Shoot a bunch of guns and then buy the one that you like the best. If you network enough here there are some fine members that you can bring decent
ammo to shoot their guns with. It's too bad smith wasn't still open I'd offer to drive out with several glocks and let you try them out. I think there's some
other pay range out there but I'm not familiar with it. I have friends out that way I could visit after and turn it into a day thing. There are likely some folks
that have a more diverse selection of carry-type guns than I do. Years ago I covered like 4 brands pretty well but I'm a 90% Glock owner now, the rest are
mostly full size guns from Sig, CZ, and Dan Wesson.
I realize trying to do this is sometimes logistically painful, but it's not nearly as bad as settling for the wrong gun, which ends up being a lose-lose proposition, because
say you buy something like Shield and you hate it, you're never getting your money back, maybe 60% of it if you're lucky once you factor in the transactional cost of
dumping it and getting something to replace it, etc. The used market is pretty soft these days.
Another idea... find someone halfway competent that does handgun instruction that owns a bunch of different, newer guns. Then on top of getting to try all of his or
her guns you get some instruction out of the deal, too. Win-Win. They can also help you isolate issues that are shooter related vs gun related, although ergonomic
failures of guns show pretty well even in a side by side comparison.
-Mike