Interesting question...

[Destro]

a beat up glock or CZ 75

 

[Birds Away]

I would go with a Canik or Sarsilmaz.

 

[danielson]

I think I understand what your suggesting, nothing mainstream, and nothing expensive. That rules out some of the suggestions others have made, like the sigma, and the CZ's You cant just pick a lower priced big name gun, because in this version of hell, THEY DON'T EXIST!!!

So, if I was cast into your proposed hell, I would carry my Keltec P11, mostly because I already have it, and have shot it alot. If I didnt have that gun already, and I had to make an unbiased choice of "low cost hell" gun, i guess it would be:

 

[Destro]

I think I understand what your suggesting, nothing mainstream, and nothing expensive. That rules out some of the suggestions others have made, like the sigma, and the CZ's You cant just pick a lower priced big name gun, because in this version of hell, THEY DON'T EXIST!!!

OP mentioned a $300 price range, A used CZ75, Sigma, and Glock 22 gen 2 are all in that range

 

[danielson]

When I read his post, he made it sound like if you woke up in some kind of hell tomorrow, and all the big names were gone, what would you buy from the B list of handguns? Maybe I took it differently

 

[kblazer87]

I have 9 Taurus handguns in the safe right now and have owned and sold or traded another dozen or so over the last 15 years and feel equally protected with any of them as I would with the Rugers, Sigs, Smiths and Glocks I have owned. So I guess my choice of "B guns" would be Taurus.

 

[SouthernStar25]

Charter Arms Mag Pug .357
Taurus 605

 

[agregory]

EDC Bersa guess I made the choice