Choosing an amp for an Orion HCCA 12" 2 ohm

I have been doing some reading to properly power my subwoofer. Basically I want to power my Orion HCCA 12" 2ohm (in a vented box) for safe, yet loud, bass. I'm looking at a Power Acoustik BAMF-4000/1D @ sonic electronix and is rated at 1700 watts rms x1 for 2 ohms. Is this sufficient? I read that it is better to overpower a sub than under to avoid clipping and/or overheating. I'm looking to really crank this sub, yet I'm not looking to spend $600 dollars for an amp.

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It's a dual 2, so your wiring options would be either 1 or 4 ohms. With a sub like that I'd strongly suggest a better amp. At least HF quality. The BRZ's are pretty solid.
The brz2100.1 would be perfect for $280.

Those power Acoustik amps are over-rated pretty bad. The bamf 4000 is good for no more than 1500w at 1 ohm. Maybe 1000 or so at 2.

The over/under powering theory is kind of bogus. Too much power is ALMOST always the ultimate cause of sub failure. Where the underpowering myth comes from is people using amps SLIGHTLY less powerful than the sub is rated for, then cranking the gain and bass boost driving the amp into heavy clipping. Clipping is actually just excess power (and sounds awful). So people with seemingly less power than a sub can handle report "underpowering" killed their sub, but that's not really what happened.

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Doubting my subwoofer decision now. Is this orion can blow the competition away or am I better off getting 2 (less expensive) subs that run off less power? Should I be looking at the sensitivity rather than the rms?

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Sensitivity/power handling is sort of a trade off.
If you want a sub to be efficient it needs to be light. That means light weight components -- voice coil, spider, cone etc.
The end result is a speaker that can't dissipate a lot of heat, therefore can't handle much power.

The other end of the spectrum is a pure SPL sub -- a large, heavy voice coil, multiple spiders, heavy duty cone -- basically a bunch of big, relatively heavy components that can absorb a ton of power and a suspension that can travel a mile.

Ultimately, the big, bad subs will dominate in pure SPL, but the it gets harder and harder to increase performance with increases in the power handling capability of the sub.

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