Steve133

I once bought a pack of extra-power recoil springs to try to tame the brass ejection pattern on an OG Tac Sport in .40. I think I worked my way up to 20 pounds without ever having a noticeable effect on the ejection distance. I just accepted that Major PF CZs are an exception to some of the usual rules about spring tuning....

Well, it seems like this would be the easiest (and unfortunately, rather expensive) option: https://www.briley.com/p-63422-briley-3gun-m-lok-handguard-stoeger.aspx There's single row of M-lok slots along the bottom of the handguard, which would give you plenty of options for vertical grips. Though the expense is a definite drawback, and I can say from personal experience that trying to keep the handguard, barrel, mag tube, and action bars all in the right relative positions makes reassembly a pain. I've never tried bolting anything to the directly to the original factory fore-end of my Stoeger, but I was able to install a QD sling attachment, so you could probably manage to do something similar with a vertical grip, as long as you were mindful of maintaining adequate clearance between the reciprocating components and the heads of any bolts or other hardware inside the handguard.

CNC Warrior makes a few muzzle devices styled on standard com bloc models, but with 1/2x28 threads. The specs for their products make things a little ambiguous as to whether or not models available in multiple thread patterns also have multiple bore diameters linked to the thread pattern (i.e., that the 1/2x28 version has a 5.56 diameter, the M14x1 version has a 7.62 diameter, etc.), but it's worth asking them, I suppose. If absolutely all else fails, one of the devices they sell is a 1/2x28 to M14x1 adapter, which would open up the possibilities for more traditional options. I believe that at least some of the brakes manufactured by both APA and Precision Armament have a bunch of models based on mixed-and-matched bore diameters and thread patterns also, so 7.62 bore and 1/2x28 might be options there. Probably others, but those are the only ones that I have semi-recent purchase history with.

No experience with the Taccom unit, but Tim makes good stuff, so I'm sure it's fine. I've got Briley extensions on a couple of guns, but haven't really had the opportunity to really push them hard. That said, tons of local shooters have them (being in the Houston area means that I'm deep in Briley/Dissident Arms territory), and I've seen them put through some pretty gnarly conditions at some of the Texas major matches. Never seen any issues with function or durability.

Are you talking about this one? https://www.cwaccessories.com/product-page/cwa-wide-body-single-stack-grip

Put together a chronological listing to help plan match/vacation-related travel for work, and figured it might be useful: March: 3/17-3/21: Superstition Mountain Mystery 3-Gun (SMM3G); Rio Salado Sportman's Club; Mesa, AZ April: May: 5/8-5/9: He-Man 3-Gun Nationals; Whittington Center; Raton, NM 5/22-5/23: Northwest Multigun; Bend Oregon 5/28-5/30: Titan Ballistics EMG Nationals; Salt Lake City, UT 5/29-5-30: Precision/Tactical 2-Rifle Match; Whittington Center (Coal Canyon); Raton, NM June: 6/11-6/13: High-Desert 3-Gun Championship; Parma Idaho TBD: Magpul Wyoming Governor’s Match Presented by Vortex Optics; Wyoming July: August: 8/6-8/8: Surefire World Multigun; Grand Junction, CO 8/14-8/15: Rocky Mountain 3-Gun; Whittington Center; Raton, NM September: 9/3-9/5: Mike Voigt Memorial UPL Nationals; Grand Junction, CO 9/9-9/12: Generation 3 Gun Championship; Gadsden Shooting Center; Iberia, MO 9/23-9/26: Microtech Pro-Am 3 Gun Championship; the Clinton House; Clinton, SC October: 10/8-10/10: Vortex Optics Grand Championships; Las Vegas, NV 10/8-10/10: Memorial 3 Gun; Gryphon Group; Maxton, NC November: December: Note that I only did copy/pasting, reformatting, and minimal research (e.g., adding venue/location info that was found at a link in the original post or discoverable within a few seconds of Googling). Those of you who made the original posts, feel free to add information to this unified listing. It would also be just awesome if we could keep this formatted list going in the future, so if you're adding new matches, please either copy/paste or quote and edit this post.

I think he's referring to the magazine springs - Grams Engineering is one of the popular manufacturers of aftermarket magazine spring/follower kits. Like most of the competition-oriented magazine kits, the Grams "guts" contain a thin follower that increases magazine capacity at the expense of no longer engaging the slide stop and locking the slide back on empty. I'm assuming that you're either using stock mags and/or the same magazine configuration that you did when the slide was locking back with your old load... but if you're not, that's something to look at.

