Steve133

Just picked up a new TSO in .40 from the most recent batch that's starting to trickle in. Haven't gotten to shoot it yet due to inconveniently-timed range closures, but a few observations from just looking it over and dry-firing: I was fully expecting to run into some of the minor issues that people have noted throughout this thread, and was pleasantly surprised that at least some incremental upgrades are apparently being made. Mine seems to have come with a Shadow 2 magazine release (with the enlarged button - anodized in orange, natch) and safety (extended left-side lever and flat right-side lever). The trigger shoe is also aluminum instead of the previous plastic version. We'll see if this remains true after some range time, but I think I actually like the feel of this trigger shoe over the flat CZC aftermarket model installed in my older Tactical Sport. Unfortunately, the fitting of the mag well is still... well, kind of garbage, but you can't have everything.... Take it with a grain of salt, since the thing could explode the first time I shoot it. But, from a design and component-selection standpoint, it's nice to see that CZ is putting in the effort to make some slight improvements. Sorry if those upgrades were things that everyone knew about, but I was surprised, and figured I'd share....

I started to copy/paste everything into a list so that I could parse it better, and then figured I might as well actually post the results in case anyone else finds that useful. Not adding or removing any events, just consolidating/reformatting the posts that others have already made. Apologies for any typos or transcription errors, please feel free to correct them: January February March 16-17: Missouri 3 Gun Championship, Versailles, MO 21-23: TPC Empire 3 Gun Match, Hurricane, UT 22-24: Superstition Mountain Mystery 3-Gun, Rio Salado Sportsman's Club, Mesa, AZ (Registration on PractiScore during October 1st-20th, 2018) April 13-14: Johnson 3-Gun 2-Rifle Match #1, NRA Whittington Center May 18-19: Johnson 3-Gun He-Man Edition, NRA Whittington Center June July August 2-4: Wyoming Magpul Governor's Match, Cheyenne Wyoming 24-25: Johnson 3-Gun RM3G Edition, NRA Whittington Center September 7-8: Johnson 3-Gun - 2-Rifle Match #2, NRA Whittington Center October 17-19: Blue Ridge Mountain 3-Gun, Rockcastle Shooting Center, November December

The latter. I used to mix it with water (i.e., the bottle I carried around with me was a water/shampoo mix), but it didn't work quite as well, and I just kept adjusting the amount of water downward until I just said "heck with it" and went with all shampoo. I'll squeeze a drop or two onto each side of each lens, then spread it around with a cloth or paper towel or whatever, let it dry for a bit, then hit with the cloth/paper towel again to buff cloudiness out. There might be other solutions out there that work better, but the baby shampoo works well enough that I haven't bothered to spend the extra money.

Little bit of necro-bump, but this is late-breaking relevant information: I don't know about the OG Tactical Sports, but I had a bunch in-stock notification requests from a few different vendors for the TS Orange in .40. I started getting the in-stock emails last night, so I'm guessing that a shipment just came in. Most of those places were already sold out again by the time I woke up this morning, so if you manage to find one, I wouldn't hesitate. Good luck.

You're welcome! I'm hardly an expert or anything, but I've been shooting 3 gun for long enough to have heard WAY better shooters than me give people advice... and to have wasted a ton of money that I wouldn't have wasted if I'd heard that advice early on. Just trying to pass that along and keep folks from making the same mistakes that I have....

Take this advice as being worth exactly what you paid for it (i.e., nothing), but here's a more philosophical argument instead of the usual "you should buy X scope, because I have one and I like it" responses: I'd argue that the real question isn't "which of the optics should you buy", but "how seriously are you going to take 3 gun over the long term?" $400 will buy an absolute top-of-the-line 1x optic with room to spare. If you buy, for example, a Vortex Spitfire (generally agreed to be the best 1x competition optic on the market, and my personal experience supports that consensus), you will almost certainly never need to upgrade with anything until you decide to jump divisions and start shooting with a variable optic. On the other hand, there aren't any great options for variable optics in the $400 price range. There are a few that work well enough for the occasional "just for fun" match, but the one thing that they all have in common is that you ARE going to want to upgrade them if you keep shooting over the long term. If you're just dipping your toes in, and you're not sure that you'll still be shooting a year from now, then a $400 Strike Eagle or Primary Arms scope is probably good enough. But you think that you might be in this for the long haul, that cheap scope just adds $400 to the price of the $700-$1700 scope that you WILL buy eventually. What I would do - and I'm not you, so my priorities might not be the same as yours - is buy a Spitfire (or whatever high-end 1x optic floats your boat) now, and compete in Limited/Tac Irons/whatever for however long it takes you to save up the money for a higher-quality variable optic. You'll be giving absolutely nothing up to anyone in that division, where a $400 variable optic is going to put you at a disadvantage to people running better glass in Tac Optics. General consensus is that the Vortex Viper Gen II is about the cheapest variable optic that doesn't carry any major disadvantages, and those typically sell for ~$700, and I've seen them get down into the $500s during major sale events in the past. More pennies than you're interested in spending, I'm sure, but maybe still feasible to save up for over a relatively short time.

