robport

I use the ones listed for the .22TCM on Gregcotellc.com website (about $22 a piece on there). They are Mec-Gar MGP183817B. The package is marked PARA-ORDANCE P!8 on the front. At the bottom of the scan code, it's marked "PARAORD P18 .38 SUPER 17RD BLUE. The only difference with the factory supplied magazine is that the TCM magazine feed lips look like they have been ground back towards the back of the magazine so that it holds only about 0.5 inches of a 9mm cartridge. What I noticed the other day, on the factory magazine, is that if I cycled the gun slowly, by hand, with a dummy cartridge in it, the front of the cartridge rose up as it came out of the magazine, rather than nose-diving, and went right into the barrel. On my Mec-Gar ones, they nosedived. If I pulled the slide all the way back and just let it go, they went in, but not if I didn't. I suspect that may be what happened to me the other day at the match with a slightly out of spec (low) round (or with low powered springs). I modified the rest of my magazines this afternoon with a bench grinder (gotta be real careful with a bench grinder...just touch it, if you try it, because it goes through that metal like butter). . I can now load a round from each with no impact from the spring (slow cycling)....we'll see. The spacer may mean that the gun doesn't have to cycle as much to pick up a round, but also reduces the length that the cartridge is being held by the feed lips. From a simply geometrical standpoint, I would think having more space between the feed lips and the barrel face would be better to use less force to realign the cartridge. That would also hit the breech face at more of an angle so the extractor tension would be more critical. I still haven't put the .22 TCM barrel in, but I now have a bunch of magazines that should work with that cartridge! Maybe some more magazine testing tomorrow. I still need to do something with the magazine baseplates. Dropping them on a concrete floor bends them. I don't have a magwell, so don't need extensions. Maybe dipping them in that rubber sold to insulate tools?

Arrgghh, had one nosedive on me during a match yesterday...the only course I was down zero on all six targets too....Looks like I'm gonna have to do something about it. I would say 1 in a few hundred isn't bad, but not for this. This was also with Winchester white box stuff.. Mine looks like it's definitely hanging up on the bottom of the barrel. I'll try the feed lips and polishing the barrel feed wall (I know that's not he right term, but it's what the bullet sees) first. I ran a few dummy rounds through slowly with the factory magazine and it appeared to let the cartridge tilt up earlier in the cycle, which may fix it. It I hadn't don't that, I might blame the gun itself. Other than that, the gun performed good. I was able to make follow-up shots much faster and a lot of my groups were pretty small, much, much smaller than they were with my XDM.

This weekend at our club: This is at an indoor range, by the way. I'm interested in seeing how they set it up in there. "Blind Match Saturday, November 22 2014, 8:00am - 4:00pm We have a unique and challenging match designed for you and it will be like nothing you have ever shot before. This match will be shot in one large shoot house style CoF. The shooter will be required to deal with threats while using all available cover and scanning for hidden threats while navigating through the entire CoF. All reloads will be on the clock. So, treat this match as one continuous string of fire! The match will be scored using a modified rules system based on IDPA. The targets are scored the same as IDPA: down 0,1,3, 5, etc. You will see Non-Threat targets with the white surrender hand symbols. Some threat targets may have shirts, hats, or masks. They may have guns or knives painted on them." Sounds interesting.

My reloads are now: 1.165 OL, 124gr copper plated Xtreme round nose, 5.2 grains Autocomp for 130 PF (1049 ft/sec) from 5 inch 9mm TCM barrel. (10 round average) They seem to work fine. Before that, I used 4.2 grains of PB and averaged 125.7 PF, but ran out of that (never used it in competition though). For comparison, Walmart bought Federal brown box 115 grain averaged 137 PF for me. It seems to have a lot more muzzle rise, thought it could just be my perception.

Before I forget, Benny says my reloads I sent the OAL was to short, for this gun they should be longer. Did he happen to give you a recommended length?

The way I read his email, Mr. Hill told him that the 12 was for the 9mm cartridge in the TCM pistol. The 9, (which I thought I remembered as a 7) was for the TCM cartridge. By the way, I hate to get off subject here, but does anyone have a good way of determining the load rating of the springs? I hate to admit it, but I now have a 12, 11, 10, 7, and two for a SA XDM. I somehow mixed them up. I think I have the 12 in it now and it appears to be working, but I want to try the others in a more controlled environment. I tried installing them and using a scale to push back the slide, but that was a bust, though it might work with a better scale. I also tried poking a hole through a box of bullets, weighing them, and using a pencil to keep the spring in line under it (that was a little too Rube Goldberg to control) Before I spend more money on a scale with a better range, I wanted to know if there was an easy way to do it. Is the load rating for the middle of the compression or is it?

