ck1

Sounds like you're figuring out on your own what first came to my mind seeing this...: think you need to be able to get your thumb into position as you grip and before you draw, instead of after. I wouldn't get too caught up in the nonsense that shooting matches using slightly different gear makes one into a "gamer" and ruins any training value. There will always be someone out there who will feel that guys who shoot matches are not keeping things tacti-cool enough, and they will always out mall-ninja us when they go out and run 100rds through their H&K with super-awesome tritium-fiber-optic-orange-painted ninja operator sights (or whatever other pistol and modification is considered coolest on m4carbine or those type of sites/places), of course only drawing from some IWB that fits their pistol with it's light/laser combo that's mounted 24/7... not calling shots, not really seeing their sights, learning from better shooters, etc. because matches are below them... I EDC in the AIWB position and that doesn't fly for matches due to rules, but any match shooting or practice I do still benefits me when I do some work from AIWB, the timer tells me so. For matches I usually run OWB at 3 o'clock just for all-day comfort reasons as I SO and help set-up/break down, etc., but, I shoot my EDC gun at least 1 match out of every 3 or so I make, and from IWB my times/scores are never much different. FWIW, if you really are sold on keeping things exactly the same for comp and carry then IMO a straight-drop IWB is a good "happy medium" compromise, and with a smaller footprint holster (like a Blade-Tech Nano or something) a G17 can be hidden and still work well there.

Let us know what you think once you spend some time with it...?

Wondering if you're using an FO front as I kind of experienced a similar thing..? Since going to all-black irons the wider notch has been key whereas in the past with FO fronts it only exasperated my bad habit of breaking shots once I saw the magic dot rather than really having solid alignment... Think shooting both eyes open plays a part too, before I got retrained to utilize 'em both and when I was still only using one eyeball the wider notches (and really black fronts too) were a no-go, now I could never go back.

Pretty sure Sevigny uses the same .150" rear notch, .115" wide front as on his Glocks , the reason I think so is they didn't release the Sevigny 1911 rear with the .130" notch until the .150" ones had already been out for over a year (not to mention going to a .150" notch is probably just too much of a jump for most 1911-guys coming from narrow .115" BoMar notchs and the like). I've shot them on a friends DW Valor and Springer Loaded, they f**kin' rule, of course I'm completely biased as I've run them on Glocks for years, but in my case they're seriously a HUGE improvement to me over most any other 1911 sights I've used (the bigger light bars feel kind of like getting better eyes to me). I know a lot of guys feel like their ratio is just too big of a "window" or that the front blade will "swim" on them in the wider notch, but to my eyes having more daylight equates to faster and generally just easier and more precise alignment... They're positively going on my next 1911. FWIW, it took a while for them to catch on in Glock-land and now they're pretty much what every top Glocker winning matches (Sevigny, Vogel, J.Harrison, R.Rodgers, etc) and serious amateur Glocker is using. It might take awhile, but maybe with some of the attention Sevigny has generated recently by winning SSTK, I predict the same thing may happen with them catching on with the 1911's as more and more guys try 'em out. IMO guys are just set in their ways, and tend to use what (mostly) everybody else is using, besides, out of all the 1911 aftermarket parts out there, as far as I know the only guys even making a BoMar-type rear sight with a wider notch is Dawson and Wilson Combat and they only offer a BoMar-style rear with only a .130" notch, so it's not like many single-stack shooters other than recovering/transitioning Glockers even know what they're missing...

FWIW, I've had both the CZC comp and tactical rears and far and away prefer the take-off factoryShadow rears to either of them... the notch is A LOT deeper which works better for my eyes and is closer to a Warren/Sevigny's rear notch depth/width ratio (which I'm used to on Glocks), than just being a slightly opened-up a little wider Bo-Mar notch (which is how the CZC rear sights are). YMMV as to what would look better to you here of course... but the Shadow sight wouldn't hang off at all and would work great on a 85C.

