IHAVEGAS

The whole 'it is ok to disable your grip safety' thing (I would never consider this safe, to me it is just crazy) sort of puts me too far away from others to have a valuable exchange on the topic. I'd also have to read about how heavily modified the glock and etc triggers can be in order to have an opinion on any comparison to your gun. Yuck, life is too short for argument. I'm grateful for all of the input provided on this thread, very comfortable with what I did in regard to safety, and every post I read makes it more clear that just staying away from the environments that are not geared toward new or casual shooters is the right thing for me personally. No offense intended to anyone. Again my thanks!! "Very comfortable with what you did in regards to safety"? Please tell me where you are located so I can stay far, far away...If you are comfortable breaking that rule, what other rules are you comfortable breaking? Breaking this one (below) would make me uncomfortable. Or doing anything that would break any of the 4 rules of gun safety, as I already noted in previous posts. If you've had NRA approved (or similar) safety training you know that following the 4 rules is a really good and long proven approach to gun safety. "New Guidelines for Rules Forum Due to incessant bickering typical of the Rules Forum, we've (Admin/Moderators) come close to deleting the Rules Forum altogether. (Several times.) We've decided to keep it (by a narrow margin), however, with this stipulation: No antagonistic tones will be tolerated. Please post respectfully or don't post at all."

The whole 'it is ok to disable your grip safety' thing (I would never consider this safe, to me it is just crazy) sort of puts me too far away from others to have a valuable exchange on the topic. I'd also have to read about how heavily modified the glock and etc triggers can be in order to have an opinion on any comparison to your gun. Yuck, life is too short for argument. I'm grateful for all of the input provided on this thread, very comfortable with what I did in regard to safety, and every post I read makes it more clear that just staying away from the environments that are not geared toward new or casual shooters is the right thing for me personally. No offense intended to anyone. Again my thanks!! The grip safety is not the main safety on a 1911/2011 design, the thumb safety that is why it is ok to have it disabled or pinned Local Matches should be ran the same as major matches, and even in the new rulebook they have taken away some of the "only at level 1" matches is this ok, now it is the same as a level 2 matches. Take the RO course, get certified, learn the rules, not only will it help you become a better competitor you can then also give back to your local clubs by running the timer as an RO. You learn a ton about this sport from behind the timer We can agree to disagree about the grip safety . To me that rule to USPSA is what the fishing vests rule is to IDPA, except the fishing vests just seem silly and not safety related. If you look at aztecdrivers post at 9:21 it seems like that really nails down the grip safety issue. If someone with a pinned gs on a light trigger 1911 slips, trips, baubles the draw, or bangs his hand into a range prop & drops his gun (things I'm guessing you have seen happen more than once) it seems possible that a bullet will be flying in an uncontrolled direction. Obviously a grip safety would not provide 100% protection for every mishap, but it should keep a few rounds out of the air over time. The whole safety thing is that one mishap in a lifetime is way to many (as I'm sure you already know, sounds like I'm being condescending and that is not intended). My preference is not to squad with folks who have their grip safety's disabled if I can help it. In my opinion. I agree with you completely about doing something to support your local club!!

The whole 'it is ok to disable your grip safety' thing (I would never consider this safe, to me it is just crazy) sort of puts me too far away from others to have a valuable exchange on the topic. I'd also have to read about how heavily modified the glock and etc triggers can be in order to have an opinion on any comparison to your gun. Yuck, life is too short for argument. I'm grateful for all of the input provided on this thread, very comfortable with what I did in regard to safety, and every post I read makes it more clear that just staying away from the environments that are not geared toward new or casual shooters is the right thing for me personally. No offense intended to anyone. Again my thanks!!

Folks, Thanks for the education! Woke up this morning and had one of those light bulb moments If I stick to just local matches; I will be shooting in a more 'just keep it safe and fun' environment, the R.O's won't have to be uptight about what so and so might do and can continue to be more new shooter/casual shooter friendly, I will save a bunch of money and sleep, I will still be dq'd if I ever actually do break one of the 4 laws of gun safety (this is a very good thing!), and I will not have to worry so much about weird no warning rulebook dq's because somebody on some committee somewhere decided stuff like "well it is ok if you disable your grip safety, and it is ok if your gun does not have any safety, but if you have a thumb safety and put the gun on the table pointing safely down range then that is not ok". I very much appreciate your comments. When I read them as a whole it is just clear that the formal matches sound really good for folks who are really into things, but not for somebody like me who is just a keep it safe and have fun shooter.

