10 Best 9mm Handguns for Women [Self Defense & CCW]

Are you a lady looking for a 9mm handgun? I’ve been there, and I know what a struggle it can be to find advice by women, for women when it comes to choosing a new 9mm.

The problem is 9mm handguns are just about the most popular firearms around, and with good reason. It’s a great caliber that can do anything from self-defense to high-level target shooting and competition, so there are hundreds of options out there to choose from.

Don’t worry. We’re going to handle this problem together.

Today, we’re going to take a look at the very best 9mm pistols for women. I’ve spent the majority of my career testing and reviewing all kinds of firearms, especially firearms that work well for women like me. 

We’re going to look at the top 10 best 9mm pistols for women on the market today. Then we’re going to take a deep dive into how to choose, what features to look for, and everything you could ever need to know about choosing the best 9mm pistol for your specific needs.

What is the Best 9mm Handgun for Women?

The Sig Sauer P365 XL is the best 9mm pistol for women in our opinion, but the rest of the pistols on our top 10 list are great choices as well!

Why a 9mm Handgun for Women?

There are several very good reasons why the 9mm Parabellum (also known as 9mm Luger or 9x19mm NATO) is the most popular handgun round on the planet.

First and foremost, it is more than sufficient for defensive use in terms of velocity and penetration, but it also has very controllable recoil. This means that, if you’re carrying for protection, you have something very easy to shoot but also effective at stopping a threat.

As handguns go, 9mms are also generally more reliable than smaller calibers because of the increased case capacity (and therefore recoil energy) over something like .22LR, .32 ACP, or even .380 ACP, which means the slide cycles more forcefully. 

This aids reliability greatly as you have a slide that moves faster and with more authority, which helps with extraction and ejection. This helps cut down not only on general malfunctions, but it helps eliminate “limp wristing” which is a common problem for newer shooters or those with less than stellar grip strength.

On the other side of things, 9mm is right in the sweet spot where it doesn’t have too much recoil, so most people find it very easy to control, even under rapid fire or in high-stress situations where adrenaline degrades fine motor skills.

It also has a much better capacity when you compare similarly sized guns or magazines with 10mm or .45 ACP due to the smaller cartridge diameter. This gives you more rounds on tap compared to the bigger guns, so you spend more time shooting and less time reloading (always a good thing).

This ease of use and improved shootability are what have made the 9x19mm the most popular caliber for military and police sidearms as well. The recoil is controllable, but the round is still powerful enough to be reliable.

Also, because of that popularity and because the round is so ideally suited for everything from defense to plinking to competition, manufacturers overwhelmingly gravitate towards 9mm handguns, which means there are a lot of choices out there.

Just in this article, we’ve seen 9mm guns in various forms, including high-capacity race guns, cheap plinkers, high-end target guns, full-size duty pistols, and diminutive pocket/purse guns. 

With 9mm, you have many options to choose from, giving the average person the highest possible likelihood of finding something that works for them. Having a variety of choices also means you can have a 9mm that fills any purpose you may have.

Whether you’re looking for something small enough to disappear under light clothing or beefy enough to give you 20 rounds in the mag and a full-length slide, you’ll have dozens of options.

That kind of market support also means you’ll have no trouble finding accessories like holsters, lights, grips, sights, and optics for a 9mm handgun most of the time, which is always nice. You can even get carbine conversion kits for a lot of 9mm handguns that will add a carbine-style frame to your handgun, further adding versatility and function.

This is especially important when choosing a holster because it is often difficult to comfortably conceal a handgun beneath the average woman’s wardrobe. 

Having many holster options available for a variety of handguns means you’re more likely to find something that works with your preferences, body type, and just general style.

Choosing a 9mm Pistol for Women

The best handgun for you is going to depend on a few different factors that are particular to you, so let’s take a moment to talk about how to choose not just one of the best guns for women but the best gun for you.

Purpose

First and foremost, you need to think about what you want to use your gun for.

Are you looking for a gun to carry concealed or for something for competitive shooting? Or maybe you’re looking for something for home defense or even just recreational shooting? The best handgun for you will depend on the purpose.

You typically want to try to balance concealability and capacity for a carry weapon. For example, our top recommendation for women, the Sig Sauer P365 XL, is a great example of a gun that is comfortable, concealble, and carries lots of rounds.

A carry gun is no good if it’s too bulky to conceal effectively or so heavy that you frequently leave it at home or in the glove box because you don’t want to bother dealing with it.

A gun that’s too small may be a bit harder to shoot, so there’s a balance to be observed here. A super-small pistol might be easy to carry, but recoil will be snappier, and you’ll have less real estate to grip and less mass to help dissipate recoil.