This is where I've ended up. I carry a G19/17/34 for SD and think the 9mm Glocks just plain rule as combat/defensive pistols, but after shooting them in matches for a while I have decided to go back to the CZ's. I can do really well with the Glocks mostly, but once the targets are stretched out beyond 17yrds or so the Glock trigger becomes a real hindrance for me and I cannot hold tight accuracy together with them without slowing way down. Now, they are accurate guns, no question it's the Indian and not the arrow, and while I can usually ring 6" plates at 25yrds with them pretty consistently even while going fast, there's just no comparison to what I can manage with a nice crisp trigger in a heavier gun like is the case with a CZ Shadow... It stinks actually, as I'd like to just stick to the Glocks, but it's been literally years now of trying to overcome the drawbacks (or maybe "unique-ness") of the Glock-trigger to no avail, and life is just too short not to enjoy a good trigger now and then...

Yeah, thinking I'll be sticking to FMJ's. Thanks for the info, keep it coming...

Thinking of picking up a Spartan 9mm to use for IDPA ESP (maybe SSTK minor too) and wondering if anyone here has put some serious mileage on one and could share their experiences as far as reliability is concerned (especially when shooting factory ammo, or loads with similar OAL or pf to that, maybe .150ish OAL and 125-130pf)..? I've owned a Trojan 9mm (among others) in the past, and while it was an amazingly accurate and well built gun, it could be quite a headache even after trying both Tripp and Wilson ETM mags, Aftec, and all kinds of different springs and such, as nose-dive jams would show up often enough where I had to let it go in favor of a generally more reliable and easy to deal with CZ Shadow (but weight/parts/expense/availability issues with those is it's own other topic). My experience with the Trojan has shown me that a ramped-barrel is not the necessity for a 9mm 1911 I once thought it was to getting reliability (and to a certain extent, considering how high the Tripp and ETM mags present the rounds to the chamber, I'm thinking no-ramp could even be a plus), and while it was far too finicky for me, when it ran, man oh man, it was nice. Thing is, my times show historically, that when they work (9mm 1911's), that's what I'm fastest (and most accurate) with... So thinking of maybe giving it another whirl as the price for what you get quality-wise with the Spartans is hard to resist. I had many Saturdays ruined when after burning down a few stages, I'd run into a jam/malf that would just kill my time/score for the day and as a consequence I gave up on the 9mm 1911's for a while... but the force is strong with them. I'm looking for info from guys who've put at least a couple thousand through their guns and have run them through several matches, as I've found guns that work fine at the range don't necessarily stay running that way under match conditions. I'm not afraid of tinkering, and I'm well versed in most of it, but I'm wondering if picking one of these up hoping for it to be put into a state where it's truly solid enough to run matches consistently expecting trouble-free performance is really realistic or possible without encountering the usual 9mm 1911 headaches here and there... I've seen posts where guys say theirs run great, but I haven't read anything of guys saying they've made them their gun for matches mentioning their results or performance or anything... Thanks in advance.

