Disclaimer: To my new coworkers and anyone else googling me... honestly, I'm not a "gun nut." I do like shooting though, and have started trap shooting again after a 15 year layoff. I never owned a pistol (non-airgun) before but the club I just joined (
Pitcarin-Moroeville Sportsmen's) has nice indoor and outdoor ranges.
To that end (after a week or two of extensive research) I purchased a
Dan Wesson 1911 .45ACP Pointman Aussie, direct from the factory through
Gunbroker.com (think E-bay for guns.) The transaction was remarkably easy. All I need to do was contact a local dealer, to arrange shipment and transfer and mail the FFL to Dan Wesson. A few days later the gun was waiting for me to pick it up.
FedEX did a great job of fucking up the delivery. First they attempted delivery at 11:20am to a business that does not open until 12pm. Sometime between then and the next delivery attempt they managed to nearly destroy the package... which they just reboxed and delivered. I almost shit my pants when I opened the box to find a smashed, burnt, and nearly shredded gun case. I have no idea how the gun managed to escape unscathed.
I took Deb and my mom shooting yesterday, and I took my friend
Andrew shooting today. Andrew learned amazingly quick and did some real nice shooting.
Everyone had a blast. I was surprised to find the .45acp remarkably easy shooting. No one had problems with the recoil... and with some practice we all were shooting ok. It's going to take a lot of practice to really get good though.