Tactica

Hey guys, I feel dumb for asking... but I have to... When I was disassembling, the barrel with handguard came off as one. I didn't realize I had to take the comp off at first... anyway, when looking at the barrel and handguard, I realized there was an aluminum piece of metal on the outside of the handguard that the take down nut used to mate against. I pulled that out for cleaning. I then took the comp off and decided to push the barrel out... thats when the rubber 0-ring and the interrior small metal bushing popped out of the hand rail... and the barrel came out freely. I didn't realize there was a metal bushing and rubber o-ring in there and did not see how those two components were arranged inside the handrail in that small cylinder piece... Note I'm not talking about the gas piston on the guide rod after the carrier... I know where that goes... I did manage to get the gun completed down to bolt, cleaned and reassembled without issue... well, up to the point that I'm ready to put the barrel and non-recipricating charging handle equipped handrail on... but need some understanding on what order / how to put that 0-ring and interrior metal bushing. To my knowledge, there's no schematic of the Firebird Precision modified gun's assembly, so hoping someone can explain this to me relatively easily. Thank in advance for any help...

Excellent feedback gents, thank you! nipplehead: I'm running heavy target load birdshot, 3 DRAM equivilent to break gun in only... After that, it will all light loads. I'm already getting some metal shaving and build up in the carrier that is externally visible but it's still running. I want to put one more 100 round lot through it before I break it down, inspect and clean it up real good. Again, thanks for the feedback. I'll be putting it all to good use. Cheers,

RiggerJJ, Thanks for the feedback, I assume you are talking about the new FP custom aluminum ramp installed? Last week, Jim said they are cutting new ramps right now. Availability is probably 4 weeks out yet from being completed. Sounds like maybe you got in on the early testing or prototype run? I've already told Jim I wanted him to do my ramp as soon as the new parts are ready. Sounds like they just grind out the old, fit the new, add a couple pins and screw to hold it in place. If this is what they did for you, how long did it take them to turn it around and get it back to you? All, This gun is very new to me still. The above two vids from last weekend are the only rounds I have through it and I just took possession of it last week! I have a few other questions too for you guys that have the FP Fully Custom Akdal and are running it successfully in competition... I'm also new to 3-gun, so sorry if any of these questions are too newbish or just plain dumb... I'm still learning here: 1. How often (round count) are you guys breaking down to clean bolt, carrier and barrel? 2. Are you installing any additional 3rd party products to the gun beyond what FP has done for open division? Like a poly choke, larger than 10-rnd mag, factory bolt handle, addition to FP non-recipricating charging handle... bipod... etc? 3. What kind of anti-carb / cleaning products are you using on the bolt and carrier. I've been having very good success with FireClean as it seems to just eliminate carbon build up. 4. I have a 45 round capacity with my mag setup. That is two FP 10-rnd mags, 1 FP coupled set of 10-rnd mags, and 1 5-rnd factory mag. What kind of mag pouches / rig system are you guys using for this thing? 5. Did anyone have to loctite the saftey selector screw... or any other screws? I noticed my safety selector started getting loose due to the screw on the left side starting to back out. Just screwed it back in, however, the factory 5mm hex head screw holding on the adapter under the buttstock also was loose after 250 rounds so broke it down and secured that as well. Both could just be attributed to new build and first rounds breaking the gun in, but curious if I needed to be aware of any extra care... 6. Are there any common buffing, tuning, sanding or other tweaks being done to ensure these things are running the best they can in competition? 7. When you zero the dot for a shotgun, are you zero'ing based on the birdshot, the buckshot or what I assume is... the slug. 8. What is a good range to zero for the slug? Very happy to find others shooting this thing in Open, I love the gun and the work Jim over at Firebird Precision has done for me! Thanks all,