RCI changed their name to Roth Performance a few years back, which might account for the difficulty in finding information about them. They're definitely still around, selling parts and doing custom work. There's a blurb on their website that says that they've retired the add-on XRAIL, but are still doing custom builds with included XRAIL systems... but the XRAIL custom build is also marked as being discontinued on the website, so who knows. I've had them do some shotgun work before, and they were always very responsive to communication - you could probably call/email them to ask about it. They do good work in general, and I'm sure the XRAIL was a decent product, but I also wouldn't be terribly surprised if it actually has been completely discontinued. It wasn't a bad solution for Open shotguns when Mark developed it, but since then, there's been a major shift towards box-fed shotguns - not only are there more models available on the market than there used to be, but custom shops have made a lot of progress in figuring out how to tune them for competition. Given how complex the mechanism was, I'm sure that an XRAIL wasn't cheap to produce, and it was catered to a very specific niche market; with Veprs, VR-80s, and the like becoming more and more dominant in that market, it was probably just a matter of time before it wasn't cost-effective.

The Stoeger is about the cheapest option that actually has some degree of aftermarket support. I don't know much about the Girsans, and it might be possible to overhaul one into a decent competition gun; but I'm not aware of any good turnkey solutions for that. I'd suspect that you'd be buying parts/upgrades from other guns and modifying them to fit. The Stoeger has some cross-compatibility with the M2, and there are several shops (most notably MOA Precision) making purpose-built competition parts for them. If you don't want to commit to the cost of the 1301, it's a better option than the Girsans by far. Since you said that you've got a line on those specific models, I won't dwell on discussing the pros/cons of other models (Franchi, Benelli, etc.), but I'll note that they exist, and would give you a few more options in the continuum of prices that you've identified.

I think you might be thinking about the NRA World Shooting Championship? Pretty sure it was at Peacemaker and had a format similar to that. A quick google search doesn't reveal much information on it beyond "canceled for 2020 due to Covid", but I'm trying to remember what I saw about it the last time it happened. I want to say that it was a mish-mash of the typical "action shooting" sports (including SASS) with bullseye pistol, Olympic-style smallbore stuff, and trap/skeet. I'm kind of on the fence about whether including the "non-action" sports is better or worse. On the one hand, they don't interest me too terribly much personally; but on the other had, it does tend to introduce a more holistic challenge than limiting things to the broadly-similar action sports, and it probably carries a greater potential for crossover.

To echo what others have said, that is absolutely all that you need to go ahead and jump in! Other shooters will loan you anything that you need, up to and including guns, and that's a good way to get a good idea of what your preferences are in terms of upgrades as you go along. I'm going to make a couple of recommendations that will make that a bit easier - bear in mind that I'm by no means suggesting that you need to start buying things now, but just some generally "safe" options that will carry a minimal risk of wasting money as you go forward: This is a good starting point. A good holster for your current pistol is probably the top priority if you don't already have one, since a holster with poor retention or attachment to the belt can present some safety issues. There are lots of good options out there, but if you have no idea where to start (totally understandable, because there's a whole ecosystem of custom holster manufacturers, retention mechanisms, and belt-attachment systems out there), I'd suggest that the Safariland 579 series is a good starting point. They can frequently be found for much less than the MSRP listed on that page - typically in the $35-$45 range. It has active retention, and will fit a wide array of different pistols. The advertised "universal" fit has some quirks (the main issue I've run into is accidentally dropping a magazine because the side of the holster is too close to the release button on some pistols), but there's a good chance that you can find a model that will fit the pistol that you have, the pistols that your fellow competitors might lend you, and the pistol you "upgrade" to if/when you get to that point. Even you ultimately decide to go in a totally different direction, you wouldn't be out that much money. In terms of belts, most shooting sports have a ton of different options, but 3 gun actually has a de-facto standard: the Safariland ELS system. There are a few folks who use different methods of attaching things to their belt (and have their own perfectly-valid reasons for that), but the overwhelming majority of folks I shoot with use an ELS-compatible belt. It's an easy way to be able to swap around what you're carrying on your belt to meet the requirements of each stage. There are a few options out there, but the Safariland 032 is probably the cheapest, especially if you grab one while there's a sale going on. You can also buy any two-layer competition shooting belt and then use a drill or soldering iron to make holes to mount the receiver plates if you're more willing to invest time than money. Assuming that you and your son are even vaguely close to each other in terms of waistline, you can even pick up a single outer belt to share. The reason I'm suggesting looking at this sooner rather than later is that a good belt with a couple of ELS plates on it will make it very easy to borrow mag pouches, shell caddies, whatever from the rest of your squad, which is a great way of figuring out what you like before spending any money. Again, totally not required to start shooting matches, but a decent place to start if/when you decide that you enjoy it enough to start spending some money.

