ck1

Yeah, ramped barrel, older STI, runs like a top... when the mags work that is. I’ve probably tried every 9mm 1911 mag out there twice over, I know the Metalform/Brownells mags you’re talking about well, they’re the same as the Dawson’s too (except for the basepad), and they are pretty good indeed... I used to have a handful of them that I used to run if I needed 10-rounders (more than a few years back), because that said, going more than a few years back (and even maybe today) IMHO nothing could beat the Rob Leatham designed Metalform “Springfield-style” 9-rounders with the crimp running down the front, they were the best 9mm 1911 magazines out full stop (still might be), and under old IDPA rules it was nearly always an advantage to use the 9-rounders. I don’t always shoot IDPA, but when I do, I shoot a 9mm 1911 Fast-forward to 2020, and deciding to start shooting the 1911 in IDPA again sometimes, after having gotten rid of most of my 1911 stuff, I decided to get some new 10-rounders because of the rule changes where round dumping is fine now... Well, I was looking up something about 9mm 1911’s or IDPA or both, and I stumble upon a few pics of The Great One himself’s current setup (well, as of 2/20); TGO’s running 10rd Wilson Gen2 ETM’s! So figured if they’re good enough for him (and I don’t think he's even sponsored by Wilson), they’re probably fine for the rest of us lol... I think I might just be kind of finding out the hard way that they like short OAL rounds... I’m not too worried about what I spent on them because I bought them from Brownells and I’ve never used their super-duper return/exchange policy ever, and after the thousands I’ve spent with them over the years, it probably won’t hurt my karma too much if I have to exchange them... The mags are actually pretty solid, mine are just short and only will do the short rounds... part of me is wondering if I may have gotten a “bad batch” if the short OAL problem isn’t something others’ are seeing..?

Been part-time running an 9mm 1911 again because I guess I like making life complicated lol... but hey, it’s worth it when they work because they’re so fun! Anyways, I bought a bunch of the Wilson Combat ETM Gen2 mags (12), and they’re pretty good for the most part... but the issue I’m having is that they’re pretty much forcing me to use the shortest OAL ammo I have in my stockpile which is mostly pricier “match” stuff, and any kind of cheaper, “normal/average” practice stuff, FMJ like Blazer Brass 124’s, Magtech 124’s, and S&B 124’s is too long and just gets stuck/jammed in the tubes at the front and back (I’ve been prying them up/out with a Glock tool, it sucks). They load up ok, but get stuck on the way up (usually every other round or so, it’s terrible). I don’t reload, so I can’t really control OAL other than by what I buy as far as ammo, and I would like to use the cheaper stuff for most practice. All the mags are pretty new, and I haven’t stuck calipers on them yet, but it seems to happen with all of them so I don’t really think it’s a case where the tubes are bulged or something like that. Really the only ammo I have that works 100% with them is the Federal Syntech 150gr “action pistol” stuff which is flat-nose and really really short. Really short. But, most of the “match” loads I buy are 147gr round-nose that are loaded pretty short to work in CZ’s, so they’re pretty short too, but still too long to work 100% reliably in the Wilson mags... Has anyone else experienced this with these mags? Thinking I might need to try some different magazines if this is just how the Wilson’s are...

Agreed, but remember there is a tipping point with $$$ saved vs performance because pretty much all mini red dots are kinda expensive... so with the Holosun’s, if the cheaper 407C at like $230ish will work for you then they’re great... but if you start looking at the nicer ones like the 508T or something at more like $400ish, IMHO you might as well spend just a little more and get an SRO because the bigger window and tougher build is probably worth it. I really like the SRO’s so far, but above I just wanted to be honest that they aren’t perfect is all. I really wish I trusted Sig enough to try a Romeo3XL... but as an MPX-owner, I just can’t hahaha... I mean the MPX came out in ‘15-16, but it took ‘em until last year to get it right

