Another installment of The Guns (& Optics) I Saw This Week:
Ten students, with varying degrees of PMO experience, took Gunsite’s inaugural 250 Defensive Pistol-PMO class this past week. In addition to square range work, there are indoor & outdoor simulator runs as well. Temps were in the high 90s up to 115 at about 4800’ ASL.
1) Glock 19 / Trij SRO
2) M&P 2.0 9mm 4.25” / Trij 1.0moa RMR
3) Glock 19 / Trij SRO
4) Glock 19 / Trij SRO
5) M&P 1.0 5” CORE / Trij RMR (Loaned)
6) Sig p228 Legion 9mm / Sig Romeo
7) Glock 19 / Unity Tactical / Leupold DPP Dot (Loaned) with a Tau SCD
8) Glock 17 / Leupold DPP Triangle (Loaned)
9) Atlas Athena 2011ish 9mm / Trij SRO
10) Shadow Systems 9mm / Holosun
The round count was just about 980-1000 rounds of regular ammunition, and close to all of the 50 rounds of frangible ammunition required.
No pistols had to make a trip to the on-site gunsmith. No optics died.
What broke?
The after-market suppressor height front on a Glock19/Unity Tactical Atom mount departed the slide on TD4. Fortunately, it’s so big we found it on the ground, and the screw was still inside the assembled slide. The sight had been installed with thread locker on it, but it has been a few years.
Another student was using a Glock19/ C&H V4 plate / Trij SRO combination. At the end of TD3, he noticed one of the screws for the C&H plate had sheared. He had the MOS plate and screws with him. He changed out the plate, re-zeroed at the start of TD4, and continued without issue.
I saw failures to feed, failures to fire during the class, but not enough to stand out with any one pistol. Ammunition availability, as well as QA/QC is a prominent issue right now as I saw several failures to fire with solid primer strikes.
The Atlas Athena was set-up much more for competition as opposed to defensive use. There seemed to be a struggle with the differences between previous experience and the manipulations, manual of arms – if you will – that we teach.
I was curious about how the Shadow Systems MR918 would perform. It ran just fine; I’d be interested in getting some time in on one. (Caveat: I have a student of mine who works for that company now.) I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a Holosun as well.
The Sig & Sig combo had sort of a rough start. The holster was interfering with the PMO controls every time he holstered or drew the pistol. Coarse sandpaper took care of that.
No battery issues were noted during the week; however, change them regularly.
Weather conditions did not require RainX or CatCrap, but the lenses were accumulating a fair amount of crud & junk over the week. I could see that while working with the students.
Note: While this was far from the first time students had PMO equipped guns in Gunsite classes, it was the first run of a course specific to them with material focused on the combination.
This is a continuation of the idea behind this thread:
https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....what-stood-out
There will be another PMO update towards the end of August.