Acquiring Some Pistol Intelligence

Today was Day 1 of Riley Bowman's Pistol Intelligence Class in Pinckney Michigan.

So I got up rather early and drove to the range out there as learning how to shoot better is always a worthy goal.

Got here and joined thew 13 other students and we got started.

Nice bunch of folks and there are some really, really, good shooters among them. Thankfully I'm not "that guy" but I'm certainly not the top shot either.

Riley started with the standard administratrivia needed to start a class, and then  a solid  and comprehensive safety briefing, and going over the safety rules as well.

He very much wants shooters to be aware of what they're doing, what is in their surrounding and their target area.  All good things. He also focuses a lot on, and talks about the mental game in shooting which is an area not often talked about in shooting classes.

He went on to talk about some of the fundamentals involved in shooting and we heavily discussed grip, stance and a lot on mental focus for shooting.

I ran my Glock 19 with the RMR on it,  and it ran perfectly throughout the day with no issues. Started out cold with a 5 shot drill at black of a B8 center at 10 yards. I was rather happy with how well I did with all 5 in the black with no misses. That did earn me an "Oooh, a lawyer that can shoot" from Riley.  I'll take it.

I somehow developed a tendency to throw my first shot to the left, which occurred in the next couple drills, and then I fixed it.  Overthinking things and not enough use of the support hand tends to do that.

We did quite a few different shooting exercises and then worked on drawing the firearm more efficiently and I learned to improve a couple issues with my draw which was very good.

It turns out that Yeti is an officer at the range we're shooting at and he dropped by to say hello to Riley.  Kinda fun watching two high-level and capable instructors do a little practice shooting over lunch.

Riley gives every shooter direct personal attention during each drill and personalized feedback and instruction to each and every shooter - the drills may take longer as a result but you not only get more reps in, which is good, and he gets to observe, critique, and help you improve which is great.

We finished up with his Pistol IQ Standards, and I ended up scoring a 100.2 which basically means I met the proficiency standards.  I did bugger the drill transition  drill dumping a few shots left and out of the scoring zone on the leftmost A zone target by a few centimeters. All the rest of the drills were nice and pretty darn accurate but I think I can learn to pickup the pace a bit and should be able to get solid hits on the transition drill, so there's some very real potential for improvement.  

We will be taking the Pistol IQ Standards again tomorrow so it will be interesting to see if I can clean it up and improve my score.

In short it is a great class if you want to learn to shoot better and faster and I'm looking forward to tomorrow even as I'm rather wiped right now.

Memorial Day Range Trip

So for the morning of Memorial Day I headed to the range.

Met up with Tosh and his buddy Timo.  A good time was then had by all.

Had the Turknelli out and it ran like a top - even ran the lower powered 7.5 birdshot and the Federal Flite Control 8 pellet 00 Buck that it had choked on during its first time out.

 

In short no failures, fed everything it was given and seems good to go, and cleaning the pistons fixed the issue nicely.  

When I got it home, I took it down to clean it and  there was some solid carbon buildup on the pistons yet again, but not nearly as much this time, so hopefully the gunk is working itself out. Will need to keep an eye on it and I expect to make it a regular bit of maintenance to clean the pistons after each use.

Shot the Tavor as well out to 100 yards (longest range they've got at the range sadly)  and no issues. Did decided to give it a cleaning as it had not been cleaned in quite some time, and I think it appreciated it. Got a lot of build up out of it and it is nice and clean now.

Also shot my Glock and IWI Masada.  Definitely need to practice more as my draw is pretty slow and could use some work.  Accuracy with both is good and I'm hitting an A Zone at 7 yards on Bill Drills pretty consistently, but need to speed it up, especially the draw.

This means some regular dry fire practice which I keep telling myself I'm going to do, so might as well do it.  From now on it's 15 minutes of leg stretches for the hip rehab followed by 15 minutes of dry-fire a day.  Let's see if I can stick to this.

LTT's SCD And Glock 19 Upgrades

The SCD arrived from Langdon Tactical and it is as expected - excellent fit and finish as good or perhaps even a touch better finish than the original.