A while back, before I bought my optics and put my CO gun together, I tried to ask shooters I'd see with pistol dots their thoughts... pretty much to a man, all the guys at matches who really put a bunch of rounds downrange told me to skip the DPP because of issues and having to send them back. All the guys I talked to with SRO's seemed to be pretty happy with them and none of them had had one die on them (yet).Everyone was pretty curious about the newer/bigger Sig dots but I couldn't find anyone running them local to me and all were weary of their durability due to Sig's more recent history of having their consumers beta test their products for them after release... I ended up buying a couple 5moa SRO's: 1 lives on my CO S2OR and has been great and issue-free so far through only about 2000rds, and 1 (which can be pulled as a back-up for my CO gun) lives a much easier life on my MPX PCC which I don't shoot as much as my pistols, and has been great so far through only about 1000rds... I have absolutely no drama to report so far, which is exactly what I want, and hope things stay that way. That said FYI/FWIW, I'm starting to get convinced that Trijicon is incapable of making a true, distortion-free ,1X optic (even with the SRO's)... I went through 4 different MRO's that all had pretty bad magnification/distortion issues, every single RMR (out of probably like 10+ over the years) I've ever seen is a little wonky, and it's kind of the same thing continued (only not near as bad) with the SRO's; they too have very slight magnification, and distortion around the edges, but I can put up with it because they still check most of the boxes and are built very robust so I just deal with it. It's something you don't hear about a lot, because it seems to me at least, that there is just some sort of weird "fanboy delusion" around Trijicon and some other "top-tier" manufacturers, where guys take their pride-of-ownership a little too far after dropping some serious coin on things, and aren't as critical or honest about their shortcomings. With a lot of gun stuff, seems sometimes having the "name" makes people look past stuff, and having the "name" means they keep selling and never get made right (JMHO). I can't quite understand how if Holosun can manage to make a true 1x distortion-free optic for $100-200, why Trijicon can't for $400-500+..? That leads me to the Sig optics, specifically the Romeo 3 Max/XL models: looking through them they look awesome, they are definitely clearer than the SRO's and seem to be free of magnification which is great... but, already I've been hearing of things like wandering zero's, and the electronics taking a dump within the first few hundred rounds, and with Sig's reputation, I'm just not willing to be an early adopter just yet...

Very weird... Maybe the slide-stop spring got bent a little somehow when swapping slides? Maybe bend it or play with it a bit so it goes back to normal?

No problem, hope it works out. Also FWIW, checking to make sure that the trigger bar spring is still riding under the trigger bar correctly, and isn't jammed between the trigger bar and the frame might be another thing to take a look at, because that could muck everything up....?

I think the reason for this is because most of the PCC's out there that advertise LRBHO as a "feature" don't really work reliably/correctly... and with many of them, worse than not working reliably/correctly, they tend to also decide to lock-back when they're not supposed to and screw people up as well. For competition, none of us want to reach slide/bolt-lock or we've already screwed up by running dry, which is a no-no because it means we should've reloaded (or not missed so much lol). Incidentally, this is also why a lot of Limited pistol shooters disable their pistols from reaching slide-lock when empty, because getting lock-back on a 2011 is pretty much never 100% because the mags are so finicky, and the guns also tend to get locked-back at inopportune times and screw people's runs up... So if LRBHO is unreliable, yeah, ditch it. But, if a gun's LRBHO mechanism works 100% correctly and reliably, and doesn't get activated prematurely, then there's no real reason to remove/disable it, because theoretically, under match conditions it should never activate or be used (unless, again, one screws up and forgets to reload), or unless one wants it to. I shoot an MPX and the LRBHO works perfectly, so it never gets used at a match unless I screw up (or purposely run empty, which sometimes I do depending on the game or the stage). In fact, with some mandatory reloads depending on the game, a reload and dropping the bolt is always quicker than a reload and racking it. IMHO, I actually prefer all my guns that don't have issues with premature slide/bolt-lock to lock-back when empty as they should... because for me, an open/locked-back bolt/slide means "cuss, reload, press bolt/slide release", which is faster than "click, cuss, rack to clear imaginary malf/jam only to realize I'm actually empty, cuss again, reload, rack" hahahaha...

Wow, that is a weird one... Long shot here: but you might try wiggling and/or playing with the safety levers, moving them around a bit (in/out), and then see if you can get it to allow the slide to behave normally (I'd try this with the original slide that was working fine first) and see what you get..? ...I have heard of guys finding out the hard way that sometimes the safeties with certain CZ's don't always play nice-nice with every slide until they're in the exact place to let the slides ride through the channels in the safety's post that goes through the sear cage and frame horizontally...

LOL ...this is hilarious because I feel the same way! From an aesthetics point of view the A01 trigger-guard just looks so wrong to me... the pistol looks all big and tough, with squared-off angles and such, then with a little nut sack hanging off it hahahaha... The former Ducati-owner in me won't go performance without the looks, even though that matters about as much as how the thing tastes lol.

IMHO lower to the bore is pretty much always better... just less height over bore offset to have to account for when shooting closer in, a more "natural point", gets you more "in the gun", and getting an honest-to-goodness cheek weld is an extra point of contact (4 points of contact instead of 3). FWIW, depending on what kind of gun you run, some can be harder to stay lower mounted and find the right optic height for than others... these days a "lower 1/3" height has pretty much become more common than an "absolute" for AR-pattern platforms (a lot of times it's actually harder to locate an "absolute" height mount), and if you run something like an MPX/Scorpion/etc with a lower stock-comb height it get even trickier... In my case I've had to try quite a few different things to arrive where I'm comfortable (which is pretty much an "absolute" type height on an MPX). I'm currently running a $500 optic on a $5 mount lol.