I can only speak for my TCM model, but I only had trouble with reduced loads and reduced power springs. I haven't seen one nosedive in at least 500 rounds since putting the factory spring (12 lbs) back in, even with my 128 PF reloads. Of course, after saying this, I shouldn't use it later this week.....it's jinxed now. I'm a little nervous about opening the front feed lips much. I would be afraid of a double feed or another kind of hard lock up, the kind you have to drop and rack to fix. ...Like when a round pops out when you slap the magazine in. There is already a lot of room in that .38 super magazine for one to slip forward.. I'll wait for other people to play with the feed lips first

That makes perfect sense to me. Thanks

Maybe I shouldn't ask this, but here goes. During an IDPA match last week, my pistol went to slide lock, I dropped the magazine, and reloaded. when I got back to start reloading my magazines for the next COF, I found that there was a round left in the magazine I had dropped. Essentially, the pistol went to slide lock with one round left in the magazine. Should I have been penalized for dropping a loaded magazine or is this covered by 3.11.3 for clearing a malfunction (which in my opinion, it was, even though I didn't know about it to be a malfunction or take specific action to clear it at the time)? I'm just trying to make sure I understand this one. No one noticed or said anything about it. I'm thinking about the future, especially when the RSO or scorekeeper (one particular person comes to mind...lol) finds a mag on the ground with a round in it and doesn't remember me either going to slide lock or me having to clear a malfunction. Does this apply? 3.11.2. Dropping a loaded magazine or speed loader/moon clip during a reload does not incur a penalty as long as the shooter retrieves and properly stows the loaded magazine or speed loader/moon clip prior to the firing of the last shot in the string of fire. I would hope this one does. 3.11.3. Malfunction Clearing Exception: When clearing a malfunction, the magazine or speed loader/moon clip and /or ammunition that may have caused the malfunction does not need to be retained by the shooter and will incur no penalty if dropped. Thanks, in advance for any responses

The only time I have nose dive issues (TCM using 9mm barrel) is when the slide doesn't compress the return spring enough to have a little velocity going forward before it starts pushing the back of the round out of the magazine. As long as I use full power ammo and keep a stronger spring in it, I appear to be OK. It does happen a lot with light reloads or while I was playing with lower powered springs. If I take the slide and rack it rather slowly, the round will stop against the frame and the spring will not push the round into the barrel. It's a tortured path to the chamber for the front of the bullet. Normally, I'm assuming that the slide, at normal speed, is imparting a force to the top of the rear of the cartridge that allows it to rotate the front of the bullet up, where it bounces up over the frame. I can't prove it though. I bet if the angle of the frame, where it looks like someone ground (and polished) the approximation of a feed ramp, was at more of an angle and looked more like a feed ramp, the spring would push it in, even with less force. I'm scared to take a dremel to it though, especially since I can work around it right now and don't know what it would do to the TCM round (assuming I ever get to shoot one...lol).

That's very interesting. Something has changed since then though. The .38 super magazine, that I received from Greg Cote, looked exactly like the picture of the 9mm one. The transition groove starts in exactly the same place and my 9mm didn't nosedive when I just test loaded them (as they said it shouldn't with the longer groove). They must have adopted the lower transition groove for .38 super since then. By the way, the only difference I can find between the M P18 .38 S magazine and the one that came with the TCM is it looks like they ground the feed lips back about .130 inch on the TCM magazine. Other than that, they appear identical to me.

I'm not sure what a factory base pad is, but I would send them a support email. When I did that, they had a real live gunsmith get back to me within a day. If you can't see how to take it off, it wouldn't hurt to ask them.

