Dropped by my LGS to look after a gun I bought there (it was sticking on one of the cylinders,)and to see what they would offer me for an "extra" FEG Hi Power clone that was gathering dust in the safe.

While taking my weekly inventory of the stuff in the 9mm cabinet I saw a Stoeger Cougar/8000 at $330. It's a well reviewed gun, fit my hand just right, was in barely-used condition with aftermarket grips and it was Inox, not blued...two mags, case and all the original (unused and unwrapped) tools .

Now I know this is really the former Beretta 8000/Cougar, just manufactured in Turkey on the original Beretta tooling. (Stoeger is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Beretta. When Beretta switched to making the PX4, they simply moved the Cougar machinery to Turkey, rebranded the design, lowered the price and marketed it here as Stoeger.)

I also know that $330 was a good price, if not a very good deal, as it's running between $350 and $400+ on Gunbroker and CDI is asking over $400 for the ones they have. After a bit of horse trading I walked out with it at around $300....which made me a happy guy.

Range report later this week.

Here's a pic:

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I'm on my third Cougar 8045 from Stoeger. I've taken friends to the range to shoot and when they shoot the Cougar, 1. they can't believe it is a 45ACP as the recoil is quite different than a 1911 and 2. they want to buy it. That's why I'm on my third one. It is my car/truck gun. I really like being able to keep a round in the chamber with the hammer disconnected. Have you changed the hammer spring in yours yet? Makes quite the difference in the trigger and I've found it very reliable as far as setting off any make primer.

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I bought one when they first hit the scene which was 9-10 years ago. I tinkered with the trigger and got it better. Finally went too light on the hammer spring. Need to get a Beretta D spring for it. It's a good gun for the money, though I prefer the third generation Smiths. $300 for the Inox version is a great price.

I have two of the original Berettas,one in .40 and the other is .45. I use to carry the .40 as a CCW until I got my Glock 27.
To me these were very well made and I really liked them, I wanted to get one in 9mm but never got around to it.,I will when the right one comes along.
The .45 when I purchased it was sold in what they called The Cat Pack. It came in a special aluminum case with special grips plus the stock grips and some othe special throw ins.
I probably never sell them they do shoot very well!

Hugely under-rated guns. I've got the Beretta 8040D(DAO version) and love the way rotating barrel pistols shoot. I also picked up a PX4 just to compare and it's nothing but a cheapened 8040. The PX4 was cheap enough at $250 used, but at the time the police trade 8040Ds were available on GB for the same $250 so I went back to stocking up on those. Whenever I find a deal on something I like I sweep up enough of them to make it worthwhile. It was surprisingly difficult to amass a quantity of magazines for the .40s,.......don't know how the availability is on the 9mm mags. 92/96 series magazines can be recut for the Cougar but I just kept buying up the 8040 magazines as I found them until I was satisfied with my supply. Seemed strange that the guns were surplused out so cheaply but the magazines were difficult to find and relatively expensive. That was my only complaint. The guns shoot well(and softly)and feel good in the hand.

When I first purchased my .40 I was overly impressed on how well it shot and how easy it was on the hand.