Smith & Wesson Equalizer – BEST Beginner Pistol, Easy for Women to Operate
Today we’re going to be looking at the Smith and Wesson Equalizer that came out a little earlier this year. The Equalizer is a pistol designed for newer shooters and those who might lack grip strength. So for example, many women, the elderly, or people with certain disabilities may find the equalizer easier to operate versus other popular handguns.
I know most of the viewers of my channel are men, but this is a worthwhile gun to consider for your wife. Not that your wife can’t operate a glock, mine certainly can, but the equalizer is made to be easy and safe to operate for just about anyone with minimal training required.
I had special interest in reviewing this gun as one of my good friends was just recently diagnosed with multiple schlerosis. By God’s grace, He was able to catch it early and thankfully his condition is not dabilitating so the progression can be slowed or even stopped. With PT he’s improved a great deal. He could safely handle a firearm, but he might not have the grip strength he once had, so he asked what my recommendation would be as far as handguns goes. After shooting the equalizer this is an option we’re going to be checking out.
However, the equalizer is a a solid choice for anyone.
Smith & Wesson Equalizer
The easiest pistol to operate on the market, perfect for new shooters, women, the elderly, or anyone who might lack grip strength.
Full size M&P Performance in an easy to use package
I wouldn’t be ashamed to have it in my collection. Its just as lethal and shootable as any other 9mm pistol. Its just a whole lot easier to operate than many other subcompact options on the market. Its about the size of my Glock 26, but it has excellent M&P ergonomics.
Its larger than the 26 in length and height, although has less width, and is smaller than a Glock 19. It honestly shoots like a Glock 19, I really enjoyed shooting this gun. It was reasonably accurate at 7 yards in my first 3 rounds firing it. After getting used to it, I was able to dial that in a bit more even. I shot it out to 20 yards with no problems.
It is a very shootable pistol.
Smith & Wesson Equalizer
The easiest pistol to operate on the market, perfect for new shooters, women, the elderly, or anyone who might lack grip strength.
Designed from top to bottom to be easy to use
The biggest thing about this gun is the controls. The slide is super easy to manipulate. My wife has some trouble racking my glock 26. She is fine with my glock 19, but she would have zero issues with the equalizer. Racking the slide takes almost no effort and very little grip strength. The slide has really deep and wide slide serrations so it is very easy and comfortable to both grip and carry.
Optics Ready out of box
The slide is optics ready out of box. This is incredibly important for this type of pistol. Older folks with poor vision may have trouble with stock irons, so having the option for a red dot I think makes a lot of sense for aging eyes. In general, red dots on pistols have become the mainstream. Those who reject it predominantly haven’t tried it yet or haven’t given it a fair shake in performance shooting.
Smith & Wesson Equalizer
The easiest pistol to operate on the market, perfect for new shooters, women, the elderly, or anyone who might lack grip strength.
The Equalizer has a single action trigger
The trigger is a true single action trigger.
The trigger is very light. The gun is not striker fired, rather it has an internal hammer. For this reason, the trigger pull is extremely light. This is another reason the pistol is very easy to operate and shoot accurately. The trigger pull is smooth with a well defined break.
My issue with it is that it has a very long reset, so it is difficult to shoot fast. Its a light trigger with a crazy long reset.
Again, the feature here caters to a newer shooter favoring easy operation over performance. It would be very difficult to accidentally shoot this gun. That makes this an ideal EDC pistol for someone who is newer to firearms.
The Equalizer has safety features that will appeal to new shooters
Because the equalizer is a true single action firearm, Smith and Wesson added a manual external safety. I’m not a big fan of this setup, I’d much prefer the striker fired safe action of most modern semi automatic pistol designs, but this is the sacrifice made for that easy to pull single action trigger. Similarly, this is why I suspect smith and wesson also added the grip safety, to make sure that the gun is drop safe if the manual safety is disengaged.
The grip safety works well. I didn’t have any issues with it. But it might work too well. My buddy actually found that at one point he didn’t have his grip tight enough and the gun wouldn’t engage. So he’d pulled the trigger and no bang. That is maybe the only red flag I have with this pistol, your grip has to be perfect, which seems counter intuitive for a gun targeted at less experienced shooters.
Whereas the Performance series M2.0 is a high performance pistol with an excellent trigger, and the same level of safety if being operated by someone with training.
Final thoughts
The equalizer has a lot of the same great qualities but it is slightly short changed in some areas in favor of being new shooter friendly. And there’s nothing wrong with that, it makes it a very attractive option for people who are new to firearms and are only interested for the purposes of basic self protection. So in a sense the equalizer absolutely lives up to its name.
