Akkid17

A newer trend that too many companies are moving toward is the limited release and quantity ‘drops’ that create a frenzy and a crazy resale market. It makes it very difficult for a person to buy a product they actually want directly from the company and likely will have to pay an artificially inflated price to eventually acquire it through resellers that are able to snipe the drop. Really frustrating and scummy marketing, it’s really sad to see some gun and accessory companies starting to be a part of it.

And that’s why I got it initially. Having used it and seeing the potential performance with a clouded optic makes it unnecessary for my use, if this were a carry/duty/tactical-ish gun it would make more sense. Plus it’s secured by the optic screws so if they fail the the rear sight is gone further diminishing its necessity.

The iron sight in the SRO is a very cool concept but I wouldn’t do it again. As soon as the SRO clouds a little it makes seeing the irons very difficult. For me this was a competition only gun and having backup irons isn’t necessary for that role.

Cerakote, that’s pretty typical on the frame rails for a high contact point like that for cerakote. Almost zero holster wear on it though (didn’t take pics since it didn’t seem necessary). The barrel wear is slightly more concerning but not overly so since it appears cosmetic at this point, but I’ll definitely keep an eye on it

Update: passing up the 3500 mark and noticing some wear on the barrel and frame rails. Nothing troublesome yet but it’s noticeable with the black coating. Also, I loaded up some super soft 147gr fmj ammo (825fps) for fun and it’s almost ridiculous how fun it is to shoot. No feeding issues with that ammo out of the atlas mags and haven’t had any more malfunctions since I pulled the one mag out of circulation. Still happy with the purchase and would highly recommend to anyone looking to get a more reasonably priced LOptics pistol, I’d probably opt for the steel grip and wide safeties if I were to get another one but those weren’t widely known about options or even available when I originally ordered

Yep, in fact I bought another set of 6 competition mags from them when they had a sale recently and they hold 23 no problem and have been running flawlessly in all my 9mm guns. I recently fitted a new magwell to the pistol as well so I can't use anything but 140mm+ mags on it now.

Humble marksman put out a video on it. Seems like he mirrors a lot of my impressions on the gun. Good watch https://youtu.be/j6JCYzXK4AE?si=98c4gS1fP9-axf0G

They want the parts to be interchangeable between guns and still hold very tight tolerances. Think of it like a high tolerance, all steel, Glock. If they can make it work that would be awesome for longevity of a gun and being able to swap parts without a gunsmith. MPA vs Vudoo: it depends entirely on what you find more appealing. MPA is going to be a little more race gun driven in it’s design, will have more time put into hand fitting and will have an optics plate system. Vudoo: basic options and a little more utilitarian in design, less hand fit and will be a direct mount for an optic. This gun still rips, the current LO champion used one to win and did so over a guy using a $6k+ limcat. Evilnuff: the way they make their 1911 is different than the double stack. I’m not 100% sold on the idea of a 2 piece welded frame on a single stack. As far as I know they traditionally machine the double stack.

Update: Crossed the 3k mark Shot both my sectional in Alaska (July) and Utah state in September had one failure to feed at Utah, which may have been mag related but unknown since it was during a stage and I didn’t look closely at it just had to tap the base pad and it fully chambered. Pulled that mag from rotation and had no further issues. The plan is to shoot LOptics for the remainder of the year, and if this holds up I’ll be ordering a second gun with the steel grip and larger magwell. Side note: Vudoo was a sponsor at Utah state match and the rep gave a spiel on the guns, pretty cool concept of how they want to make these guns. Essentially, tight tolerance production guns that will have damn near universal parts interchangeability with the entire product line so if you have an issues you can drop in a new whatever to get back up and running. If the current example is indicative of the whole line I’d say this sets itself above anything even close to the price point. The only thing close would be MPA and then you’re dealing with a plate system which I’m not a fan of.

I've tried a lot of different grips from VZ and Lok, and the most aggressive by far is the Lok Bogie grips. They are also a little wider than other grips which is nice if you have larger hands. https://lokgrips.com/gun-grips/1911/bogies/1911-bogies-black-g10/

For reference this was at a steel challenge (after I had all the changed listed above), using my handloads.

