SPL15

Uhh Nope... Unfinished / sharp end goes onto the guide rod & seats against the end plate... Unless of course you like to gouge the heck out of the guide rod w/ the sharp end of the spring w/ every cycling of the gun...

More likely to have issues w/ reloaded 40S&W, than factory ammo assuming properly tuned mags (unless the timing of the gun is wrong, or geometry / fitment is a bit goofy, where you're going to have problems regardless of the ammo source or type)... The biggest thing w/ "semi-custom" & full custom 1911's / 2011's is that the chambers are typically a bit tighter than a commodity production gun, where any amount of brass bulge at the base of the case can cause issues / completely lock up the gun, as well as bulging at the base of the bullet when reloading cast lead bullets and / or plated lead. Out of a batch of 500 or so reloaded rounds from mixed range brass from various sources, I'll typically get one or two that won't chamber in my Titan even though they passed the case gage; where my Glocks will shoot them without any issue. Every time, there's a tiny, barely perceptible amount of brass bulge at the base of the case; you'll never have this issue with factory ammo.

Mec Gar is the manufacturer for a whole lot of factory branded pistol magazines... If the magazine says "Made in Italy", you can be pretty sure that Mec Gar was the manufacturer. They know what they're doing... I've got about 25 or so Mec-Gar 1911 45ACP 8 rnd mags; they're solid. Bought a bunch for like $12 each when my LGS had them mismarked from the regular price of $18 . I've got well over 100 Mec-Gar manufactured pistol magazines for various brands / models of pistols.

So... They're basically taking the XL650 & adding "features" found on the cheaper Hornady LnL AP... The primer system on the LnL (ie slide bar) is its absolute worst feature & why I mainly only use it for brass prep these days... Works well enough if it's super clean, jams up if it's not... I've sanded & polished the slide bar on my LnL AP which has helped a ton, but the XL650's priming system is far superior IMO... Hornady LnL AP is a good press, much better than the XL650 in several regards; however, the priming system is its biggest failure & annoyance... The slower indexing would be nice, but I really haven't had an issue on the XL650, even when going faster than I really should; however, my Hornady LnL AP is definitely smoother & slicker in this regard w/ no powder spillage unless I'm getting pretty reckless when pulling & pushing up the handle. The delayed index would be useful for long rifle cartridges I guess. Hornady LnL rotates 36 degrees with every up & down motion of the press which is quite nice for rifle cartridges, as well as to reduce index speed / powder spillage. The XL650 rotates 72 degrees on the down stroke, which causes faster index speed & associated more powder spillage. Will be interesting to see how Dillon has delayed / reduced this considering the XL750 is supposedly still on the XL650 frame... Would be nice if they modified the ginormous detent ball system under the shellpate to be much smaller like the Hornady Lnl AP so the detent is more positive without whipping the plate into position at the last second, as well as reducing how critical the shell plate bolt needs to be tightened just "perfect" to get things working smoothly. Roller bearing under the shell plate should help; however, a much smaller detent ball w/ a stiffer spring would really help to smooth out the index & reduce powder spillage, as well as making shall plate bolt adjustment much less finicky. Will be interesting to see how well the beta testers like the press after the honeymoon period wears off.

Just bought one of the new "PCC" models today for a deal I couldn't pass up... Looks like gas system is the exact same design as the G2, but I don't have a previous G2 to see if there's been any minor tweaks to port dimensions... In reality, looks to be the exact same G2 design, but in a new configuration / model. Trigger is very crisp w/ no perceptible creep & an acceptable amount of over travel (Typical Tinmey "feel", but far less creep than the gold housing "Competition" model I have on one of my AR's), but it is a lot heavier than I'd prefer, which probably accounts for why it has no perceptible creep... Slimmer & lighter hand guard is a very welcome improvement, as well as the removable brake (although I never plan on removing it). Shot 150 rounds to briefly check things out, no issues at all & no weird gouges / dents in chambered rounds after I extracted them without firing. Brake does appear to add a bit of tangible function over what I remember from shooting my buddy's G2 carbine model w/ the pinned on flash hider a few months ago; however, this could easily be confirmation bias as well. We'll see I'm scared to look into the bore to check how bad the radial machining marks are, as I know how crappy every bore looks on a mass produced factory barrel... If the outside of the barrel is any indication, I'm expecting to see a whole lot of radial ridges in the bore as well, assuming the barrel is button rifled. The only very annoying thing is how loose the hand guard is to the upper receiver... There's about 0.050" of free playing "wiggle" at the end of the hand guard when pushing it against the barrel...

