peterk1234

Okay total noob here... Just did my first Idpa shoot a week ago. Grip is key. Lots of vids out there about technique. However, I am finding what I shoot at it, and how I shoot at it is making a huge difference. Paper Targets - That is all I was shooting for a while. My whole shooting life revolved around trying to get all the bullets to hit the little red dot in the middle. Double taps were a nightmare. Accuracy sucked. Then I tried steel............. Steel Targets - Oh my, a whole new world of shooting. All of a sudden I was figuring out that all I needed to do was get my focus on the front sight as soon as possible, and as long as there was metal in the background I could let it rip. I call this the opposite of paper shooting. But, then I did my first IDPA event and well....while steel helped a lot, my accuracy sucked. Enter the IDPA target.......... IDPA Target or something similar - This is my first weekend practicing with these. It is kind of a little bit of paper target, mixed in with steel. While I do not require pinpoint accuracy, I needed a lot more than when shooting steel. Especially when going for the head. Plus, it is less static because I shoot to the body, then to the head, or I walk toward it, or I have one close and one farther away. All of a sudden I started to realize that I needed to trust my hands and the fact that the gun is going back to the same place it started. Now I have a whole lot of things to figure out, but the point I am trying to make is that shooting at different types of targets seem to make quite a difference for me. I am also learning that I have to shoot paper, steel and the IDPA type targets because they are all teaching me different things. The paper is teaching me accuracy, the steel teaches front site pickup, and the IDPA target seems to blend the two. Most importantly, I am having a ball doing it all. I could be totally wrong with everything I just wrote, but seems to be helping me quite a bit. Pete Pete

Thank you

I have been trying to tune a couple of mags that are just too tight going into our Apeiro. I am hitting a bit of a wall, even with my searches online. At first I thought it was the mag release button, or the fact that the slot on the mag needed to be tweaked. However, after pulling the slide off the gun (again) and just inserting the the mag tube with no guts, I think the tube is just too tight. So here is the issue............. the same mag works fine in our marauder. My guess now is that the tube needs to be put in a vice and squeezed. This is a 9mm 126 mm tube. Am I on the right track and if so, can someone provide some hints and maybe some dimensions I should be shooting for? I guess the plastic grips between the two guns are not identical. Thanks Pete

Got the tuning kit yesterday. Took a a digital caliper to my mags.....wow. Rear wider than the front on most and way wider than they should be. They have always functioned fine in our Marauder so I wasn't expecting much. So I banged the crap out of them (that was daunting), then sized them. Took the fine file and took out any burrs and roughness in the lips, then took 800 grit paper and worked the lips even more. Threw the mags into my tumbler for a few hours, then waxed the inside of the mags. I even buffed the followers. Huge difference in the Apeiro. Wow.

Hi guys, I just stumbled onto this thread. I have been loading BE-86 for my 9mm loads. I had settled on 4.7 gr but we just purchased a new gun that is requiring me to use shorter OAL, so I started to mess around with loads again. I have some 4.4, 4.7 an 5.2. I did a little bit of benchrest testing at 25 yards but I need to spend a bit more time doing it to figure at which load the gun likes the best. I am using an OAL of 1.120 for now. Bullet: MBC 124 grain coated conical. It was interesting to see somebody loading at 4.4 grains as well. Super light load. Most of the stuff I have read on other forums show people sticking in the 5.2 to 5.6 range. How do you go about settling on a final load? Is it the lightest you can get away with that still has good accuracy, or some other factor? Thanks Pete

Thank you for the comments guys. Trigger has been 100% spot on now that the over travel screw is adjusted. I am down to almost zero feed issues now as well because of the slight OAL adjustment to my loads. I ordered a tuning kit, so I will be tweaking the mags though. With the OAL change, I only had two battery issues out of 400 rounds. So now it appears that it is coming down to properly sizing my brass at the extractor end. I am not sure I can get to 100% with refired and tapered brass (9mm). Worst case, I will talk to STI to determine if the chamber should be reamed a bit, but I will fire another 500 or so rounds through it to see what happens. Pete

Well, my wife is a proud owner of a new STI Apeiro. We put a few hundred rounds through it and I had some interesting issues pop up. First, we went from a very light trigger pull when unloaded to one of about 50lbs with a mag in it. I was pissed. After some tinkering, I figured out it was the over travel screw on the trigger. Half a turn solved the problem. The mag must be pushing on something when inserted. All good. Second issue was we had a number of times when the gun would not go completely into battery. The slide would stop with just an 1/8 of inch more to go. No amount of pushing was going help. So, today when we shot it, we immediately grabbed the bullet. I pulled the gun apart and did a plunk test. Bullet would not seat all the way into the chamber. This particular bullet was one of my reloads. I was not sure if it was a length issue or a crimp, so I needed to get back to the house with my reloading gear to figure it out. The weird thing is, I put the same bullet in the Marauder, and bang; no problem. Back at home I figured out it was length. I go for an OAL of 1.135 usually and I need to get down around 1.120 for it to plunk cleanly. So the base of my bullet must have been getting into the rifling is my guess. No biggie, problem solved. Anyone else ever have an issue with length like this? I am within spec at 1.135, so I guess I am surprised. Last issue is feeding. It would happen with factory and reloads, although definitely more issues with my reloads. I use coated cone bullets. Now if I take one bullet in the mag and manually point the bullet up just a tiny bit before loading, it slides right into the chamber. Again, never an issue with the marauder. Is this just a tighter gun and I have to break it in for a while, or is this why people are purchasing the hundred dollar mag tuning kits? Thank you Pete

Central Mass. We belong to the Auburn Sportsmans Club and Worcester Pistol and Rifle. WPRC is about three minutes from our house, which is good and bad

If it is considered a mass compliant gun, otherwise no. Now if it is already here, then I can do a private transfer and be legal. The minute a FFL is involved,then no. You can't make this stuff up.

Therein lies the challenge. Basically Ruger, S&W and some of the Sigs. Don't get me wrong, they all shoot way better than we ever will, but even us rookies appreciate the quality of our Marauder. Our friend has a Pro series 1911 in 45 caliber. Nice gun, but not even close to the marauder. The slide on the Marauder literally feels like it is on bearings and it is such a soft shooter, with a great trigger. I keep hoping STI goes through the approval process for the rest of their guns here in Mass, but I am not holding my breath at this point.

Hi all. My wife and I are new to the sport, shooting about a year. We are totally sucked in; already reloading 38special, 357 mag and 9mm. We shoot at least once per week. Proud owner of an STI marauder, a couple of 22s, and S&W 686 Pro Series. Don't shoot competitions yet, but am very interested. We belong to two clubs, one of them for over ten years because we both shoot compound bows. Looking for another STI in a 1911 platform because it would fit my wife's tiny hands much better than the 2011. Very hard to find one due to the screwed up laws in this state. Pete

Hi all. My wife and I are owners of a STI Marauder. Simply, our favorite gun. We are not competitors (although I am about to try my first pin shoot tomorrow,). The 2011 platform is just too large for my wife, so we have our eyes on a 1911. We want to stick with STI, but our choices are limited because of the whacked out state we live in. I cannot even get a Trojan, unless it can be had as a private sale. So here is my question...... We can get a DVC Classic (looking for 9mm). Is a gun like that just total over kill for recreational shooting? My wife got to shoot a Trojan the other day, and it fit her perfectly. It was a beautiful gun, and maybe just maybe, the owner will sell it soon. However, my wife knows that the Classic is an option, and I know how much she likes shiny things Thanks Pete