Great service, quick shipping, and it works.  If you carry a Glock, it's a useful addition to you firearm for an added level of awareness while re-holstering your firearm.

I then installed it in my new Gen5 Glock 19, along with an Overwatch Precision TAC Trigger along with an Overwatch Precision NP3 coated Glock Factory Safety Plunger.

Those changes impressively improved the feel from the factory trigger. Still about the same weight it is now a lot smoother, and the flat trigger subjectively feels a lot better.

Note that the Gen 5 Glock is internally rather different from previous Glock generations.

The safety plunger and trigger/trigger housing are the most notable changes from prior generations when you start looking at the internals. The ambidextrous slide release is also a notable change, as is the use of a standard rather than a leaf spring for the slide lock, but I wasn't messing with either of those.

The trigger no longer has an attachment point for the spring at the rear of the trigger bar. Instead, the spring is in the housing and you have to fit one of the legs of the trigger into a lever inside the housing properly to connect it and then swing it into the notch in the housing.  It is actually much easier and quicker than installing a prior generation trigger once you get the hang of it.

But the safety plunger is decidedly more difficult.

No longer a happy round shape that goes in with a simple push, the Gen 5 plunger is now rectangular-ish at the top, and has notches on its post. Most importantly, it now only fits back in one way.  You may think you have it in that one way, but you often find out that you're wrong.

The best way to get it back in is to first sacrifice a chicken, throw some salt over your shoulder, and then while you install it mutter various curses in multiple languages.  At least that worked for me, you may need to step it up and sacrifice a turkey.

Once all that was done, it was all reassembled and then it function tested correctly.

The Glock is now all ready to be taken out to the range.

Hooray! The Gadget Is Back!

The Striker Control Device is now going to be manufactured and offered for sale by Langdon Tactical.

If you have a Glock, it offers a valuable additional level of safety when re-holstering your firearm, and especially so when carrying your Glock in an appendix holster.

If you carry a Glock, it's a highly recommended enhancement. 

It's great to know that Langdon Tactical, a highly reputable company, will be carrying the torch for Tau Development Group and keeping the SCD available for Glock users.

A Good Range Trip Yesterday

Since it was a nice day yesterday, after I finished some tasks at home,  I decided to head to the range to get a little focused practice in.

First I shot some B8s with 10 rounds each at 25 yards.

Overall a good use of time and a good warm up, but certainly room for improvement. I think the support hand needs to quit being a you-know-what given the consistent left impacts. But, I'm shooting better than my last set before I attended the Modern Samurai Project this year.

Then, I focused on some speed work by shooting the 3X2 Drill - 3 yards. 3 shots to the COM Alpha then transition to 2 rounds on a 3x5 card in the head box. Par is 2.0 seconds from concealment.

No, I was not making that par time. Not yet, anyway.

My best run was a 2.52 seconds clean.  The average time of the 19 runs I shot it clean was 2.94 with a high of 3.15 and the next lowest time was 2.68. Not exactly setting the world on fire by any means.

Happily, most runs were clean with just 6 of the 25 being not clean, and the times for those did not count.  It's a long way to get to that 2.0 time, but it's a goal to shoot for.

A good, fun, and productive time at the range.

Sunday USPSA Range Day With Murph

So today I headed off to pickup Murphy who was in town visiting and then to a USPSA match at my home club.

I was RSOing as usual and had three shooters on the squad that had never shot USPSA before, Murphy among them.

Overall thing went well.  But I'll let Murph describe how he did if he chooses to do so (hint: lookup significant advantage procedural penalty...).

Unfortunately one new shooter (not Murphy) when being told to unload and show clear thought that meant dropping the magazine and then pulling the trigger to discharge the round in the chamber.   

Not quite what we're looking for there.

We explained that to him and worked on a few other issues he had and he did alright for the rest of the match.  Not a DQ as it was in a safe direction and was before the slide forward, hammer down, holster command was given.

I did ok, but certainly not great.  Missed a hidden target in  two different stages which sucked and cost me some badly needed points. One problem I'm finding with RSO'ing is it takes my attention  away from  my own shooting and planning for the stages as I'm really focused on the shooter, safety and scoring which really is as it should be and not on my own stage plan.   I'll learn to handle both in time.