Outside of a way undersprung gun that’s causing slide velocity to be way excessive, can’t think of anything else on the user end that would cause this type of failure besides a manufacturing defect. ”Hard fitting” a barrel won’t cause this either... In my own uninformed opinion, I’d either guess the barrel wasn’t fit right where the barrel bed / horizontal shelf wasn’t helping to stop rearward movement of the barrel during link down due to too early of impact on the VIS... Or bad heat treatment of the barrel, which is far more likely... While GI 1911 prints don’t specifically indicate this as a requirement, there should be a clear witness mark on the horizontal shelf / barrel bed where the barrel cams down onto & should impact at the same time the lower lug hits the VIS. This is beneficial for long(er) lower lug life as it changes the vector that force is applied to the barrel, where much less shear force is placed on the lower lug in a parrellel direction to the barrel because the total force is split & directed slightly upward at some angle I’m too lazy to calculate due to the horizontal barrel bed taking a percentage of the force applied. Fun fact, barrels that break their link are usually caused by the horizontal barrel bed impacting the bottom of the barrel before the VIS & lower lug stops rearward movement, where the link is what stops rearward movement of the barrel... Conversely, barrels that don’t impact the barrel bed very much because they hit the VIS prematurely, are known to shear the lower lugs before the service life of the barrel is reached (along w/ other problems that crop up after 10’s of thousands of rounds)...

I’ve got fairly small hands (can easily fit women’s size small gloves), the short curved STI trigger is a worthy change. The other stuff is just expensive fluff that does nothing to help poor technique (ie your support side thumb should not be resting on the slide stop shelf if you have a proper grip, unless you literally have micro-midget sized hands). Shaving down the areas you’ve indicated will be marginal at the very best, & likely will do nothing but significantly reduce the resale value of your pistol. Overall, if you have small hands, you’re not going to get everything on a 2011 to feel as if it were made for your small hands... What I did to compensate for my small hands is to simply shoot them more to develop the necessary skills to shoot them proficiently.

I’ve bought 8 of the 9mm/38, and 5 of the 45... All new style. So far, zero issues after about 3K in 9mm, & 1K thru the 45 mags. 9mm mags are being used in a PT Evo Grip (Atlas Titan), the 45’s are being used in a DVC stippled STI grip (STI DVC Tactical). No sticking, all fall free w/ no weird rubbing. All have TTI basepads, am still using the stock STI internals. Will probably upgrade to grams internals next year (in the 9mm mags). The 45 mags will continue to be used w/ STI internals since they appear to actually work.

It would seem the benefits of a PVD coating are more towards great cosmetic durability, great corrosion resistance, & far less risk of dimensional shifts / warping during application, but minimal protection from wear / functional durability once the coating is broken thru; where the benefits of a salt bath nitriding process would be towards wear resistance of the metal / long term functional durability, decent corrosion resistance, albeit w/ much higher risk of dimensional shifts / warping during application. 400-500 degrees for a PVD process is still high enough to impact / soften the heat treating of steel, depending on duration. 1000+ degrees for a salt bath will definitely impact the hardening of the surface Steel, & could make the part brittle depending how rapidly it is cooled. Would be interesting to see what the Rockwell C hardness is for the actual Steel after each treatment, both the Steel surface under the black coating & the material below the surface. Ideal would be high surface hardening of the Steel as in the nitriding process, but w/ the underlying Steel remaining at the 40 Rc typically Spec’d for gun parts.