Hey all, I picked up an Akdal from Centerfire systems then had Firebird Precision give it a work-over. I received it last week and so far so good. Jim and his team did a great job and turned it around pretty quick. I'm hoping to run this thing in my first 3-gun match in Nov. However, I needed to find some reliably running ammo. I've had some luck for Birdshot and Buckshot. Still working on slugs, but have picked up a few more varieties to test - including some B&Ps. I put a little over 100 rounds through it in each video. However, I used decent variety of rounds. I provide a summary of what did and did not run at the end of each vid if you want to skip the testing and get to the info. If you do watch the videos, you will find a trend in both. Softer shells that you can compress with your fingers will cause feeding issues. However, smooth hulls that are harder and cannot be compressed in the fingers tend to run more reliably. Day 1 testing Day 2 testing Figured I'd share the vids and see if anyone else found anything helpful. Feedback welcome of course. Cheers,

Started in Limited, STI .40 S&W because limited allowed me to do almost anything I wanted to get an advantage or just tinkering with the gun as it was a performance tool and who doesn't like to tinker a bit? I thought the Open guns looked bulky and funky. However, I was impressed by the performance folks got out of those guns. Then I shot one. With only shooting competition for a few months, I ordered my first open gun. I shot Limited for a year, but constantly thought about what it would be like if I was shooting Open instead and what I woudl have done different. Once I got the open gun in hand, tuned and shot with it a few matches... I haven't looked back. I like to tinker, I like to learn, I like to play with technology enhancements, I like to experiment with enhancements and loads to see if it makes me or the gun feel better and messing with new gear is also fun - so Open was a perfect fit. The freedom I get and feeling I get to shoot the stage how I want to, to go as fast as I personally can because of the Open gun is like no other division experience.

Thanks to the Area 5 Staff for the match. You guys had your work cut out for you! The stage designs were fun and very complex. Hat's off to Ray Hirst for the stages he designed - wow. PS I hate memory stages... thanks for the rectangle stage by the way!! Many of these stages seemed to test my limits of what I could figure out and memorize before the 5 minutes was over! There were a lot of hidden targets, targets that could be seen from multiple positions while others could not, targets in hard cover to only be able to hit portions of it and activators that released drop outs which had to be shot from another area that you could easily overrun when moving flat out and lots of different angles and corridors to navigate in the course... plenty of speed courses, but if you didn't have a plan on every stage and a good plan, you crashed and burned. Out of two days, we only had to wait for another group once, and we didn't have to wait long. I seen a lot of driving back and forth by the buggies, seemed like the computer / palm system was giving the ROs some problems. The water delivery was good as long as you were not on stage 9. The paper score sheet copies were helpful for a receipt of what you did on the stage in summary and didn't take up much space. I found all of the ROs to helpful and courteous despite all the work, rain, dirt and long days... don't know how you guys do it, but thank you for doing it - sincerely! I was sicker than a person should be in winter much less summer and shooting an area match, but managed to complete it and still had fun. The stages were that good. The range was set up to be able to easily find the stages and progress from one to another. The quality of the props seemed to hold up very well and looked like the setup crew put quite a bit of time and thought into stage setup. Hat's off to the designers and all the boots on the ground in prep to make it happen. Oh, and the "Big John" outdoor restrooms were probably some of the nicest of those types of things I've seen. It's still a Johnny on the spot...but if you gota go, a Big John is better than a small John I'm thinkin. Critiques from my perspective: Where's my shirt? I paid in advance! I paid before the due date and still no 3x shirt! That bummed me out because they looked pretty cool. My name's on the list that the ladies registering us were creating. I guess Area 5 staff is going to follow up with Techwear now... but no communication, no no idea what is really being done or who will send me my shirt or when I'll receive it at this point. Communication... match book said we shot one set of stages day 1 and day 2, but when we met up with our squad, they said they were told to start and complete a different set of stages. We then went back up to the office and indeed, found that we had a new squad number and the match book from the web was outdated now, so new set of stages for day 1. Food stunk. I'm sorry, but I didn't realize I was paying 8 bucks for a soggy fast food burger, a scoop of beans and slaw, bag of regular potatoe chips and drink. I so miss the layout at PASA!!! Seemed like it took a long time to tabulate the final numbers. Not sure what was going on, but there was a lack of communication as to where the updates would be posted and nothing was printed out for a long time while folks ate. Prize table seemed small, plenty of guns, but due to the amount of competitors (96 open shooters, but looked like 18 or 19 Open prizes only) it didn't seemed to go very deep. There were a lot of guns for the top spots though... so, perhaps that's the price for more guns... Anyone know what was up with all of the DQ's on stage 1 anyway?

