CHA-LEE

I am doing a trigger job on a buddies DWX and used the standard EGW Trigger Kit (Sear, Hammer, Disconnector, Sear Spring, Hammer Spring) and everything in that kit worked just as it would for a normal 1911/2011. The trigger job turned out great except for not being able to adjust the Pre/Over travel using the stock DWX Trigger Bow. Here is my Question for the DWX experts, does a standard 2011 Trigger Shoe/Bow setup work in the DWX? I didn't have an extra one laying around to test it out. The back portion of the trigger bow looks like it is shorter top to bottom than a standard 2011 Trigger bow and given that the bow is riding in a completely different frame (vs a 2011 style frame) the width of the bow is probably different as well. I can't confirm for sure since I don't have a standard trigger bow to compare it to. If a Standard 2011 Trigger Bow doesn't work, does anyone make an aftermarket trigger bow which has Pre/Over travel adjustments? The other thing that confuses me about the stock DWX trigger shoe is that the back side of the trigger shoe is threaded for a set screw where the over travel screw would go in a standard 1911/2011 trigger shoe, but the screw hole doesn't go all the way out to the front of the shoe. The threads look 5-40 to me and I guess you could put a set screw in there threading in from the back side of the shoe. But then you would have to take the gun totally apart to adjust the over travel set screw. That is mega dumb if it was intentionally designed like that. I apologize up front if this Trigger Bow question has already been answered in this thread. If it has please point me to the post. I don't have time to wade through the current 55 pages of posts to dig for the answer. Thanks in advance to all of the DWX Experts willing to help!!!

“Rotational Forces” the root cause of unevenly cut lower lugs? Rotational force exists while the bullet is traveling down the rifling but is mostly gone before the slide even starts to move back. So the whole ware surface on one side of the lower lugs getting exclusively worn due to “Rotational Forces” is BS. It’s odd that they wouldn’t own up to cutting the lower lugs wrong. If it’s only locking up on one lower lug then the duration of the lockup quality (rounds fired) will be half of what it should be. The lockup tightness may be In Spec now, but how long that will last is TBD.

If I had the Thanos Infinity Gauntlet and could snap my fingers to change USPSA Power Factor, I would eliminate minimum power factor all together. Minimum Caliber is 9mm and steel must fall to score. Everyone gets scored Minor. If you want to risk running sub 125PF ammo on steel then don't whine when it doesn't go down and eat the Mike. Open guns would last at least 3x longer if they were fed minor PF ammo.

Check out the Eastern Colorado USPSA Section website for match schedule, results, club info and more..... www.ecouspsa.com

The Bullet Tip Hit Pattern is inconsistently up and down the whole feed ramp. An inconsistent "Vertical Point" of the top round in the magazine is usually due to brass sidewall straightness issues. For example, if you use an undersize resizing die it will make the sidewall of the brass a coke bottle shape. Coke bottle shaped brass causes very inconsistent ammo stacking within the mag. It also causes high spots for the rim of the case to catch on as the ammo slides across one another during feeding. An easy way to test this is to load up a magazine full then look at the top few rounds. is the top round laying completely flat against the round below it? Or are the bullets fanned out with only the very base of the brass touching one another? If the bullets are fanned out, then it is 100% a brass sidewall straightness issue. Replacing the mag spring may make it feed a little better, but if the rounds are not stacking on top of one another correctly it doesn't matter what spring or follower you are using. Its always going to have an inconsistent Vertical Point of the top round during feeding. The vast majority of the time, these kind of feeding issues are 100% due to poorly made reloaded ammo. People think that they can reload ammo in any manner and it will magically work. That isn't the case.

Depending on how the surface of the mag tube was prepped before DLC, it can result in a surface friction that is higher than desired. In my experience, DLC coated mags do have a higher friction than non-DLC coated mags. This translated to a little more "Stickiness" of the mag within the grip when trying to drop an empty mag during a reload. The other thing to consider is that DLC coating is only as durable as the metal underneath. The sheet metal used for mag tubes isn't very hard from a rockwell perspective and really shouldn't be or they would crack like crazy. When DLC is used on mag tubes they will scratch and nick easier than harder rockwell metal parts like frames and slides. If you are looking to spend extra $$$ on DLC Mag Tubes to increase durability, don't waste your money because the metal is too soft to really make any difference. If you like having black mags because they "Look Better" then DLC will achieve that goal.

Use a different powder which doesn't vaporize the coating off of the bullets. If your ammo is "Smoky" then the coating is getting vaporized. For example, Tight Group + Major PF 40 cal coated bullets = MEGA Smoky

Its difficult for after market base pad manufactures to make the top portion of the base pad bottom out on the grip because they don't know if the gun will have a magwell or not. Not to mention all of the different grip profile and lengths to deal with. Accept the facts that "Race Gun" parts are for "Race Guns". In a normal use case you don't run a high cap "Race Gun" dry before doing a reload. Accept the fact that if you shoot your gun dry during a stage run that you have done something way wrong already and disabling the slide lock function will keep you from wasting more stage time by then dealing with an over insertion jam.

