If you want to create a FreeRepublic thread that goes on for hundreds of posts, copy and paste that question into a new post.
In choosing a primary or secondary personal defense firearm, numerous criteria must be given consideration. Before getting into make and caliber, let's think about how an ankle gun will be used. The need for concealment is obvious so, the gun will need to be compact. Just how compact depends on your husbands size and type of clothing he will wear over the gun. A revolver tends to be a little wider than an automatic of equivalent class.
What will be the general environmental conditions in which your husband might need to use the gun? For example, is he a city police officer or a game warden? Will he spend most of his time on relatively clean pavement or is he going to be in sand, mud, snow or water? Revolvers tend to be more reliable than automatics.
You don't want the gun to snag on his trouser leg when drawing it so, you will want either a hammerless revolver or hammerless automatic. By hammerless, I mean the gun doesn't have an exposed hammer. To further prevent snagging clothing, the gun, including sights, should generally have a rounded rather than angular appearance.
Assuming a backup gun will be quick-drawn at close range in a combat condition, either gun, revolver or automatic should be double action.
Will the need for reloading under combat conditions be a realistic possibility? If yes, extra magazines for an automatic could be kept on the same or opposite ankle. Speed loader clips for a revolver are a bit more obtrusive and would take away from the concealment aspect.
As far as caliber goes, much will depend on why your husband would need to use the gun in the first place. The larger the caliber, the larger the gun. As the gun gets larger, concealing it becomes more difficult. In order to achieve compact frames with larger calibers, manufacturers sometimes reduce the bullet capacity. Rather than a six shot revolver, they go to five. The same with automatics.
I'm not going to recommend a specific caliber as that would result in 100+ reply posts.
Also, could you read and let me know your opinion as a woman about my post #74 on this thread? I kind of got flamed for being sexist and I don't think sexism had anything to do with my post.
I chose my Bersa .380 for several reasons, 1 it fit my small hands, 2, I could pull the slide easy, 3 it was flatter than the revolver, 4, the fire power was good a good choice, and 5 I like the looks of it better than the revolvers I tried. I tried several revolvers out and the butts were just to wide for my small hand.
Hubby said any less than the .380 was to 'light' in fire power so we disgarded any lighter type.
We have a 22 we use for 'fun' target practice because the ammo is cheap vs the cost of the ammo for our 9mm and the .380. Not that we don't practice with all 3, just that we can pump more rounds through the 22 more often.
Hubby is a 2 way radio senior tech and is in and out of remote transmitter sites, in and out of businesses and depending on which company he works for might have to wear a uniform. The ankle conceal weapon would strictly be for self-defense in Memphis. He goes into some pretty high crime neighborhoods sometimes. So I'd say most of the time he will be in a urban setting.