Let me be the first (or I guess the second) to say get yourself an extra spring (for just in case) and bend away if you want! Just know that you're probably going to be breaking down the gun a bunch of times and then putting it back together... it can really be more time consuming and slightly annoying (depending on how many tries it takes) more so than anything else, dry-fire and safety-check the snot out of it before you load it up and try any real rounds through it, and even then start with loading up no more than (2) at a time (just in case), before you're sure it's solid. IMHO sometimes the best way to dial in a trigger exactly as you want it is to do it yourself, and while many 1911-specific gunsmithing tasks are out of the realm of most "kitchen table gunsmiths" (like cutting sears and hammer hooks, etc.), bending a sear spring is certainly not. Basically, in layman's terms (or at least how I grasp it), with a a traditional 3-leg sear spring, looking at the back of the gun: the left one has the most effect on overall trigger-pull/break-weight, the middle one has the the greatest effect on trigger-reset, and the one on the right controls grip-safety sensitivity... BUT, each one effects the other one's somewhat, so it's not an exact science and requires some playing around to get what you want. The 4-leg spring you've got is a little more tricky as the middle leg is split in half, turning it into 2 legs instead of 1, so that half/one-leg can apply pressure to the trigger-bow and the other half/leg can apply pressure to the disconnector which is supposed to combat trigger-bounce in real light trigger-jobs. You MUST make sure there's no hammer-follow or trigger-bounce, and also that your grip-safety is working correctly before you try any live ammo through it (again, starting with 2 rounds only for at least a few mags). I had my gun(s) to a couple different gunsmiths multiple times, never quite getting exactly what I wanted before/until I just decided to learn how to do it myself. I wanted a pretty light/crisp pull, but more than that I wanted a lot of "snap" on the reset (more than most are used to with the average 1911) and the grip-safety as easy to engage as possible, what it took was me disassembling/reassembling the gun about 50 times and figuring it out... in that case, that ended up being a 3-leg spring where the left leg was only slightly bent back (nearly bone straight really), the middle leg was bent in towards the trigger-bow fairly strongly, and the right leg had a shallow backwards bend. It's bending a spring, it's not rocket science. If you aren't sure how to properly safety-check it though, you're indeed best leaving it to the more experienced. Edited to add: I'd recommend leaving the spring you've got alone and experimenting on another one so you don't have to ruin where it's already at, and so you can look at the existing one to ballpark your new one. Sounds like just a little more pressure towards the trigger-bow and/or disconnector on your middle leg(s) might deliver what you want...

If you want to run an 11lb recoil spring then you pretty much MUST run a 4lb striker-spring (or you'll be risking it going off out-of-battery), and that means you need a lightened striker too to remedy the light-strikes.

+1. I had to change out the grip safety on my Trojan pretty much right away too as the STI one was downright painful for my hand. The Ed Brown did the trick and was nearly "drop-in". Did you have to cut on the frame or just modify the beavertail itself? Got any pics of the fit? Much appreciated if so. No way, didn't have to cut the frame... Just had to fit/adjust how it engaged with the back of the trigger-bow, all it took was a few passes with a file and some clean up with some 600 grit. The Ed Brown grip-safeties are the same cut/profile as what STI uses. I don't really have any dead on pics of the beavertail/grip-safety but here's what it looks like installed, looks factory (more or less), better yet, it doesn't hurt and I think it's easier to engage: Hope this helps. - Chip

+1. I had to change out the grip safety on my Trojan pretty much right away too as the STI one was downright painful for my hand. The Ed Brown did the trick and was nearly "drop-in".

Got a pic? Curious about the updates/changes you mentioned...

If you're using a stock striker and stock strength striker-spring, it's not ammo related, and you're sure your striker channel is clean, then the next thing to look at is that maybe your recoil-spring is worn out... If your recoil-spring is worn out or too soft than your striker-spring may actually be unlocking and pulling your breech slightly open and pulling the striker and slide further away from the round/primer. The Glock design is based around a tug-of-war between the striker-spring and recoil-spring and if the striker-spring is winning that battle it's no good. If you're running an aftermarket reduced power recoil-spring like a 11lb one or even a 13lb one, then that could be your problem, I'd see what happens if you install a stock 17lb recoil-spring.

I've never had any luck avoiding light-strikes with the 4lb reduced power firing springs unless using Federal primers exclusively. I got a couple 4.5lb and a 5.0lb reduced power striker springs from the folks at Glocktriggers and so far through just over 1500rds the 4.5lb spring as set off every kind of factory stuff I've tried. Those are still a little lighter than the stock 5.5lb striker-springs. The lightened strikers from Jager and Glockworx seem to work but I didn't dig the weak reset feel, YMMV. Good luck.