For a home defense gun, you can just focus on capacity and shootability. In other words, you want a full-size gun with 17+ rounds in the mag. In fact, a larger gun will typically have milder recoil, making it easier to shoot in a high-stress situation. 

You should also get something that has a rail for a light, and ideally is cut for an optic or has night sights out of the box.  

For competitive shooting, you’ll want to look at the parameters of the type of competition you want to do, but generally, accuracy and controllability of recoil are the most important things. Keep the rules for the various competition divisions in mind, and make sure the gun you want is legal for the classification you want to shoot in.

Look for something with a heavy frame and slide, like an all-steel gun or one of the tungsten-impregnated polymer options built specifically for competition. Since you’re not carrying this type of gun regularly, mass works in your favor because it soaks up recoil.

Also, high capacity to minimize reloading is key, as is a low bore axis which will help reduce muzzle flip.

Finally, you can go with any gun you want for recreational shooting. Typically, however, you’ll want a low-recoil weapon that isn’t picky about what ammo you feed it. That way you can comfortably shoot over longer sessions and don’t have to empty your bank account to go to the range.

Magazine Capacity

Obviously, a greater magazine capacity is ideal, especially in a self-defense situation. It comes at the expense of size, though. Clearly, more rounds take up more space, requiring the gun to be larger. 

Double-stack magazines help you balance the two by holding the rounds in a zig-zag pattern. This allows the gun to hold more rounds in a shorter grip. However, guns that use double-stack magazines have to have wider grips to make room for all those extra rounds. That said, a wider grip can help get a firm hold on your weapon. 

Single-stack magazines are the more traditional style, where rounds are stacked on top of each other. This forces a lower capacity but also allows for a slimmer grip, which makes for an easier-to-conceal weapon. 

You also have newer micro-compact magazines with some geometry witchcraft to give you almost a 1.5-stack magazine. This is, in many ways, the best of both worlds for a carry gun, and why we have so many micro-compacts (like the SIG P365 XL, Springfield Hellcat, etc.) on our list of top 9mm pistols for women.

Safety Features

First, all pistols I recommend here have at least some sort of safety feature to prevent accidental firing. 

However, some have internal safeties, which don’t need to be manually operated and automatically activate or deactivate with the pull of a trigger. 

These safeties ensure that the gun cannot fire unless the trigger is pulled. Guns that rely on internal safeties will often utilize multiple internal safety features to be more effective. 

(While an external safety, a grip safety works the same way. It doesn’t allow the trigger to be pressed unless the shooter has a firm hold on the grip).

Others have manual external safeties. Manual safeties are what people typically think of when they think of gun safeties. There’s a button or lever. If it’s in one direction, the safety is engaged, and the trigger can not be depressed. If it’s in the other, the safety is disengaged, and the gun can be operated. 

There are pros and cons to both designs. Manual safeties make the gun slower to operate, so they’re not favored for concealed-carry handguns. 

On the other hand, they’re more secure than internal safeties, which can be overridden by an object slipping inside the trigger guard and pressing the trigger. To avoid this, a holster with complete trigger coverage is essential when carrying a weapon that only uses internal safeties.

Ergonomics

A gun needs to comfortably fit your hand, but this can be tricky for women, who typically have smaller hands than men.

You should be able to easily hit any controls, like the safety or mag release, without adjusting your grip. The trigger reach should be short enough that you can place the center of the pad on your trigger finger on the trigger face itself.

The pistol should have a comfortable grip that makes it easy to hold the gun firmly. A grip with a beavertail will encourage you to keep your hand high up on the grip while preventing painful slide bite. 

Guns with swappable backstraps on the grip can go a long way in making a gun more comfortable to shoot. Many pistols feature this kind of system these days, which is great for those of us who want a slightly longer length of pull or need to adjust the grip we get out of the box.

If you have particularly small hands, you may want to stick to a single-stack gun to minimize the amount of gun you have to reach around to operate all of the controls. You can also opt for something very customizable to get a different trigger or extended slide release, mag release, or what have you if needed.

Striker Fired vs. Hammer Fired Pistols (vs. Revolvers)

Hammer-fired pistols tend to make it easier to rack the slide, which is a common issue for newer shooters who haven’t built up their hand strength yet or for older shooters who’ve noticed their hand strength reducing over time.  

Note, however, that hammer-fired pistols don’t have the consistent trigger press of a striker-fired pistol, so you might need more training before you’re as fast and accurate as you would be with a striker-fired pistol. 