Thank you all, I'll be investing in a quality Torx driver tonight. The masking tape trick sounds handy as well. I'm glad to hear others are not having a loss of zero on this site, that's promising at least. Since the set screws should not need to be turned to much, it would be helpful if they just improved this system with different tooled screws... seems like a great opportunity for one of you innovative after market modification types... Cheers,

Question: ========= Has anyone come up with a better solution for these set screws on the Leupold deltapoint? Idea: ===== It seems that a longer screw with an external and larger tool head would avoid the stripping. My Backstory on this sight: =========================== I picked up my Open gun from the Gunsmith in Feb and have been having a great time with it. Love the divison and I'm starting to be competitive in my class. I've gotten used to the triangle and have gotten pretty comfortable with indexing it from the draw. The only problem I've been fighting is my Leupold Deltapoint 7.5 MOA sight to keep zero. When working up a major load and then later a minor load (steel), I had to adjust the sight several times. I noticed that the sight has been losing zero after 2-3 matches as well. I called support and they sent me some new set screws. The replacement set screws had some kind of yellow compound on them which I assumed was to hold the screws in better. Screws held great... and had my first two matches after the replacement last weekend. The gun ran great, and I was successful in the results, so I was optimistic that the screws were doing well, until last night... Before a league shoot last night at a local indoor club, I pulled out the new blaster to do some group shooting from bench, just to make sure all was good. It was not. I could still hit the A zone at 10 yards, but at 20 yards my group was shifting right again spliting the A / C zone about 40/60. I tried to quickly make and adjustment before the match, but the set screw holding the windage adjustment stripped just as I tried to loosen... so ran with it as is and made adjustments on longer range targets. I met a gentlment from Leupold in Tech Service/Custom Shop Representative at the NRA convention recently. He had plenty of familiarity with the sight and had some ideas about what might be going on. I had planned to contact him after the season was over, as I don't have a backup Open gun. He was going to take a look at the sight personally to troubleshoot and either completely overhaul it or replace it. However, with the latest development, I reached out to him today, and he is going to expedite a ticket for me to get this thing in and replaced ASAP. With any luck, I'll have it turned around in a week or two... so, that's good... but all this backstory leads me to the current question. Hopefully the new sight doesn't lose windage zero... I'm sure something is wrong with my sight... however, the set screws on this sight stink. I'm really hoping there is an alternative to using these factory screws. Any thoughts much appreciated. ... worst case, I guess I could go to a Cmore STS, I heard the bolt patter for mounting the thing is the same... but that's another $400 and getting used to another sight. I do really like the Leupold if I can get this set screw issue resolved. Cheers,

Just following up. I put another 150 rounds through it before the weekend with no issues, all using Federal primers. Again, everything went bang. The extended firing pin arrived, but I could not get the firing pin stop off with the punches I had. After thinking about it, and it being the day before the steel match, I said to heck with it. The gun was running with the Federal primers, so why risk a change before it's first outing? I cleaned the gun and shot it at Steel challenge on Sat and classifier match at PASA on Sunday. I'm happy to report that the rounds and gun worked great. One of my mags did something odd... and strong hand / weak hand only with Dot may be a new skill I need to practice... but had no problems with the gun. Now, I'm not sure if I should put the extended firing pin in, or just run it. PS... If interested, A. the mag problem was that the spring stayed compressed and no rounds were chambering. The spring binded or got caught somehow. I'm using Superior firearms tuned mags (bead blasted custom sti tube, grams springs and followers DP 1+ basepads and Shooter's connection insert). B. the draw to dot was new in competition, but I'm getting the hang of it. The freestyle reload and switch to strong hand or freestyle and switch to weak hand is causing me some time loss. I'm losing the dot when switching to a single hand. I'm going to look around for tips on that next. C. On the classifier, if I can trust the online calculators, it looks like I'll start as a C in Open. I shot 1. Razor's Edge, C 2. Cracker Jack, D (dropped shots) 3. Easy Street, B 4. High Standards, C (had one weak hand make-up shot in Virginia Count as lost the dot for sec) 5. Payne's Pain, D (mag spring locked, caused feeding issue, extra reload, lost time) 6. Night Moves, C (draw finding dot got me, weak hand finding dot really slowed me again) Thanks for all the help everyone,