Shooting after a long day of setting up stages actually puts one at a disadvantage, it's not just physically worse off either, mentally it's harder to stay focused and overall it's more of a "let's get this over with so we can all relax finally" vibe more so than a normal match vibe. If I had my way SO's would shoot in the a.m. before everyone else on the same day, but that just doesn't work out logistically. Truthfully though, if there's anything I could change first about sanctioned matches, it'd be making it easier for SO's to hand out FTDR's to competitors that think they're above pasting targets and who end up slowing down the squads do to their arrogance, sadly it seems like that is a trend that has been on the rise...

Yeah, the Spartan is enough, I owned a Trojan and I can't really say the under-cut trigger guard and ramped barrel is really worth the extra $400 seeing as the Spartans are so nice... Honestly, if I get another 9mm 1911 I just might try to find an inexpensive 9mm RIA Tactical that's fit together pretty well and add an STI trigger, EGW fire-control bits, and Aftec. I dig the Warren/Sevigny fixed sights much more than the usual Bo-Mar anyway so for me I'd end up with a gun more my taste for even less. Many guys have good luck with the Springfieds as well. YMMV. They're really fun to shoot and I wouldn't want to sway you from trying one, just know that they can be a PITA sometimes to get to run, and even when they're dialed once mag/recoil springs that are working start to weaken they can start to hiccup again... in general a .45 1911 is just a lot easier to deal with is all. If you search this section for "9mm 1911" it won't take long after skimming threads to see that there sometimes can be a significant amount of effort involved if you're looking to have one of them run consistently.

Sounds like the trigger-spring (which I bet is now a stronger than stock spring) is winning the tug-of-war it has to play with the striker-spring (which I assume is now a reduced power spring) in the Glock design. Since the trigger-springs in Glocks actually are pulling back on the trigger, and striker-spring strength is what really pushes the trigger-bar forward in order to reset the trigger and also push it out past the striker block drop-safety to where the trigger -safety can reengage. I'd say that's your problem and I'd warn/add that in case you hadn't thought about it, I'd bet your drop-safety isn't working as it should in your current state too (to check: turn the empty gun upside down and rack it so the trigger/striker is cocked, then shine a flashlight down the magwell and see if the tab on top of the trigger-bar is parked pushing up on the safety-plunger, if it is that's a no-no, the tab should be just in-front of the plunger and the plunger should be pushed out of it's recess if the striker-safety is indeed working correctly). Either go back to the stock trigger-spring or stock striker-spring and it'll fix itself.

While I really like and have owned a few very nice 9mm 1911's, since you already are loading .45, guess I'll have to be the first to say "don't bother". Here's the thing with 9mm 1911's (really .40's too): the cartridge has a short OAL which can cause problems and be tricky in a 1911 platform that in it's usual dimensions has been designed around, intended, and still works best with longer OAL cartridges (.45, .38S, 10mm). They can be a headache, even the best ones still have inherent physical problems that cannot be fixed or eliminated 100%, good mags help a lot, an Aftec or perfectly tuned extractor helps, ramped barrels help, a properly sprung (light, like 7-12lbs max) gun helps, sticking with rounder ogive bullets over hollow-points helps, but still they can and usually will get moody at some point. Don't think well running 2011's in 9/40 prove it can be the same story in the single-stack configuration either, I don't know if it's the bigger mag springs in the 2011's that make them easier to get to run or exactly what it is, but the single-stacks are different animals. Sevigny won SSTK this year shooting a .45 so that says to me that they're still very much in play, and while winning was mostly, if not all, because of his skills, I'd bet his gun was far less drama to get to run well then the other guys who were running .40's and that might've been part of the difference... couldn't have hurt him. That said, they're fun as hell to shoot though when they are working well.