This is already a long thread, so I thought I would add to it. Yesterday, I got the courage to switch my SA XDM our for my .22TCM at our biweekly IDPA match (9mm barrel of course). I was hesitant because it seems to be a little sensitive to ammo, not liking my 124 grain 130PF reloads or the Walmart sold brassmax stuff (both nosedive about 20% of the time). I'm sure I can work that out with the proper recoil spring and magazine spring in time though. With Winchester white box, the gun performed flawlessly with one hiccup. I left a round in the magazine on a slide lock reload. That only happened once though. I didn't find that I had the round left until I got back to the reload station after that COF. I don't think that's a penalty, even though I left a round in the magazine, since it's basically a malfunction, but you SO's out that may have a different take on that. I'll take it apart later today and see if I can find the problem. Anyway, follow-up shots were noticeably quicker and in more control than with the XDM (for me anyway). It seemed a little less sensitive to minor sight misalignment at short to medium range (5-15 yards). My groups were also much smaller. The extra mass of the pistol and the straight trigger pull appears to be making a difference, at least for yesterday. I did have one embarrassing mental error where I pulled the trigger a few times only to remember, Oh, I have a safety now, but that was me. I think it's going to work out. One other thing though. I dropped a magazine during the a reload and when I picked it up, the front of the baseplate was bent significantly. Does anyone have any ideas how to avoid that? These are the slightly modified (feed lips) .38 super magazines that the TCM uses. Will some kind of Dawson baseplate work?

EEZOX

Just left the range and this gun doesn't shoot straight! Actually, the gun does fine, it's the user that was rushing all the drills. The only real problem I'm having is not letting off enough on the reset for followup shots...again, not the guns fault. My XDM, which is my main gun right now (until I finish setting this one up), has a very, very short reset. I'm testing out a Wilson full length guide rod, that I bought off EBAY. There are no tricks to getting the gun apart with this one. It works like the short one...only it's full length (Captain Obvious here). If you are having trouble getting magazines, try the Greg Cotte website www.gregcotellc.com They are showing to be sold out right now, but you might try calling. I bought two from them and they work as well as the RIA one. They are a bunch cheaper though. I bought the 38 super ones. The original magazine for the TCM is a 38 super with a slight modification to the feed lips for the 22TCM round. I got the impression, from Dawson's websight, that the mag extensions and basepads won't work for the TCM. If they do, please let us know. I'm looking forward to getting the VZ grips I ordered with my rebate. Has anyone tried a .38 super barrel in the TCM? I would think it would work, maybe with a different extractor?

Sorry for taking so long. I wasn't following it....they sent me a .225 front. It was the standard black blade. I don't know if it was a stock item or a test item, but my intention was to try it, on the way to ordering a fiberoptic sight. I wanted to make sure I could zero it within the range of the stock rear sight on the pistol, which it did. I now have the stock rear and a Dawson't front on this 22TCM. Once I stick the new VZ grips on it (bought it with the rebate voucher +some), get used to it with a FLGR, figure out what spring to use for my loads, and take care of the failure to always lockback on empty issue (pretty sure it is magazine spring tension, not the pistol...I can stretch the sping and always temporarily fix it), I may get the courage to retire my SA XDM 4.5 (which also has that annoying lockback issue). It's IDPA, so that last issue is a real pain in the butt.

I've been using my XDM 4.5 9mm for about 10 months now in IDPA. Before you tell me to get the 5.25, if I had known what I was doing at the time, I would have gotten one. I have a wife, so that isn't an option right now. I'm just getting to the point where I am starting to work on speed and I feel the gun is the limit now for follow-up shots. No matter how I clamp the gun in my hands, lock my wrists, etc, I feel like it returns past center and I have to yank it back up on target for the second shot. I'm using 124 grain Xtreme plated bullets and loading to about 1050 fps (130 PF) and also shooting Federal 115 grain standard target loads (about 135 PF). I just ordered a lighter recoil spring from Wolff to try, a 16#. Does anyone else have experience with this gun and adjusting springs?

I had the same problem. They sent me a taller front. It only took a few minutes to install it. They also offered to ship it to them though, but I didn't want to send it off for a minor fix that I could do.

Shoot your own match and shoot it in the moment. Don't worry about what everyone else has or thinks or what you could be doing that you might enjoy better. Enjoy where you are now. I was raised as a glass half full type of guy. When Friday night came, rather than enjoy the weekend, I spent time dreading Monday. I'll take that vacation next year, or wait to compete at shooting till I'm better at it. We create our own neurosis and one day, look back at all we missed. It's difficult to break that after nurturing it for all those years, but I'm still trying. I just can't believe that shooting IDPA matches has triggered these thoughts in me....