Hammer-fired pistols are also more prone to malfunction since the action isn’t sealed like with a striker-fired pistol. You can help combat this by staying on top of routine cleaning and maintenance, which requires extra work. 

This also seems as good of a time as any to note that we’re only talking about semi-automatic handguns here. Revolvers are also an option, but I haven’t included any in my list of the best handguns for several reasons. 

First of all, a revolver kicks a lot harder than a semi-automatic handgun. For smaller, weaker hands, a revolver will be much harder to control, especially in the smaller sizes that women tend to prefer. 

Second, the average revolver is going to have a significantly lower capacity than a semi-automatic handgun, even a single stack. Even a high-capacity 9mm revolver will cap out at 7 rounds. In contrast, several pistols on this list have a capacity of about twice that. 

Third, 9mm is not a typical round for revolvers. Generally, revolvers require a rimmed cartridge, and 9mm use centerfire ammunition. Most revolvers, therefore, require a device called a moon clip to function. While using moon clips isn’t a huge deal, it’s just extra complications for a gun I don’t prefer.

For those reasons, I wouldn’t consider revolvers as one of the best handguns for women, at least not in 9mm and certainly not for beginners. 

Recoil vs. Size

Low recoil makes a gun easier and more comfortable to shoot and allows you to make quick follow-up shots since the sights will stay closer to alignment. Fortunately, 9mm is a relatively low recoil round, at least as far as self-defense rounds go. 

It may seem counterintuitive, but look for a full-size weapon for lighter recoil. A lot of women are tempted towards tiny pocket pistols for their first weapon, but these guns actually have more felt recoil because they have less mass to disperse the energy. Instead, you get to absorb that energy.

On the other hand, for an easy-to-carry handgun, it is usually better to go small.

So, if you’re looking for a daily concealed carry handgun and need to balance recoil and concealability, you can go with a compact, but stay away from subcompact handguns, as the snappy recoil will be stronger than you’re looking for.

A gun’s grip design can also make a big difference in felt recoil, regardless of size. For one, a larger or textured grip is easier to hold firmly. Grip material also matters, though. A rubber grip texture can help reduce felt recoil.

Aggressive stippling can also help, so look for something that offers this, plus maybe a checkered front and backstrap so you have a little bit more positive traction once your hand is on the gun.

You can also go old school and add something like skateboard tape to your gun if you want to turn up the level of grip, but be careful as this can be a little too rough on your hands and the skin near where you carry your holster.

Shooting Technique for Women: Special Considerations

Most of the shooting advice out there is geared toward men, but it works perfectly fine for women as well.

Some exceptions will be dealing with smaller hands and (generally) lower overall grip strength. The average woman is going to have smaller hands and less grip strength than the average man, which can be detrimental when it comes to shooting.

This makes training for a firm grip incredibly important for women in particular, as a firm grip is a key part of shooting safely and reliably. A weak grip can lead to malfunctions such as a failure to eject or a failure to go return to battery (where the slide doesn’t quite go all the way forward).

It also makes it harder to shoot rapidly and control recoil, which is a key factor in competition and defensive shooting. It can even make it difficult to rack the slide on a particularly small gun or a gun with a very stiff recoil spring.

If you have these issues, I recommend investing in a grip strength trainer, such as the ones rock climbers use. This will help quite a lot with maintaining a solid grip during repeated shooting, and hey, it helps with opening jars, too.

Beyond that, if you have small hands, do the best you can to try before you buy so you know you can reach all the controls on your gun (trigger, slide release, mag release, safety if present) without having to use your non-firing hand. 

Many gun ranges will have trial guns available for rental, so you can take them for a test drive if you aren’t sure. Do some drills and ensure you can hit all the controls quickly and when in a hurry. 

If you can’t get your fingers where they need to go when you’re safe and not under any real pressure at the range, you’re definitely not going to be able to hit the controls properly when you’re dealing with a threat or trying to cut down on your split times in a competition. 

If you can’t find a rental, try asking if anyone you know has one you can borrow (maybe offer to take them shooting and pay for some ammo), or at least go to your local gun store and ask to hold one. 

Frequently Asked Questions About the Best Pistol for Women

The Bottom Line

To be honest, 9mm is my go-to handgun round, so I’d consider these pistols not just the best 9mm pistols but the best handguns for women in general. 

The SIG Sauer P365 XL is my favorite handgun, but the other handguns on this list are also excellent options. Whether you’re looking for a concealed carry handgun for self-defense, a competition pistol, or just a range toy, there’s something for you on this list.

Every gun on this list is a solid pistol; you can’t go wrong with any of them. So take your time to consider your needs and your options. Then get out there and get shooting!