It was more noticeable with the hand loads using 147gr JHP's, when I ran faster 115 and 124 FMJ ammo it did not feel sluggish.

Just wanted to put a quick early impressions of the Vudoo priest double stack in case anyone was thinking about picking one up. TLDR: Like it, would buy again. Had a couple issues, Vudoo was very responsive and helped resolve them. Overall good experience. Order process and options: Ordered it early March and shipped end of April almost 7 weeks to the day, they updated me during the wait time and had an additional option of bull or bushing barrel that I was able to change to bull barrel at no additional charge. Got the tan version with black barrel and controls, RMR optic cut with back up iron sights and the additional iron rear accessory for bolting into optic screws. Picked the medium flat trigger as well. Impressed with options and features for a sub $3500 semi custom gun. Initial impressions: Finish on the pistol when it arrived was excellent, no dings, scratches, thin spots or any other cosmetic blems. The blacked out portions looked great and the all black and tan (no uncoated/stainless on pistol) looked great too. Trigger was good, pretty standard semi-custom 1911/2011 trigger, didn't put a scale on it but was approximately 3.5-4 lbs. Slide to frame fit and lock up on barrel all were excellent, little to no wiggle on slide and no drag or hang up slowly putting back into battery on barrel hood to breech face. Hammer spring felt soft, but all controls functioned and trigger, disconnector and safety all functioned fine. Optic install went without issue (SRO), and adding the back up iron emitter hood was easy and makes a great lower 1/4 co-witness, rear is non-adjustable so the only way to adjust would be drifting front and if elevation is too far off you'd have to either shave down the front or buy a new taller one to change it. Also, a great extra is that the pistol comes with 2 - 20 round MBX magazines. First shots: Metal grip and slide to frame fit as well as the weight of a made the gun shoot very smooth, even a little sluggish with my 147gr JHP competition load (avg: 923 fps 135pf) and even had a couple of fails to feed using my atlas mags. Recoil spring weight was either 10 or 12lbs from factory which for this load is too heavy and caused it not to cycle fast enough, (later swapped with 8lb wolff spring and resolved the issue) I did not have this issue with the factory set up using the MBX mags it seemed due to the feed angle and the stronger mag spring. After swapping out the recoil spring I didn't have any more feeding issues with the 147JHP load. On a side note, I didn't have any feeding issues using factory ball ammo (115gr, 124gr and 147gr). Using factory S&B I had a few instances of light strikes (previously noted light feeling hammer spring), and when running the gun fast (doubles and bill drills) I had 2 instances of hammer follow. Accuracy was stellar, zeroed the SRO (5moa) at 20 yards using a USPSA target headzone as the aiming point, I shot several 2-2.5" 5-shot groups shooting the A-box out of the target. All shooting was done standing shooting freestyle with no rest. First range session was about 220-250 rounds of about 180-200 handloads and 50 mixed factory 115-147gr. Issues and how they were resolved: Fail to feed on softer comp loads: changed to 8lb recoil spring (did not have issue using mags that came with the gun or factory FMJ ammo) Light strikes on harder primer factory ammo: changed to 18lb hammer spring Doubling/Hammer follow: found trigger was adjusted with too little overtravel and was basically riding the sear, backed out trigger screw to allow for good overtravel and reset (also tweaked the disconnector leg of the sear spring as well just to be on the safe side) No further issues. Customer service and additional info: Did the troubleshooting on my own then