I’ve been lusting for a PC9111 for years and I’m now contemplating pulling the trigger. (Yeah - could have saved a lot if I bought 10 years ago).

I recall the waiting period being measured in years. Now, there is probably at least a dozen available if you do a thorough search among the big gun dealers. What gives? How is it so many are suddenly available at $300-400 off list price?

Springfield stopped taking work on customer supplied guns. This allowed them to catch up on the backlog. The custom shop recently started doing some limited work on customer supplied pistols.

OP part of it may be that Springfield made a bunch of folks very disappointed for a legislative choice they made last year.
I know lots of folks online were promising not to buy anything from them...

If they did stop buying then Springfield likely has seen a slowing of demand and that would allow them / force them to focus on what they have the best choice of selling is my guess.

Let us know what you think about it when you get it!

HK Ag

If you search places like the 1911 addicts classifieds their are some good deals on used ones out there too

My best friend and I snagged consecutive serial number Pros in 9mm when we saw that was an option now


Love it. It’s a great gun

quote:

Originally posted by Kevbo:
If you search places like the 1911 addicts classifieds their are some good deals on used ones out there too

My best friend and I snagged consecutive serial number Pros in 9mm when we saw that was an option now


Love it. It’s a great gun

Thanks. I used to be a member of several 1911 forums but slowly lost interest. Tough to beat SF. I’ll look again. It would be nice to get a deal.

I have my suspicions as to why these rolled out as quickly as they did. I was told that the one I ordered for the shop a year and half prior to its arrival would take 2 1/2 to 3 years to show up. That was Standard Operating Procedure according to the rep that took the order.

Then the Illinois debacle happened, and lo and behold the shop's Professional showed up in half the time, along with the invoice of course.

Sales of Springfields, particularly their polymer XD/XDM lines starting slowing and immediate action was needed. Our shop saw it, as did other dealers in the area from my conversations with buddies working in those locales. Annual magazine/gear giveaways/rebates moved up (and extended), then repeated sooner than the usual 12 month interval when it apparently didn't do as well as hoped for. Factory discounts and dealer incentive programs begin in earnest.

The industry in general has been sluggish, but SA products were hit particularly hard for us, not that I've tried very hard to sell them myself. We ordered light on SA this year at World Wide, opting mostly for long guns. Their 1911s still creep out of the store so our buyer bought a few of those. And we sampled a few more Mod2 guns, but those are languishing with only a lone one leaving the store once in a blue moon. It's generally been a morbid time for us with Springfield handguns. I would imagine at least a few other shops around the country are seeing similar sales results.

So with long lead time items like the Professional, at SA the fear of cancellation has to begin to creep in. After all, if gun shops are finding the 'Springfield' brand is taking on pariah status, how easy will it be to sell one of their $3k pistols? So far for us, not easy at all. Especially after they "dumped" so many on the market at one time when they did their 'decided to catch up on their backlog' move. They concentrated their resources on getting those guns to dealers in one big push so they can bill for those, and as result flooded the market.

Consequently Springfield did no favors for us dealers with this move. It was a money grab for them impure and simple, to get these backorders filled as fast as possible before those forgotten orders could be cancelled at the dealer level. Yes technically it's "clearing the backlog" but that sugar-coated decision and action wasn't done for any magnanimous reason on behalf of the product-starved dealers. In fact it's had the opposite effect because it used to be that unless you're timing was right, an interested consumer often had to hunt high and low to find one. But now that so many of the guns have hit store shelves across the country, dealers have no choice but to discount them in the hope of getting out from under that invoice from Geneseo before it becomes due.

Right now few Springfield products sell well for us. Only M1As and Saints move with any regularity. XDMs are nonevents, as are XDS pistols. As mentioned earlier, the Mod2s as well as the rest of the XD line are just as bad. We did sell a largish (for us) batch of XDEs only because SA offered them so cheap that we just turned around and passed the savings along to customers and people being people, who doesn't love a bargain even it's from a louse of a company.

That's my take on the Professional situation. So far we've held the line on pricing for the one we have, but I may have to knuckle under to the pressure to move the damned thing and drop the price as well. No shop likes sitting on sales dogs.

Soggy, I always appreciate information like this from people actually in the business at the LGS level. Those of us not in the business always have our opinions and speculation as to why this or that. But people actually in the business have to actually know whats what, because it's dollars and cents right now.

Soggy, it makes sense to me.

Another big reason is that the government contract was up last year. That loosened up the supply for civilian purchase, and the waiting period began to decline. They are wonderful pistols, and I will never let mine go.

quote:

Originally posted by FishOn:
Another big reason is that the government contract was up last year. That loosened up the supply for civilian purchase, and the waiting period began to decline. They are wonderful pistols, and I will never let mine go.

What kind of ammo do you use with the Pro?
I recall the original specs were for Golden Sabres for optimum accuracy.

I have run several kinds of ammo, but for the range I use Federal 230 grain FMJ or Speer Lawman clean fire. I did not clean it once until I had 1000 rounds through it. I had zero failures or problems during those 1000 rounds. It is a great pleasure to shoot. If you want to know everything possible about the Pro, go to 1911 Forum and read the "Official "Professional" specification thread". It is 214 pages long. I read through that before buying mine, and learned a lot.