For High Cap divisions which use extended base pad mags its actually better to disable the Slide Lock Back function so that you don't run into this over insertion issue. If the slide doesn't lock back then you can smash the mags in the gun without causing any issues.

Don't smash mags into the gun with the slide locked back when using mags with extended base pads. Most of the factory length mags use the rim of the base pad to butt up against the bottom of the grip to prevent over insertion. If you are using the gun for Competition, such as Carry Optics and you have 23+1 capacity, then you SHOULDN'T be running the gun dry to slide lock during a stage run. If you are, then you have much more important issues to fix first.

The guidance in this thread applies to pretty much all Semi-Auto pistols.

The AGW SIG Plate will not work with the Alpha 3 without modification to the plate. I had to remove some material from the leading edge of the "Lip" on the plate in order to make it work. Not much material removal is needed. It took me about 10 minutes to make the modification with several iterations of material removal and test fitting.

You actually want these older "DVC" Hard Chrome / Ti-Nitride Barrel STI guns to have at least 10K on them so you can verify that the Barrel to Slide fit at the upper lugs isn't going to eat itself to death. Unfortunately, I have seen MANY of this vintage of "DVC" STI 2011's get shipped with very poor barrel fits. A dead give away on a very poor fit is to measure the diameter of the barrel link hole where the slide lock lever pin goes through. The hole in the Barrel Link shouldn't be much bigger than 0.206". If it is, run for the hills because that link was hogged out to "Make it fit" and it leads to the barrel not being pulled all the way down when the barrel unlocks and the upper lugs are peened to death. Most of the "DVC" Hard Chrome / Ti-Nitride Barrel STI guns look like they were intentionally made in a manner where none of the parts were precision fit to that specific gun. They seemed more like "Parts Bin" guns where the parts were made with so much slop that anyone could simply pick parts out of a bin and slap a gun together with zero "Fitting" required. That is great for manufacturing guns quickly. But its horrible if you actually want a gun that is going to be accurate and last a long time without destroying itself.

In my testing of many different red dots the FTP Alpha 3 has the least amount of Parallax. There is only about 2 inches of Point of Impact (POI) shift at 25 yards with the dot biased to the edges of the glass (Top/Bottom/Left/Right). This same Parallax testing with several other very popular brands produces 3x - 4x (6 - 8 inches) more POI shift. This might not seem like a lot of POI shift but its enough to produce a miss on head shot past 25 yards if the dot isn't in the center of the glass. This becomes a problem in those really funky shooting positions where your body is all pretzeled up and you can't get your head behind the gun in a normal position resulting in only seeing the dot on the very edge of the glass. This is a very edge case scenario as it will be rare when we are intentionally firing shots with the dot on the edge of the glass. But it does happen.

All of this whining about Division Changes that will "Require" people to buy new stuff always makes me laugh. In my experience, most of the people whining about being Required to buy more/different stuff are the same people who continually buy new/different stuff ALL THE TIME anyway. So what are they really bitching about? If the firearm you are currently using will now be a significant disadvantage (most likely it will NOT be given that top shooters are winning national titles with sub $1K guns today) and you can't afford to buy a different firearm that is better suited to a new division, then you probably shouldn't be competing in a Hobby/Sport that you literally can't afford to do anyway. The Firearm itself is far from the most expensive piece of equipment if you are serious about competing at the top of the Practical Shooting Sports. In my budget Travel expenses and Entry Fee's are the most expensive items. In 2022 I spent more than $15K in travel expenses and entry fee's ALONE to attend matches. That level of expense is required just to get me to the matches I choose to attend. Ammo is a close runner up at about $10K a year. Guns, Gear, Training, etc ALL cost way less than those other primary expenses. People easily forget that we are RACING with GUNS. If you are Racing anything the evolution and obsolescence of the equipment is never ending. In the Gun Games, the Firearm is nothing more than a tool used to get job done. When a new Tool does the job more effectively, you get the new tool. Especially when its NOT the primary expense in grand scheme of things. If you are broke and shouldn't be competing in the gun games in the first place, don't whine about the evolution of the firearms pricing you out. Suck it up and use what you have. What you already have is likely never going to be the primary thing limiting your maximum performance anyway. Its the Indian getting the job done, not the Arrow 99% of the time.

