Impulse buy!
Sinsaba: Yes, those are the ones!
Ok guys, Gun o' the week will be the Beretta PX4 Storm. I traded my seldom used full size Witness .45 (actually sold it outright not 10' after walking in the D/C show). Dale City. Aside from being in Prince William County, the show staff is friendly, courteous and has no problem with ammo, or you loading up before leaving. This is a step in the right direction. Anyway, Trader Jerry had them for $520 w/ 3 mags.
For those not in the know, the PX4 is Beretta USA's response to the LE / Gov't contract sales being chiseled away at by Sig, H&K w/ their fancy triggers, and dissatisfied Glock contracts. Sinsaba, no offense, but how many times can your department stand to replace the entire service pistol itself and still call them serviceable...2? 3?
At a certain class recently, I listened to someone explain how Glocks warranty was only limited to a couple of years... But they have always just fixed broken guns free - But wait
broken guns?
then went on to explain how he got a handful of replacement parts at some Glock sponsored event to fix a broken one
broken what I wonder? Obviously the truth is somewhere between they never break and they break all the time, and I liken this to the cult of the Mac10 which has a similar rap in the Submachine gun world, albeit a little more "Barrio". A lot of shooters have a bit of an imagination about how reliable their pet gun is. My Mac is a cheap piece of heavy steel that works about 90-95% reliability, probably 98-99 on factory rounds - BUT that means about 5 malfs in a range session for me... I've actually seen some of the Glock guys come off the line after breaking a part, look someone in the eye and proclaim that same gun has never failed...
I must not have that kind of success, because I've had several guns which didn't stack up or broke. Among them: An SKS, 2 Mossberg 500's, a Sears 12 gauge, 2 Beretta 96's, Taurus PT145 and I'm sure I'm shorting a few. Anyway, back to the PX4 Storm. If none of you ever shot a Beretta 8k series Cougar, well, it was ok. Not spectacular, but OK. Compact but HEAVY. The PX4 took the stronger rotating barrel operating system of the Cougar and enlarged/modularized it to try and bring it "mainstream". Reassembling the Cougar was an absolute B!tch because you could not keep the rotating barrel & lug assembly from moving while replacing the slide. This alone was enough for me to sell the 8040 I had. The PX4 addresses this, but weakly IMO. It's still more intricate to reassemble, but it does lock in place w/o moving, thus allowing easier reassembly. Nowhere close to the modified Browning design, but enough to bring Beretta into the "ease of maintenance" league of the other top designs. The PX4 is hammer fired, a preference of mine, and I think the action feels very, very good. Trigger pull is a long, but not ridiculous double action at about 9-10 pounds, smooth, no stacking. Actually very, very good as far as DA/SA guns go. S/A is about 4.5 pounds(?) - just guessing here - typical of Beretta. Reset is positive, but not as positive as H&K LEM, Glock, P99. As good possibly better than other DA/SA offerings.
Ergos: Excellent. The slide release is reachable for average hands, trigger reach is good, safety/decocker I'm undecided on. I don't like mechanical safeties, but I'll give it a fair chance. No accessories I can find yet, but my initial impressions are favorable.
I'm light on 9mm, so if you want to put any serious rounds through the G.O.W., pick up some and give Smurfslayer a hand wringing out the new gun.
Let's see if the oldest gun company has put out a winner, also ran, or dog...