Concur. Anti-fog solutions are pretty much surfactants that disrupt surface tension of water droplets as they condense on the lenses. You can pay for special formulations and consistencies and whatnot... or just use pretty much any type of soap. Personally, I'm partial to baby shampoo, since it won't cause irritation if I manage to get it in my eyes. I'll just keep a travel-size bottle of it in my range bag, and apply some before the start of a match.

Shotgun and pistol can be a little trickier, but if you're just shooting PCC, I think all you really need is a light. I've only shot a couple of night matches, but one of them was last year's Walking Dead (and I'd be going this year, too, if I didn't have work conflicts). Literally the only thing that I did for my rifle was slap a light onto the handguard and make sure that I had a fresh battery in my optic, and I think that setup worked fairly well. So, yeah, assuming that you're using an illuminated optic of some sort, I think all you need is a weapon-mounted light. Bonus points for having a tape switch or some other means of activating it quickly, since I'm pretty sure that Walking Dead requires you to start with all mounted lights turned off. You don't even really need a very good light, since the Walking Dead stages are all in pretty short bays, so you don't need a ton of brightness or throw distance. You won't need a headlamp while shooting (and it would probably actually hurt you by washing out your dot anyway), but it would be useful for seeing what you're doing between stages. Oh, and extra batteries. For EVERYTHING.

The XB3gun comes with one of Roth's monotubes, right? If so, then that's the reason why there's no need for a barrel clamp - instead of having a short extension threaded onto the end of the factory tube, it's a single, continuous tube that runs through the handguard and into the receiver. It's a lot more stable and durable, but would be a little bit of an apples-to-orange comparison with a normal extension that just threads onto the factory tube. That said.... I initially used a barrel clamp with one of those normal threaded-on Nordic extensions, and never had too many issues with shifting the slug POI (it helps if you back the extension off by about half a turn before installing the clamp, so that the magazine tube is pulled towards the barrel instead of the other way around). But after a couple of years, I got sick of needing to go find a screwdriver every time that I wanted to field strip my shotgun for cleaning, so I started running without the clamp, and haven't seen any issues either.

I don't have one, but I've shot with a few people who have them, and I've never seen them cause any issues. But that said: This is imminently true. All of the skeletonized receivers that I've looked at (and it's entirely possible that I'm excluding some) start from a big, chunky billet, and those weigh substantially more than standard forged receivers. So, after all of the lightening cuts, you usually wind up with a receiver that's lighter than most billet receivers, but still heavier than a forged receiver. I looked into this for my last build, and I came to the conclusion that it's pretty much a wash. On the one hand, it's not likely to cause any reliability issues based on what I've seen. On the other hand, they don't really provide many tangible benefits. I guess one could argue that you do get some fringe benefits, since most of the companies that make those skeletonized receivers are smaller boutique manufacturers who will turn out a product with better fit and finish overall... but they probably also make non-skeletonized receivers with the same overall quality. It almost comes down to just cosmetics. Do you think they look cool? Is how cool they look worth any price difference to you? That's a completely justifiable rationale for something that you're buying for a hobby that you enjoy, so if the answer to both of those questions is "yes", then rock on, and don't worry too much about it.