On the upside, the last stage of the day I had a plan, stuck to the plan, and did it quite well in reasonable time, with only one C and the rest A hits.  Rather pleased with that one.

So, it was a darn good time had by all and overall a really good squad.  Had one Open class shooter who was an older fellow and  a bit of an attitude - first stage he started pasting before the targets were scored which is not helpful.  He also didn't like when I said he should not do that as we need to score them first and the shooter has a right to see them before they are pasted.

Then he argued with me about range commands as he apparently was used to the much older ones.  "Nope", I said, "we're using the standard USPSA commands here, sir".

Then finally on the last stage he said he would be shooting from the back of the free fire zone and didn't want me in the free fire zone.  That's not really up to him as I go where I need to be to do this properly and I'll note I did not block a single shooter at any time during the match (or in prior matches I've RSOs for that matter.  You often need to be behind the shooter in the FFF ZOne in order for the timer to pickup the shot sound, not to mention be able to handle a safety issue if it comes up, and scoring issues as well.   In any case I simply said "make ready".  Dolt then did not actually shoot from the back of the free fire zone.

Even better, I beat him at that stage on time and accuracy, and I was shooting carry optics with my carry Glock and he was slinging a $5,000 gun.   Shooting well is the best revenge I suppose.

So, it was a good match and everyone had fun in a safe manner.

Then home to my place to eat some ribs I had smoked in the smoker last Wednesday, and enjoy an adult beverage while going over the events of the day.

Anyways, more adventures are scheduled for tomorrow with Murph, weather permitting.

Take Dad Out To The Range

In a simple exchange last week, I took my dad to the local golf driving range as he's a big golf aficionado (I'm really not), and the next day we went to the shooting range.

While I love my dad dearly, he's a product of his environment - with a very liberal, Canadian, anti-gun outlook which has very much been driven by the media etc.

With his age of 77, there is no point arguing it with him, he's not going to change his views, and getting into a heated argument, which is where we tend to end up would have spoiled the day if not the whole visit. 

In short I've finally learned not to fall into that particular no-win situation.  Only took 48 years to figure it out, but yay me.

As such, I declined to argue and said let's just go have some fun.

And fun there was to be had.

I met up with Tosh and he brought his family who were visiting from New York to the range.  In contrast to my dad they are big firearms aficionados and looked forward to shooting stuff they can't have in New York.  They live near the PA border in New York.

So we got setup at Range Six as our usual Range 4 was busy. 

We started with some pistols.

I had him start with the suppressed 22 as that's always a nice intro and he had fin with that.  I then had him shot the Beretta 81 and then my Glock with the 509T on it and (gasp! - 15 rounds in the magazine).

Then I got him shooting some more historic pistols, starting with my Romanian Tokarev.

First, since he's Canadian, it was my Inglis Hi Power, which is only a couple years older than he is:

Since he has a washer and dryer at his place made by Inglis it was all rather fitting.  Letting him shoot it with the magazine filled up to the "dangerous" 13 rounds capacity rather than the Canadian legal 10 rounds was a bit of subtlety on my part.  Amazingly, yet absolutely predictably,  nothing bad happened.

Then on to the Colt 1927 - The 1911A1 Colt made for the Argentine Army contract and marked 1927.  This one was older than he was and yep, it still works flawlessly.

He nailed all the plates on the plate rack with both.

I thne had him shoot my suppressed Tavor, and the 300 Blackout pistol with the suppresor on it, and let Tosh's family shoot all the pistols and rifles as well.

We all had a good time at the range, which is what it's all about.

Great Customer Service From Holosun

My Holosun 509T developed a problem during the MDFI Low Light Handgun class.

I don't know precisely when or how, as, after all, it was pitch black at the time, but the rubber over the - button tore or ripped away, leaving the circuitry open to the elements.

  I didn't notice when it happened, as the sight kept right on chugging along, but noticed it when we had finished and were putting everything away and reloading our carry ammo for the trip back.  Even with that open it did not have any issues.

So I contacted Holosun and they immediately sent me an RMA and a priority mail label to return it.  They received it and immediately sent a replacement priority mail, and I got it back fast and it is now installed back on the firearm.

