gigamortis

Thanks to the excellent info in this thread, I finally got around to re-loacating the pivot point in my G41. I've always done trigger pull lightening on small frame Glocks in the past and have been fairly happy achieving 3.5 to 4.0 lb trigger pulls with just connectors and springs. However, my G41 is the 3rd large frame model that I have had an opportunity to drop the same parts combination in, but large frames for me just end up at about 1 lb heavier pulls than what I have obtained with small frames. On my G41, I already have been running the Ghost 3.3 lb connector with the trim to fit overtravel tab along with a 5 lb striker spring, 6 lb Wolff trigger spring, and a Lightning Strike Striker. I had to go to the light striker and 5 lb striker spring in order to have 100% ignition with Remington LPP. Trigger pull after these mods came in at 4lbs-10oz, but this weight causes me fits at speed as compared to the lighter 3lb-10oz pull on my G34. I started off with some layout work. I decided to work with the as factory shoe and bar in order to have the stock geometry in place to make a reference mark. With the slide off the frame and the trigger bar to the rear against my overtravel stop, I slightly pulled the trigger forward for a little insurance room and scribed a line against the inside of the trigger bar right along and behind the trigger shoe. This line let me be able to take the shoe and bar out of the frame and still be able to ID the trigger bar to shoe angle at the point of trigger break. With the rear part of the trigger flat against one jaw of my drill press cross vise. I aligned my drill bit with the factory pivot pin. With a dial indicator on the side of the vise, I dialed in .125" of travel, While drilling the new hole higher in the trigger shoe, I held the trigger bar at the angle indicated by my earlier scribe mark. When I punched through the first side of the plastic shoe, I was able to make a mark on the trigger bar at the shoe to bar angle that represented the trigger break angle. I then removed the trigger bar from the shoe and center punched the drill bit mark for the new hole. I then drilled the new bar hole and ground the old hole area off. Re-assmebled everything with the new hole location and ended up with a 3lb-10oz pull with perfect function and all safeties intact. The back of the trigger shoe just barely contacts the frame at the same timing that the trigger bar makes contact with my existing overtravel stop. Good thing for the little bit of insurance I accounted for earler! I can't wait to get to the range and try it out! Thanks Joe D and all the others that contributed to this thread!

So, the reasoning behind making the move to 1 point down = 1 sec is to encourage more accurate, responsible shooting in self defense scenarios. With that said, stage 3 of the classifier shouldn't need to be 20 yards distance any more. 20 yards away and trying to engage hostiles with a handgun doesn't seem too responsible to me. I say stage 3 should be 15 yards max with the barrel at 10 yards. What do you guys think?

I honestly think that the way we grip our pistols depends on the person's build, as pertaining to hand size, finger length, range of motion in the wrists, etc. Personally, my rather large hands have never been able to let me comfortably cam my weak wrist far enough forward to place my weak thumb on the frame. Whenever I have tried it, I ended up knocking the slide stop up during recoil, unintentionally locking the slide open in the middle of a magazine. The grip that has worked for me the best is to just ride the side of the slide with my thumbs. I have learned to use these thumbs to help steer the gun rather well. Amazingly, my best spring setup for tracking has been a 16.5 lb variable Wolff with an oversize EGW firing pin stop and a 23lb mainspring. Lighter springs just gave me lower reliability due to the friction of my thumbs against the slide, so shooting a lightly sprung 9mm 1911 is out of the question for me. I only shoot .45 in a 1911 anyway. My spring weight setup is heavy for most folks, but I can't argue with consistently scoring 70-80% of our local club's open class shooters when I am just shooting Single Stack. It works in my hands, but may not work in others. The best way to develop a grip that works for you is to just run some drills against the clock with different hand holds. Pay attention to split times, sight tracking, first shot from holster time, etc. Sooner or later, you are bound to find a particular technique that stands out from all the others in shot performance.

Zhunter, that is a LOT of bell in your pic. I barely notice my bell and I don't shave Bayous at all. I'm loading on a Hornady LNL with the Hornady seating die. My bell is just barely enough for the base of the bullet to start in and that's it. I would say your issue is the Redding die.

4.2 gr WST under 230gr cast lead here gives me 172pf at 70 degrees. Recoil is just barely sharper than the same speed with Clays, so it is still a rather soft shooter. WST is inverse temp sensitive, so the hotter it gets, it will slow down a little.

Some .45s have trouble making major with jacketed and plated bullets with Clays. Clays under cast 230gr lead is definitely within the published load charts. My 230gr Bayous with 3.7 Clays makes 172pf out of my 5" 1911. A friend of mine had to go up to 4.2gr Clays behind 230gr Berrys plated to make major. His load was a little over published max, but a lot of guys seem to be doing that with Clays and plated/jacketed and not blowing anything up. Just watch for pressure signs!

