SCCY CPX-1

[bigberthastowing]

Thanks for the forum. Lots of information here and I have some questions that are puzzling to me. Tom

Let go a few rounds in my SCCY CPX-1 (9mm) today and found it very accurate at about 30 feet. Feel good CCW and has a fairly good grip that won't let it blow out of your hand.

Not really a fault, but it is (for me) a little tough to rack. I'll get used to it but wifey can't pull it back but a little (1/2") so it is a brick to throw for her. I have not tensioned the strength of the slide, but it feels like about 6 to 7 pounds of pull. But I don't know for sure.

I would like to reduce the drag on the slide. What you anyone think about a solution? It's well lubricated and of course clean. I exercised it about 200 times today without clip and fired about40 rounds or so beforehand. Thanks, Tom

[Clusterfrack]

Welcome to Pistol-Forum, @bigberthastowing. I don't have experience with your SCCY, but new recoil springs can take a 100 cycles or more to break in, so you may be on the right track.

The thing that seems to help the most for people with limited hand strength is better technique for racking the gun. Have her try this: Grab the slide overhand (not slingshot) with left hand (assuming she's right handed). Watch out for the ejection port so it doesn't pinch her hand! With the muzzle pointed in a safe direction, brace left forearm against body while holding the gun by the slide. Make sure fingers are well away from the trigger guard. Now, push the grip with the right hand to rack the slide.

[bigberthastowing]

Thank you. Your method may be the best and will certainly give it a try at next shooting. Overall, the CPX-1 may not be as fine as many but good for us. Also, a decent price. Once racked she does pretty well with it. We also have a Remington R-51 that had slightly longer barrel and better accuracy at the 30-foot range mark. We'll improve over time I'm sure and will practice handling unloaded to work the slide a bit to make a little easier. Appreciate your input and advice. Tom

[Duelist]

Hi, Tom,

I have a SCCY CXP-1 in my safe that belongs to a friend with no safe and a kid who needs to be kept away from guns.

It seems to be a reasonable basic gun, based on the Kel-Tec P11 that was a common ~$200 pistol for a lot of years. I actually owned and carried a P11 when it was the only gun I could afford, and still own a P32 that I carry a few times a year for ultra deep and low-profile concealment. The CXP-1 has some improvements over the Kel-Tec product. The P11 sights, for example, were made of a plastic that seemed to be one step above melted and molded milk jug material. They were not durable at all and the rear sight would get knocked out of alignment or even knocked out of the dovetail with a minor bump. The CXP sights are actual steel. The finish machining and actual finish on the slide seem superior to the Kel-Tec.

The external steel components of the Kel-Tec were prone to rusting, especially when carried in a way that exposed it to sweat or condensation, with the slide collecting quite a bit even over the course of one day's carry, but the barrel was in the white and seemed to be stainless or something that resisted rust. The external steel components of the SCCY are no better at resisting rust, and in fact the one in my safe has rust on most of the external small steel components (the rear sight is especially bad), but only small freckles on the slide.

The serialized frame of both guns is an aluminum insert in the plastic grip. For the SCCY, that means that if you wish, you can easily and inexpensively replace a damaged grip or change to one of a different color, or convert your CXP-1 (manual safety) to a CXP-2 (no manual safety) and vice versa. If I understand correctly, SCCY will even do it for you. If this were my gun that I intended to carry and shoot, I would change the grip to CXP-2 and remove the ambidextrous safety - it is not placed in a way that is ergonomic for a person with large hands, and the molded shield around the safety that help to keep a person from moving the safety accidentally are awkward, sharp-ish, and painful to my hands when shooting it. I am firmly not a fan of that, and as a result, only function fired the gun for my friend once.

The Kel-Tec P11 would accept and run with S&W 6906 or 5906 magazines, giving a higher capacity spare magazine option. I do not know if the SCCY will do that - as similar as the designs are, I suspect it probably will. I have only one SCCY OEM magazine with this pistol, however.

My Kel-Tec P11 was a very reliable gun - I do not remember any functional issues with it over the course of the several years that I owned it. That was during a time when bulk packs of 100 WWB 115gr FMJ were $9.99 at WalMart, and I enthusiastically went through a lot of them. I may have shot that P11 more than anyone ever shot one, since I would regularly shoot 200-300 rounds in a sitting and shot a couple times per month. That works out, if I remember the details correctly, to a conservative estimate of 3000 rounds per year for each of 3 years (I traveled a lot in those days, so I wasn't always shooting that much per month). I carried it with a variety of JHPs that all worked fine in it, and settled on standard pressure 124gr Speer Gold Dot, with which bullet and the Kel-Tec I euthanized a car-crippled deer on the side of the highway one morning. One shot to the brain box, bang-flop.

The SCCY sample I have worked its way through a box of FMJ just fine, but choked on almost every round of the one magazine of JHPs I tried to shoot through it - I quit after the sixth round because I was sick of slamming the sharp corners of the safety into the web of my hand, and it wasn't running them. It was accurate enough at the close range I was at, but I swore I would never shoot the thing again unless we change the grip out for a CXP-2 and remove the safety.

I just pulled it out to check my memory and to have SWMBO try the slide. She said it is heavy, but managed pulling it fully to the rear just fine. One of the reasons it is a heavy pull to the rear is that there are two springs to overcome as you do so: the recoil spring, which is under the barrel, and the mainspring that drives the hammer. Being a DAO design, it is not possible to cock the hammer to lower the weight of the springs that must be overcome to cycle the action, so @Clusterfrack's recommended method and some practice are probably the best your wife can do about it.

[BILLG]

Install the spring kit from Mcarbo you will not think it is the same pistol.