That's a very quick turnaround, and some great customer service.

Sunday Match Day - First Outdoor USPSA Match Of 2021

I got up early this morning, Picked Tosh up along the way and headed to the range.

First outdoor match of the season and my first as a certified RO.  Happily enough it rained both before and after, but not during, the match.  So we had mud but we were not playing in the rain, which was nice.

It was a special classifier match - 6 classifiers and 1 field course.

The classifiers interestingly enough all required movement which made them a bit more fun than the traditional stand and deliver classifier courses of fire. 

I had a good squad to RO and we moved right along.  I brought along the Glock with the 509T and shot Concealed Carry Optics from my carry appendix holster and appendix Koala mag pouch as you can now shoot form appendix in CCO division. 

Still awaiting the results, but I think both using the same drawstroke and having put in some dryfire time have made me a tad bit better.  I'm definitely more accurate and slightly faster but there is still lots of room for improvement.  Probably still C-Class but hopefully a bit more towards the upper end, but we'll see.  Hit factors were generally and consistently in the  high 4s to 5 somethings which was an improvement for me.

Overall it was a good match and I ro'd rather smoothly.  

I only had the one horrible, awful, no-good very bad stage.  Last one of the day - the darkhouse field course.  12 paper targets.  I was shooting first of course.

It started well from the entryway I was hitting targets with aplomb, but as I entered the darker interior the 509T dimmed slightly and I lost the dot which was an unpleasant surprise.  That was not happy-making.  I then fumbled the reload as well. So yes, it sucked and I ended up owing hit factors for that one.  Learned a lot from that mess though and I'll make sure it won't happen again, so that's something.

Overall a darn fun and positive start to the match season.

The ATEI Glock Doth Rock

Went to the range this morning to try it out.

The 509T was almost perfectly zeroed and just needed a few clicks to get it right there.

The dot-in-circle aiming reticle makes finding the dot and getting on target a super fast process.

So far I like it a lot.  I need to get used to the chopped grip a bit as my draws were slower than typical, but I was still doing sub-3 second bill drills from concealment at 7 yard A-zone target with all hits (still can use some improvement on that to get faster). Best draw to single hit on an A Zone at 7 yards was 1.4 seconds, and the 3&2 drill I was getitng 3 seconds and below.

I did clear a 6 rack plate in under 4 seconds form concealment, so that was something.

Zero malfunctions or issues with 244 rounds shot through it today.

Overall I do believe it's a keeper.

New To Me Glock, Now With Upgrades

I had purchased a friend's used and kinda worn 3rd generation Glock 17 as he wanted to get something else and was offering it at a good price, complete with a gadget.  He had previously had the grip chopped to a 19 length and had a stipple job done that works quite nicely.

I bought it and then dropped the slide off at ATEI to get it cut for a red dot - a Holosun 509T I had purchased for the project.

In chatting with ATEI, I decided to also get their enhanced serrations on the front and back, suppressor height sights added and have the whole slide given the black nitride treatment.  

While that was being worked on, I added an Overwatch Precision TAC Trigger and awaited the slide to be ready for pickup.

It was ready today and I must say they did a beautiful job:

The Holosun sits on the slide cut like it was made for it, because it was, the sights are low in the window and perfect. The enhanced slide serrations look good and really are an improvement over the stock Glock serrations for manipulating the slide.

The 509T from a dryfire draw naturally gets on target and may become my favorite red dot.  Just really nice.

ATEI did a fantastic job on it and I'm highly impressed.  

I will take it to the range tomorrow and report how it shoots and if I get an appreciable speed increase from this setup.  The only thing I might change further on it would be to get an undercut for the trigger-guard a bit for a higher grip.

Memorial Day Monday Range Trip

This morning I got up early and joined Tosh and Jason at the range.

A fun time was had by all. We shot the Tavor, Galil, FAL, and their AR15s.

The Tavor is nicely dialed in for a 100 yard zero, so that the 4 line in the scope is dead on at 25 yards

Tosh had brought some rifle-rated steel to the range so shooting the rifles and ringing the steel was fun.

They really liked shooting the FAL.

We also did a lot of pistol practice - battle dots, dot torture, and 5x5 drills.

