The world of action pistol shooting can be an intimidating venture. There are lots of rules and safety concerns, and no one wants to lose! Still, it’s one of the best things you can do to build your skills. You get to see where you stand, and honestly, for me, it was one of the best ways to self-evaluate my skills.
With that in mind, if you want to compete, you might want to look into handguns built for competition. That can get expensive, so let’s talk budget competition pistols.
What Does Budget Mean, for competition handguns?
Our budget is less than $1000. You might recoil from that. Yep, it’s a lot of money, but that’s cheap for a competition pistol. The typical average price is around $2,000, with models reaching well above $5,000. An out-of-the-box, budget competition pistol under a grand can be a great bargain.
Do You Need a Special Competition Handgun?
You might already have a handgun that’s perfectly suited for competition. A Glock 19 is a great gun, especially for new competitors. It’s not the perfect gun, but it will get you started. Most regular, reliable guns can be competition pistols. There is likely a class your gun fits into. It might be the optimum choice, but it doesn’t mean you’ll place last.
What is The Best Caliber For Competition?
That all depends on what type of competition you’d like to compete in. Some guns have different power factors that change the scoring procedure. Some will designate the smallest acceptable caliber, and others may be less restrictive. Outlaw matches might be a total free-for-all-all.
There isn’t necessarily a best caliber for competition, just calibers that are accepted. In general, to get started, 9mm is often a great way to go. It tends to be widely accepted, it’s common, and it’s affordable.
Safariland Competition Holsters and Gear
Glock 34 MOS
You can probably grab any Glock and find some kind of competitive shoot to enter. The Glock 17 and Glock 19 are great guns and fit in well with the competition world. However, the Glock 34 takes the crown by being the biggest of the bunch. It’s not necessarily more accurate than the standard length Glock 17 slide but it’s easier to shoot accurately due to the longer sight radius. Beyond accuracy, the extra weight and barrel length trim recoil down significantly.
The Glock 34 is a 9mm Glock and uses the 17’s magazines. Finding slightly extended models, baseplates, and more allows you to add an edge to your gun. The MOS model is the optic’s ready design, which makes it perfect for the Carry Optics division. The new Glock Marksman’s barrel on the Gen 5 models gives you match-grade accuracy. Plus, Glock’s record of reliability can’t be beat.
The Glock 34 as a whole benefits greatly from the customizable potential of Glock handguns. You can build out your Glock 34 to fit most competition classes outside of backup guns. With the longer barrel, it’s basically a blank canvas for adding extra features, like bigger controls, mag wells, and more.
The Glock 34 is also fairly common and affordable at around $600-ish. It’s a heckuva gun and is a great way to dive into the competition pistol world.
Walther PDP Pro SD Full Size
If you want to compete in open class, Walther has you covered with one of the best new modern guns. The new Walther PDP Pro-X PMM is an extremely modern platform with all the built-in open-class accessories you could ever want. The PDP PRo-X PMM features a compensator that fits flush with the frame.
The compensator comes from Parker Mountain Machine. PMM has a long history of creating high-quality, high-performing compensators that effortlessly blend with a firearm’s frame, slide, and overall design. It only made sense that Walther would team up with PMM to make the PDP a little easier to control.
Walther built the PDP from the ground up to be an optics-ready handgun, so as you’d expect, the PDP is optics-ready. The ergonomics are designed to make finding the dots easier and to make using red dots a lot easier. Speaking of ergonomics, the PDP Pro-X has some of the best. The grip is absolutely wonderful. The magazine release is huge and easy to hit, and so is the slide release.
The grip has a great big magwell that allows you to easily run reloads and keep your gun running. It’s a straight shooter, too, and after a few classes, I’ve become a big fan of the PDP. It’s smooth shooting, accurate, and comfortable, and everything gets better when you add a comp.
CZ P10 F Competition Ready
I’m a fan of the CZ series guns, and they make some masterful competition guns. The Shadow 2 rules the roost for a reason. No one would call CZ’s competition guns affordable or budget-friendly, except for one thing people often forget. The polymer frame striker-fired P10 F Competition-Ready. While it might not be as fancy as other options, it’s not isolated to certain classes, like Open.
The P10 F Competition Ready features a five-inch barrel, which gives you a nice, long sight radius and a little extra muzzle rise control. The gun comes optics-ready, which isn’t a big surprise. The included iron sights are designed for rapid use and feature a high-visibility front sight and blacked-out rear sight.
We get three magazines with a distinct heavy metal base plate to help mags drop free. Each mag holds a blistering 19 rounds of 9mm. A flare magwell meets the magazines as they enter the gun, allowing quick and intuitive reloads.
CZ topped the gun off with a refined trigger and a set of large slide releases. The overall setup is simple but smooth shooting, accurate, and controllable. The P10 F Competition Ready handgun retails for well under a thousand dollars and is a great way to get into the game.
SIG Sauer P320 XFULL
SIG’s XSeries brings us a surprisingly nice entry-level competition pistol with the P320 XFULL. This is a full-sized, optic-ready gun with the X Series grip module. The standard XFULL retails for around $650, and if you shop around, you can even find the RXP, which includes a ROMEO1PRO optic for less than a grand.
The P320 series is comprised of striker-fired, polymer-frame pistols that have successfully secured numerous police contracts as well as the U.S. Military Modular Handgun Contract. SIG has lots and lots of ‘series,’ and the X-Series rates highly.
The flat-faced trigger provides a nice smooth pull, and crisp, audible, and tactile reset. The X-Series grip frame is a little boxier but allows for a better grip on the gun as well as great recoil displacement. The grip module features a higher undercut on the trigger guard and a solid beavertail at the rear for a nice, comfortable grip that sits nice and high for maximum control.
The XFULL packs suppressor height sights for when you inevitably add an optic. The full-sized design gives you great control and sight radius. It’s not the fanciest, but for a little more than the Glock 34, you’re getting a number of awesome features.
Taurus TX22 Competition SCR
Last but not least, our most affordable option is the Taurus TX22 Competition SCR. SCR stands for Steel Challenge Ready, and that’s exactly where this pistol belongs. Steel Challenge allows the use of .22LR, making the TX22 Competition a great way to slide into the sport without spending a whole ton of money.
The Competition model comes with a built-in red dot plate that remains stationary as the gun cycles. This makes it easy to track the dot and shoot quick, fast, and in a hurry. If optics aren’t your jam (they really should be), then the sights are adjustable for a nice, precise shot placement. Those sights also co-witness with mounted optics.
The SCR model also features an attached compensator to what is already basically zero muzzle rise and reduces it even further. It becomes one of the most controllable pistols out there. The bull barrel in use with the SCR is also a nice touch for high-volume shooting and precision.
The TX22 series has proven itself to be quite reliable with a ton of different .22LR ammo, including even some of the hotter bulk stuff. If you want to get into Steel Challenge, the TX22 Competition SCR is the perfect beginner gun. Steel Challenge tends to be the perfect beginner shooting competition, so the two go hand in hand.
Keep Competing
Competition is a great way to take your shooting skills to a new level. It tests you, applies pressure, and puts you against the clock. The target and timer never lie, and through adversity, you can only get better. A good handgun will take you part of the way, but you’ll need to do the rest!
