I just got back from the range, where I instructed a small group of armed guards who were taking part in their first live-fire exercise to determine their fitness to carry guns on duty.

A pair of these gents carried small autoloaders. One of them was a medium-size adult, the other easily a full size larger. While they had some challenges unrelated to the size of the gun, I noted their difficulties in gun handling. Their hands were just too big for the guns. I recommended something larger for each of them.

That's in stark contrast to a previous situation I've had to confront for many years while instructing firearms in an agency where the issued handguns didn't fit the hands of a significant number of officers. The handguns were steel-frame .45s, double action the first shot, single action for the remaining rounds. The guns were durable, accurate and reliable, but many of us just couldn't make a fast hit out of the holster--the grip was too deep front to back and the trigger reach in double action was way too long.

Various dimensions of the hand affect handgun fit. It’s not just long fingers or width of the palm.

And that, in a nutshell, illustrates the problem of gun fit. There's no blanket solution, no silver bullet, because of the variety of hand sizes, grip sizes, gun types and situations in which the gun might be used.

Back in the day, we carried round guns instead of square ones. Most revolvers were supplied with either wood panel Magna grips on each side of the grip straps or with premium "target" stocks--thicker side to side and bottom to top, and widest where the human hand has the smallest fingers.

What was our response to these two ill-fitting designs? We changed stocks. The lucky people with small hands--like mine--could take the smaller Magna grips and add a grip adapter to fill the area between the trigger guard and the front of the grip frame.

When it comes to handgun fit, everyone assumes you're talking about grips, but stocks aren't everything. Different size revolver frames can fit certain shooters better than others. Big cylinders take big speedloaders and, for some of us, are slower to manipulate. Tasks related to making the gun work, like reloading, can be compromised if the gun is too big or too small.

If you are comfortable carrying and using a revolver, life is good. For one thing, they're available in a wide range of gun sizes. Just look at the frame offerings from Smith & Wesson alone, not to mention the variation in size among different manufacturers.

And if there's a gun that you really want but doesn't fit you exactly right, great-fitting alternative stocks are available from Hogue, Eagle Grip, Ajax, Herrett's Stocks and Brownell's.

Semiautos are a different animal. With them, the gripping surface of the frame is dictated by the size of its magazine, which is, in turn, dictated by the size of the cartridge for which the gun is chambered and the capacity of the magazine.

The 1911 is an example of an older design with excellent ergonomics. The frame and trigger can be easily changed to fit the shooter. The original 1911 had a flat mainspring housing and a long trigger. The 1911A1 went to an arched mainspring housing and short trigger.