Fucking-a; a few days at the dentist and I've missed 10 conversations!
Lots to recap here.
First, yea, the shoot would be on a weekend. Most likely a Saturday. I expect most everyone has Saturdays off?
Omar/Mike:Sig .40s&w/.357sig: everything is identical EXCEPT for the barrel. My P226 was also a .40 when I got it; I bought a factory Sig .357s barrel and voila! The .357 is dead sexy and just "feels right" to me in the gun, but the .40 ammo is going to be easier to find and cheaper to shoot. Regardless, with the gun and both barrels, you essentially have two guns you can shoot depending on ammo availability.
Omar:Also, 2700rd down the pipe isn't really all that much. I know it sounds like a lot, but I ran 500 rds through one of my guns on Weds. just testing a new prototype magazine out. I put probably 1k/mo through my glock 19, and I'm not shooting much at all anymore. Maybe 3 or 4 outings a month. When you're shooting frequently enough to maintain proficiency (say 100-200rds/mo), the round counts go up a lot faster than when you're only breaking the gun out 2 or 3 times a year and putting a box of 50rds through it. In short, 2700rds is only a bit more than "broken in".
Mike:Paras are actually pretty good. My gov't model is a Para. That said, I know they've got a hit-or-miss reputation online, but I've known a lot of para shooters and all were happy with their guns. The biggest pain point for them in recent times was the move from Canada to NC, which is about the time I got mine and had my rear sight issue. The biggest issue with Paras (still to this day) is the finish on their non-SS guns; they are WELL known to have flaking/chipping/wear issues.
Anyhow, the Springfield GI's are also considered good "base" guns, but it's also tough to beat the Rock Island Armory guns. As I think I've mentioned, the RIA guns are frequently used as the foundation for top-level USPSA/IPSC race guns. If I could get my money back on my Para and my Colt, I'd get a couple RIA's without batting an eye. Though, I prefer the SS finishes to the paint/coating type finishes (save for Glocks' Tenifer).
PaulYes. Explosives. Big bada-boom!
That, however, will depend on where we do our range day. I have a place in mind, but I'm not sure if we'll be able to book it.
Market/election antics:This has nothing to do with politics, religion, or even reality; it's all about mass-psychology and (to a lesser extent) market factors.
We've pretty much got a "perfect storm" brewing right now. We've got an incumbent who has repeatedly made comments that he'd like to back-door gun legislation through executive orders, and whose DOJ got busted selling guns illegally to the mexican drug cartels so they could justify more gun control. Plus, Obama also made comments that "Treyvon was like a long-lost son", and the whole Sanford mess is going to probably become a huge gun-rights show down where Obama is standing on the anti (and this could also be used as justification for a gun ban). Not to mention, Obama also got caught on an open mic telling the Russians "just wait 'til you see what I do once I don't have to worry about getting reelected". For all we know, he's planning to turn-coat and turn us into a libertarian paradise; or equally a socialist one. The fact is that we don't know, but the comment is being interpreted to mean that he's going to try and fuck up America and the constitution as badly as he can. He also has a history of trying to bypass congress with things he wants done, but they don't (SOPA type laws come to mind with the ACTA agreement he signed without the consent of congress).
Add to this that it looks like he actually has a chance of winning, and the firearms market goes nutty since a clinton-style ban (or worse) thus appears imminent.
Now, lets look at the (now) only alternative: Romney. "Romneycare" was the basis for "Obamacare", and facilitated the passing of a clinton-style gun-ban in MA. For all intents and purposes, this makes him very much a psychological equal to Obama. The catch is that he'll be in his "first-4" looking for a reelection if he wins. This, in the mind of some, makes him better than Obama, although only slightly. Regardless, the election of Romney also makes a gun ban appear pretty imminent (maybe not first 4, but very likely by second 4).
So, yes, the problem is that you've got anti-2a vs anti-2a; no matter who wins its bad for gun owners and gun rights. The variable is "how bad" and that's something I don't think anyone can hope to predict (as much as they'd like to).
Now, lay politics aside for a minute. We've also got a lot of folks who are absolutely convinced that the earth is going to stop turning, the polar ice caps will melt, jesus will return, the devil will come to earth, and so on and so forth all on 12/21/2012. These people are building underground shelters and stockpiling multi-year food supplies along with tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of rounds of ammunition along with tens and hundreds of firearms.
Also, lets not forget that copper prices are through the roof, along with brass and pretty much every other metal out there due to world wide economic woes, and a zillion other market factors.
In short, we've got a presidential election - which almost always makes the firearms market a bit crazy unless the incumbent is essentially assured reelection and is very pro-2a - where the guaranteed outcome is NOT 2a friendly (so there is no hope to keep the market at all rational), added with say 5-10% of the country believing doomsday is imminent and as such they are willing to pay ANY price to build their stockpile, plus metals and materials prices through the roof.
When it was Obama vs Mccain, the more it looked like Obama would win, the worse the firearms market got (prices went up, availability went down). After the election, a lot of vendors had multi-year backlogs.
The gut feeling from the couple of industry insiders I know is that (given the current situation of all of the above), this "crunch" is likely to be *MUCH* worse. It's started a lot earlier than the '08 mess, and it's getting a lot worse a lot faster.
The same sort of thing is happening in the NFA (machine guns, suppressors, destructive devices, etc.) world with the transfers through ATF; the processing time is going up one month for every month that passes because the application volume is increasing at a HUGE rate; in part due to election fears, in part due to EOTWAWKI fears, and in part because some states have recently passed pro-gun/NFA legislation (washington recently made the use of suppressors legal within the state, even though ownership has been legal for years, and a few other states just legalized suppressors for hunting use).
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