ArrDave

I wear a sport coat to work each day, and some days for indoor matches I just ran it as a concealment garment in the cold weather months. I use athletic/tailored fit and I can pass scarecrow with those, but (!) we don't check gear for a weekly indoor match as long as your satisfying the intent of the rules and not gaining competitive advantage we let it slide.

Armadillo Concealment is what everybody around me runs who ordered vests recently. You can get the mesh back option.

I honestly couldn't find 1911 specific videos. Ron Avery has a lot of videos on line and he's a beast with a 1911, obviously Rob Leatham, Larry Vickers, Nils Jonasson, etc. I would just look at the results from the most recent single stack nationals and start Youtubing down the list to see videos. For me it helped shooting with guys who had been on the platform a long time. Slide lock reloads still aren't as fast for me on single stacks as they were with Glocks due to the releasing the slide mechanism. If you don't run an extended slide stop, you'll be dropping the slide with the thumb of your support hand at slide lock. On the positive side, the grip of a 1911 I feel like I can get a better grip on and the sights track more consistently on a 1911 than with a Glock, it's a lot harder to throw shots because of bad trigger press (although still very possible!), and I find there to be a joy running a 1911 that wasn't there with a Glock. Feels like running an heirloom timepiece. That said I fell in sand tossing a football with a buddy and didn't feel great about my 1911's chances of emptying the mag after inspecting it. I probably will go back to carrying my Glocks.

I don't use much of one.

I can't give you all the info you seek, but having made the switch from Glock to 1911 at the end of the last year, be prepared you're likely going to overpull the trigger a lot in the first month/ two and throw shots low. Plan on a lot of dryfire and slowfire practice shooting groups until you "get" the trigger. You'll need to drill in your new "index" with a different grip angle (point with your pointer when bringing the gun up, not with your thumb like on a Glock). The skill set is largely the same, it's just practicing adapting it to the new platform. i wish there were shortcuts I could offer, but I didn't find any. Took me about 2 months of dedicated practice/living the platform until i was up to speed. I asked similar questions adopting the platform, and to summarize it "Get used to it".

I wish I could find Clays or WST locally. Ran across some 700x in jugs and jumped at it, haven't developed a load for it yet. 231 with plated works great, I can't remember my load off hand but it was probably 171-174 or therabouts and felt much softer than that.

Bowenbuilt, I've been shooting blue bullets since reading about your adventures with them since about the end of last year... do you find these Acme bullets to be that much better? The blues have been great, no fouling, no smoke, no smell, reasonable pricing.

yeah, but the gun is built to your specs. If you don't like the stock magwell or grips on a rangemaster, you'd have to add those too.

For whatever it is worth, I found coated lead to be appreciably more accurate out of my Dan Wesson than Xtreme Plated. I know you said that's not an option for you, but if it's not a requirement put forth by the range, I would look at making it an option. It's also a little bit cheaper.

Doing my homework, it appears 5.5-5.6 grains loaded out to 1.25-6 behind a coated LRN will reliably net a 170 PF... Starting to be that time again, not in love with my current powder and CFE seems to come up for sale locally more reliably... Anyone using it? Also, 700x has come up here locally... in my Lyman book that's the "most accurate" powder, I seem to recall, but I hear it meters poorly (or meters well... once it's "settled in" to the hopper) Thoughts?

Those hyena brown grips look awesome. i debated getting Gray/Black vs. Hyena when ordering mine... I might end up with another set. That's too pretty.

There's nothing the 4.25" will get you that the 5" won't do better, other than coming out of the holster slightly faster. For classifiers, that may benefit you slightly, but not in match shooting. Since pretty much every M&P gets an apex anyway, if you can find a 9L and drop in new sights/trigger you shoudl be good to go.

There is no way a fly fishing vest would cover a gun and mags worn at the waist. They are short for a reason. Yet and still my concealment garment is indeed a fishing vest, so the longer variety do exist. I'm 6'5 so I have to wear my belt a touch higher than normal to pass the scarecrow, but it's the same with the 5.11 et all as well.

A lot of the Georgia folk who shot this match were griping about the cover calls, but cover traps sound like SOP for that region based on your post, and cover traps are more unusual in this region. I'll have to integrate that into my course design.

It is my sincere hope that you've never encountered that. The current world champ in IDPA shoots a Glock 34, I'm not 100% but I'm pretty sure Nils won ESP at indoor nats with a 1911/2011. There are no short cuts.

I always tell the new guys to spend less than $50 on a concealment garment. It's the least important piece of kit to run IDPA and some folks drop $120+ on them. I can't tell a difference between the 5.11 range/tactical vests, fishing vests (legit fishing vests), and the competitive concealment/armadillo concealment ones. The only thing the high dollar ones REALLY have going for them is the mesh panel on the back for those mid summer matches.

I'm curious. Do you have a steel or tungsten guide rod in a Glock? Have you noticed any reduction in recoil or muzzle rise? Near as I can tell, it's like arguing about GI vs. FLGR on 1911s. Some folks swear up and down there is a difference and the gun feels like it tracks smoother, others say "I just put $50 in my gun for what?". I couldn't tell the difference, or if the difference was there it was not enough for me to be able to exploit it. It's my personal theory they're trying to sell those predominantly to the guy who has memorized all the words to the Cory & Erika youtube vids and talks about being able to rack their slides off their belts or grip their gun even if their hands are covered in blood.

We DQ for that as well. We take great pains to go over non-traditional starts in the new shooter brief to warn them that it is a DQ and that you only handle your firearm on the range under command of the SO. We've not had one for a while, but it does still happen, sadly.

Looked at releasing slide with strong hand vs weak hand. It was slower for me, but I'm not running extended slide release.

More than familiar with the power stroke or whatever, but my goal is to win the game! Plus Frank Proctor teaches slide release in combat shooting as well, just FYI Sent from an iDevice. Please forgive any grammatical or spelling errors. If the post doesn't make sense or is not amusing then it is technology's fault and most certainly not operator error.

The match director does match bumps "by hand" on the IDPA website. Usually takes some time after the results are official. My bump from the Indoor Nats took about 10 days. Coming up on a month Sent from an iDevice. Please forgive any grammatical or spelling errors. If the post doesn't make sense or is not amusing then it is technology's fault and most certainly not operator error. I'd send an email to the match director. I checked today, it's gone through finally. I sent two emails to IDPA, never heard back from them. The match director got his scores uploaded pretty quick, they finalized them in 5 days or so.

Have you considered Check Mate Hybrid Competitions? they're like $21 apiece shipped from 44mag.com and they work great. I'm coming up on 2k rounds through them and no malfunctions at all. Once the spring is broken in seating the mags on a loaded chamber is no big deal.

More pictures please. Those grips and front/backstraps are attractive to me.

You will break your grip to drop the mag, for sure. you definitely release with the support hand thumb. Practicing it again today I think my issue is where to hold the gun to reliably seat it. With the single stack mags, it's a lot less forgiving of angle. And if you guys don't have a mag guide on your buddy's 1911, I would recommend one.

I do use my support hand thumb, but I still would love a chance to watch some good footage of some of the pros doing a slide lock reload on the platform. Kind of problematic since the better documented shooters are generally USPSA guys so the reloads are usually slide closed reloads.