Kurt,
What you're thinking of doing will work fine. Have the prints made to standard size, then scan them. The issue is one of time/convenience more than anything. Sure, a good digital SLR could do better in terms of quality. But as someone above said, web pics suffer from quality for other reasons.
If you can spare a few hundred bucks, take the digital plunge. You'll make out in time and in short order, money. With a digital camera, you can go from taking the picture to having it on this bbs in few minutes.
If you are an accomplished 35mm SLR guy, jumping right to a digital SLR would be easy. However, I recommend that a person's first digital be a midsized camera with all the bells and whistles they offer at relatively low cost. You can buy a new close-out model loaded with features. For gun photog, I'd suggest one with a relatively large diameter lense (light gathering and quality), a macro mode (very handy), a built-in flash, and a telephoto mode of at least 8x (for outdoor/hunting).
If you have an old SLR, the lenses may or may not be of any value for use on a new digital SLR. I have a digital SLR now, but held out on film for a long time. Digital SLR models from the big names (Nikon, Canon, etc) are coming out at a rate of a about 2 new models per year or more. That means people are upgrading and selling their earlier models. The high number of used digital SLRs on the market has made them cheaper. However, one of the most useful lenses for gun photog is a macro lens, and these can be fairly expensive for one that does the auto-focus/auto-exposure coupling to a late model camera. If you post the make and lens models of each, the group here may be able to tell you if they will work with a new model of same make.
Take the plunge to digital, you'll like it.
