I did that entire quest with Trust. You can farm them from Menagerie now. One with explosive payload is great, because it causes a whole lot of flinch. I outshot many pulse rifles with my Trust on a pretty consistent basis. That’s more difficult now with the hand cannon range reduction, though.

I’ve heard of folks using Crimson or Ace of Spades pretty successfully. Ultimately, just find a hand cannon that feels good to you. 180s used to be the only ones really worth using, but that’s changed.

I really love Rose now. Using something like Le Monarque then swapping to a hand cannon to finish up poisoned opponents works incredibly well, but it is a play style that takes some getting used to.

Any other advice for play techniques while using them, knowing that I normally use PRs?

Is there a way for me to share my inventory via DIM or something? I thought I had done it in the past but I couldn't find a link.

link to DIM screenshot

My first thought is that maybe you should try Crimson. It was pretty decent in PvP when it was masterworked. It might just sync with you. Other than that I would say trying some nontraditional hand cannons like Thorn, Ace of Spades, or Last Word.

If Trust is still good, use that.

I used Duke and Trust. Duke is a bit of an acquired taste, but I like it because the range falloff on handcannons isn't as painful on the high impact ones.

If you are coming from pulse rifles, the closer effective range band of handcannons will be the hardest adjustment. Pinging enemies from a distance isn't nearly as effective, so you'll have to focus more on flanking, while shotgunners become more dangerous.

There's a lot of good advice in this thread already. I'm only jumping in because I'm a lot like you, playstyle-wise. I was pretty much all pulse rifles, all the time (they're still my go-to primary, but I'm a LITTLE more flexible than I used to be ;) ). I never thought Luna's was achievable, so I didn't even try for it until halfway through year 2.

I really thought the hard part was gonna be getting to Fabled, which is why I didn't bother. Recluse looked pretty amazing, though, so I gave it a shot. And once I'd hit Fabled, I figured "hey, why NOT try for Luna's?"

I like using Hand Cannons in PvE... but I never used them in PvP, because the aiming I needed to do took too long against human opponents. I think I started out with Trust, because so many people were so positive about it... I'm like Cruel, I can't really do very well with it. It has a lot of aim assist, though - try it out for yourself.

Got a little discouraged, someone suggested Crimson. I found the health regen (and the pulse-like bullet output) felt right for me... I finished the first HC section with it. I wasn't getting a ton of headshots, though, and I knew that was gonna be a problem on the second HC portion.

I hadn't played much with Ace of Spades, but I practiced a bunch in PvE, getting the hang of reloading after a kill to proc Memento Mori, without dying to the next enemy because I was reloading. (I say this because for me, it was a conscious thing; most people are smart enough to shoot until the enemies are dead, and THEN reload... but I seemed to have 2 modes at the beginning: I could either kill and instantly reload, regardless of what was in front of me, or just keep shooting, reloading only when I was out of bullets... forgetting to proc the perk that makes Ace such a worthwhile contender. It took a LOT of practice to train myself to do the right one, depending on circumstances. Sounds stupid to write it down, and again for most people it's as natural as breathing... but I needed to force myself to learn it.)

Once I had the rhythm down, though, Ace was a MONSTER. I'd hang back, wait for an enemy to get damaged (so that a 1v1 wouldn't require that I do as much damage as he was doing), then finish him off... and proc Memento. Now I've got 6 extra-damage bullets; two headshots kill a full-health Guardian. If he's alone, I reload, and I'm back up to 6 MM shots. If he's not, I shoot until I'm dry, doing extra damage at first. Went pretty fast.

If you're not good at headshots, Ace is a TERRIBLE gun. Fires slowly, reloads slowly, takes too long to kill. If you're good at headshots, the opposite is true. So the obvious path is: get good at headshots. :) (I did it in PvE, which is so much more forgiving. People better than me just do it in PvP and sneer at me. :) )

Anyway - I just wanted to echo what others have said. Trust is fantastic, if you can use it. (I get killed by it regularly, it outshoots things that should be WAY better.) I couldn't use it. Crimson got me used to using a Hand Cannon in Crucible without throwing my controller at a wall. Ace of Spades finished the precision part of the quest for me, after I learned to use it well.

Tons of good advice in here. I really like Claude's rec to get used to stuff in PVE.
The bow+HC loadout advice seems like it would work well, plus potentially help me deal with my normal PR range, by shooting with bow then closing in with HC.

Testing done on PC (bullet magnetism only) in the Tribute Hall; Measurements done with DARCI; Target is Dreg Ultra.

So, I know that this season has had a big upset on damage fall off for Hand Cannons. Now they're all roughly in the 25-28m range. The Collection Roll for Rose (62 Range) starts at 26m. I have an Austringer (60 range) that also falls off at about 26m. In PvE (I have not tested if the behavior is different in PvP) the minimum damage range (your damage floor where you will never do less) is 43m. On both weapons I retain aim assistance past that range. Approx. 50m for Rose (85 Aim Assist stat) and approximately 47m for Austringer (75 Aim Assist stat) when I'm lining up the edge of the sighting dot to the edge of the target's head. This does not seem to change whether the Dreg is facing to me or to the side.

Additionally, a Duke with a 72 Range gets about 1 more meter for the start of fall off, but the damage floor is also about 43m. It has 69 for Aim Assist. It gets aim assist out to about 51m.

So, the additional information here is that you can team shoot (not as useful for Final Blows) as well as clean up (useful for Final Blows) with a Hand Cannon and get aim assistance out to about twice the range of where damage fall off starts. Range has more impact on this than the AA stat, but it seems to be an interaction of the two. A 140 like Austringer has a damage floor of 28 on a crit, I believe. Which means you can clean up a Guardian with 2/5 of their Red Health left with a single shot with my Austringer semi-reliably out to 47m. Don't try to start fights well past your damage fall off, but don't hesitate to try to finish them, and your range stat will make that easier.