I got one of the newer "dot" connectors in a recent Gen4 I had picked up and then quickly got rid of (blue label, couldn't resist the price, but sadly it ran like, well, a Gen4...). I usually end up dropping Ghost's "4.5 Ranger" connector into my Glocks as it's lighter than a stock 5.5 connector, yet still crisper and shorter in pull and reset then the Glock 3.5 (now called 4.5) connectors like the stock 5.5 ones without the 3.5's mushy-ness. Just to compare, I decided to stick the "dot" into one of my Gen3's in place of the Ranger connector and FWIW I'd say it's very nearly pretty much the same thing feel-wise to the Ranger's. I like 'em, I add a 6lb trigger spring and then end up at about the same pull-weight as a good 3.5/4.5 connector just shorter and crisper like a stock 5.5. FYI/FWIW, while I usually run stock 5.5lb striker-springs as I quickly got sick of light strikes with anything other than Federal primers running a reduced power 4lb spring (and also because like Jon my match gun is my carry gun too), that said, I may have found an even better option... Seems the good folks at Glocktriggers have answered my prayers and are now making their own striker-springs in 4.5 and 5.0lb strengths! Been rocking the 4.5lb striker-spring for about 2 months/approx 1200rds and it's set off everything I've tried including Wolf and stuff with hard CCI primers... Hey, every little bit helps, dropping even just a half pound on the striker-spring is even more dramatic than a connector change IMO, good stuff, I'd recommend ordering up a few if you're well versed in playing with Glock trigger combos, 4.5-5lbs seems to be enough and that cuts 1/2 a pound right there, I'm currently happier than I've ever been. Just my two pesos here, maybe just me, but I'm not one of those guys who subscribes or buys into where a certain pistol's trigger weight is supposed to be, I want them as good as possible with no less than 100% function without compromising any of the gun's safeties, I don't buy into any of the BS law crap guys throw around on forums about a "carry trigger's accepted pull weight" having to be be at a certain spot, I just want my triggers were i like them so i can hit what I aim at, period, and explaining the pull-weight will be easy after explaining all the match fees, range trips, 1000's of rounds of training ammo, classes, etc. (like that wouldn't matter as much or more). Sorry for all the iPhone typos.

Just saw this thread... For me after watching that TJ vid I noticed something that had me examine part of my grip and ended up helping me to arrive at a mini-breakthrough a few months back, I didn't really mimic anything from the vid per se but I did take a look at how I was positioning the gun in my strong-hand and ended up making an adjustment. I found that for me, when shooting a Glock it's way beneficial for me to have the gun positioned in my hand more counter-clockwise than I was previously accustomed to, in fact it's where my hand would end up naturally after a reload, basically with a little mode palm behind the gun than before. Felt pretty counter-intuitive at first but now it feels normal and it completely erased the affliction of printing slightly left with the Glocks for me and overall has given me far more command over the gun hitting where it's supposed to.

The "fish gill" slide serrations, whether one likes the way they LOOK or not, do indeed WORK way better than the standard serrations... they're cut deeper and sharper into the slide than the usual/normal serrations by a lot. Also, they're not backwards, they're just engineered properly for function (not looks), if you don't believe me go look at the treads on an aggressive off-road 4x4 tire; with the half-moons oriented the way they are, pulling towards the rear direction allows the shape to guide more skin into contact with the slide, and a larger surface area into the recesses and on the slide to get grip (if they were turned around the shape would guide contact to a smaller surface area). I'm a fan of the RTF2 Glocks and think function-wise it's their best evolution to date. I don't find their grips to be too-aggresive at all (well maybe for all-day IWB carry) and wish Glock would turn out a G34 RTF2 that'd be GTG for IDPA SSP and Production.

Matt, With all due respect, it's not just the ones I tried, if you have several hours (or days) there's a couple hundred threads over on GlockTalk about issues with the Gen4's you could read through if you wanted to...

Damn, if it fits, I want one and am moving to ESP.

As far as I can tell it seems the springs that come in the Mec-Gar mags are even stronger than the +10% springs for the factory mags from CZC , no real need to change 'em IMO (especially if you go with the 17rd AFC mags over the 19rd ones which I bet just have the same springs but with Mec-Gar's +2 baseplate added).