I use CRC Electronic Contact Cleaner. It works great and is plastic safe. You can find this stuff at many Auto Parts stores and Walmarts... https://www.crcindustries.com/products/qd-174-electronic-cleaner-11-wt-oz.html

If the dot has a pulsing frequency higher than 60hz then the human eye can't "Observe" it flickering. Can you catch this On/Off behavior in an electronically captured image (Picture/Video)? Absolutely. Many Red Dot manufactures purposefully flicker the LED dot off/on (Above 60hz) to reduce battery consumption. This is actually how they get the small 2032 style batteries to last tens of thousands of hours. A human observable flickering dot can be due to marginal battery connectivity, component solder failures on the Circuit Board, or mechanical failure within the sight itself. I have also observed a "Flickering" dot scenario while shooting when my scope mount was cracked. Lastly I want to point out that NOTHING lasts forever and $hit happens. If you shoot a lot, stuff will break. I always have 2 - 3 spare Red Dots on hand regardless of what brand or model I prefer to use. This is the cost of competing. The expense of 2 - 3 Red Dot sights is chump change in comparison to the grand total expenses the practical shooting sports costs.

Sheep come in many forms and Classifications.....

I use Grease and Oil. Slide Glide Lite grease on all of the main parts (Slide, Barrel, Frame, Guide Rod, etc) then Lucas Extreme Duty Oil on the trigger parts (Sear, Hammer, Disconnector, etc). I use a tooth brush to apply a thin coating of Slide Glide Light on all of the main parts, then I add a few drops of Lucas Extreme Duty Oil to the frame rails and barrel hood. The Oil applied in these areas basically eliminates any "stickiness" on the moving parts regardless of range temp (10 deg F - 100 deg F). Yes, I am a freak who still goes out to shoot when the temperature is what most others would consider a "HARD PASS". The Slide Glide Lite serves as a good barrier between the burnt powder and metal which makes cleaning the gun very easy. I never have to dig at or scrape burnt powder off of the main parts. The only part that I need to scrape burnt powder off of is the extractor hook which is to be expected. Everything else comes clean by simply spraying CRC Electronic Connector Cleaner on it. I can fully disassemble, clean, inspect, lube and reassemble a 1911/2011 in about 20 minutes. In Open, the main advantage to this lubrication package is that there isn't a bunch of oil to get flung around as the slide cycles. This means no oil getting flung onto the glass of the red dot. It will also maintain proper lubrication for at least 1000 rounds on my Open gun and at least 2500 rounds on my Limited gun. Most "Motor Oils" will fling off or weep out of the gun well before 500 rounds. Motor Oil is also a very poor barrier against burnt powder residue. The Lubrication package you use should correlate to your Shooting vs Cleaning schedule. If you only shoot a few hundred rounds between cleans, then Motor Oil will get the job done. If you shoot thousands of rounds between cleans then a more robust lubrication package is needed like the combo I am using. I don't know about you guys but I would rather spend my time shooting guns vs cleaning them. So I use a robust lubrication package that allows me to do that.

If you have the dot brightness up too high its almost impossible to NOT have a dot focus. Turn the dot brightness down so that its not such a distraction within the glass. This will help you maintain a hard target focus. If you are seeing the dot within the glass DURING the transition then you are not moving your eyes to the next target. Think of it like this. As soon as the shot breaks on the current target your eyes should flick OUTSIDE of the glass to the next target aiming spot. Then your focus maintains on the next target as your gun physically moves towards the target. Eventually the glass will cover the focal spot on the target and as soon as the red dot lands on the focal point you break the shot. Another key point I want to make about the above statement. Notice that I am talking about only moving your EYES to the next target. Not your whole head. You need to be comfortable with keeping your head pointed in the same direction of the gun while only moving your EYES to the next target. Basically, everything from the waist up should be "Locked Up" and moving as one unit like a tank turret during a transition.

Video your shooting in Slow Motion with and without a thumb rest. Watch how the gun returns when the slide snaps forward. Let the footage tell you which setup is “better”.

No Thumb Rest is needed with the proper grip angles and pressure.

Send me a PM. I do a bunch of 1911/2011 trigger jobs every year.

I think you are missing the point that CalTeacher is trying to make. An effective MD already KNOWS the average skill level of their participants and can easily assess if a specific shooting/movement challenge is "Too Much" for their customer base. This assessment and rejection of insane shooting/movement challenges MUST happen at every match to keep the match product challenging yet enjoyable. Can you have an "Aim your ass off" array of targets here or there? Absolutely. But it shouldn't be the predominate theme presented again and again over most of the stages. This is no different than having too many close hoser targets. It needs to be a balance and the best person to make those decisions is the MD/RM. As an MD myself, I assess each stage submitted for the match in the weeks leading up to the match. YES, I make my team submit their club match stages at least a week ahead of the match so they can be assessed and balanced to one another. I make sure that we are not excessively testing ANY specific skill in an unbalanced manner. Then the day of the match, I walk each stage during setup and adjust things as needed to eliminate excessively deployed shooting or movement challenges. This is on top of the minimum requirement of ensuring that each stage is providing a legal and safe presentation of targets. Unfortunately for a lot of MD's, this minimum requirement is their only assessment of the stages during setup. Why that behavior happens, I don't know.