contacted Vudoo about the issues I had and asked if they had any other thoughts on what might need to be done or if they a different diagnosis on the problems. Found out they had a supply issue with the initial batch of main/hammer springs that were coming in under 15lbs and therefore with harder primer ammo or primers not fully seated there would be light strikes, they said it has since been resolved and future pistols were shipping with the appropriate springs. Also, it's somewhat of a know issue with the recoil springs being a tad heavy for minor PF ammo, especially heavy, slow bullets and that their guys swap to a lighter recoil spring for that but they set the guns up so that they will work well with standard factory ammo and not beat the gun up. The guy a talked to was apparently the CEO, which was wild that he would be the one to help me trouble shoot, super helpful and friendly. He even gave me his personal number when I missed his call toward the end of the business day to make sure we could get the issues I was having figured out before the holiday weekend. After our conversation he asked me to call back when they got back to the office the following week to make sure everything we discussed and I changed worked out, when I called back the next week he was working in the shop and had to call me back but did so within 30min. Overall customer service was phenomenal. What I like, what I'd change and overall impression: Lots to like on this gun, it's a semi-custom 2011 from a company that is know for building quality guns, albeit 22lr precision rifles, fit and finish were great, coating was excellent and thus far has held up well. I have about 2500 rounds through it at this point and had only one more malfunction after the initial changes (shooting weak hand I had a fail to feed, pulled that mag and didn't have the issue again). I love that it is a direct milled optic mount, I really don't like plate systems as I see them as an additional failure point as well as increasing the optic height which I also don't like. Price for features this gun pretty much stands alone in the market, similar price to a staccato XL but has a milled slide, metal grip, and more options. Texture on the grip is also interesting and I have grown to like it a lot, it has the aggressive micro pockets on the front and back strap but the wavy grooves on the sides for support hand traction. The bonus of the rear side mod they have for the RMR/SRO is great, and the optic cut itself was great, almost no slop with the optic in the slot without screws, had the recoil bosses to keep it in place and take strain off the screws and it rides the SRO very close to the top of the slide wo its about as low as you can go without cutting an additional relief for the housing. The slide it also machined to have a full width platform for the optic to ride on and screw into the slide which is a problem with a lot of other pistols accommodating the RMR footprint since the screws are so far apart. And red dot 9mm 2011's are a cheat code for fun and accuracy, I shot one of my most accurate matches with this gun and punched easy alphas at 25-35 yards at speed during a classifier match and our state match. If I were to make any changes it would probably be the slide weight, it is fairly heavy and makes the gun feel a touch sluggish with minor PF ammo and 147gr projectiles, it's a little better with lighter bullets that are still closer to the minor PF floor. And I was pretty bummed that I had 3 essentially compounding issues, that's how it can be with being an early adopter though (sig fans know what that's like). Overall I have no regrets about getting this pistol. Fit, finish, accuracy, reliability (after some tweaks) has been great and price to features is unbeatable at this point. If I keep shooting LOptics I will definitely be buying a second one as a backup.

