I don’t know why, but for my entire life, I’ve been a contrarian. My family liked Pepsi, and I drank Coke. As a kid in school, kids loved Pokemon, but I was a Digimon kid. I don’t know why I like going against the grain, but I do. Even when it comes to guns, I go against the grain. It almost physically pains me to say that the best no-nonsense modern handgun for the money is a GLOCK 9mm of some sort.
Even logic doesn’t beat back my tendency to be a contrarian. In some ways, I’ve embraced it except for where better options exist. Still, I can’t be the only one, right? I can’t be the only guy who loves Grand Power and their rotating barrels. With that in mind, I wanted to create a contrarian’s guide to guns…firearms that contrarians can feel good about owning, even if they aren’t the favored option in their class.
Basic 9mm Handgun
Everyone needs a basic 9mm handgun with a double stack magazine and room for all the extra accessories you want. Undoubtedly, the best choice for most people will be the GLOCK 19. It’s everywhere, it’s uber-reliable, it’s accurate, it’s affordable, and magazines are cheap and easy to find. It’s also boring.
Contrarian Pick: CZ P09 Nocturne
The new CZ P09 Nocturne is an excellent contrarian option for a basic 9mm handgun. It comes in both compact and full-sized models. CZ fans would recognize the P07 as the compact P09, but CZ ditched that moniker, and it’s just the P09 full-sized and P09 compact. The P09 series is a double-stack 9mm pistol with polymer frames, rails, and an optics-ready design.

Where they depart from the standard 9mm polymer frame pistol is by being a DA/SA hammer-fired gun. That’s rare to find these days. The gun differs a fair bit from the entire crop of modern polymer frame striker-fired pistols. If you hate the double action design, you can run it locked and cocked by swapping the decocker for a safety. Both options come with the P09.
Basic 5.56 Rifle
The basic 5.56 caliber rifle is the AR-15. That’s undeniable. It’s the universal rifle, and I believe that everyone should have one. Having a commonality amongst a citizen-based militia simplifies logistics. Plus, they are cheap, anti-gunners hate them, and they are easy to find in any configuration. Aren’t they bloody boring, though?
Contrarian Pick: CZ Bren 2
Okay…another CZ. I know. I’m showing a bias. The CZ is often called the Czech SCAR, but that’s not entirely fair. The SCAR is a fancy AR-180, and the BREN is a fancy AR-180. Armalite gets the credit more than FN. The short-stroke gas piston Bren 2 is seemingly the easiest find of all of the AR-180s grandkids and usually the most affordable.
The BREN comes with all the modern fancy features including a folding and collapsing stock, an M-LOK handguard, and rails and sling slots everywhere. It’s reasonably accurate, very reliable, takes AR mags and fires 5.56. It’s different enough to be enjoyable, and unlike the SCAR, it’s always had a nonreciprocating charging handle.
Pump Shotgun
There are two real options for a basic shotgun: the Remington 870 and the Mossberg 500/590. These two define the current, modern American shotgun market. They are affordable, reliable, and easy to use. Everyone needs a shotgun, but it can be tough to sort through all the crap out there. There are so many Turkish guns that finding a contrarian option can be tough, but not impossible.
Contrarian Pick: Benelli SuperNova
Benelli makes a rather nice pump shotgun that’s too often ignored. The SuperNova series are great guns available in hunting and tactical configurations. All of the SuperNovas have 3.5-inch chambers and the loading and ejection ports to accommodate them. That makes reloads easier with shorter shells.

The SuperNova features a very easy-to-reach pump, a rotating bolt, an easily expandable magazine tube, and a magazine cutoff. The magazine cutoff is built into the pump, making it easy to clear the chamber or do a fancy slug-select drill. The SuperNova is surprisingly nice and priced comparably to 870 and 500 series guns.
Basic Carry Revolver
Revolvers are pretty cool, and concealment revolvers are pretty standard. They’re .38 Specials and occasionally .357 Magnums. Guns like the 442 or the 340 PD. They’re five-shot, lightweight, hammerless, pocket-sized pistols. They’re great carry guns, but again, they tend to be a little boring.
Contrarian Pick: S&W 432UC
The Smith & Wesson 432UC is another J-frame, for sure, but it takes a different route. Namely, it uses the .32 H&R Magnum, which I believe is the optimum snub nose caliber. It’s smaller and has lighter recoil, but has excellent penetration. It also gives you one additional round, which means six instead of five.

The UC Model also features an actual, usable rear sight. The trigger is smooth and the concealed hammer makes it easy to pocket carry, living up to its Ultimate Carry moniker. They make a .38 Special version too, but the 432UC is the contrarian choice.
Being a Contrarian
Life isn’t easy for the contrarian. It’s also not always logical. Still, I like to think contrarians help the industry discover hidden gems, and hopefully, I’ve done that for you. Do you have any contrarian choices you swear by?
357 Sig 320 with a full sized slide on a subcompact grip loaded for kevlar bypass. Mostly just a spiteful fuck you because I can to NY.
Contrarianism=being a giga Chad
dont like it?
Fite me!
Pro tip, you cant
CZ Bren 2. “The short-stroke gas piston Bren 2 is seemingly the easiest find of all of the AR-180s grandkids and usually the most affordable.”
Maybe…sometimes, used ….they are ‘affordable’ if you get a distress sale…but mostly out of the price range of most people new or used when its considered good quality AR’s can be had for less.
You priced them lately, new?
CZ Bren 2 Ms Carbine. $2,040.99 at guns….com
CZ-USA CZ BREN 2 MS 5.56X45 14″ .223 REM/5.56 AR PISTOL, $1,674.99 at PSA.
Part of the reason such guns cost so much now is because ‘influencers’ sources keep saying how affordable they are thus setting ‘norms’. If ‘influencers’ sources didn’t keep pushing higher priced firearms and ‘name recognition’ to drive the market company’s would be bound by what the market would bear for a wider range of people who could afford the products.
For example, look at Apple phones…over half the cost is the name ‘Apple’….for a phone that’s actually made in China, and with engineering/development and marketed costs, that are less than 1/4 of what they sell the phone for …and ‘influencer’ sources have people go nuts over them over the ‘color’ when a new version comes out at an even higher price and the idiots go ‘thats affordable’.
I really like the CZ semi-auto pistol (single-action / double-action hammer-fired) contrarian option along with the S&W 432UC (chambered in .327 H&R Magnum) contrarian option.