Longer sight radius can allow you more accurate shot placement, but I’ve found it can also be significantly slower if you don’t (yet) know how to control the gun in recoil. But it really depends more on the sights in my experience (notch width vs post width). For close in club match bay stage stuff w/ my own guns I know well & have tuned for my tiny hands, I find I’m equally accurate & slightly quicker w/ a shorter sight radius (4” vs 5.5” 1911 slide); also, when shooting a new pistol or someone else’s gun I’m not familiar with, I find I’m generally quicker & score better w/ a shorter sight radius (assuming the sights themselves are fairly similar in ‘perceived’ dimensions). The difference, for me, comes w/ longer range stages stretching out 20+ yards; where there is a definite accuracy shift in favor of a longer sight radius, but more importantly the sight itself regarding notch & post widths; however, I do find in longer range stages w/ a new gun, or a big gun my tiny hands can’t control well, I’m significantly slower w/ a longer sight radius as the gun bobs around where I have to find the sights, especially if the sight dimensions are tight & setup more for target / bullseye like I prefer. TLDR: Long slide / sight radius does make a difference regarding both inherent accuracy & quickness; where a longer sight radius can aid in practical accuracy capability, but can be potentially detrimental to speed; however, the potential speed detriment can be trained out to a non-issue, & the sight’s dimensions have more of a tangible impact towards one’s practical accuracy capability. Thus, a longer sight radius does provide benefit in action pistol sports, but primarily if your basic pistol skills are already up to par; if not, then you might actually be hurting your split times having to hunt a bit more for the sights after each shot.

If you’re just starting out, buying a used “premium” pistol isn’t a bad option if you do it smart. In my experience w/ high dollar niche used guns at your average high-volume focused LGS that doesn’t stock many guns above $1500, is that the owner usually ditched them for a reason, especially if it’s not on consignment (which means the previous owner was willing to accept the gun store’s low ball offer needed for them to move it quickly). You can get lucky, as I’ve gotten lucky several times, but more often than not the gun has minor (& sometimes major) functional issues that need to be addressed. Those who have a well functioning, high dollar niche gun for sale; tend to sell them via other channels where they’re more likely to recoup what the gun is actually worth (which still isn’t the dealer cost they’re naively expecting). You can definitely still strike out in a private sale or used sale from a well established retailer of the high-dollar niche product; however my batting average via these routes is far better, w/ either no issues or minor issues that I can address myself for less than $100. Have only gotten a lemon once going this route, but sometimes I did have to slightly overpay to appease the owner & get the terms I wanted (such as meeting me at the range for a 100 rnd range session) Another avenue I’ve worked is to trade in a high volume commodity gun they’ll quickly sell (like a Glock 19) you’re willing to take a bit of a loss on towards a high dollar one that’s been sitting on the shelf for over a year. In my experience, most gun stores are willing to get near their dealer cost on a new high dollar gun that hasn’t moved in a year, as well as give you a bit more in value for your gun if you trade it towards something else, rather than ask for a check.

Steel cased ammo tends to be loaded a bit light. The ones I’ve actually spent / wasted time chrono-ing came out to “around” 750FPS for 230gr Ball, albeit pretty inconsistently so between brands (high / irregular StDev). Wouldn’t recommend using it heavily in a nice barrel, as it’s usually bi-metal jacketed (zinc or copper plated steel alloy jacket). Getting zinc fouling out of a barrel is not easy w/o abrasives , as it tends to stick very well to Steel, & none of the common bore solvents attack it. Also, the Steel case has a higher friction coefficient vs Brass (even w/ the polymer coating), which can cause issues w/ nose diving / feeding / timing. I’m sure you already know this, but if you already reload for 9 & 40, you probably already have powder that’s compatible w/ 45. Considering the falling / stabilizing price of ammo these days, reloading 45 is your biggest bang for the buck in savings compared to 9 or 40, especially if you’re trying to find specialty “match” grade 45. When I owned a 650 w/ none of the auto-feeders, could crank thru a box of 500 bullets in about 1.5 - 2 hours for a savings of around $100, which is more than I make a per hour at work.