"The boundary marking the “position of cover” is the line of cover defined by the last target to be engaged from that position." "last target to be engaged from that position" That's the part I was missing. Thanks

Last night, during a small informal IDPA event, I had a question about cover. I saw it differently than the RSO, but did what he said to do, stopped and came back to reload. I had a barrier, you move along the barrier and engage two targets, one at about 10 yards, then one close about 3 yards. You then move up to another barrier, in a manner that is hidden from the last two targets. Since we were downloaded to 6, I was at slide lock after both of the visible threats were engaged. I began to slip up to the new position of engagement while starting to reload. Cover was called. I stepped back to reload before I stepped up to my new firing position. I was told it was because I couldn't move without completing my reload. I thought that being at slide lock and behind cover from any targets, I could advance to the next place to engage the new targets while reloading. The way I viewed it, I was not stepping out from behind cover, since no targets were visible until the next position that I could engage them. Reading the rules, I can't really see where I was wrong. What have I missed in the rules? I understand about the tactical reload pivot foot issue, even though I think it is a little silly. In this case though, I can't see where a flat-footed reload applies, since I'm at slide lock, unless the definitiion of cover is more complicated than having a barrier between you and the targets. It was something like this with X being the targets already engaged. P1 and P2 weren't positions listed in the course of fire, just where I was shooting from. The periods are just because the editor kept moving everything all the way to the left. ...O..O..........X __________ .....X.........P2 __________ ...............P1

I use a stick on bifocal in the center of my vision line on just the dominant eye. It seems to work great unless I have to lean left to shoot around a barrier and don't turn my head enough to center it. Then I get a double image. A wider one or the bifocal across the whole center would be great.

I bought one of those 22 TCM's for use in IDPA. I wanted the 51679, but the full size dust cover is a no go, from my reading of the rules. My 9mm barrel doesn't move when locked up. I've already changed my front sight to a Dawson's fiber, 0.225 height. The thing is pretty accurate, but I still have a lot of practicing to do with it, coming from my XDM 4.5. The balance is a lot different, but it seems a little more forgiving of a "paniced" trigger pull (my own head games are my worse enemy in this sport...lol). I also like pulling it straight back, rather than at an angle and also shoot a PARA Expert, so want to train for one type of pistol. I use a Bladetech full size 1911 holster. The mag pouches weren't as available around here, but I found an H&K doublestack that works well enough. I changed the spring to 10 lbs, as someone suggested, but haven't played with it enough to verify it's any better. Any other suggestions for the spring? One thing I would like is a different grip. I'm on the edge of what is comfortable in my hand, so I don't want to get anything thicker. Has anyone tried the Powder River Precision grip tape without the installed grips? Any other options, other than the VZ grips from Armscor? Has anyone tried it with a .38 super barrel? It should work, especially since it uses the same magazines...might have to change the extractor, but maybe not.... One more thing. Any other options for the magazine baseplate? I don't know if that baseplate will get bent when it hits a concrete floor. Thanks

I have to admit that I was reading this thread earlier and thinking that it's crap, that a bullet can't be that far off when it takes off out of a 5 inch barrel with enough speed that it isn't dropping. I was wrong. I took my new RIA TCM 22 with the 9mm barrel and was playing with the sights today. I started using a very stable 124gr bullet recipe using PB, that I have been using pretty successfully in my SA XDM 4.5. It wasn't great, but was plenty good enough practice ammo. I was shooting all over the place. At 10 meters, I was up to 4.5 inches to the left of the center of the target (slowfire) with a dispersion of about 6 inches. I switched to Winchester White box and started putting them in the X of the target consistently. I'm convinced, except I'm not using any crimp. They are plated 124 gr extreme bullets. I guess I need to start concentrating on fixing my reloads.

While being somewhat of a novice at this, I would think it would depend on why the shooter didn't go prone. From my understanding of the rules, the sport is not supposed to be exclusionary, so if it was because of some physical limitation, you should look at it differently. If they did it for an advantage, then the FTDR may be appropriate. When we have seen this sort of thing, it's always been a physical limitation...maybe we just don't take is seriously enough 1.3.3.2. A CoF should test a competitors shooting skills. Allowances will be made for physically challenged or disabled shooters. Match Directors should always attempt to make the CoF accessible for all shooters. 7.1. Permanently physically disabled shooters who choose not to, or are unable to perform an action required by the CoF (kneeling, prone, etc.) will receive one (1) PE penalty per action not performed. If the shots cannot be taken safely or the targets cannot be acquired from their position of ability, they will receive one (1) additional PE penalty per target. No points down or FTNs will be assessed. We shot a local stage that started us out on both knees, then grabbing a gun from a briefcase, then scrambling about three yards to a one knee shooting position. Several started standing, bent over to get the gun, then sauntered up to the shooting position and went down on one knee. They accepted a procedural happily (hip problem and a knee problem). I did it as intended and probably saved a second or two over the way they did it, but I considered taking the procedural too, since I'm not exactly a kid any more either.