Running a timer on the 5x5 drill adds to the pressure, along with not wanting to mess up in front of your friends.  Add a friend videotaping your performance and it gets even more of a "please don't let me goof this up" pressure.

The 5x5 drill is 5 shots in the circle , at 5 yards,  in under 5 seconds par time from concealment.

I shot it clean and within the time at 4.71, which was nice.  Now to work on getting that time down.

That's 350 more rounds through the Masada with zero failures, and some 50 through my Glock shooting  and 100 rounds through the P99, shooting with zero failures as well.

It was a great morning out with some great people.

Now I'm home for a cleaning and prep of the house.  We have a few friends coming over for Memorial Day now that Gov Haf-Whit has graciously and arbitrarily allowed gatherings of up to 10 people.  So time to make the place spic and span.

I had the smoker going all yesterday, smoking some goodness, and it was in the oven all night stalled out and now getting to its final temp before pulling and serving.  Should be tasty and smells great already.

I hope you all have a great Memorial Day, no matter how locked down you may be out there.

Saturday Snowy Range Trip Day

Yes, it is May 9, and it snowed here today. Not enough to stick, but enough to make you wonder about claims of global warming.

So, on with the winter jacket taken out of storage and off to meet two friends from jiu jitsu at the range for outdoor recreation activities.

I'll say this much, the whole shut down is getting me more range time than I've had otherwise by far. Also, speed limit on the highway is still 90 mph or so, but gas has gone up in price recently as more people are saying screw it and heading out and about. Aside from the impending doom of income drying up, it's all good, right?

Anyways I met both Tosh and Jason at the range and both are seriously good shooters and definitely gun culture 2.0.

Much fun was had, and it was darn good to see them again after all this time off the mats. Great guys.

I shot the Masada and they both tried it as well and liked it.

That's another 300 rounds through it with zero failures.

We did the casino drill which was fun. We also did a dot torture run and I got a 49/50 on it, my closest to perfect so far with the Masada.

We also did a battle dot shoot off, which was a lot of fun.

Battle dots is a fun little drill where two people each pick either the black dots or white dots and then each firing one shot in turn, the race is to see who finishes of all their dots first. I shot it clean each time which I was very happy about.

Tosh was rocking his customized Glock 17 that was cut stippled and down to take Glock 19 mags, had the gadget, and a flat trigger, and had an RMR mounted on it. It ran flawlessly and was very fun to shoot.

Jason had his Glock 17 and a new Glock 44 in 22 which was also fun to shoot.
We also shot my Walther P99 and shooting it was a case of put dot of the Walther's front sight on a dot, and hit the dot.

We also shot some rifles first on the pistol range at 25 yards against paper targets only.

Yep, the muzzle break on Tosh's rifle offered much flash for pictures. Amazingly, the hair on his knuckles remains unsinged.

Shooting it was an experience.

That rifle was a lot of fun to shoot.

The muzzle break on Jason's rifle, while not giving picture worthy flashes, gave muzzle blast that was physically perceptible both to the sides and behind him that was actually uncomfortable to experience.

 Good for the shooter, hellacious if close by otherwise. When shooting it however, the muzzle blast was directed completely away from the shooter making it very comfortable to shoot.

I brought along my 300 Blackout AR Pistol and we all shot it, which offered a nice respite from the noise.

I also brought a rifle that I hadn't shot before and one that I had waited a long time to get, which will be the subject of the next post.

A Good Socially Distant Range Trip

Work has been all sorts of slow recently due to the courts being effectively closed, so there's time for other things - Like outdoor recreational activity.

So, this afternoon, since it was a beautiful day, I went to the range and met up with Dean, a fellow lawyer, who brought one of his daughters to the range.

At the range we were easily able to remain 6 feet apart because it's an outdoor range after all.

Shot another 200 rounds through the IWI Masada, practicing drawing from concealment, and 50 rounds through the Glock, no malfunctions for either.

Then I shot 80 rounds through the suppressed M&P Compact just for fun. The magazine for it needs a cleaning but no issues with it either.

