My wife and I checked out a G42 at Shooter's Outpost in Hooksett, NH last weekend. We liked the small, slim size and very light weight. I carry a Shield regularly, and those saying the G42 isn't small enough by comparison haven't held them side by side. It is considerably less bulky and much, much lighter. My wife has been considering taking up CCW, and finding a pistol that is small enough to be practical in that role, without having excessively snappy recoil, has been a challenge. She has very small hands and wrists and finds even relatively large, heavy blowback .380's to be too snappy. For example, she had a Sig P230 for many years, but never felt comfortable enough with it, both from a recoil point of view and a manual of arms comfort level to even consider carrying it.
Enter the Shield. I thought that might be the answer. It works great for me as a smaller/slimmer alternative when a mid-size Glock isn't concealable. She tried it, wanted to like it, but it's just a bit too much for her in the recoil department. It's the absolute upper limit of what she can fire semi-accurately, and her performance fades quickly with it from recoil-induced fatigue. That would pretty much rule out doing classes with it, which she'll need to do in order to become serious about CCW.
So today we had a chance to try a rental G42 at the Manchester Firing Line indoor range. Again I was impressed by the small size and lack of bulk. I was able to compare it side by side with my Shield and it is definitely a less bulky pistol. I don't consider the Shield a truly viable pocket pistol, but the G42 probably is. My wife's first impression was that the size was "perfect" for her. It fits her small hands well. In her hands it looks kind of like a G19 does in mine.
Her regular range pistol is a G17. She shoots that pretty well, but can get fatigued with it because it's a fairly big, heavy gun. It's a lot for her to hold on to. She does have some trouble getting mags fully loaded with it. But because of her familiarity with it, she was instantly comfortable handling the G42. She loaded up the mag herself with no issues, and commented that she was surprised how easy it was for her to load the mags. She was, however, disappointed to see the mag only holds 6 rounds.
Her first shot at 5 yards was a little low left, but then the next 5 were tightly clustered in the 2.5" square we were using as a target. I was frankly astounded. When she pays attention to fundamentals she can shoot well, but it usually takes a mag or two for her to get in the groove and really shoot her best. She was immediately "on" with this little pistol. I was more impressed considering she hasn't fired a pistol in probably 6-7 months due to my health issues. Another positive I noticed was her cadence of fire. There was no "resetting" or "starting over" between shots, which she sometimes has to do with her G17. I could tell she was just immediately comfortable. Probably close to 2 shots per second, punching the center out of the target. She doesn't shoot her G17 that well cold, and I don't think I've seen her shoot a .22 that well!
I tried it next, and actually didn't shoot it that well. Typical Glock push to the left and not much of a group. I had a difficult time holding the pistol in a way that was comfortable and gave me the proper trigger control I'm used to with bigger Glocks. I tried my Shield right after and noticed two things. I'm much more accurate with it, and it has easily 2x the recoil. My next mag with the G42 was better. A definite group, with some, but a bit less, of the leftward push.
She shot it some more, and continued to do well. She also tried the Shield, and shot it fine, but didn't like the recoil or amount of time it took her to reset and feel comfortable for an accurate second shot.
Conclusions - The G42 is exactly what I thought it was. It's a very nearly perfect pistol for woman with small hands and recoil sensitivity. A more seasoned female shooter might be better off with a Shield. I'm better off with a Shield or G19. Probably most other guys would be too. But we are sold on the G42 as a perfect first CCW for her. We'll be picking one up next weekend at SOP. She liked everything about it except the low magazine capacity. The size is perfect, the lack of recoil is perfect, and with her coming from a Glock background, there will be a minimum of manual of arms training necessary (basically just the very slightly different trigger feel). In its niche, this little gun is a home run.