Up here it's, "If only I could find ammo!" Most of the sporting goods stores have laminated signs behind the counter reading "We are out of 9mm and .380 Ammo." The case price for .45ACP is $21/box.
And good luck finding reloading supplies!
I know, right?! My buddy and I stopped by Big 5 to pick up some shotshells for trap shooting last week, and do you know how many boxes of plain ol' .22LR they had? ZERO. And now you're telling me reloading equipment is like that, too? Jeez.
If you are buying new, ry Irvington Arms in Fremont. They have pretty decent pricing and are not too far way from you. Another reasonable shop is City Arms in Pacifica.
If you haven't already, I would see if you can find one to shoot. They are very cool and I can honestly say I enjoy recoil, but I would say that it is definately the most jarring gun I have shot. I think it has a lot to do with the compensator redirecting recoil backwards instead of upwards. It is definately different than almost anything else I have shot.
My father has an 8 inch and we load up every thing from the lightweight 350gn to the 500gn bullets in them. The 500gn is my favorite load I think. :naughty: They are really impressive. Ammo cost seems to be about $2-$2.50 a shot also so you may want to keep that in mind. Some indoor ranges do not allow them because of the noise and backstop requirements. I am not sure how many pistols you have, but this would not make a good 1st or 2nd because of its expense ammo wise and it can cause a little flinch to get bigger.
You may want to check out the calguns.net forum market place as they come up for sale used every so often for about $900 or so.
Here is a video of my buddy shooting ours for the 1st time. You can see that there is not as much upward movement as what would be expected because of the compensator.
http://www.unnerv.com/cedarcamp/dan500.avi
Yep, Irvington Arms is where I bought my first gun, a little Marlin. In fact, both the store and the rifle were
recommended to me by you guys.
Maybe I'll give them a call.
My buddy and I rented a 4" at Reed's (Target Masters stopped allowing rounds more powerful than .44 Mag just a short while before I wanted to try it, due to incorrect replacement plates being sent to them or something) a long while ago. The only ammo they sold for it was about $4/rd... $75 for a box of 20! Still, we only fired eight rounds or so. It's the only handgun I've ever put more than a couple rounds through that I didn't quickly feel comfortable enough to fire one-handed. Granted, I only just barely put more than a couple rounds through it, so I have a ways to go in terms of practice/familiarity. However, my buddy said that if I get a 500, he will not fire it after having tried it out that day - too much for his taste.
I actually have a video of myself firing the 4" 500, but before I could get it edited/uploaded, my computer broke. However, I recently reestablished most of the necessary tools on the computer I'm using now, so maybe there'll be a bunch of new content on my site soon.
I agree that the cost of ammo is going to be a real PITA.
My best advice would be to call around to get as much information as possible, do the calculations (tax, dros, transfer fee, shipping, gas if you're making two trips, etc) and go with the best deal. That's what I would do.
Yep, this might be a good motivation to finally get into reloading. Regardless, I'm going to be shooting this thing pretty sparingly.
When I tell people I want one of these, the first thing out of their mouths is usually "why??". I figure that I might as well get the most exciting things I can, since practicality is basically moot. I already have shotguns and a .22, so sporting purposes are pretty much covered. I don't need something for EDC, since (according to the guys at Kerley's), CCWs are impossible to get unless you a) are a retired judge, b) donate heavily to the Sheriff's Association, or c) are a celebrity. Since none of those apply to me, and carrying unconcealed in CA and particularly in the SF Bay Area is laughable, I don't need the reliability of a Glock, the stopping power of a .45, the simplicity of a .38, or pretty much anything. The question, then, becomes not "why?" but "why not?".
And hey, I don't even need ivory, either!
