Foxbat

Have been out of the loop for a while, need to sell some tubes. What's the going rate for good SVI and STI tubes? Ditto, for the old style SVI?

Why... the ORIGINAL, SVI Aggressive, of course.

Yes, he is a real artist. His products are in some very well known hands.

I believe he did some work for that company, in fact I think I can see his style on some of these: https://www.theexplora.com/category/safari/

I don't know what kind of an answer you are looking for? Are you trying to find out how much you have to pay to get the most reliable, the strongest gun, so you would get your money worth while beating s#!t out of it in matches? Or is this just a hypothetical exercise in silliness? Certainly you can get your gun "beautified" to no limit. A friend of mine used to engrave the $750,000 hunting rifles... he would be happy to take your $50K or even more. I am attaching the photo of one of his works for your consideration.

SVI IMM.

I had all FOUR sizes: short, medium, long and VERY long, and eventually settled on medium.

I tried the coated bullets... accuracy was way down, and tons of lead in the comp, so no more. Only JHP for me.

That horse is still kicking?

Good way to combat cold - use the gun cover, and insert a hand warmer in the grip. The ones my wife uses stay VERY warm for many hours.

What he says.

Switched to RTS2's on both guns, and am quite happy. s#!t did happen, but it can happen with anything.

The only issue I have seen with 9mm brass used many times over was primers falling out. No big deal when happens in practice, a bit upsetting in a match, but might cost you a second or so, so I no longer use old brass in matches, only once fired, but that "buy new brass" story is a total hogwash.

A person here used to offer this mod, and he did a couple of my magazines with good results. Only one side had to be extended. No more salt shakers. I am not mentioning his name, because I don't know if he still does it, but he is a regular here, and will chime in if willing.

For unloaded start I prefer the magazine that does not take much effort to insert. I had seen enough, and have done it myself, the situations where you insert the magazine, rack the slide and the mag falls out.

I never understood the reason for this competition to jam in as many rounds as possible. Pretty much every stage will have a convenient reload point. I usually load one less round, to get an extra margin of feeding reliability. So my new SVI tubes usually get 28 rounds of 9mm, with some nice give.

Yes,, they do go off. I am not concerned about this, as I mentioned both my SVI's are set that way, and as long as I use something like Win primers, they work 100%. So I don't see any reason to replace the main spring.

#25 is pretty strong, I think I have far less. Mines are just as they came from SVI, I did not replace anything there. Trigger pull is in the 1.75lb range. I don't mind this situation, because as long as I don't use magnum primers, they work 100%. I use WInchester small pistol, and they work perfect. There is also great variation between small rifle primers. Winchesters work fine, but S&B give me REAL problem - more than 50% FTI.

Your worry is not justified. Yes, it does take a few days to get used to them initially, but after that you simply forget about it. However, the grip quality it has stays. I have two of them, and I would not have it any other way.

In some guns with low trigger pull Magnum primers might not work reliably. In both of mine I get anywhere from 5% to 10% FTI, which is annoying in practice, and totally unacceptable in a match.

Really? I have two of them, and have no complaints at all.

I shot Blue Bullets for a while, and they left ton of lead in my comp. Maybe because I have two 3/16" holes in the barrel.

I know a GM who is also a gunsmith, and he switched to 9mm both in shooting and building, years ago. I had his 9mm gun and it was 100% reliable.

Just get a correctly made gun, and load good ammo, and it will shoot like a dream, 100% reliably. I had 9mm guns made by 4 or 5 different builders... only one had issues. Some people shooting 38 were surprised how flat my gun was shooting.

No, all vertical.