Hi, Have enjoyed USPSA at local matches for about a year so I figured I'd try traveling to a slightly bigger match today. Had a couple things happen that surprised me & I want to look up in the rule book so I can understand. Thing number one was that I was 1st shooter on a stage and the way I wanted to run the course of fire would have me close on 1 target with the 180 degree rule. I thought I was ok but wanted to make sure the range officer thought the same thing because it was going to be close. I asked the R.O. if the shot was on the correct side of 180 degrees and he told me, as best I can remember word for word, "You are supposed to know what 180 degrees is and I can't answer that question before you run the course". I was surprised at the response and would like to know if that is the way it is and if there is clear definition of what you can ask or be told about a cof and what you can't. On the very next stage you placed your gun on a table pointing down range, loaded and chambered, sat down in a chair and then proceeded to get up and remove the gun from the table at the beep. I placed my 2011 on the table with the thumb safety in the off position and sat down. The RO asked if I was ready and hinted that there was something wrong, after it was apparent that I didn't know what he was hinting at I was dq'd from the match for a safety violation. As fate would have it I now had ample time on my hands to study rule books while I waited on my friend to enjoy his shooting. To me it seems like I got a safety dq without doing anything which violates the 4 rules of gun safety or which would earn a dq under section 10.5. I asked for explanation of the dq and was shown section 8 and then pointed back toward section 10.5 but I'm missing the point somehow unless it is an issue with section 10.5.3 and "during a course of fire" means before the buzzer sounds as well as while you are actually running the course. If this is a section 10.5 thing I guess I'm back to question 1 and wondering why the r.o. couldn't just tell me to flip the safety (a different r.o. told my friend that he had forgotten his earmuffs after he had said he was ready to shoot another stage for example, no penalty no hassle etc) . The only other possibility that I can come up with it that this is some kind of 'understood' generic section 10.3.1 thing about unsafe gun handling, but I heard the r.o's call trigger when appropriate with another shooter so it seems like that section of the book is not used aggressively as the norm. Anyway, if anyone cares to pull away some of the haze it would be interesting.

My experience has been that sooner rather than later is best for all involved. Sure as heck is hard though.

1.18 oal works well with bayou 180's in an Eagle and an Edge and a friends Apeiro (and his sv too for what that matters). Really the only STI oalish issue I've had so far is getting slide lock before the magazine was empty on a lower oal.

I'd be sure I had a good path to get the gun fixed if and when something went wrong. For example if I was thinking STI then I'd call them and ask about warranty repair policies for the gun after it has been resold. I'd also spend time talking to the seller so we both had a good understanding of the buyers expectation for the condition of the gun. I think the odds are good for you but it is not impossible to get stuck with a lemon, it happened to me once.

Me thinks you will be happy. If I was you I would work up a minor load for IDPA asap as well as a major for USPSA. I thought I'd keep things simple with mine & just run one major load for both, eventually decided separate loads are very worth it, for me anyway.

If it is a 9 does it make weight now? You may never get checked anyway but I had to go with an aluminum mainspring housing to get things all hunky dory.

I've wondered the same thing... If the Dawson CRP's are "tuned", what all does that include? It does not include a satisfactory trigger, based on the 4 that I have shot fresh from Dawson, maybe 5 1/2 pounds and not at all crisp, an embarrassment to both Dawson and STI in my opinion. The other gun that I shot fresh from Dawson was a box stock STI Trojan & it came with a good trigger out of the box. Besides that, the 4 CRP's (and the non CRP) ran well without any other issues to the best of my knowledge, I don't know what if anything was tuned however.

I know it is a rhetorical question, but I think you hit the right ballpark. Somewhere in the 3-4k range you get the best of both form and function. So let's see, say you don't take your wife to the most expensive 5 star restaurant this Saturday night and decide to go with Longhorns or something similar. You order big steak medium with a baked potato and salad. After waiting what seems like an eternity, you get a child sized sirlion that looks like a piece of charcoal and some french fries. Since you didn't go to the most expensive place, you have no reasonable expectation of getting what you ordered. Or would you say something to the waiter? Seems like the dead horse has been kicked long enough on each side.

