I recently bought the Stoeger Cougar 9mm as my first handgun, mostly because of the "value" (I'm getting a Beretta for 1/2 the price!). It's a nice gun, but I'm not totally happy with my purchase, for a couple reasons. I don't feel like I shoot it as accurately as say, a Glock 22. I'll blame myself for the poor accuracy, although I have gotten a lot of shots where I swear I was aiming better than where the shot ended up, my groups look like crap compared to some other guns I've shot. Again, I'm not necessarily blaming the gun for that, but I've left the range a little frustrated. Size - it's got a 3.6" barrel - decidedly compact in length, but it's 5.5" tall (decidely full size), with a thick grip, making it hard to conceal.
Anyways, it's a nice gun that I didn't have to break the bank for, but now that I'm getting my CCW, I need something smaller, and I'm thinking about something bigger that will be a better target shooter and HD gun, so I'm already seeing myself selling this gun in the near future. The nice thing is, even though I paid full retail at $350, I bet I can sell it for close to $300, so it is a safe bet in that regard.