MemphisMechanic

A grumpy pound of powder. Temps are likely the reason. In TN most of our shooting season is north of 90 degrees, and a powder like that is at it’s least... moody.

It is pretty zippy, although it’s well within the safe (tested) pressure range. Perhaps the reason I don’t see this is because I typically run rather hard CCI #550 magnum SP primers. Are you using a Win or Federal? Good to know! I chose WSF simply because I had a few pounds lying around, and it was the one powder I had on-hand when I needed this ammo which was capable of pushing a light 9mm at defensive-feeling speeds without exceeding book max. Everything else on the shelf (solo1000, clays, titegroup, Prima V, Ramshot Comp...) was much too fast burning and bought for competition loads. Otherwise a choice like BE-86 or power pistol or similar makes a whole lot of sense.

Get the gun reliable then short-stroke it with a few bucks worth of quarters in the back of the tube, until it fail to lock back consistently... and then remove 2 quarters. Short-stroking the gun is the most important thing you can do to flatten out the dot movement, and it also keeps the bolt from getting a running start and slamming into your bolt catch when empty, eventually breaking it. But get it to run 500rounds without a malfunction before you play with that.

No one does nicer machining than Henning. If he makes gear for your gun, it’ll be superb quality.

Yup. Plus they’re sometimes cheaper. I load all my practice and local match ammo with CCI magnum small pistol’s simply because I can always find them (often on sale) when everything else is out of stock. And if your gun and reloading press combination will handle those 100%... you feel damn good about your reliability at Major matches with non-magnum primers. I have yet to see a noticeable velocity difference at the chrono between CCI 500s and 550, btw.

That’s insanely short. Call SIG and tell them what is going on, and that your chamber measures much shorter than several other X5s owned by friends. If you find the right customer service representative they’ll hopefully rebarrel the gun or cut the chamber longer. I can cut the chamber, and there are several companies out there that can do so... but you shouldn’t have to.

Yep. Mine is 5oz I believe.

Blitzkrieg hydraulic for a .308 rifle, and the highest power sprinco .308 recoil spring. Red, I think? Along with however many quarters gave me the least dot movement.

No worries on crediting me. I chimed in on this thread to reinforce your suggestions on making Guard platforms run reliably and make sure their effectiveness was known. I wasn’t worried about receiving credit.

That backs up my experience. I saw no difference visually with the ejector spring, and the gun ran just as poorly. Extractor spring took care of every trace of my ejection problems.

I was the person who recommended the insanely strong BCM extra power extractor spring to Les. In my opinion that is a vital upgrade to these rifles. I did replace my ejector spring with a factory power one at 3,000ish rounds when my problem began. It made no difference to ejection pattern or reliability. Changed the extractor spring to the BCM and I haven’t had a malfunction since.

You can. Nothing wrong with it. But if your gun has a compensator, do it with plated bullets or JHPs only. Coated bullets or FMJs will make an absolute mess out of your comp.

Patriot Defense is making their own barrels now, might have one that fits. Maybe.

My Carry Optics Walther has 5-6 ounces of Tungsten epoxied into the backstrap. SIG builds guns with big fat tungsten weights there from the factory now.

All of my comp guns have had vastly more bare steel on the corners of the slide where the holster wore the finish down. None of those are rust buckets.

Get the mags set up to feed 20+ rounds, then load your reloads one round below their maximum capacity so that they’ll click in with a gentle insertion. I don’t speak SIG, but my Walther mags are set to hold a *reloadable* 23, which means they’ll seat in the gun without a heavy clubbing. Click in easy as you please, but in most platforms 23 takes some serious tuning. 21-22 is cake.

Load your mags full for a week. You’ll notice that they get easier to seat as the springs break in. What gun are you shooting and in which division?

Send it back? It was just beginning to look good. I actively dislike the look of immaculate guns. Tools look much better when they look suitably broken in, in my opinion.

A 2011 isn’t like other guns. EVERYthing needs to be fitted with patience and expertise, good measuring equipment, and often with specialized fixtures/tooling. Building this gun makes sense if: (1) You love building things as much as you love shooting. Or more. You really want to build your own gun, despite it taking far longer and costing more than having someone else do it. (2) You plan to own several limited and open guns in the next few years, which makes learning to build your own financially sensible. If neither applies, have someone knowledgeable build this gun.

While I agree that puff puff 147s do round the recoil impulse off quite nicely, that’s an apples/oranges comment about the spectators. 115 is supersonic, 147s aren’t. The 147s are missing a ‘crack.’

Isn’t that what we did? The limit is now 3.7 pounds. Rather than shock people by outright deleting the limit, they just took the limit and...

@motosapiens then we’re in agreement. Having direct experience here makes me shake my head EXTRA hard at the guys paying 2011-money for a carved up Salient/Agency/Etc glock .

...Within reason. I regret my featherweight slide on a 30oz Walther PPQ 4”. It’s rather violent and only a crushingly gorilla grip tames the dot down at all. Let’s just say that I now see why Vogel bolts weights to his Glock slides. And he obviously knows a thing or two: ...and that I’ll be interested to hear the results of @waktasz’s experiment. I don’t think the flatter yet snappier action of a lightweight slide is a good plan unless you have the weight in the frame/grips/magwell/etc to soften the recoil impulse. Your typical Limited gun is a good example of such. Yes, my gun does shoot flat when gripped hard. But the dot moves erratically if all that force isn’t perfectly balanced. Picking up a buddies polymer X5, on the other hand, felt like someone swapped the ammo with 90PF steel challenge rounds.

If I had a 44oz gun and some experience / common sense, I wouldn’t be rushing to add weight that it doesn’t need. That’s for sure.

Just because you can...