Hmm, with the new IDPA rules an Edge or equivalent can be shot in the 'non-competition class' in level 1 matches. Makes it tempting to buy an uber kewl USPSA gun & just live with being 'non-competition' at your local IDPA matches, will be interesting to see if the non class becomes the most popular class as time goes by.

My issues were that my gun broke link pins every 1000 rounds or so, their internet website charged my card for an out of stock item that never got sent, and I had to make multiple phone calls and emails to get charges & etc. fixed. It was almost like the head cheese was deliberately screwing with me. I think in general the issues are that they are a bit disorganized and maybe not the best at building guns to run hard. Could just be that my experience is a fluke though.

The squib stops the shot process for you; the slide won't cycle after a squib, the way you get in trouble is when you rack out the squib case and fire another behind it. Or the slide cycles after the squib, I've seen it happen to a guy shooting an M&P 9mm.

I know it is a rhetorical question, but I think you hit the right ballpark. Somewhere in the 3-4k range you get the best of both form and function. Are you being serious? So you need to spend that much to get form and function I call B.S! I think "best of" was key in my post. If you look at the pictures on the original post there are marks that can be seen when the gun is dissasembled and the slide to frame fit is on the 'make er run' side instead of the make it showy side. STI is basically a competition based company and silly customers like me don't care greatly about stuff you can't see or showy stuff, as long as the gun runs hard and well and the manufacturer keeps it that way. If you can find everything that anybody might care about for 2k, great!

I know it is a rhetorical question, but I think you hit the right ballpark. Somewhere in the 3-4k range you get the best of both form and function.

Thank you Poppa Bear, that makes sense. And now, back to the regularly scheduled program.

I'm hoping to learn something here. I've got 6 stock STI mags, 40 cal Eagle. I can understand that some folks would be willing to spend time and $'s to get an extra round or two, beyond that it is a mystery to me why anyone would mess with them beyond occasional cleaning or eventual replacement of worn components. The stock mags just seem to do everything that a good mag is supposed to (although for what they cost a few witness holes don't seem out of the question) and if I got one that did not work I think I could send it back for free repair. Don't want to hijack the thread, but if there is something going on that I'm clueless about then a quick explanation would be appreciated.

I use an Eagle 40 for IDPA and USPSA, it works but I don't think it excels at either. Perhaps I could work up a 40 minor load that would make it an excellent IDPA gun and then the only real drawback would be a bit more muzzle flip than necessary when shooting USPSA major, and maybe the need to remember to change springs when changing between major and minor loads. An Eagle 9 and an Edge 40 is where I'd really like to be, if you are not in love with the STI double stack platform then maybe 2 glocks (40 and 9) or xdms for about the same price of 1 Eagle is the way to go. A backup gun is a good thing.

Welllll, my glocks never gave me a lick of a problem, my Fusion and the pain of getting it fixed is a different story. Can't wait to hit 50 posts

It worked so well for Japan partially because Detroit was arrogant & lazy, I'm not sure that describes STI.

I shoot an Eagle 40 for IDPA & USPSA, it does the job well, so far has been very reliable, and other than a trigger job, which it needed badly, all the working parts and the mags are completely off the shelf. One day I hope to have one of the the options mentioned above as a USPSA only gun. The Aperio for sure if I can handle the cost, after shooting my friends gun, that gun is just way cool. I don't know what the "Island" barrel gets me in hard performance data but I'm durn sure that I want one. If I was shooting minor I think I'd just hang onto the Eagle.

+1

I think I've come to the conclusion that I really do not know what to look for in an IDPA / USPSA 1911-2011. My priorities are reliability, then accuracy, then as a far distant 3rd , looks. Reliability includes the need to run a minimum of 300 rounds of reasonable but imperfect (cleaned range brass and good lead bullets for example) reloads before cleaning is needed. I can tell if the trigger feels right and if the gun feels good in my hand, beyond that: 1. Some folks want a very tight slide to frame fit. I don't know if a very tight gun is going to run dirty as well as a loose gun. I also don't know if you should look for a different fit based on specifics like caliber and whether you want to run light loads with light springs or etc.. I also don't know if there are other aspects of fit that are meaningful for function and observable by a layperson. 2. Some folks look for clean lines and lack of any surface imperfections. I don't know if there are any particular imperfections to look for, or feel for, that would tell you how to expect the gun to perform. Anyway, for those of you who might have similar priorities, if someone hands you an unknown gun how do you make the determination of whether it is likely to be a good competition gun?