Which Para to shoot in IPSC?

Ahahahahahahha

Sorry guys my turn, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GOOD PARA, theyre i said it. Kiwimatt give me a call at my shop in coquitlam and i will fill you in and even show you why you dont at a para complete with glossy 8x10 photos and price comparisons. You would be best going into production or looking at other options and spend the difference on ammo. I admit that they look pretty good from a photo but people used to think AMC Pacers where cool too. Come to the darkside son and we will show you the way and sadly i tell you the truth. I wont even try to sell you an STI,,,,,,,they sell themselves.



HA

Kelly


the devil made me do it and shes not even working here today
 
Don't bother with Paras they are junk - get a real gun an STI Edge. You will be better off in th the long run.
 
Some people apparently don't like Para's ?
Personally I shoot a P14-45 ltd .
Bought it used , previous owner did a few upgrades .
If you are like me and are price sensitive , buy the best used one available with the best upgrades . The calibre won't matter for where you are now .
This will get you in the game with a gun that has worked flawlessly for me and the previous owner at a price point that works .
As your skills improve You can sell it for a better gun and upgrade then .
If you are only considering buying new then I feel better value can be had elsewhere
As for the Para being a " Pacer " I would dissagree . It's more like a Chevy to me .
 
RUPZUK said:
Some people apparently don't like Para's ?
Personally I shoot a P14-45 ltd .
Bought it used , previous owner did a few upgrades .
If you are like me and are price sensitive , buy the best used one available with the best upgrades . The calibre won't matter for where you are now .
This will get you in the game with a gun that has worked flawlessly for me and the previous owner at a price point that works .
As your skills improve You can sell it for a better gun and upgrade then .
If you are only considering buying new then I feel better value can be had elsewhere
As for the Para being a " Pacer " I would dissagree . It's more like a Chevy to me .
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You may have a Para that works for you and that's great. I had several and they were ALL problematic. Sure, I got them to work but it took time and money. I had to replace all the stock guts with real racing parts. That means trigger sear, disconnector and hammer +strut, safety, extractor, trigger, magazine release, at minimum. Then it needed a mag well and the grips and frame had to be thinned because the gun handled like a fence post. I ended up replacing the barrel because the one it came with was crap. The Tanfoglio has had a trigger job and that's it because out of the box that's all it needs. All racing guns...even the ST's.... need trigger jobs, but by the time you put the money into a Para to make it competitive and reliable, you've spent more than 2 grand (at least. I paid less than that for the Tanfo with 6 mags. ) and you still have to run premuim bullets through the barrel or good luck hitting anything. I can shoot a little more than twice as much for the same money. With the number of rounds I tend to shoot in a year, that's worth thou$and$ to me long term.

Oh, and so far I have had not one single malfunction.
 
Para What?

KiwiMatt said:
I'm looking to take my black badge course later this month and I would like to buy a Para for my IPSC gun. I was wondering what Paras people are using for IPSC. I'm thinking of using the S16-40 Limited. Does anyone have any experience shooting one of these in IPSC? Pros, cons?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Matt
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Well...... All you have to do is look at what the pro's are shooting. I mean real pro's, no-one in Canada pros. Well, actually you could look at the top guys in Canada too, I suppose, for a little. The only, absolute only top ranked shooter that shoots Para is Para's own Todd Jarrett. Probably THE best all around shooter in the entire sport. Yep, he shoots a para frame, and a para slide and that's about it. The rest ain't Para Ordnance. He knows more about fixin up pistols than most gunsmiths. He's also got access to some of the best hands in the business. His run fine. All 11 of them. So, go git yourself a pistol that doesn't require a bank and a gunsmith on call to keep running. If you plan to plink a match once a month, a Para will be fine. If you want to train with it hard, shoot lots of matches every year, like about 20000 rounds or so, forget it. If you want to spend some $$$, have some snob appeal, buy an STI. They are great. If you are on a budget, and you want to shoot the same stuff as the current and triple world champion does, buy a TANFOGLIO!
 
