regor

I recently starting reloading 9mm minor PF and spent most of my time focused on getting a good 147gr load. I ran close to 200 rounds of those through so I was familiar with point of impact, feeding, cycling, accuracy, the load I needed to comfortably make minor, etc. and was confident that they were ready to go in a match... but I also had a box of 500 124gr projectiles that I also wanted to load to see if I prefer them over 147grs. I did exactly one range visit with loads to find the proper charge weight to make minor, but that was all the testing I did. In my infinite wisdom I decided to use this weekend's local match (my third ever) to test 147 vs 124 in a match setting. Frankly, they weren't all that noticeably different loaded down to minor, but I had two really bad stages out of the first 6, and both of them were stages I ran 147s with, which I think psychologically made me decide to run the last stage of the day, which happened to be the classifier, with the 124s. That classifier happened to be It's Not Brain Surgery, which was not a good stage to go into without knowing POI. Thankfully it's one of the rare classifiers with Comstock scoring because the targets were in the shade and I couldn't see any of my hits. I ended up putting all 11 shots down range for 6 hits (though that 3-1-2 on the targets), one of which was a lucky nick of the C zone perforation. Yikes. Lesson learned! I managed to scrape by with something like a .25 hit factor (4% in Production), so at least I didn't zero, but it looks like my chances of having my first classification be a C are out the window.

As a point of reference, I just did an install of the CGW Pro de-cocker kit on my SP01 tactical urban grey. I have never done any work on a CZ before, my only "gun smithing" experience is assembling an AR. I bought the decocker installation kit as well, which proved to be incredibly helpful. From start to finish it took me about 4 hours to completely disassemble the gun, polish all the components, and install all the new pieces, and that includes about 20 minutes looking for springs I sent into my carpet and about 30 minutes trying to figure out what I had messed up in the sear assembly. I think I could do a second one in 2.5 hours now (and plan to once I track down a P01). It made a huge difference on the trigger pull as well, especially in double action. I tried an 11.5# hammer spring as well and the trigger was fantastic but I had several light strikes, so I went back to the 13# spring that comes with the CGW kit. It's a very manageable project and my understanding is the safety models are easier than the decocker models. The tutorials linked to on CGW's site are super helpful and are what I followed. The only thing I would do differently is when reassembling the sear assembly, install the lifter spring FIRST like this video starting at 0:53 instead of installing it last like they guy in the CGW linked video does. It's very hard to get that tiny spring in once the rest of the assembly is together, but it is very easy to do at the start, so get that in and then follow the other video the rest of the way. Good luck!

Not exactly a direct answer to your question, but in similar posts asking about the Benelli SBE (which also has a 3.5" chamber), people have suggested against it because they won't always cycle 2 3/4" shells or even 3", and you probably don't want to run 3.5" loads in a match. I would think the same or similar would hold true in this case.

Curious what everyone has found works well, especially for those who run a mix of factory and power factor reloads. I spent some time at the range yesterday testing out the recoil springs from the CGW tuners pack and definitely felt that the 10 & 11lb springs helped my sights return back to level better than the 14lb spring (which is what I had in for my last match) with both the reloads I was testing that day (ranged from 124-130 PF out of my SP01 tactical), and with S&B 124gr factory (~141PF), though much more noticeably with the hotter S&B. However, with those lighter springs the factory brass was landing 12-15 feet away, reloads in the 6-8 foot range. With the 14 lb spring my reloads were landing about 3 feet from me and the factory was in that 6-8 foot range. I'm new to competition and new to loading down to PF, so I'm still running a mix of factory and reloads in practice while I work out my desired load and build up a stock of it. I've also never messed with spring weights in a firearm before. Do I have to worry about any additional wear if I'm regularly running hotter loads with the light spring? Should I maybe just pop the intermediate 12lb spring in as a balance between the two? Thanks for any feedback/commentary!

@SilverBolt, I plunk tested both rounds after home when I cleaned them off to check if anything was out of spec. No issues. @IHAVEGAS, I run an SP01 tactical. No safety. Based on the feedback here I'm going to guess there must have been a bit of mud or other debris in the action that clogged things up. Definitely something to lookout for in the future up here in the rainy PNW!

I was running a mag brush through the dropped mags after every stage. It’s possible some of the rounds that were at the top of the dropped mag still had mud stuck in the grove though. I hadn’t thought of that. One of the two had a little dried mud around the rim and around the primer when I checked this evening but they were both picked up out of the mud so tough to pinpoint the source with any confidence. Rewatching the video the first round popped out with no issue but the second one I had to yank the slide quite a bit (although that was also the one I tried to smack into battery).

I just cycled them through without issue, so I don’t think it’s a rim issue. If there was gunk in the extractor channel it’s gone now. I gave it a thorough cleaning after the match just incase it was an issue with being dirty.

I shot my second match this weekend and did substantially better than my previous match but had one stage that really hurt me because I had two consecutive malfunctions that cost me 8-10 seconds on what would have otherwise been a ~20 second run and #2 in Production on the last stage of the match. I reloaded on a transition to a new shooting area, not slide lock so one round chambered, which went off fine, but then my second shot was a click. I racked the round out and again *click*. Shifted off the sights and noticed I was barely out of battery, less than 1/4". I tried to tap it into battery but it didn't budge so I unseated the mag, racked the second round out, re-seated and was good to go from there. I want to figure out what happened so I can work to avoid it in the future and be better at clearing the issue if it arises again, but I'm at a loss for how it happened. I've seen a few mentions in other places that it is possible the extractor did not pick up the rim, but both times I had no issue extracting the cartridge, which wouldn't have happened if the extractor wasn't engaged (although the margin out of battery seems to be about the depth of the extractor). I was shooting S&B 124gr and I picked up both rounds after the stage was over to inspect later. When I got home I cleaned them off and they had no firing pin marks and both plunked into the barrel just fine, so I don't think there is any evidence that the rounds were out of spec. The first out of battery round was chambered on the second shot, so at least that one wouldn't have been caused by accidentally riding the slide, and the same magazine functioned with no issue for the remainder of the string after re-seating. It was drizzling and muddy so I was cleaning any dropped magazines between each stage to make sure they were running reliably (wiping down with cloth and brushing the inside then reassembling). Any idea what might have been happening? The only thing I could think of was that I didn't have the magazine fully seated but I tried to recreate that at home with varying degrees of un-seatedness and it either failed to strip the next round or picked them up without issue. For context, I am running a CZ SP01 Tactical. I installed a CGW pro decocker kit and replaced the factory recoil spring/guide rod with a 13# CGW spring/SS guide rod. I have about 1500 rounds through the gun, these were my first two malfunctions ever on this pistol other than a few light strikes on Tulammo after replacing the hammer spring from the pro package with a CGW 11.5# spring; I switched back for reliability and these weren't light primer strikes anyways. Any feedback is greatly appreciated!