Reading this thread has kind of just reminded me that the paradigm shift with STI really already occurred circa 2015-2016... before then, they were putting out mostly great quality guns for not too much money. I was even able to do a search and find their old 2015 catalog, and they used to have a really great line. It wasn’t that long ago when you could honestly put a $1200-1500 STI 1911 up against a $3K+ Wilson/Nighthawk/Baer/Brown and chances are, if you were really honestly going to shoot it a lot, the STI’s were sometimes (more often than not) the better guns... and of course those were the first models to get dropped. I don’t know the timeline of when the company went from 100% employee-owned to private, but there were definitely a few years there where one was getting a gun that punched above it’s weight for what they cost at the time. This name change and makeover to “Gucci pseudo tactical” probably shouldn’t be that surprising really, the company kind of lost its way a while ago and hasn’t really been putting out the same stuff that made them for years now while they’ve been playing around with their identity. In fact, the name change probably has a lot to do with getting away from the rep that used to be great but was sullied over the last 4-5 years on the first try at changing it up with the Costa Ludis/DVC era stuff. Not butthurt about it at all, but it is a shame to see such a small but still hugely influential shop like STI disappear. From what I’ve read they’re making a big push as far as getting their quality back and getting back on the ball and making good guns, they just had a really good thing going on that they could’ve just tried to reclaim, rather than reinvent. JMHO.

I second this.

IMHO If you want the most laughs and smiles get the MPX, there's nothing out there that is as soft and nerf-gun like. What makes the MPX cool is how it operates, it's drastically different than a blowback gun. And I'd only really recommend the newer/newest MPX PCC model, as it has been 100% reliable for me with a minor/lazy cleaning regime and shooting lots of rounds. That said, I had a Gen 1 MPX and it was a finicky PIA and I hated it, and there are plenty of guys that have had lots of headaches with the Gen 2 models... Sig doesn't call the newer models a "Gen 3", but they changed a lot of different little things from the earlier models and really ought to. IMO they were, in sad typical Sig-fashion these days, using their consumers as beta testers for a few years to get the latest MPX there... Really you just need to decide if you want to go MPX or blowback? not necessarily GMR-15. There isn't really anything special about the JP's (besides their build quality and price tag), they're still simple blowback guns that use Glock mags. The Silent Captured Spring System they use which allows being able to play with weights and springs is really their only special feature, but you can buy that feature separately and drop it into pretty much any blowback AR-based PCC you want... and their system isn't the only game in town, there are top level shooters using a few different variations of buffer components to get the guns to behave how they want. To me, the GMR-15 is overpriced. While nice, it's still just a blowback AR9. But if owning the best build quality and "name" out there is worth it to you, then they're worth it. But, design-wise it still is a compromise because it's using less than ideal mags for the platform and there's nothing elegant or bleeding edge at all about the operating system. I still lose to them frequently with my slick modern MPX lol hahahaha...

Awesome. Don't get me wrong, I’m an STI fan and own several... I just don’t think they should be burying their competition roots and trying to turn all “Tactical” is all... I don’t think it’s going to work for them, but if they’re selling guns, they’re selling guns...

Yeah, the competition market is probably pretty small... But, they can spend all they can afford and more, do all the “hero” marketing they want, hire every ex-mil trainer with a beard they can get their hands on, and still, the list of real-world LE agencies who’ll allow the adoption of a single-action 2011 for duty use is still probably smaller... There is no real LE/Tactical market for a 2011 gun, it’s a fantasy. STI/Staccato need to put all that fast-roping and door-kicking movie BS out of their minds... Most larger agencies have SOP’s that don’t even trust their officers to clear their weapons/chambers before locking up their guns in lock boxes before entering secure facilities in order to avoid ND’s, and then some of these morons show up to qual and catch days off because they’ve been riding with an empty chamber for 6 months... It’s sad, but giving the average officer a firearm is more of a liability nightmare for an agency more than anything else...this is with stone simple DAO striker-guns, a 1911-based gun with a nice trigger that needs maintenance would be like trading in all the Ford Taurus units that get crashed for Porsche 911’s... Giving 15% off to LEO’s/First Responders might sell them a few guns here and there. But, whom ever in their company that convinced them that there are big agency contracts out there, besides a few little ones like the Texas Rangers and a tiny handful of specialty units like that who can both clear the red tape and have the budget to even consider them, is dreaming.

So dumb. STI used to be synonymous with meaning a shooters’ gun, an aficionados gun... sad to see them scrap all that in order to try and get on the Timmy bandwagon. Besides, it’s not going to work, Timmy’s like $500 guns that go bang with little to no maintenance, not $2000 guns that take $100 mags and need to be dialed in to be reliable (especially in 9mm, which most LEA’s are moving back to). For LEO’s, with half the guys in an agency barely able to qualify every six months, a finicky double stack wouldn’t even make the back of the page on my list for a working real world LEA...