The open champ shoots a tangolio, the current Standard and 5 time world champ shoots a hicap springfeild, re. a Para clone. Our current standard champ did pretty well with his Para. He shoots an SV now but he'd still put on a show if he picked the Para back up. Up untill 3 years ago Para had the market cornered on Standard guns in Ontario it wasn't untill Freedom Ventures came along that everyone had to have a STI and now a Tanfoglio. The STI and Tanfoglio are great guns, but if Para was such a junker then they wouldn't have been so dominant in previous years. If you look at the numbers from the US nationals all the steel framed guns except Tanfogliio lost market to STI with SVI in second. The Contingency program had a big role in that. There's a good chucnk of shooters out there that want a hicap 1911 but don't like the polymer frames so they stick with Para's. Relliot brings up the best point in the matter, as of right now no makes a 1911 barrel that will shoot major pf cast or plated rounds aswell as the Tanfoglio, so if you're reloading you can cut bullet cost by close to 50% in some cases. The best thing is paly around with a couple different guns before dropping your money down, you may find yourself more drawn to a Para or less.
 
Madness said:
The open champ shoots a tangolio, the current Standard and 5 time world champ shoots a hicap springfeild, re. a Para clone.
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Hey, you said it. Rob shoots a PARA clone. Para only dreams of being able to turn out quality and metalurgy like Springfield. MB had to quit shooting his paras because they wouldn't stay together. Like RElliott says, too problematic and frail for heavy duty use.
 
Funny I never thought of Sprigfield as a Para clone...I figured it was the other way around...:cool:

As far as Para being :canadaFlag: ...

I expect there are still people around that believe Tim Hortons is still :canadaFlag:
 
There are always haters out there. There are always people that will argue until they're blue in the face that a certain brand is crap. To these people, whatever brand is on top at that moment, is the be all, end all of firearms. And in most cases, for every single one of those people, there are others that will say the exact opposite. And for many of these naysayers, there are also many people that will outshoot them with these so called bad guns.

Shoot what you like, and screw everyone else. Para may not be the best gun in the world...but what is? Everyone has their own opinion and that's all that these bashfests are. Para has been around a long time, and is very successful. Use that as a guide instead of people spewing brand hate.

Let them hate, let them #####, let them cry when you beat them with your 'crap' gun.
 
Para was the first hicap double stack 1911 so the springfeild and essex arms are Para Clones. The company head quarters may be in Canada but they don't really care about the Canadian market. A few years back a friend of mine contacted them about an internal recoil reducing device he designed, they siad they were not interested becuase they were only worried about the european LDA LEO/MIL market at the time. How much involvement have they had at major Canadian IPSC matches? As far as "quality and metalurgy like Springfield" goes they are not so #### hot these days either. If you want to get into that then STI/SVI is the way to go, frames made from soild blocks, no castings or forgings. The point I was trying to get across was that if they are so ####ty why did so many people use them before instead of paying the extra to get an STI/SVI, Springfeild, or what not? I started out with a 16-40 LTD then built up a $3000+ was Para/STI(ignorance played a part in that) and now shoot an STI. Looking back I should have went straight to STI but hindsight is always 20/20. The only Para problem I had was that my rear sight kept blowing up, so have my STI sights.
If the made in Canada stamp is the main reason for getting one then look at STI or Tanfoglio instead, they do far more for the sport. If you plan on doing a good amount of major USPSA matches go STI and sign up for contingency. If ammo cost is a big factor then go with the Tanfoglio. If you want a Para then get one, at the end of the day it's your money and your call.
 
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KiwiMatt said:
I thought Para was a Canadian company. Feel free to enlighten me.

Company Profile
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/app/ccc/s...tblmntNo=123456086343&profile=completeProfile
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Sorry...you missed my sarcam...

People like to think they're buying Canadian...so I figured it would be a good comparison (Tim Hortons..the holy grail...head office Dublin Ohio - USA)

Para Ordance head office - Canada - 100% Canadian manufacture and assembly...no (it gets a little less Canadian every year)
 
I guess I should have added...my first two IPSC Guns were Para's

One stock - and one customized.

The first one is still in use by a guy here in Ottawa (third owner - probably has 50k on it by now) and the second one is in the GTA and has had a new top end put on it. It gets very heavy use...probably well over 100k by now...