Dean ran his Glocks and 1911s, and his daughter shot both and also tried out the Masada. She had a few jams with both due to limp-wristing initially but we fixed that. She found the Masada easier to shoot and easier to hit with due to the Trijicon SRO on it, and interestingly enough, no limp-wrist malfunctions with it.

The neat part about his 1911s is they're homemade. He finishes the 80% frames at home and then builds them up himself.

One of them has an extractor problem on loading the first round, and you have to hammer the slide forward by hitting it with your hand each time, but it then loads and shoots all subsequent rounds with no issues. Trigger is crunchy and heavy, but it works, and it hits to the point of aim of the sights. It's a bit of a part mix-master with some Wilson parts as components of the build, but it all fit together. Once he gets the extractor bug worked out they should be rather serviceable. Interesting to see what can be done at home these days.

We had a good time at the range and then we headed our separate ways.

Glock And P80 Ejection Enhancements

If you have a 9mm 3rd Generation Glock, or if say, you happen to be building a P80 frame into a Not-A-Glock, you likely have an ejector that looks like this, especially if you recently bought a Glock frame completion kit online:

Note the narrow point at the end of the ejector.

This design can, but not always, cause ejection issues including failure to eject the brass completely from the firearm and stovepipes.

This is rather disheartening especially as Glock is generally the standard for reliability when it comes to 9mm pistols.

Luckily, there is a fix: You replace the 3rd Gen ejector with a 4th Generation ejector:

Note how much more meaty and squared off the tip of that 4th gen ejector is compared to the troublesome part #336.

These go for around $7 or so from places like Midway and Brownells. A nice inexpensive fix to what can be a very frustrating problem.

However, the 4th Generation trigger block that contains the ejector does not fit in the 3rd generation frame. So a little finagling is needed.

On the back of the ejector block, there's a small metal bit of the end of the ejector showing. Using a small flat head screwdriver, you can push it out from there (not from the front or you'll bend it) until it comes free.

This pops it out the front:

Then place the 4th Gen ejector into the slot from the front, and push it all the way into place until it fits completely flush, then reassemble.

Done, and no more ejection problems for you.

Sunday Range Day Part Two - The Other Guns

The Kahr PM9 was feeling rather unloved. Being a very concealable and convenient pocket pistol, it does tend to get the nod to be carried whenever I heading out the door. Very much a nice small gun for when you can't easily carry a compact or full size gun, it's been carried a lot and not shot all that much recently.

So I decided to give it a go after shooting the P30SK.

Right out of the pocket holster and just changing over to some FMJ for practice, it fired all 50 rounds of FMJ I fired through it without a hitch.

Recoil was definitely felt more in the smaller pistol.

After shooting the P30SK the trigger on the PM9 also felt rather different and inferior.

The PM9 has a very long almost rolling feel to the trigger - you squeeze it back, and squeeze it back, and keep squeezing it back and finally it goes off and hits the target. Basically it is a safety to stop you from prematurely firing and it is rather good at that. It is smooth with no hitches but really long.

It's so long it feels like a trigger you pull on Monday and it finally goes off on Sunday. By itself, it really is not bad. But, when compared immediately to a trigger like that on the P30SK or a Glock, it is a noticeably long, long, pull.

Accuracy was not bad at all. After the range trip I brought it home, cleaned, lubed, and reloaded it, and got all the pocket lint out of the spare magazine that rides along in my offhand front pocket. If you carry a mag in a pocket, expect that it will pickup pocket lint.

Next up was a nice new out of the box Glock 17 Gen4.

I managed to pick it up for a very good price and I'm rather happy with it. It's a Glock so nothing much to say about it really, but the grip texture does seem better than the prior versions. I did not add any back-straps as it fits my hand fine as is.

I did install some Trijicon HD XR Orange Front Outline night sights to it, replacing the stock factory plastic sights with a much more durable and usable set. Installation was easy using a sight pusher and it was no big deal. The orange outline on the front sight is very easy to pickup and accuracy was very nice.

I fired 100 rounds of the 9MM Nato FMJ through the Glock 17 with no issues, which is to be expected.