Ron, great info there, will keep it all in mind. I placed a penny under the primer seating pin in the Hornady press (just to eleviate the detent that the pin was creating on the press and ensured that I was seating to maximum potential, just in case). I also cleaned the heck out of the primer pickup channel that allows primer to actuate from the tube to under the shell plate using the Hornady one shot degreaser dry lube. After loading the new batch of 100, I still had some Federal primers that sticking out just enough (mixed prev fired brass) to get a tiny wobble when setting the round on a flat surface... That puzzled me as I know, for sure that the primers are seating all the way. I even spent time cleaning out some primer pockets on various differnt types of brass to see if that made any different, it did not. Still got some slight amount of primer sticking out that would cause the smallest of wobble when setting the round on a flat surface, primer down. So I was concerned, but I confirmed no canted primers on this batch. I wiped all down. I case gauged and checked them all against breach. Everything looked good. (except that primers were slightly high still when placed on flat surface, even though by visual inspection they looked good) HUGE thanks to Lee Edwards over at PASA for recommending that I rack the &*^% out the slide before firing it again... I literally racked the slide 900 times tonight. (yeah, I counted.) I figured it could only help and better than going through 900 rounds of ammo just to break in. With an hour left before closing, I also picked up one box of Federal loads at the range. Just to have a factory comparison. All 50 ran of those ran. All 50 went bang, all 50 chambered. Next I loaded up my new batch of 100 with Federal primers. Great news - EVERYTHING chambered, everything went bang! Was it the press cleaning, the federal primers, the dry racking of the slide almost 1000 times... all the above... don't know for sure, but it ran. I was grinning ear to ear at the range! I will continue to run it nightly and observe performance as another 150 rounds is not enough to build confidence, but it was a welcomed positive sign tonight. Cheers,

1st, message received. The gun needs broken in, don't do anything but work on the ammo right now - Got it. Darren, he went through 40 of the 50 you gave me. No light primer strikes on those, but he reported some not chambering all of the way out of that batch. I fired off the balance last night from that batch. I had no light primer strikes and I had no chambering problems with the final 10. I think you used Winchester on those maybe? On the much larger batch I gave him, he reported that he did not have chambering problems. However, he had "several" light primer strikes. He showed me 6 rounds that he kept which had tiny wobble to them on flat surface, light strike appearent, and visibly could tell some had a small but noticable cant to them. When asked how the others in the batch I gave him went, he said no issues. He gave me all the brass to inspect. Last night's results are posted above in the original post. I have racked the slide some 700 times tonight. I also picked up some Federal and Winchester primers. Working on some rounds now to take to indoor range to go through more. The gunsmith (GS) prefers to use a nickel plating technique he learned from the US Navy, and I like the wear I've seen on several of his guns that are 20+ years old. So went with it. Everyone, all of the info, detailed responses and wisdom is much appreciated. Thank you. All the problems aside, I love shooting this thing! I really hope I have a reasonable goal of getting it running good enough for a classifier match on Sunday at PASA. Cheers,

