There's nothing special about one place or the other when it comes to retailers, you're simply looking for the best price and of course there's the paperwork. Gunshows...you might get lucky if you're patient and no paperwork obviously. There were several GP100's at the Medina show a while ago. I can tell you right now that if you're shooting .357 Mags you might as well get a .45 ACP. .40's kick just as much also so if you're thinking the GF won't be able to use it you better plan on getting her a 9mm or something else. My wife can shoot my .45 but she doesn't do it a lot. As long as she understands the guns operates and knows how to properly sight in her target, it will get a hole put in it. As for the GP and exposed hammer stuff, people have been carrying revolvers for a long long time. I wouldn't let that keep you from using it for the CCW. Most places won't even let or make you shot it from the holster anyway (liability risk). It will be out on a bench awaiting the instructors firing range commands, very simple and quite easy. Tell you what...let's make a plan to head to the range. I'll bring the plinkster (.22 Neo w/ Red Dot), the FNP-9, and the PT-145. I'll give you the 9 and .45, give the .22 to your GF along with a little instruction so she know what to expect. Then we'll let her shoot the 9 and .45 so she comfortable and knows what to expect. Hell, if your folks have some land we could just road trip it down there since I could spend more time giving you some safety instruction and tips. Give me a holla when you have some free time. I'll be down in TN this week and get home on Fri. evening. Tell me about it...all I heard was 'GLOCK GLOCK GLOCK GLOCK GLOCK GLOCK'. I was just about ready to tell the dude to go blow his Glock. I have a 2nd gen. PT with the stupidly long trigger pull. Turbo810 recent bought one at B&T in Lorain and what a difference this latest gen. is. The trigger is sooo much better now. I had to take it down to see what was different and if I could upgrade mine. No dice though because the trigger assembly AND firing mechanism was completely different. I might as well just buy a new one.