No kids, but in addition to going through the "getting started" process myself, I've walked a few friends through it. I'm actually doing the exact opposite of what you're talking about at the moment - my dad has expressed an interest in getting into 3 gun, so I'm kind of walking him through picking out gear (it's nice that it's made birthday and Christmas shopping for him pretty simple the past few years...). I'll echo the general sentiment of "don't spend too much money until you know what you need." Do you mind if I ask what phase of this process that you're at? I ask because it informs the process of figuring out what it is that you need. You said you've asked around locally - are there regular 3 gun matches in your area? If so, have you gone to any of them to just watch? That's definitely the best starting point. Also, leaving aside all of the need/wants/whatever, when it comes time to start dipping toes into actually shooting matches, do you have a rifle, pistol, and shotgun? A fair number of folks have a bare-bones AR (or other semi-auto rifle), a pistol of some sort, and a hunting or home-defense shotgun lying around - if you're one of those people, then those are definitely good enough to start with. Is it just your son getting into shooting, or is this something that you're doing together? If the latter, then you've probably already heard this, but you can totally share gear/guns if you need to - the range officers will let you tweak the shooting order to give you time to sort out a handoff of stuff that you're sharing.

I don't have any first-hand experience with the SLP - in fact, I think I've only even seen one in person once, at a multigun class at TPC like 3-4 years ago (and while I don't think the "well, this is what everyone's doing, so it must be right" train of thought is a valid decision-making process, the fact that I've seen a ton more Benellis/Stoegers/Versamaxes/Berettas than SLPs at the various matches and training courses I've gone to over the years probably means something, at least. Make of it what you will). But since I've become that guy that rants about Stoegers every time they come up, I guess I'll keep up the pattern from that perspective.... To answer your specific question directly: I've owned multiple M3ks, and I still think they're one of the best budget options for 3 gun shotguns. That said, I'll freely admit that not all of them are perfectly reliable out of the box. Everything's a tradeoff, and the low price point of the Stoegers means that you're going to sacrifice a lot of fit and finish, some of which can impact reliability. The most frequent issues that I've run into are rough finish on the mag tube causing friction that can hang things up (since the action bar rides on the mag tube during cycling), and slight burrs on the channel in the bolt that the extractor sits in. None of this requires a gunsmith to fix, but it might require a couple of hours with emery paper and/or a needle file. Note that this is in addition to the standard break-in period that you're going to need to do with any inertia gun. I'll also add that every "competition-ready" 3 gun shotgun that I've ever seen actually isn't. You're always going to want to open up the loading port a little bit more, and you're almost always going to want more rounds in the tube (even the 10+1 of the M3k Freedom edition is less than the 12+1 that's become the de facto standard in most 3 gun divisions), so number of competition-oriented bells and whistles that a gun has out of the box is generally not major deciding factor. That said... I don't know anything about trap shooting or sporting clays, but I do know that the requirements for a good 3-gun shotgun are a little unique, and I've done the whole "try to buy one gun that fills multiple roles well" thing more than a couple of times. To refer back to my "everything's a trade-off" point above, I would not be surprised if trying to find a single shotgun to use for both hobbies results in a pick that's not all that great for either of them. There's probably a break-even point somewhere where 2 cheap guns optimized for the different sports is a better value than one generally nicer gun that's not as optimal for either, but that's something that you're going to have to do the math on yourself.

I've actually spent a decent amount of time looking into the price/logistics of swapping between Comfortech stocks, and I've never been able to find a replacement stock for less than the $300-$400 range. At that price, I'd definitely put it at the bottom of the list for upgrades. I've never done a complete apples-to-apples test comparing an M2 with a Comfortech stock against one without, but I have done back-to-back shooting with a Comfortech-equipped M2 and another inertia-driven 12 gauge with a plain old polymer stock. Recoil seemed a tad more manageable with the M2, but it's very likely that the stock only contributed partially to that; even then, it wasn't a night-and-day difference. In my personal opinion, an extended tube, loading port work (whether done yourself or by a gunsmith), trigger work, and oversized controls (in roughly that order) would all come before swapping out the stock, as would ammo for training and matches. If you've still got the money burning a hole in your pocket after all of that, then sure, go for it. But it's not exactly critical.

+1. Just be patient - I've bought I think three different complete CZ top ends off of the Classifieds on this forum; two of them were for exactly the sort of caliber conversion that you're asking about. No issues with either.