Your best bet is to just wait until they start showing up for sale again, that John Wick one is just dumb IMO and way overpriced. If you can get lucky, try to grab one of the “Noctis” ones that are exclusive to Cabela’s/Bass Pro, it’s cheaper and the only thing it’s missing is the Timney trigger (which isn’t that great anyways)...

Thanks. I put an email into Grams, but haven't heard anything yet... As for locking back vs feeding, yeah, I'd rather it feeds good than lock back when empty too if I have to choose. And I think we all wish we always remembered to reload when we were supposed to or stuck with our stage plan every time lol... but things don't always go to plan lol. That's why on the other side of the coin it would be nice if they could feed reliably AND lock-back on empty, because; cussing and grabbing a fresh mag is faster than: cussing, checking/clearing an imaginary malfunction because you’re actually empty, then cussing some more while reaching for a fresh mag hahaha ....... IDK, I've got 6, and IIRC 2 were a tighter fit than the others, but they all went on without too much fuss for me...

Congrats. Welcome to PCC... it's like an open gun you get to use with your shoulder (and they're cheaper) lol! The Holosun's are great,. The circle-dot is really something you'll need to try for yourself in order to see if it works for you. I found the circle-dot great at first, but it soon became too busy for me to track under recoil and contributed to me getting sloppy with my shots, so I went back to dot-only. That said, it's worth a try, some guys love the circle-dot, and good news is you can try both and switch at the touch of a button. The Holosun's are still good sights even if you end up only running the dot.

So..... great, two responses, two different and opposite answers...? I guess I can try giving Grams a call... but pretty sure like most manufacturers, they're just going to tell me it's fine either way as long as the gun is feeding/working... Hopefully more guys will chime in with their experiences with this setup... because what is "normal" hasn't been established yet hahaha... I know lock-back on empty isn't needed for USPSA, I get it, if we run dry we already messed up, that's not my question. I'm just trying to find out if it should be locking back when empty? Of course I don't plan on running my gun dry before I reload if I can help it... but if it's supposed to lock-back when dry, then I do want it to, because at least that'll cost me less time to deal with than a dead trigger when dry IMHO.

OK cool. It was my first time out today with the Grams' kits and was wondering if not-locking-back on empty was normal... Thanks. FYI/FWIW for anyone who stumbles upon this thread: the nickel mags + TTI extensions would load to 21+1 with the stock springs and followers as advertised, but it wasn't 100% reliable in my S2 (maybe 80%, not match-worthy IMO), that recipe caused malfunctions for me and my guess is the stock mag guts weren't truly up to the task of pushing up all those rounds (even with brand spanking new mags/guts).

Tried to search for an answer, couldn't find it... I'm running the CZ/Mec-Gar Nickel mags (SKU: 11155) + TTI extension base pads (TTI-CZ-FP) + Grams spring & follower kit (FKCMG-11)... gives me 23+1rds and seems to be running great. Question is: the mags no longer lock back when empty (gun doesn't go to slide-lock when dry), is this normal..? I don't really need the gun to lock back when dry, but just wondering if it's supposed to, and if everything is running correctly? Thanks.

I've seen the grapes, comets, blobs, etc with Aimpoints... forget about EOtechs for me, looks like lipstick smeared across the lens lol. The SRO is worth a try, but I'd see if someone will let you look through one in the safe area at a match before you buy if you can, $500 is $500, and if it looks crappy, better to know before you buy... or at least order one from a place that does easy returns/refunds so you can play with one unmounted for a bit before you commit. As an aside, for some reason Holosun's dots look good to my eyes with my astigmatism; I know it's not the hottest thing out, and the glass isn't as big as the SRO/R3Max/R3XL types, but if all the others look wonky the Holosun's are worth at least giving a look...

I went with the 5 moa, and am digging it. I also have a slight astigmatism and most dots don't look so great to my eyes, but for some reason the SRO's 5 moa looks great, the 2.5 was better than most for me, but the 5 won no contest for my eyes. If you're on the fence, the 2.5 moa dot cranked up can be made to look bigger, can't really make the 5 moa smaller, but you really don't need to crank it up as much either. Some guys (usually Timmys, not so much the guys around here) get all deep in the weeds about how a smaller dot is more precise... but remember a 5 moa dot is only 1.25 inches at 25yrds so... Try to check out both before you buy, they're both good, pick the one that "sparks joy" lol.

Hiperfire Hipertouch Series (Eclipse, Competition, Reflex)... pull weight can be 2 - 3.5lbs depending what springs you use, virtually zero take-up, reset is as short as a top shelf 1911.