I'm not slagging them...they work...it's just these days we have a ton of good choices (in all price ranges)

Cheers
 
Madness said:
The point I was trying to get across was that if they are so s**tty why did so many people use them before instead of paying the extra to get an STI/SVI, Springfeild, or what not?
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For the same reasons I did. They were affordable and there was nothing else available at that price point. The ST's, with the price of the gun and the mags came in considerably more expensive than the Para and at the time, if I hadn't had the Para I simply couldn't have afforded to shoot. It was the right choice for me at the time. The idea with the para was to buy the basic gun and build it up over time as money became available. That is often still the case with many competitors, and it is a valid choice if that's what you want to do. Just be aware that the guns do require a lot of fussing if you are planning to shoot a lot. My main point is that now with Tanfoglio guns being available and supported, there's another choice that doesn't involve dumping a bunch of extra money to make them work. And they eat anything, which is a huge bonus.

To another point: I don't hate Paras. I do however have a pretty clear understanding of what they offer and what they don't. It's a matter of choice for the individual, and I'm just hoping the choice will be well informed.
 
relliott said:
For the same reasons I did. They were affordable and there was nothing else available at that price point. The ST's, with the price of the gun and the mags came in considerably more expensive than the Para and at the time, if I hadn't had the Para I simply couldn't have afforded to shoot. It was the right choice for me at the time. The idea with the para was to buy the basic gun and build it up over time as money became available. That is often still the case with many competitors, and it is a valid choice if that's what you want to do. Just be aware that the guns do require a lot of fussing if you are planning to shoot a lot. My main point is that now with Tanfoglio guns being available and supported, there's another choice that doesn't involve dumping a bunch of extra money to make them work. And they eat anything, which is a huge bonus.

To another point: I don't hate Paras. I do however have a pretty clear understanding of what they offer and what they don't. It's a matter of choice for the individual, and I'm just hoping the choice will be well informed.
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There you go again, trying to interject "logic" into an internet discussion. This always seems to be the rufuge of the haters.......:onCrack: :D ;)
 
KiwiMatt,

Just some more info for you to do your research:

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=45660

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=42660&hl=Para+power+extractor

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=39290&hl=Para+power+extractor

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=37455&hl=Para+power+extractor

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=35372&hl=para+limited

I would probably stay away from a new Para with the Power Extractor but a used one where someone else has already paid to upgrade the trigger group etc. may be a good value. As well, that new TJ-Para comes in at almost the same price as a new STI Edge.

A Para Limited was the best option when I got mine in 2000 and it runs fine but it's probably not the best value for money right now.

Ultimately, it's your decision and you should get what you want (but what you want may be different in time).
 
Hey there
I was woudering if you ever pusrchase your para if yes tell me how is it "becouse" i juste purchase one this month and waitting for my papers to pick it up hope I purchase something good S16-40
 
the rock said:
Hey there
I was woudering if you ever pusrchase your para if yes tell me how is it "becouse" i juste purchase one this month and waitting for my papers to pick it up hope I purchase something good S16-40
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Opinions vary, some people end up with a Friday gun. I purchased a used 16-40 that my son shot for near 1 year with easy 25k through and no problems. He is now shooting an STI that I am sure will serve him just as well. I have taken his old gun and will have no concerns shooting it. Mid way through last year I bought a brand new out of the box 14-45 (don't ask) and shy of a 3lb. trigger, which was an easy fit and a lighter recoil spring 11lb. I have easy 10k with not a hickup. My only recomendation for the 40 is a crisper trigger and
a lighter recoil spring, neither are real expensive. Good shooting
FWIW

DVC
 
Not yet

the rock said:
Hey there
I was woudering if you ever pusrchase your para if yes tell me how is it "becouse" i juste purchase one this month and waitting for my papers to pick it up hope I purchase something good S16-40
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If I've read your post correctly, you are asking if I purchased the S1640 and if so, do I like it?
Well, its not set in stone, but I have decided on the SX1640J which is the S16-40 with some factory upgrades. I will let you know when I get it and how it shoots.
 
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