Clays is definitely a winner for the softest shooter in .45. It will smoke some with naked lead, but not as much as Titegroup would. My go to powder for cast lead .45 is WST. It is just barely snappier than Clays, but the smoke is almost non-existent due to it being a cooler burning single base powder. WST is a finer grain powder than Clays, so it meters more consistently than the big flakes of Clays will. Titegroup burns HOT, but this hot burn temp is why it burns so consistently in cases that have a lot of excess case volume. This extra heat makes sure all the powder gets burnt at the same rate, no matter how the powder is laying in the case. I don't know of any other powder that provides such low extreme spreads and standard deviations in cases with a lot of left over volume like .45, .38spl, and .357MAG. Titegroup is pretty friendly on pressure at the top of the load charts, too. Plus, you can find Titegroup just about anywhere. Titegroup meters exceptionally well due to its small grain size. I use Tightgroup in 9mm behind 135gr Bayous. I don't notice any smoke, either. 925fps is needed for minor, and my 5 shot average is just 938fps. Most folks would be rather nervous about being this close to the minor power floor, but Titegroup has a consistency you can set your watch by and I have always made power factor every time my loads were checked.

My S&W 1911 came with ACT mags, and they needed slamming to get them to seat with 8 on a closed slide. I switched over to the Checkmate extended tube 8 rounders and I can latch a full 8 round mag slide closed with about the same effort I seat them with slide open. They definitely enabled me to pick up some major speed in SS because I don't have to bring the gun in so close to my body to deliver a big slam anymore. Now, I can keep my gun much higher on a reload and still get a fresh mag seated reliably.

There was a time when I noticed my points available percentage was creeping down over the course of a few matches in the name of speed. I eventually found myself pulling the trigger when my brain said it was time to, good sight picture or not. The best match I ever shot was when I made myself go back to the basics of seeing the sights before pulling the trigger. On that match day, I made sure I didn't squad up with any of my normal shooting buddies, so the friendly competition factor was out of my head for that match. I was determined to go back and reinforce the basics that day without any concern for what my score would be at the end of the match. My mindset was to treat that match as practice to reinforce the sight picture basics I had strayed away from. I felt slow as a turtle, but the scores didn't lie. I ended up winning Single Stack for the match and placing 9th overall combined out of about 50 shooters. I'm normally a C class shooter, but my overall placement for that match had me nested in the standings amongst a lot of B and C Limited shooters. The Limited guys were expressing a little competitive nervousness about how a Single Stack shooter managed to "creep up on them"! Ha-ha!...every dog has his day, I guess! This "back to the basics" match day really flipped the switch in my head about seeing the sights before sending a round on its way. I know now to concentrate on the A zone and speed will come on its own later.

I tried limited 10 for a few matches, but I didn't see that much difference in my scores from shooting SS major. I did notice that my handling of the extended 10 rounders during a reload was much different than handling 8 rounders. I am much smoother on reloads with the 8 rounders since I can get the palm of my hand under the mag sooner to seat it quicker. If I tried to just grab the 10 rounder with my palm already over the basepad, I had a little difficulty finding the magwell since there was more mag length sticking above my thumb and forefinger.

If you can't find Unique, Clays Universal is just about identical to it on the load charts. It is what I started out with and fills the case up more so than the faster burning powders. The slower burning powders are friendly on pressures, but have more muzzle flash and report, along with more felt recoil. Once my beginner's phase was over after noting the boring reliability and repeatability of my Horndady LNL press, I felt confident in switching to some of the faster powders to reduce recoil and muzzle flash. I now use regular Clays for my 230gr .45 loading. This load has my fellow competitors teasing me about my loads being "mouse farts" due to the noticeably lower report as compared to store bought ammo. I sure fooled them when we had an informal after match chrono check and my "mouse fart" load was making 172pf!

I tried some Clays in 9mm for 124gr Berry's plated bullets. I worked up a load per Hodgdon load charts that was safe on paper and just did squeak by for minor pf, but the primer cratering I was seeing told me the load was too high of a pressure. Recoil was stupid soft, though. In fact, it was too soft which caused my muzzle to dip noticeably on the second hit of a double tap. I even tried lighter recoil springs and couldn't get rid of the dip. I ended up going to Titegroup which is very forgiving on pressure when making minor pf in 9mm.

I shoot Bayou 135gr rn out of my CZ-75 with Titegroup. 135gr Bayou with 3.2gr TG @ 1.080" gives me 938fps average for 5 shots. It takes 925 fps to make minor pf with 135s. I had to load 1.080" length because my rifling starts rather early in my CZ barrel. That is .010" off my lands.

3.7gr Clays @ 1.240" with a 230gr Bayou RN. Averaging 750fps (172pf) out of my S&W 1911. Soft as it gets in a .45. Some folks claim the heavier bullets don't cycle fast enough for them. On our peekaboo disappearing motion targets at our IDPA club, I have consistently been able to get 3 hits before the target disappears with the above 230gr load. So much for the slow cycling rule of thumb!