Yesterday, I received my first open firearm from the GS after shooting Limited for about a year. I shot it for the first time last night. I ran into a few hiccups and was wondering if anyone here had some ideas. ** New Gun Info ** It's a 9mm major, STI frame, Modified Caspian slide, Modified STI grip, custom comp, extended ejector, aftec competition extractor, Schumann barrel, standard length firing pin, 11# Wolf variable RS and running Superior Firearms tuned mags with SC insert (omitting other stuff as probably not relivent). ** Load ** Experiementing with various loads but all have 1.170" OAL, mixed previously fire brass, small rifle CCI primers. I'm experimenting with True Blue, Silhouette and autocomp. I wipe down and case gauge all loads. I was not visually inspecting primers, but should have... and am doing so now. GS had about 250 rounds through it before plating, and another 50 or so after plating. He had some light primer strikes and a few rounds that didn't chamber. I put another 200 through it last night for the first time. ** Issues ** Of the 200, most fired great but I had several problems: About 15 rounds had light primer strikes and didn't fire About 8 rounds kept the gun from going into full battery and didn't quite load into the breach all of the way 1 round blocked the breach and was vertically covering the breach ** Observations ** About 175 of the 200 had no issue and all went bang, so it seems like its close. The gun is new and tight, so heavily oiled with high performance lube. I realize some amount of problems can occur until the gun is broken in. I am not quite sure how many rounds it will take before I should no longer expect 'breakin' to be the culprit. Several of the rounds I loaded had primers that were sticking out slightly too far. When you set the round down on a flat surface, there was some minor amount of wobble as the case was not sitting flush with the horizontal surface. When the case had wobble, I noticed the primer was canted in the primer hole slightly so that one side was high and one was not. ** Remedies ** I use a Hornady LNL 5-stage progressive press and noticed the primer feeding assembly was dirty and the actuating component that positioned the new primer under the case was not going into full position, thus, when pressure was being applied, the insert pin could cause angled or canted seating. Furthermore, the seating pin on the press has created a small indentation in the press itself, so placed a penny under it to ensure I was getting adequate seating depth. I have a McLearn extended firing pin on order from SC. I'm looking for some different primers from local vendors. I would like to try some small rifle Federal and Winchesters. **Question ** So, what else should I be looking at? How many rounds in a new Gunsmithed gun do you run in open before you say, the gun is broke in and 'tight new gun' should no longer be the culprit of problems? I am most concerned about the 8 + 1 rounds that didn't chamber correctly... what should I be looking at to remedy these? Thank you for any comments and suggestions in advance,

Update and good news. STI Sentry weighed 42.364oz on high dollar precision scale at local fire arms retailer. I have the following added: DP tooless guide rod 9 lb. wolf recoil spring DP aluminum No Gap ice magwell & insert DP steel MSH 15 lb. wolf MS DP IDPA legal extended mag release DP tuned tac mag with IDPA legal aluminum competition base pad Local GS trigger job on existing STI trigger, sear, spring and hammer Grip safety still works after all installed. Although I have not chrono'd yet, the first set of 100 rounds ran great with no issues using the following recipe: 147gr MG FN, 3.6gr H. Titegroup, 1.164" OAL, Winchester small pistol primer, mixed once fired brass Going with the factory wood grips for now. Cheers for all the help guys,

I've been doing some of the same number crunching, things I've come up with are: Swap hammer with skeletonized hammer Order DP aluminum MSH instead of the steel one Briley aluminum guide rod from power factor shooting (but will reduce nose weight) Put a blank in on the ambi safety side that you don't use Change grips or lighten them on the back side with a bit of grinding DP Ice magwell could be lighter than your magwell due to ice insert (but it comes with a steel MSH by default) Cheers,

I am not an RO or SO. I have only been shooting competitively since late 2010 season. I have only help set up one significantly large event... but you asked for what folks thought... I really like blind stages in IDPA. I think the steel, movers, action props and any stage mechanics such as doors, windows - etc, at minimum, should be field tested ahead of time to validate calibration, safety, shoot throughs and stress checked before a big match. I've seen really well prepared matches and I've seen those that could have used a bit more testing before the field went at them. Nobody likes seeing stages thrown out. In my experience, the top performing competitors are not going to need or be phased by a match director or officer 'calibrating' a course in advance. Moreover, my experience has been that the pressure undertaken by a MD, RO / SO with all of the various issues from prizes, trophies, managing officers, registrations, competitor questions, stage malfunctions, weather issues, parking, food, vendors, etc... is more than enough to keep the MD mind off of actually 'competing' and far from the top of their game. Frankly, I'm so thankful for what the men and women do in the RO / SO and MD 'volunteer' positions, that they have more than earned whatever minor bit of help they get in advance notice of what a blind stage will otherwise be like... Just my thoughts,

I'm far from the authority on springs. I've only just ventured into this part of the tuning about a 6 months ago myself... so, I can only speak from personal experience. **From my understanding and experimenting...** MAINSPRING THOUGHTS... The factory MS in a Sentry is 17# or 19#, from the best I can find (seems to be contradictory info online). I've ordered a 15# and aa 17# to try. I think I will land with a 15# MS. I plan to drop the MS weight for a couple reasons. One, to drop the already tuned trigger pull from 2.5# to approximately 2#. (In so doing, I may end up having to put a lighter hammer in too to get reliable firing pin strikes, I must wait for testing there.) I'm also running a lighter load (see below). So, since the pressure generated from breaking a round off must also propel the slide back and cock the hammer again during cycle, a lighter MS should work to allow the slide an easier job cycling the slide. RECOIL SPRING THOUGHTS... Next, I'm going to load my rounds to a longer OAL to eliminate more of the free bore space, which in theory improves accuracy (bullet doesn't have as much space to disorient itself before hitting rifling in barrel). In addition, I'm going to run the round at a lower Powerfactor (PF = bullet weight x bullet velocity) to slightly exceed the minimum PF for IDPA. This does a few things, but most importantly to me, it reduces felt recoil and muzzle lift as compared to a major PF or +P factory defensive load. The lighter load does not require the heavier recoil spring. Due to the light load, it should acuate the lighter recoil spring back quicker than a heavier spring. Thus, the timing of the gun's cycling may be optimized. Final thought, from my reloading experimenting in my USPSA limited gun, the heavier bullet requires less powder to get to the minimum competition PF number. Heavier bullets with less powder tend to lift the muzzle less. (theory being that lighter bullet requires more powder to push velocity and can thus 'kick' more). So, instead of a 115gr or lighter bullet at 9mm, I'm going to start my testing with 124gr. I may have to go heavier yet. A lighter bullet and more powder combination should require a heavier recoil spring to avoid the slide slapping into the fame. Ok... those vets and more knowledgable, feel free to chew any of that apart and correct my thinking! Cheers,

Parts are starting to come in. I installed the IDPA legal DP extended mag release, I like it. It's got one hell of a stiff spring, but I like it. I can activate it more consistently and confidently it seems. The DP tooless FLGR and 9 # RS are in, but not going to fire it until I get the aluminum MSH and 15# MS in. Dawson says the aluminum MSH is going to be delayed a couple weeks as well, it's out for annodizing from what I'm told. So no mags and don't want to waste time with the steel MSH, which means I'm in a holding pattern. Oh, and had to get a replacement ice magwell insert, the front of the black insert on mine is seperating... like a bad injection mold or something. Blade Tech holster and mag pouches also arrived. The 3 screws on the holster / OWB belt loop part - stick out of the fasteners more than I would like (about flush with where the recess starts inside the holster)... When drawing the gun, I could see a potential for scratching the gun. I'm not sure if I like that OWB blade tech belt loop part at all... need to think about that... I'm wondering if a Tek Loc part there would be better... [EDIT: I'm going to try a washer behind the screw and see if that does the trick without interfearing with the belt.] Rob

I'll speak from what limited experience I'm familiar with and have encountered by others I know that are sponsored. Generally, it seems there are two paths to being sponsored. Path A. The shooter finds a party (usually a business or product) s/he would like to represent / endorse based upon personal experience and then formerly asks the party if they would have interested in a sponsorship. Terms of that agreement would then be negotiated, but the bargaining power the shooter may be limited as it is s/he who is pursing the party of interest. If a party accepts, they may ask for proof of any benefit the shooter promises and they may ask that the shooter advertise and/or perform in a particular manner so they can evaluate the return on investment of the arrangement. Path B. The shooter's performance / publicity has peaked a party's interest. The aforementioned party asks the shooter if s/he would be interested in representing the party. Negotiations ensue and the shooter may have more negotiating power in this situation. They may have an obligation to simply maintain a status quo but reap larger rewards for doing so. Unless this sport is different than all of the others out there... I'm guessing there are far more competitors that fall into the former A) category rather than the latter B. category. Your road to sponsorship would be influenced by which path you feel you are best suited for and what your motivation is. If your end game is simply to have a techwear shirt, just go buy one. It's cheaper and you can design what you want. Get a group together to bulk order and reduce per shirt cost. Many shooting establishements even sell pre-designed shirts which endorse the company and also work to satisfy the STI endorsement program. An example of that would be the Shooters Connection shirts... and that's only one of many. If you really do want to represent something... say like wearing and promoting the colors of your local club and/or gunsmith because you value their offering and want to share that value with the community, I say you have a better motivation. You may first see if the owner has any interest in the free advertisement. Maybe they already have a shooting team or members only group that has built a designed shirt and see what it takes to get a membership and be on the team. Maybe they don't have a team, but would be willing to help partially pay for a few shirts for some select members in exchange for receiving some free advertisement out of the folks that travel and compete regularly... especially if you do the work with Techwear to design a compelling shirt worthy of the store's advertisement. If you are not really looking to endorse someone... but you're real motivation comes from what you would like to get out of the Sponsorship, you are probably barking up the wrong tree. For example, if you are looking for comp'd ammo, loading supplies, guns, travel, etc... you need to be in the second B. path above. You need to be one of the select few at the top of their game and attracting the interested parties... not pursuing them. That's how I see it. Hopefully you find something in there worth thinking about.

I called Dawson today. The mags I ordered are on back order due to missing part (crap, oh well)... the Ice Magwell that comes with the MSH is Stainless Steel. The aluminum MSH for 1911 is an additional cost part. I ordered it today so I can tinker with that weight adjustment. (Thanks for tip) I *really* want to use the tooless FLGR, but I have a feeling that could be another weighty item. I ordered the Briley aluminum guide rod today, just in case. (Thanks for tip) Good news, I got the gun back from the Gunsmith last night. I was impressed to see that he got the thing done in one day! Trigger pull is set at 2.5 lb and breaks clean. Reset is slick. I figure a 15 lb mainspring change (when parts arrive) should get it down to about 2 lb. That was the first time I used his services, I'll be going back. Cheers,

Mark, Great info, I have several take aways from that post. The Briley and Dawson aluminum MSH are both interesting. I ordered this one from Dawson, but can't tell if the MSH is aluminum or not. http://www.dawsonprecision.com/ProductDetail.jsp?LISTID=80000ACF-1262701767 I'll be giving them a call tomorrow. The help is much appreciated. This thread has been a significant help already guys. Many thanks, Rob

OK, I just got an education from that Point Blank Range (PBR) article. THANK YOU! So I'm wondering, has anyone developed a chart for Pistol PBR Major / Minor power factors by caliber with max PBR and Zero Ranges? That would be quite handy. Hmm... <goes to search web>

Paul, thanks for the reply. That's helpful info. I dropped the gun off today at a local GS for a trigger job. He's going to use the existing STI parts for now and see what I think. I still may end up doing the Dawson Lightweight trigger group if weight becomes an issue and if there is a chance I get get any weight savings from the Dawson trigger group. Question, if weight is an issue, can I swap out the ambi-safety side for a blank making it only strong hand safety only... or does this violate the no safety disabling rule? I like the idea of lightening / tuning the grip safety. Will keep that in mind. Next on my list is some lighter weight grips that feel right. Problem is ordering something you haven't had a chance to weigh or try yourself for fit.... <grumble>

After trying to research the weight of individual parts, I decided that wasn't worth the time. I placed an order. From SC: Bladetech holster & two individual mag pouches From DP: Ice No Gap magwell, flat mainspring housing 4 mags No Gap, comp IDPA approved basepads 15 & 17# Wolf mainsprings IDPA appoved larger mag release DP Tooless guide rod I already have a myriad of new recoil springs to fuss around with. I also have a spare full length guide rod to toy with. I like the trigger as is right now, so may not mess with that straight away. I don't know what I'll do with grips yet either. This should get me to the point where I can start working on a load receipe and determining what parts I can and cannot go with due to weight. Thanks for the discussion and input. Cheers,

I looked at this as well. How much fitting work did this require? I'm no gunsmith but have tweaked this, sanded that and done a bit of fitting work here and there on some other pistols. Taking it to a gunsmith is not out of the question, but I prefer to do the work myself if I can. Oh, did you have to replace the grip safety as a result? Cheers,

Good feedback, very helpful guys. I see total weight is a big gotcha with this firearm. I will be concious of that. Getting an accurate weight on all of these parts before order is not going to be easy. I may just make an order, get it all in, catalogue the various weights and figure out what is and isn't going to work if I have to make choices. I hate to do it that way, but I don't really know what else to do. I have much to think about. cheers,