Scott Gelber

If you are patient, there are .40 single stacks out there. It took me a year, but I finally found the .40 STI Trojan 5.0 I was hunting. It was hardly used and came with with three extra magazines. The price was reasonable as well at $1150, including sales tax and FFL fees. Rather than the auction sites, I haunt guns.com and their ilk. Lots of overpriced guns (e.g., Trojan 5.0 in .45 with an asking price of $2300) but some deals to be had.

If the frame pin holes are in the right position and of the right sizes, the Harrison 'True Radius" sets have dropped right into a few of my pistols. That has been a pleasant surprise as I did not need to mess with the sear or hammer hooks.

The hours at Swan Creek are limited to 2:00 PM-4:00 PM Wednesday through Friday and 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM on Saturday and Sunday. It is not too bad on weekdays, but the weekends can be a bit of a zoo. No more than one shot per second and no drawing from the holster.

Back in the early 2000s, STI offered more sight choices on the Trojan. I ordered a 9x19 model back in 2001 with a Heinie fixed rear. The finish was also a factory option; $300 upcharge for hard chrome.

That looks like damage from the NT lead-free primers. Breech face erosion with the lead-free primers is a known issue, and the lead-free primers have a ceramic/glass-like material in them that is very hard on barrels. There are theories that the lead-free primers allow gas leakage more often that traditional primers. Why that is the case is not clear to me.

I have been doing the same research for my incoming G35. I want to shoot lead, and the lead buildup issue seems to be very dependent on lead hardness and velocity. Rather than take the risk of damaging the gun, I will get a KKM barrel and open up the chamber so I can use the same longer-than-factory loads I use in my SV Limited gun.

I have two of the stainless CCF Race Frames. One is a 9x19 full-house Robar Alloy Extreme finished in NP3. It might be the softest shooting 9mm ever. It definitely has the best Glock trigger I have ever experienced. The reduced grip frame width is really a plus for my short fingers. The gun is reliable, and I change the slide buffer when I change the recoil spring at every 3,000 rounds. I like it, but I essentially traded a gun I could not stand (a Baer 9x19 Monolith Heavy) for it. So I sunk no money into it, and it got the cursed Baer out of my hands. For that reason alone, I like the Alloy Extreme. The other one I am setting up to be a suppressor platform, and you can see that the CCF product is essentially unfinished when compared to the Robar gun. I will probably send the bare frame off to Robar to get their "detailed" finish package with NP3 as I cannot keep the frame from rusting while just sitting in my safe. CCF did not do a great job of passivizing the stainless alloy. I think CCF had a good idea but their execution was weak. Messing with the lock block design was a huge (and their biggest) mistake as it required aftermarket barrels to be fit to the gun.

Mine also came with a green fiber optic insert. It also has the "short frame" as seen by the protruding mainspring housing.

I like the Marvel kit for practice and have had better than expected reliability. I have found that the old Marvel kit, the one now called Unit 1, really prefers standard velocity ammo. Mine really likes the Winchester Dyna-Points and CCI Standard Velocity. The Marvel magazines for the 1911 frame are Colt Ace magazines with the follower reworked so as to not activate the slide stop when the magazine is empty. Explains the price since the Colt magazines are not inexpensive before the modification. In addition to dryfiring my SVI Limited gun, I would like to put the Marvel on it for some inexpensive and quiet practice. Has anyone had much luck with the STI/SVI magazines for the Marvel?

How much Slide Glide should one use and does the amount go down when the temperature drops? I just took possession of a .40 S&W SVI double stack and the gun came with Slide Glide inside and a partially full container of Slide Glide. When I first shot the gun, the temperature was in the 70s and it cycled well. Used more of the same ammo with temps is the 40s and it felt a bit sluggish. Cleaned off some of the Slide Glide -- as the gun was full of it -- and it ran just fine.