Sunday, June 28, 2015

Now Matches In A Limited Edition

I did a USPSA match today. It was thankfully much drier compared to the last match in which I partook. The sun was well and truly out and sunscreen rather than rain jackets was the order of the day.

The club holding this match ran it as a classifier match - 6 classifier stages and 3 non-classifiers with lots of targets and movement.

I decided to try limited this time.

The gun of choice: A Smith and Wesson M&P 40 Pro.

With a five inch barrel it makes for a steadier platform than the standard full size M&P, and the new grip insert texture is also a slight improvement over the original that comes with the full size and compact guns.

First time out of the box, and I take it to a competition, after doing no more than dry-firing and giving it a quick take down and lubrication. Might as well really test it for its first outing.

I had the gun around for awhile and had never shot it, waiting for another day to start limited competition. Since this was a single day to get fully classified and a buddy egged me on to give Limited a try, today was finally the day.

150 rounds later and it did very well, the trigger and reset are very nice right out of the box.

The firearm handles quite nice indeed, and the fiber optic front sight must be seen to be believed in how quick it is to pickup and get on target. A and B Zone hits were a snap.

I think I'm going to transition my M&P other firearms to Truglo TFO Sights to take advantage of the fiber optic and tritium combination.

I also tried out two Taylor Freelance magazine base extensions. Each turned their respective magazines into 20 rounders from the 15 they started with. Much fewer magazine changes than the Production class with its limit of 10 rounds and they worked very well.

I need a better holster for it, as the one I'm using now just won't do, as it's not made for the M&P Pro and doesn't quite fit it properly. I also need lots more practice with transitions and movement to get shooting faster.

The accuracy of the firearm is excellent, but I need to speed up if I'm going to do well in limited.

The match was well run, it was at a very nice range and there were a great bunch (in terms of both niceness and numbers) of people there. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday.

No comments: