After about 2 years of thinking and shooting and talking to people who shoot I finally bought my first 9mm handgun.
I have a good friend who is a, shall we say gun enthusiast? He has so many pistols I have lost count. He has multiple copies of certain models as well. He has been kind enough to take me out shooting 3-4 times and will bring 4 different models to try each time. So, I've shot about 10 different guns over the course of my search.
I narrowed my selection down to S&W M&P, Glock 17 and Beretta PX4 Storm. I knew the caliber would be 9mm or .40. I had been looking for a while but was waiting for prices to come down some more, I didn't want to spend more than $500.
The gun will be used for home defense and some target shooting.
My friend called me a couple weeks ago and said he had decided to pare down his handgun collection and sell off some of the guns he didn't shoot as much anymore to fund the purchase of some more expensive handguns. He said he had a gun he thought would meet my criteria.
He loaned me the gun to try out and shoot at the range and if I liked it he said he would give me a good deal on it.
The gun is a Beretta 8000 Cougar. This is a 1995 model so it was made by Beretta, I think the Cougar is now made by a Hungarian maker. My friend said he had put a few hundred rounds through it, the gun has been very well kept and looks nearly new.
We took it to the range today and it shot very nicely, pretty tight groups at 5 and 10 yards. I was able to reliably hit the silhouette with the target at 15 yards which is pretty good for me as I am a very new shooter.
Anyhow, here is a pic:
The gun came with the original case, manual and all paperwork, two 10 round clips and three 15 round clips. Also included was a small gun safe box, a holster and 100 rounds of 114 gr ammo. My buddy said he would take $400 for all of it which is a steal from what I can tell.