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Thread: Pistols I saw last week & what stood out

  1. #1
    Site Supporter Erick Gelhaus's Avatar
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    Pistols I saw last week & what stood out

    On Friday I finished up teaching a five-day General Pistol class (#250) at Gunsite. More than twenty students, they gave round counts between 880-920 ‘live’ rounds with another 40-50 frangible rounds fired in four indoor/outdoor simulator runs.

    Here are the student guns:

    Colt Gunsite Pistol .45ACP

    Six Glock 17s
    Four Glock 19s
    Glock 34 (midweek switch from a -19)
    Glock 43 (no, not a typo)

    Guncrafter 1911 Hoss Cat 45ACP

    H&K USP .45Compact
    H&K p30
    Sig P226
    Sig p320
    S&W M&P 1.0 9mm full size (switched to it after day one)

    Two Springfield Xd45s
    Two XD 9mm
    Springfield XD-M 9mm w/ Vortex Venom RDS

    STI 2011 .40SW

    Wilson CQB Elite 9mm
    Wilson EDC x9

    (Instructor pistols were two Glock 17s, two Colt 1911s, and a M&P 1.0 9mm with a Trijicon RMR)

    When I looked at the list of student guns on Monday and saw the number of XDs, I thought I’d see a whole bunch of visits to the range by the gunsmith. Wasn’t the case.

    The STI had repeated feed way stoppages with what looked like a flat point / truncated cone 180gr load. I did not catch the man’f. The shooter had manipulation issues, involving consistency & sequence that may well have contributed. Don’t know the date of manufacture;

    None of the XDs had any memorable issues aside from a trip to gunsmith over a rather stiff mag release.
    The Vortex Venom RDS ran all week. I don’t know if it shifted zero as I don’t know how the shooter had it set-up, however I shot it and made a minor windage adjustment on Wednesday afternoon. It appeared that worked as there weren’t any other issues with it the last two days;

    The Wilson EDC X9 had a pretty good stoppage early in the week. The slide locked to the rear as far past the slide stop as it could go. Tap, Roll Rack, Etc. could not budge it. Eventually smacked the snot out of the back of slide which broke it loose. No visible interior damage nor any functional deficit. It appeared to run fine the rest of the week.

    The Colts, Glocks, H&Ks, Sigs, and M&P all ran fine. The student with the G43 ran that thing pretty well, with just a couple issues manipulating the slide and completing reloads based on gun size / hand size differences.

    Just thought I’d share.
    Last edited by Erick Gelhaus; 06-23-2019 at 11:32 AM.

  2. #2
    Member feudist's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Erick Gelhaus View Post
    On Friday I finished up teaching a five-day General Pistol class (#250) at Gunsite. More than twenty students, they gave round counts between 880-920 ‘live’ rounds with another 40-50 frangible rounds fired in four indoor/outdoor simulator runs.

    Here are the student guns:

    Colt Gunsite Pistol .45ACP

    Six Glock 17s
    Four Glock 19s
    Glock 34 (midweek switch from a -19)
    Glock 43 (no, not a typo)

    Guncrafter 1911 Hoss Cat 45ACP

    H&K USP .45Compact
    H&K p30
    Sig P226
    Sig p320
    S&W M&P 1.0 9mm full size (switched to it after day one)

    Two Springfield Xd45s
    Two XD 9mm
    Springfield XD-M 9mm w/ Vortex Venom RDS

    STI 2011 .40SW

    Wilson CQB Elite 9mm
    Wilson EDC x9

    (Instructor pistols were two Glock 17s, two Colt 1911s, and a M&P 1.0 9mm with a Trijicon RMR)

    When I looked at the list of student guns on Monday and saw the number of XDs, I thought I’d see a whole bunch of visits to the range by the gunsmith. Wasn’t the case.

    The STI had repeated feed way stoppages with what looked like a flat point / truncated cone 180gr load. I did not catch the man’f. The shooter had manipulation issues, involving consistency & sequence that may well have contributed. Don’t know the date of manufacture;

    None of the XDs had any memorable issues aside from a trip to gunsmith over a rather stiff mag release.
    The Vortex Venom RDS ran all week. I don’t know if it shifted zero as I don’t know how the shooter had it set-up, however I shot it and made a minor windage adjustment on Wednesday afternoon. It appeared that worked as there weren’t any other issues with it the last two days;

    The Wilson EDC X9 had a pretty good stoppage early in the week. The slide locked to the rear as far past the slide stop as it could go. Tap, Roll Rack, Etc. could not budge it. Eventually smacked the snot out of the back of slide which broke it loose. No visible interior damage nor any functional deficit. It appeared to run fine the rest of the week.

    The Colts, Glocks, H&Ks, Sigs, and M&P all ran fine. The student with the G43 ran that thing pretty well, with just a couple issues manipulating the slide and completing reloads based on gun size / hand size differences.

    Just thought I’d share.
    How typical a cross section of manufacturers is that?

  3. #3
    Site Supporter Erick Gelhaus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by feudist View Post
    How typical a cross section of manufacturers is that?
    In general, fairly common to see a variety of guns. Four of the G17s belonged to cops sent by their agency, two of the G19s were carried by a father/son pairing as were two of the XDs. Only once in the last seven years or so have I carried a 1911 to teach a class and it was contracted by a SWAT team that all carried Colt Gunsite Pistols bought by their org.

    I haven't focused on the Manufacturers / Models and performance by class in the past. I did this time because of the XDs and the perception of them. I'm going to try & remember to do it going forward.

  4. #4
    Good data, thank you for sharing.
    #RESIST

  5. #5
    What's the round count for 250?

  6. #6
    Site Supporter Erick Gelhaus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by HopetonBrown View Post
    What's the round count for 250?
    Per the website, it's 1000rds plus 50rds of frang. When I asked students what they shot during the week, "they gave round counts between 880-920 ‘live’ rounds with another 40-50 frangible rounds fired in four indoor/outdoor simulator runs."

  7. #7
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    Do you normally see lots of XD issues? I know in the past they were weak, the .40xdm I was issued 10 years ago was junk. Yet some of their new offerings seem to be better.

  8. #8
    Site Supporter HeavyDuty's Avatar
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    Bravo on the person who used their 43. Run what you carry.
    Ken

    BBI: ...”you better not forget the safe word because shit's about to get weird”...
    revchuck38: ...”mo' ammo is mo' betta' unless you're swimming or on fire.”

  9. #9
    Interesting stuff, especially the XD observation.

    Kind of eye opening when real life experience contradicts the internet groupthink and dismissal of certain brands, simply because they read and parroted someone else's thoughts.

  10. #10
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    What stands out to me is that someone paid $1600+ to take a class and buys a bargain-basement pistol.

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