Never heard of them, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything one way or the other - there's tons of cool stuff out there that I've never heard of. As much as I hate it when someone answers a question besides the one that was asked, I kind of have to. And it's the same thing that everyone always says, to boot: I really wouldn't worry too much about the extension being flush with the barrel. This really only serves an aesthetic purpose. If that's what's most important to you, then rock on, but if you're planning to use that for competition, then I'd worry more about total capacity than about the physical length of the tube. For context, when I first started in 3 gun, I ran a tube with a 9-round capacity. I figured that it would be enough to load to division capacity for a cruiser-ready start, so it was totally fine... and as a bonus, the end of the tube was flush with the barrel, which I thought looked nicer. But as I shot more matches, I started getting into more and more situations where it would have been really handy to load the gun beyond the mandated starting capacity during the execution of the stage. To put it another way, it turned out that there was a reason why everyone and their dog was running a 12 round tube that stuck out beyond the barrel. So, I ordered a +3 extension for my extension, and called it good. Just throwing that out there, in case I can help someone else avoid spending the extra money that I had to spend....

At least in my (admittedly somewhat-limited) experience, "ready-to-go" competition guns are rare. The MOA's P3K is about the only Stoeger option that I know of off the top of my head - I was looking very hard at one myself, but I found a good sale price on a stock M3k, so I ordered that one and then shipped it off again once I got it. That's not really an issue that's unique to Stoeger, either - basically every "competition-ready" model that a major manufacturer produces isn't quite ready to go, and you're still going to have to do at least some minor tweaking (e.g., even with the "3 Gun Edition" M2 direct from Benelli, you're going to have to add an extension tube - I've only seen one of them in person, and that one also would have benefited from a little more work on the loading port, but for all I know, they've improved that recently). The guys who really know what they're doing are the relatively small custom shops, and for whatever reason, their bread and butter is modifying customer-owned guns, not selling completed ones. The only exceptions that I can think of off the top of my head are the guys who run custom shops and are sponsored by a factory shotgun company - maybe because they have an inside track on getting the stock versions at dealer prices? Whatever the reason, folks like Aaron Hayes and Taran Butler, will outright sell you a custom M2, but a lot of shops will just work on them (though I'll bet that if you called and talked to them, you'd probably find someone who'd be willing to order a stock gun and then ship it to your FFL once it was done). Incidentally, unless you've got a smoking deal on one of those Benelli 3 Gun Edition guns, that's what I'd do - off the top of my head, I think you could get a Hayes Custom or Roth Performance M2 (well... M2-ish, for the Roth ones, since they're built on custom receivers) for the same price, or a TTI for not much more, and any of those really will be ready to go out of the box. Or accept the wait and order two P3Ks for the same price (or one P3K and $1000 of shells for practice...). That said, I think that even the guys who sell complete shotguns don't just have a storeroom full of them ready to ship out - most of them probably build to order, given the low quantities involved, so you're likely going to have to wait a few weeks regardless of the option you go with.

Probably going to sound like a broken record, since I've said this several times already, but: I agree up to a point - it kind of depends on what you mean by "the money" - is money no object? Then absolutely, go with a custom Benelli M2 and never look back. Do you just have the money for a stock M2 and you're planning on doing all the work on it yourself? If that's the case, then I would recommend taking a good, long look at custom-built M3k as a good intermediate option - there are a few high-quality shops that do good work with them. The total price of a custom-built M3k is probably going to be about the same as a stock Benelli, and all of the kinks related to Stoeger's inconsistent fit and finish will be worked out already. I'm generalizing here, but based on the research and experience that I've gathered over the past few years, I've come around to this rule of thumb on competition guns: Cheap stock gun < Expensive stock gun < Cheap custom gun < Expensive custom gun

This is quite possibly the greatest idea for match design that I've ever heard. Carry all three guns with you, or stage/abandon everything - I think either one would be appropriate for a classic FPS-inspired stage. Maybe even require staging magazines to be used as "ammo pickups". If you actually wind up doing something like this, please post some followup. It sounds awesome, and I'd be interested to know whether or not it's that awesome in execution as well.