The one time I tried Solo 1000 was all in on an 8lb jug. Of course, Murphy was looking out for me once again as my batch ended up being one of the slow batches. I was having to go 3.8gr just to barely squeak by with 860fps with a 147gr Berry's plated. That load was rather stiff feeling for a 147. The same 147gr bullet loaded with Titegroup was softer feeling while running faster at 875 fps.

.45 ACP for my 1911. I shoot USPSA SS and IDPA CDP. The 1911 platform just runs more reliably with its parent cartridge.

Back in our November classifier match, I just barely skidded into the Expert ranking in CDP. I shot the Postal Match in 54.53 with 14 points down. I took stage 1 for granted and didn't use sights much after the head shots were done on T1 and T2. I was 7 points down on just stage 1 - Arrrgh! If I would have shot stage 1 my usual way, I'm sure I could have scored a couple of points better.

Sometimes when you have just one out of a few mags of the same brand giving you trouble, it can be due to the dimensional location of the mag catch hole. 9mm 1911s are sensitive to how high the feed lips are sitting in the frame.

Yep, single action only. I tried the flat CZ SAO trigger and couldn't stand the feel of it. Since I was in possession of the flat trigger, I was able to duplicate the exact angle and location to drill and tap my 85 trigger for a pre-travel screw.

The gray area with SSP is how far "action enhancements" can be taken. I put a CZ85 trigger in my 75 because of the gentler radius like you made your stock 75 trigger into. With the 85 trigger, you also get the benefit of an over-travel stop, and there is no denying it is a factory CZ part. I also installed the CZ competition hammer. I don't shoot my CZ in SSP, but shoot it in ESP because I rather start off cocked and locked like my 1911 in CDP. I haven't shot any major matches with my CZ yet to go through an official tech inspection, since I primarily shoot CDP. In addition to the 85 trigger I installed, I drilled and tapped the 85 trigger for a pre-travel screw, too. That is definitely not a factory feature on a factory 85 trigger, but is is a feature on the CZ SAO flat trigger that I can't stand the feel of. Now, my CZ has a comparable trigger to a 1911. I mainly shoot my CZ in USPSA Limited class, but occasionally I will shoot a local IDPA match with it. My gun is definitely in more of a gray area of the rules than yours is. All the features that my CZ has are available from the factory in one way or another. How IDPA headquarters would view my gun is unknown. My CZ is not my passion gun for IDPA like my 1911 is, but I wanted it to be the most 1911 like I could get it.

I have to run Bayou Bullet 135gr RN @ 1.085" out of my CZ75. This length is just .010" short of touching my rifling lands in my barrel. 3.2gr of Titegroup puts me at a consistent average of 940fps. 925fps is needed to make minor pf with 135s. I like these 135s a lot better than 115s and 124s.

I can tell the difference between 125gr and 135gr in my CZ. The 135s are just a little more snappy than a 147 yet tamer on the snap than 115s or 125s. The 135s are definitely harder hitting on steel than my old 115gr loads were.

I shoot SS major mostly, but occasionally break out my CZ75 SA for a different kind of fun. Both guns having the same manual of arms with the thumb safeties.

Our club just went to forward falling poppers only to eliminate the possibility of lead leaving the range.

Back on the issue of round dumping for more convenient reload points..... Take CDP for instance. When I carry my 1911 on the street, I carry with a flush bottom 7 round mag in the gun for the concealment advantage a flush bottom magazine offers. So, straight out the holster, I have 7+1=8 at my disposal. As far as my spare mags go, they are extended tube 8 rounders with a flared basepad which offers a more positive purchase on the magazine when handling them in a stressful situation. This makes perfect sense out on the street, because if I need to reload in a life or death situation, I want every advantage I can get during the reload since my vulnerability while performing the reload is greater. The basepads even have a secondary benefit in a stressful situation because the magazine can be seated more reliably than a flush bottom one. This is the way I carry on the street, so why can't I compete the same way I carry? After all, isn't IDPA supposed to be real world carry oriented? I say get rid of the magazine capacity rule that states one has to use the same capacity magazines throughout a whole match. As long as all the magazines you are going to be using are loaded to full mechanical capacity, so what? After all, in a real world self defense scenario, no one will be counting rounds in their heads under that level of stress anyway, and the only clue that the gun is dry is when the gun goes to slide lock. We are so engrained with an automatic 2 shots to each bad guy since we all play the IDPA game so much, that surely that will be the way we will perform in a real life self defense scenario. The human brain deals with even numbers so much easier than odd numbers, so why not use this inherent instinct to our advantage when under stress? I also say get rid of the division capacity rule that is defined as the mechanical capacity of the magazine +1. There are a lot of concealed carriers that don't +1 up after charging their carry weapon with a 10 round magazine. The decision to +1 up or not upon initial charging should be at the shooter's discretion. Since enforcing the round dumping rule is so discretionary, why not give all the shooters the option of how they want to initially charge their weapon? As long as the gun is charged with at least the mechanical capacity of the magazine, that should be good enough. So what if going +1 or not is viewed as "gaming". As long as every shooter had the opportunity to do it, the playing field will be level for everyone.