Range Report: Range Trip #2
WHEW! This was a hectic one!
I am a member of a gun club here in Portland. It is an indoor range, with 10 lanes, established in 1936. Members have keycards, and we can come and go as we please,
between 8am and 8pm, 365 days/year. Since I worked today, that didn't give me much time!
Skipping the process of getting there...
I signed in at JCGC at 7:35pm. I prepped targets (date + orange dot), put in my ear plugs, put on my muff-style ear protection, and put on my eyes. I had 100 rounds, and 10 targets. The carriers are hand-cranked, and you have to shoot with them run all the way out (50 feet).
Because I had so much busy work to do, I knew that I'd be firing pretty quickly, and expected some crazy spreads. Still, there were two main objectives for this trip: 1) see if it kept running strong after another 100 rounds, 2) keep working toward an instinctive understanding of the trigger.
By 7:55, I was packing my range bag in the lobby.
In 100 rounds, I had zero failures.
Further notes:
1. Slide bite is definitely there. The very low bore axis is fantastic for recoil management, but I got sliced. I am perfectly content to deal with the bite, because of the return in performance.
I deleted the pic of my slide bite, because of how it was rendering.
2. If you buy one of these guns for concealed carry, you
WILL find yourself feeling compelled to shoot it for recreation. "Train with what you carry", right? Where I practiced with my PF-9 out of obligation, I am truly excited to get back to the range with this gun. I am so excited, in fact, that I am planning to hit the range again tomorrow morning.
The following pictures are pictures of my barrel, taken after 250 rounds fired, and lots of manual slide racks.
You may note a sliver-thin place at the top of the chamber (horizontal in the pic, where the barrel widens into the chamber section). This is where friction between the slide and barrel have basically polished the top of the barrel component. The tolerances are VERY tight on this gun. It feels incredibly solid.
That liiiitttle silver spot directly to the right of the '9x19' mark, toward the barrel, is a scratch.
The pic above is the side of the chamber that is always covered by the slide. You can see where the tight fit has resulted in the barrel being polished.
That is the extent of the results of slide-barrel friction, after 250 rounds, with my pistol. This does not mean that I do not believe that others have had different experiences.
Final thought, after the second trip...
I feel different carrying this than I felt carrying an LC9 or PF-9. Instead of feeling like I'm carrying a 'pocket gun', I feel like I'm carrying a combat sidearm.