Finally got all of our targets from them, good perfs and decent cardboard quality. We made a rather large order and they did not have the stock on hand to fulfill the order quickly. We also had a problem with our local mail carrier and had a bunch of targets returned to sender because they are borderline incompetent. Overall happy with price and quality of targets just be prepared for a little bit of a wait, especially if you place a large order. I would definitely buy from them again, just a smaller order.

Back on the regret train, my patience has run out now that I have had yet another issue with my SV and it was on me to pay to send it in and get it back. The Safety lever broke just in front of the cross pin (presumably from activating/deactivating safety from right side of gun). They essentially said I should be happy they fixed it out of warranty since I received the pistol in 2020 and it was the middle of 2022 when this occurred. I gave them the benefit of the doubt several times over the various issues this gun has had since I bought it but not being willing to pay to ship a gun back after an obvious manufacturer defect and having had so many other issues with the same gun over the last 2 years of ownership was the last straw. Fortunately, I had the chance to pick up an Atlas Artemis not too long ago and have thus far been very happy with the pistol and the customer support. I've had one issue with the gun common to 40 cal 2011's and they offered to pay to ship the gun back to them to rectify or send replacement parts. Hopefully this is how they will continue to do business and I will give them more of my business.

I found a couple of options to fix this: 1) Grinding down the slide stop so it would not longer be able to contact the bullets and potentially the portion of the follower that engages the slide stop. 2) Drilling a recess/divot in the location that the frame detent interacts with the slide stop increasing the resistance required to activate it. I have tried option 1 before and it made it to where the bullets wouldn’t engage the slide too early but the followers wouldn’t engage it either. While this was the goal of the previous gun I wanted to keep the functionality on this pistol to see how it would work. I wound up doing both and it seems to be working great, I removed a little more than needed but it will still lock back on an empty mag if the follower has the slide lock tab still in tact. Put around 350 rounds through it using various combinations and the only stoppages were due to nose dives on the short ammo in the gen 2 STI mags. If I were to try again I may see what just drilling a divot would do since it did dramatically increased the force required to activate the slide stop.

Thought I’d share my experience so hopefully the next person searching for this will be able to find it easier. I was having an issue with a 40 cal 2011 locking back early with mostly full mags. I was having the issue with several types of bullets (2 different JHP’s, coated RNFP, and FMJ) and different overall lengths (from 1.135”-1.200”) as well as 4 different mags all with either brand new or relatively fresh springs (gen 1 and 2 STI, atlas and MBX mags, all of the STI mags were running grams spring and follower) The gun would lock back randomly with varying amounts of ammo still in the mags and would do so with several different bullet and mag combinations. The culprit was the bullets shifting forward in the mag and the ogive of the bullet lifting the slide stop. To check this I pulled the slide off the frame and reinstalled the slide stop. Then tried a couple mags and bullets to see what was happening. In the pics you can see how close the bullets are to the slide stop and when I tapped them to the front of the mag and reinserted the mag the slide stop would lift.

Yes, but there are still differences between guns on how snappy they are compared to one another. This guy was was average build and a decently competitive looking A/B class level shooter so at that point a person should have their grip and recoil control figures out to a degree. I guess not many people have 12k laying around to do a back to back on these

Has anyone done a back to back of an Artemis and a 5” island barrel? Saw a guy at A2 this year running an Artemis and it definitely had a ton of muzzle rise, wondering how they compare.

I went through the gamut with my 9mm and the only ones that were 100% reliable and didn’t allow the top round in the mag to move forward and make the mag stick when trying to eject the mag were the Wilson combat ETM mags. Tried Tripp, metal form, mec-gar, Dawson and some kimber mags. And you can buy the comp ready package from Dawson and they work great with the ice magwell

I got a call the other day from a rep at CHL targets stating they were a USPSA approved vendor and had some decent prices on IPSC/USPSA/IDPA targets and I'm wondering if any club or person has purchased from them in the past and how their experience was. Thanks

5” sight tracker

No regrets but I did have some sticker shock in the recent gun builder and not being able to get what I wanted. Seems like if you quote 7k+ for a limited build you should be able to have some actual custom options not just all the existing options they offer, or should I say a slightly unique combo of said options. I bought a single stack last year and while it is accurate and smooth shooting (running it back to back with my sti Trojan it was obvious how much smoother the SV ran) it wouldn’t run with the mags they sold me and had to modify the followers to make it so it wouldn’t lock back early, had too little sear/hammer engagement and went back and forth with them with a another new sear (I got a spare with my build), and then they sent a new hammer and that fixed it but also bumped my pull weight over 3lbs (still nice but not “custom” nice), and now it’s at the factory trying to diagnose a bullet deformation issue where it’ll ding the nose of bullets on feeding so when I eject the round out of the chamber at the end of the stage it will have a line or semi circle cut in the tip. All things that an almost 6k gun shouldn’t have done. Here’s the but: BUT, they have been responsive and helpful throughout the entire process, shipped parts for free and helped diagnose the issues over the phone, helped with tweaking my load to get better performance, responded quickly and courteously to all of my inquiries, and as mentioned they are doing a once over at the factory to help diagnose my current issue. You pay a premium price for a premium product, they stand behind it and are very easy to deal with. I’d love to get my hands on a couple other custom manufacturers pistols to feel the difference but unfortunately living in Ak it’s somewhat difficult to do so.

Has anyone done a Jacketed vs plated/coated comparison. Mine seem to greatly prefer jacketed especially 147 JHP’s

Heard from a CZ company guy on a podcast that they are using the ‘American’ chamber spec rather than the euro spec so they should work better with a wider variety of ammo.