I don't really pay that much attention to weight in general. The approach I've always taken is selecting some core components based on parameters other than weight; weight becomes a consideration for other components in order to preserve good balance. For example, I like a rifle-length gas system in a competition rifle, meaning an 18" barrel. Regardless of profile, an 18" barrel will probably tend towards front-heavy... meaning that I'll usually look for a lighter handguard and a heavier stock. Overall weight will be fairly heavy, but it's balanced pretty well, so it's not too noticeable. Same reason I don't mind the weight of the Vortex Razor mounted on top - it's a heavy tank of an optic, but it sits pretty much at the center of gravity, so it doesn't have much effect on how the rifle balances or points. I'll get on my soapbox here and rant a little about people not doing their homework on lightweight components. The skeletonized receivers look cool, and the aggressive cuts shave some weight from the starting point... but "the starting point" in this case is a big, chunky billet receiver, so even with the skeletonized cuts, they're still heavier than forged receivers. Same for the ultra-lightweight small parts like pins and bolt releases - you can easily spend $400 over a basic LPK in order to save a grand total of 2 ounces.

The cancellation notice was posted on the Spartan Tactical Facebook page a couple of days ago - I think that moves it out of "rumor" territory and into "official" territory. Too bad, I was really looking forward to that one this year.

I'm by no means an expert, since I've shot a grand total of zero matches in Open, but I'm doing a bit of research on that since I picked up a Vepr a while back. There's some good discussion here: https://3gunshow.com/2018/03/20/180-breaking-open-with-scott-greene-and-adam-maxwell/ That podcast episode is wider-ranging than just shotgun mag carriers, but they do spend a few minutes on that topic. One thing they mention is that .308 rifle mag holders with a two-piece design will actually fit a lot of shotgun box mags if you mess around with longer tensioning screws. I know that LAG Tactical makes rifle pouches like that, but there are probably others. They're short enough that I'm not sure an extended mag would be stable in one, but a 10-rounder would probably be okay. Lots of folks will just epoxy a belt clip to the mag body and carry them that way. No personal experience with that, though. Nerd makes high-end shotgun mag carriers, but I think they're specific to Vepr mags, so they might not fit yours.

Agree 100%. Lasers? Multiple optics? Whatever works... ESPECIALLY on a PCC. It's a hot-rod, not a HMMWV. I actually just did exactly that. They also have a decent price on some old Burris FastFire 2's that I assume they're trying to clear out - figure that's a good enough setup for playing around with to see if it works.

+1 The TF coupled baseplates on a pair of 30-round magazines is a good height for prone shooting for most people, and is noticeably more stable than monopod-ing off of a single mag. In addition, a pair of coupled 20-rounders can be occasionally handy for shooting off of a rooftop prop or other weird position that a 30-rounder is too long to fit into - gives you the maneuverability benefit of the shorter mag while mitigating the capacity disadvantage. Problem is, a 20-rounder doesn't have enough magazine body for most couplers to work with without modification... since the TF couples at the baseplate, no issues there. I think the MBX uses a similar system? Can't speak to them, since I have no direct experience with them, but the TF are great.

I'm slightly disappointed by that, but my wallet is breathing a sigh of relief....

Oh. Yeah, that should be fine. Maybe a LITTLE minor fitting, but they should be good to go. I actually do something similar - I bought a used TS in .40 with some custom work on it to shoot in USPSA, and recently acquired a 9 mm barrel and slide to swap onto it for 3 gun. Works fine.

Well... sort of. Just for grins, I once tried to swap the barrel/slide from an SP01 onto my TS - the rails seemed to line up okay, but the issue is that the TS and TSO have a both a longer slide/barrel than the standard CZ-75 and a full-length dust cover. Even if everything else matches up perfectly, then you're going to have one hell of an underbite - the TSO dustcover will extend past the muzzle of a CZ-75B barrel by a good bit.

Yeah, I can totally see where the effort/reward ratio just wouldn't be there for a reasonably complex holster design like that. Thanks for asking around, though.

Agree 100%. If everyone's response was just "well, those are rules, and if you don't like them, you can get out", then we'd all still be shooting pimped-out single-stack 1911s in leather holsters and having to do somersaults in equipment check. To be fair, I don't approve of pointless complaining either, but I think that a civil and constructive discussion about the rules and the rationale behind them (which is what I'd say is happening here) is necessary to keep the sport from stagnating to the point of irrelevance.

I have no personal experience with these, so I can't really speak to whether or not they're recommended. But I have noticed that Hayes Custom Guns sells them now, so if you were inclined to try them out, you wouldn't have to fool with importing them or anything: http://hayescustomguns.com/king-competition/