A couple people had expressed interest in this topic, and I have a bit of extra time for a couple days, so here goes:
Bona fides: I am a former infantry NCO and sniper, hunter, competitive shooter, reloader, hobby gunsmith, sometimes firearms trainer and currently work in a gun shop, mostly on the paperwork/compliance side. Back in the day, was a qualified expert with every standard small arm in the US inventory circa 2003 (M2, 4, 9, 16, 19, 249, 240B, 21, 24, 82 etc.), and today hang around the 75th percentile of USPSA classifications. I've shot Cap-and-Ball, Trap and Sporting Clays badly; Bullseye and PRS somewhat better and IDPA/USPSA/UML/Two-gun with some local success. Been active in the 2A community since the mid-90s, got my first instructor cert in high school, and have held a CPL for almost twenty years now.
I certainly don't claim to be an expert in every aspect of firearms, there's huge areas that escape my knowledge base, but if you've got questions I'll do my best to answer.
Technical questions
Gun control proposals for feasibility
Industry
Training
Wacky opinions
General geekery
Some competition links (not my own) just for the interested.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=U5IhsWamaLY&t=173
https://youtube.com/watch?v=93nEEINflXE
https://youtube.com/watch?v=utcky0zq10E
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Notes -
Any recommendations for a handgun training program or resources? Now that ammo prices are less insane, I'd like to more properly develop the skill.
On a related note, I've had employees at the range tell me I'm "good for a beginner, could be very good with practice". The cynic in me says this is a naked effort to get me to come spend more money, while the compliment-starved male in me wants to bask in the praise. How common is that sort of fluffing, do you think?
On a different note, I have ended up in possession of a neat inheritance of classic firearms, including some 19th century antiques. I'd like to get them cleaned up into display pieces, but formal ownership of the items is basically a gentlemen's agreement, and some of the other men in the family have expressed some vague concerns about getting ripped off or screwed over. Any suggestions for finding a reputable antique restoration gunsmith? I'd ask at the range, I feel like I'm on good terms with the owners... but they're all cops and a libertarian part of me flinches at rolling up and announcing I have a bunch of unlicensed guns of dubious legal provision in the trunk. Any insight on the legal side of that? If it matters, they belonged to my grandfather, who died unexpectedly young, so no will.
And on a geekier note, this is an Ares Predator from Shadowrun. If someone (me) wanted to have something customized to look like that, full form-over-function, what starting base would you recommend? Supposedly, the design was inspired by the gun from Robocop, which is a modified Beretta 92fs, but that's closer to what Shadowrun would consider a "light" pistol, as opposed to the Predator as the mechanical king of the heavies.
More personally, what do you use as your competition guns, and why did you pick them? Is that different from your EDC?
It's a small pic, but that appears to be an Ares Predator IV. Here's the whole series for reference.
The Predator I is a direct rip of the auto-9 from robocop, which is a beretta 93r with a very long barrel and barrel shroud.
The Predator II is the most conventional design in the series; it's basically a beretta 93r, with a very large, exaggerated front sight, exaggerating the angle of the frame forward of the trigger guard, and a glock-style trigger safety.
The Predator III is a redrawn version of the Predator I. It's a bit more compact due to a shorter barrel/barrel shroud, and it's been re-gubbinized to be a little less obviously derivative, but still retaining the Predator II's glock trigger.
The Predator IV design is a divergence from the previous models, and clearly not based on the beretta. The trigger and safety are copied from the 1911, and since those are two of the elements that would be the hardest to rework in a custom design, that's probably how you'd want to go. A lot of the design is greebled pretty heavily in ways that make little practical sense, but generally it looks like you have a bulked out frame forward of the trigger guard, comparable to something like booligan's Big Chungus Glock build. There's an accessory rail along the bottom of the frame, a massively oversized rear sight derived from the auto-9, and the grip is reminiscent of an EAA Witness.
Concur with @JTarrou's advice for a longslide 1911; you can even get it in 10mm, to better match the fluff specs. If you're going for maximum accuracy, you'd want to eliminate the grip safety somehow, while keeping the exaggerated beavertail; this might make the gun significantly less safe from a practical use standpoint, but for a range gun it's probably not a problem. You could get a frame CNC'd to match the 1911 internals to the fairly arbitrary external shape. There's some things I'm not sure you're going to get around, like the Predator IV's lack of an ejection port, but you might be able to get close with some sort of slide shroud.
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