Accuracy was excellent, I had installed the sights on just right and they were right on. The stock trigger was the best of the three pistols I had with me at the range. Considering it was the largest pistol there, it was indeed the easiest to shoot fast and accurately. For whatever reason, it felt

It was a darn good range trip and very badly needed practice session. I need to get out to the range more often and will make it a resolution for 2019.

I figure I will get out more often to complete the P30SK 2,000 round test, and then do a 2,000 round test on the Glock 17 Gen 4. This should get me out to the range more often to work on shooting better.

P30 At 1450 And Range Trip

A badly needed range trip took place yesterday.

My cousin Matt came in to visit this weekend and I took him to the range. He only has experience (quite extensive experience) with his duty pistol, with which he is quite good, so he was interested to try out a variety of pistols and I was happy to oblige.

Together we ran another 150 rounds through the P30, making it to 1450 with absolutely zero malfunctions of any kind to date. The feed ramp is now covered in black gunk but it keeps on going.

He rally enjoyed shooting my M&P 22 Compact with the Gemtech suppressor. Mirabile Dictu, Walmart had some .22LR CCI standard velocity in stock (3 round box maximum purchase). The M&P and Gemtech loved it and ran very very quietly with no issues and it was much more accurate than the Remington Thunderbolt and quieter as well.

He liked it quite a bit.

I also had quite a few other pistols for him to try: The Inglis Hi-Power, The S&W Model 29-2, The S&W M&P 9, The Glock 17, the Glock 21, the PA-63 and the 1911 and the Mauser HSC out to shoot.

Lots of ammo was turned into noise and many a steel target dropped only to be reset and dropped again.

Then back to the house for an epic cleaning of the guns (all save the P30) and then a good diner of Thanksgiving leftovers and a binge-watching of Game of Thrones.

A darn good time.

Glock's Latest Model Announced

Glock has announced that the model G45 will be formally rolled out at the NRA Annual Meeting, and they released a sneak peek today:

Yes, they've finally joined the rest of the pack with a 1911 style polymer wunderpistole.

Happy late but not yet over April Fools Day.

Glocks Replacing Some Venerable Firearms

Expect much wailing and gnashing of teeth from various internet forum aficionados as the Glock replaces some fan favorites in the holsters of military forces.

It was recently announced that Navy Special Warfare will replace the Sig 226 with the Glock 19. Already the comments on various forums are rather vociferous about the switch.

MARSOC also is moving to replace it's 1911s with Glock 19s.

On top of that, The British Ministry of Defense has announced it is replacing the venerable GP35 Hi-Power that served the British for years with distinction with the Glock 17. More than 25,000 Glock 17 Gen4s are being purchased for use by all of Her Majesty's Armed Forces.

Unfortunately, given the Obama administrations rules on firearms, the SIG 226s and 1911s will most likely be destroyed rather than released on the civilian market as surplus once they filter out of usage. Let's hope the Brits surplus out the GP35 to the open market rather than destroying these pieces of history.

The Glock 21 SF

One of the pistols I had brought to the range with me yesterday was the Glock 21 SF.

The Glock 21 SF is a refinement of the Glock 21.

The SF stands for short frame - while the width is the same, the distance between the backstrap and trigger is shortened, making it much more comfortable to hold, less blocky, and a far better fit for my hand. The change removes 5 millimeters in length from the gun, reducing it from 209 (8.22 inches) to 204 mm (8.03 inches). It doesn't sound like much, but it makes a very noticeable difference. Even with the short frame it certainly is the largest Glock in my collection.

In .45 ACP it certainly has an impressive looking bore.

This Glock 21SF was already used when it was purchased by me, but you certainly can't tell from the condition of the pistol. It looked practically new when purchased and still looks practically new now.

As for how it shoots, the trigger does feel a bit crunchy, but the first magazine through it showed it was no barrier to good shooting. Ten plates were downed in ten shots and the three remaining rounds in the magazine went right into the A-zone of a cardboard target. Not bad for the first shots. 87 further rounds followed the first 13 and fired with no issues. Everything about this pistol is just right on, which isn't really a surprise.

Recoil was very minimal, and it felt perceptibly less than a 1911. The gun handled very well indeed with follow-up shots and transitions from plate to plate being very easy to make. You could say the purchase of this gun was indeed Justified.