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.