CZ-C1 binary trigger installed, and while that might not be your cup of home defense tea, it sure made it fun to shoot.
Of course, there are plenty of ready to go options out there that hardly need any upgrade right out of the box. The Shield Arms SA9 has basically every Gucci upgrade you can imagine. From the Hiperfire trigger to the Radian Talon Ambi charging handle to the B5 systems grip, the Montana-based company spared no expense making sure that the best products ended up on this gun.
Even the most affordable out of the bunch, the Keltec SUB2000, came kitted out with a bunch of M*Carbo parts, an accessory company that made a name for itself developing tools like this for the PCC platform.
Cost
If there were a detriment to owning a PCC, cost might be it. Compared to a handgun, or certainly a Turkish shotgun, these will likely be a bit more expensive. In some cases, as with the B&T, they will be much more expensive. Then again, you get what you pay for. If your budget is tight, you still have the Hi-Point option. People can say what they want about Hi-Point, but I have shot the 995TS a bunch as well, and it was just as reliable and accurate as most of the guns on this list.
Even the SUB2000, which you can still find for under $500, was impressive. With its longer barrel and budget TruGlo optic, it was the most accurate from the bench. It just goes to show that it’s not necessarily the cost of the gun that matters, but what you’re willing to spend in both time and ammo that will make the biggest difference.
Conclusion
For me, it’s a no-brainer: PCC all day for home defense. My personal fix is the APC9, but that is only because I have put so many rounds through it now that it feels like a natural extension at the range.
If you haven’t considered a PCC for home defense, I hope you do now. At least go pick one up and try it out, even if it doesn’t become your standby home defense gun in the end. I guarantee you’ll have a good time shooting.
