MemphisMechanic

Shorter mags with factory-ish base pads are easier to consistently index in your palm at warp speed during reloads. The mags aren't as butt-heavy and thus flopping around in your mag carriers at a full sprint quite as much. Less likely to get snagged and popped out of a mag carrier when you draw the one in front of it or whack your hip against a doorframe... If the stage allows for it, Limited Open and CO shooters will typically begin with a longer extended mag that has something akin to a +5 mag extension on it and use it until it's convenient to reload. Then reload with something a bit less long and bulky. Courses vary so that isn't always the best option. Obviously. The bare minimum you need for CO will be a single 140mm mag that holds 22-23+ and a couple of G17 mags with +2s on them. Adding spares is a good thing.

You need to fix your gun. I can promise you that mine hasn't had a dead trigger since I properly tuned the trigger/trigger bar loop in 2010. That mean 100% mechanical reliability of the firing mechanism for at least 20,000 rounds. It's as boringly reliable as a completely stock 9mm Glock, and it still has the early style small-spring sear housing that's supposed to be horrible about such things. A gun equipped with the APEX CAEK should not be expected have dead triggers, just because you know, that's how it is.

Just remember than a caliber-converted gun isn't Production or SSP legal if I recall correctly.

Correct on what he's actually remedying. However I can say from firsthand experience that a properly tuned loop with often fix a gun with an intermittently dead trigger. It's worked on two guns that I've worked on for friends.

See 7:45 for my thought on this...

Man... I feel you on that one. I can't tell you how many guys have asked me how much better I got when moving from plastic to a Tanfo. My reply is an honest "I would have made A class 3-6 months sooner with the old gun." and that surprises people greatly. There's an absurd amount of work just to catch up to where you were at with the old gun. Why was your weak hand dumping mags out of the 35 like crazy? Have you considered shaving down the extended mag catch a bit closer to the non-extended G17/22 profile? They're plastic so they shape easily, and a replacement is cheap.

Lefty. Right eye dominant. Been doing this stuff just fine for a decade. Just move the gun over about an inch at arm's distance and it'll line up with her dominant eye. This is absolutely not a thing worth making into any sort of physical issue. But people who haven't tried the simple solutions make it into this big handicap that it isn't. That's all.

Advice for shooting in the rain? Shoot irons sights.

I figured plastic would be lighter than wood. Huh.

Actually, in my experience a dead trigger is typically an issue with the trigger bar loop needing opened or closed slightly. The trigger mechanism isn't resetting even though the bar has traveled forward sufficiently. Or, more commonly, pulling the trigger fully to the rear won't drop the striker because you need a pinch more overtravel. Racking the gun changes the tolerances enough to allow it to fire again. Most of the time. APEX has a video out on adjusting it on YouTube:

That's not accurate, however. Or one of my springs was significantly heavier or lighter than it's rating. Even with 3 coils cut off the factory spring, its still obviously harder to cycle the slide than when a 10 pound Wolff is installed.

That presupposes your reloads are well practiced and fast enough. To be brutally frank mine aren't, and I wind up delaying a full turn toward the weak side so that I won't break 180. This currently makes "mag draw, run uprange, turn, load" the faster method. It would be best practice to clean my reloads up agressively in dryfire, however right now I only touch the gun monthly... and that's if I manage to make it to our 2nd Saturday match. When I get passionate about improving again (and my time sucking project truck is finished) this is something that will change.

Actually I just ran the stage the opposite direction from the righties because your starting position was centered in the back of the shooting area. It didn't matter which way you went first, they were within a yard of being the same overall distance. They had the same ergonomic advantage that I did when they ran to the left first. If I had been forced to shoot it the opposite direction like my righty friends did? Let's say you had started on X's practically buried in that rear left window so that going R to L made no sense. Then my reloads would have been the "drop mag upon firing last shot, sprint uprange, insert after making the U turn while headed back downrange" type.

What made you decide to buy it in small frame? Shorter trigger reach, or you already had a bunch of CZ mags?

First, you might as well buy an ordinary 147. I have run through 3,000 of Bayou's 150 semi wadcutters and they leave the exact same hole in the target as any round nose 9mm bullet: they don't punch cleaner holes in either paper or cardboard. Bayou's 150 actually weighs exactly 147, so I was able to work up a load as normal. I found them perfectly accurate (1.75-2" @ 25) from a Tanfoglio Stock 3 and an M&P fitted with a hand-fit barrel. Good bullets sure, but I won't be buying any more. Code "54730" is good for 10% off at Acme which makes them even cheaper than Blue Bullets, so I'm going with a bulk purchase of those.

The gun doesn't come with a 10/12. He's suggesting a spring for running your reloads.

Been around IDPA for ten years and I've never seen him contradicted by others on high.

Personally I find turning toward the gun a really easy position to pound the reload out at the beginning. For example, a right handed shooter turning to look over his right shoulder, feeding the gun which hasn't really moved yet. He then proceeds to run from the forward position to the right rear corner of the stage and shoot. That's pretty natural. When turning AWAY from the gun I'm more inclined to drop & draw... then run hard and insert as I turn back downrange and settle into position to shoot. That's the "this is comfortable and this is consistently safe from a DQ for violating 180" side of me talking. I haven't tried both on the timer.

Sorry. @B_RAD beat you on that one by about a month... so don't feel bad about selling your Shadow 2. @MuddAndStuff If you don't enjoy the tinkering process on a metal framed gun like a CZ or Tanfo - wherein you spend a month or so taking it apart and getting to know it and how to tune it to your ammo and handling preferences - then buying one from @PatriotDefense would definitely be the way I would go. I hear their turnaround times are really good as well!

That's long been my biggest fear being around action shooting. All those times you watch someone pop their glasses off between shooters to wipe the sweat down and put them back on while people are shooting in adjacent bays, etc. Scary to hear that we finally have an unfortunate instance where it has occurred. Do you have any more information on what type of eye protection he was wearing at the time, etc?

Correct. He's also on here as @PatriotDefense

The first ammo I ever loaded was on the 650 which I still have. The only press I've ever used. I would heartily encourage you to use common sense and load conservatively at first on a more capable press. As it is, you'll want a 1050 within 6 months... might as well skip the turrets and 550-type machines and only have to upgrade once later on ?

Oh! And I found dryfire stages in my house where you have 2 paper in one room and 3 paper in the nearby hallway (engaging everything with 1 mag) and with just enough movement to BEG your brain to reload... to be a huge help here. Follow that with another position that has 8 shots required, so you have to load to move into it. This way you're moving and loading AND moving without a reload. Then run your little stage in all kinds of ways, so you learn to do it forwards and backwards.Just a thought but it helped me break this habit. The simpler version of this is to simply spend a few weeks dryfiring moving and shooting without any reloads at all, ever. Then add them in during the match.

He sent it off. The gun was done by Robar according to his first post. But undercutting a polymer frame is easily done at home with patience and a Dremel with a sanding drum, followed by ultra fine grit sandpaper wrapped around a dowel rod. If a gun were only for defensive carry and/or only for use in carry optics, I'd happily modify a gun someone who asked me to. It's only a problem for SSP / Production.