No, the gun that made the J-frame .38 obsolete for me was Kahr's PM9 (Polymer Micro 9). It is so superior, in my estimation, to any other gun in this class, it might as well own the entire subcompact field. The PM9 is a shockingly small stainless steel-slide/polymer-frame 9mm. Fully loaded, it holds seven rounds of a service cartridge--a quantum leap in power over pocket guns only marginally smaller. But for all that, this is an easy gun to shoot.

The ultimate subcompact handgun, in the author's opinion, is the Kahr PM9 in 9mm. A .40 S&W version is also available, the PM40, which is a little harder to handle, but some will prefer the additional energy of the larger round.

When testing the PM9 for the 2005 Handguns Annual, I had no trouble doing two-shot drills into the head box of an IPSC target at seven yards, two good solid hits, with shot-to-shot speeds of .28 second. When you make a full-power auto pistol this small, especially with a polymer frame, you severely impact long-term durability. Kahr's not fooling anyone; the company will flat-out tell you the PM9 is a 6,000-round gun. I guess I can live with that. The PM9, as far as I'm concerned, is the very definition of a "carry a lot, shoot a little" maximum-concealment full-power pistol.

Kel-Tec produces three versions of a small, polymer-frame auto pistol chambered in .32 ACP, .380 ACP or 9mm Parabellum. These guns' light weight, low price, small size and extreme flatness have earned them a lot of fans. Early examples of Kel-Tecs I fired years ago had atrocious trigger pulls, but recent examples I've handled have been much improved.

Because of their short butts, and correspondingly short magazines, subcompact auto pistols are still slow and fumble-prone during reload. The good news here is that for a slight increase in size and weight over true pocket guns, the subcompacts offer a decent level of protection.

COMPACTS
We are now up into the world of guns large enough that they absolutely require a holster for all but the most heroic of pockets. This is the land in revolvers of the Colt Detective Special and Ruger SP101. In auto pistols, we're looking at the Glock 26/27/33 series and recent compact 1911s from Kimber, Para and Springfield. These are guns of substantial-enough size that reloading during combat becomes a realistic possibility--not up to middleweight/service-gun speeds but much better than pocket guns and subcompacts.

I once performed a shootout test between the compact Glock 26 and the middleweight Glock 19. As far as accuracy and shot-to-shot-speed, I found I could shoot a 26 just as well as the larger 19. But the 26 couldn't keep up with the larger gun in draw speed (unless it is fitted with a Pearce grip extension, there's just not enough gun butt to grab fast) or reload speed since my shooting hand, extending beneath the G26's short butt, could interfere with inserting a fresh magazine.

With compact guns, capacities increase. In revolvers, we jump from five shots in the J-frames to six in the Detective Special. Among auto pistols, we break into double digits for the first time. The Glock 26, my personal hands-down choice for best compact handgun, offers 11 shots of 9mm (a 10-round mag plus one in the chamber).