Mojo_Hand_052

I used to do a lot of rock climbing, and for hand strength training I would take a pair for 45 lb plates, place them together so that the smooth faces pointed outward, and then perform a kind of dead-lift wherein I would squeeze the smooth sides of the plates with both hands and then hold them, suspended, for a certain period of time. Reduce the weight as needed to perform the exercise, or alternate between either hand but instead hold the weight at your side. In my experience the hand / grip strengtheners don't work as well because they don't do much to train forearm strength, which is also integral to hand strength. The finger stretchers, however, work much better. Secondly, using a 10 pound plate tied to some PVC piping via a length of nylon rope, you can create a twisting exercise that also works the hands and forearms. Holding the PVC pipe laterally in front you, use both hands to twist the pvc pipe forward or backward such that the nylon will begin to wrap around the pipe. The twisting of the rope draws the 10 lb plate upward. Using a combination of the aforementioned training methods and hangboards I was able to develop some impressive grip strength.

I got around to measuring the Wolf Steel case. I'm getting between 2.238-2.245 in OAL, which doesn't seem aggressively outside the norm. I also had some PPU HPBT 69 grain sitting around and it has an OAL of 2.253. I would really love to see if that feeds reliably.

I did note that the Wolf Steelcase appeared nearly too long for the Schmeisser mag. I can't provide an immediate measurement on the Wolf because I don't own calipers, but I'll put one on order and try to provide an answer to that question. I would really like for the problem to be OAL and not a functional issue with my mag. Can't disagree with that. I've seen that Lucky Gunner uber-test where they burned down a few rifles shooting steel. That stuff ain't good for you gun, but I'm currently feeding mine about half brass and half steel, which I think is a good compromise. The tip about the graphite is on point, though, an I'll be sure to try that out.

That's great news. I'm curious now to see how mine will run with brass cased ammunition this Saturday. I would like hear about some other people's experience with steel case ammunition, though. I think that's a fair request. The interesting question for me is: how much brass cased ammunition should I run through the magazine before it is deemed "reliable." If we're talking about a multi-gun / 3 Gun scenario, and you're shooting between five to six stages, then satisfactory performance would be six magazines worth of brass without stoppages. And while I agree that steel case ammo can be notoriously unreliable, I have other magazines that run it without a problem. Using these mags, I've run through a lot of steel cased ammunition without malfunctions, and I shoot steel cased for training because shooting volume is hella-expensive and I don't have time to reload. From my standpoint, a magazine has to run crappy ammo in order to be considered fully-functional. It would be like buying a truck and then discovering that it will only run on premium unleaded, and will crap out on the highway if you need to put regular unleaded into it. That being said, I've stripped the magazine and cleaned it, inspected it, and put it back together. I'm not done with it yet, and we'll see if I can get it to run every type of ammo that I put into it.

Apologies for the delay in the review but, through no fault of the vendor (ATI) I didn't wind up receiving the Schmeisser mag until last week and wasn't able to get out until today. Here's the bottom line: I found this magazine to be hilariously unreliable when using steelcase ammunition. It was apparent that this magazine was so far below acceptable functionality that I didn't even bother to shoot up all 500 rounds of the Wolf Polyformance that I had brought along. Let's start from the beginning though. Unloaded, my high performance kitchen scale shows the magazine to be 9.30 ounces, which is nearly twice the weight of an unloaded PMAG (5.10 ounces). So for about a little less than the weight of two PMAGs you get double the rounds - I can accept that. Double the weight / double the bullets. Fully loaded this mag will come in around +/- 32 ounces. Comparing the geometry of the feed lips with an on-hand PMAG shows that there is very little difference between the two, or at least no noticeable difference that would affect overall performance. Loading without a Mag Loader is inadvisable. I have strong hands and could only manage 56 rounds total before I could no longer depress the follower. Sixty is more than doable with your MagLula loader, however. I did note that it is not a clean process. The steelcase ammunition I was loading barely cleared the lip of the magazine. I wound up having to 'wiggle' the Maglula handle in order to pre-seat the round, then push it back again in order to prepare space for the next cartridge. All in all, I loaded and unloaded the magazine a total of three times before taking it out to the range. The build quality leaves nothing to be suspected. The polymer appears to be good - not Magpul good - but plenty acceptable for the application. The sidewalls are even thicker than a standard PMAG, so I had no questions about the general robustness of the magazine. The springs, too, appear to be of good metallurgical quality, and I could not induce any kinks or deformations in them by hand. I was extremely confident that this magazine would have no problems. And it didn't, at least not for the first sixty rounds. The first thing I did was a mag dump. Sixty rounds on steel and not a single hiccup. It was in this moment I saw a glorious future for myself and my Schmeisser mag; blasting stages without having to ever worry about a reload. Come, Scmeisser Mag, lets top you off without another sixty rounds of terrible Russian steelcase ammo and do another mag dump, except this time I'm going to capture your magnificence on video. I brought out a tripod and a phone mount and everything. This was going to be a production. I jump in front of my camera and BLAM times twelve then JAMB. Failure to feed. It went on like this the rest of the sessions. Never again was I able to get the Schmeisser mag to feed sixty rounds of steelcase without constant failures to feed, often after the first round had been fired. It could be my gun, though. Let's test it. I fill a 40 round PMAG to capacity and work transition drills until the thing is dry. No failures to feed, no problem. I do this twice. What's wrong with the Schmeisser mag? My guess: There's an issue with the followers getting hung up inside the magazine. By vigorously pounding the base of the Schmeisser mag against a hard surface, I could routinely cause one of the followers to get hung up inside the magazine. What does that mean? It means the bullets are literally sitting below the top of the magazine, with the spring unable to push them up into position. On certain occasions, it was observable that the bullets were canted downward toward the hull of the magazine even when they appeared to seated against the top of the magazine. In any case, after whacking the Schmeisser mag a few times, I could literally get bullets to pour out two or three at a time. With a standard PMAG, you can bounce a bullet off the follower by slamming the base of it on a hard surface, but the next bullet will always be in the right position and ready to feed. Not so with the Schmeisser magazine. After taking an impact I would not trust the Schmeisser magazine in the least. You might have noticed earlier that I said "followers." That's because, much like a Surefire 60 round magazine, there is a primary follower - the conventional follower you see when the magazine is unloaded, and then a secondary follower. When enough rounds are loaded into the magazine, the first follower is compressed into the second, and creates a monoplatform where four rounds can be stacked. The secondary follower has two grooves in it that are intended to slide along two extruded rails on the inner wall of the magazine, but I found that under tension there's very little stopping the front of the secondary follower from pitching upwards and causing malfunctions. Hence the genius of Magpul's anti-tilt follower. It was pretty evident that this thing was hopeless, and I didn't even bother running any brass through it. Maybe I will next week, but I was so disgusted with its performance that I decided to make better use of my range time and work on transitions / 300 yards targets with magazines that work, and PMAGS work. Maybe the Schmeisser mag would work better with brass case ammo, but I suspect it wouldn't make very much difference. If I had to bet serious money, I'd say the major hangups are with the followers. What else to say? I'm disappointed but not entirely surprised. Executing a quad stack magazine that works is likely no easy engineering feat. Regardless, I cannot recommend this product at all. I'll do some more testing in the future, but for serious competition I would plan on sticking with 40 round PMAGS and +X extensions.

Thanks for the info!

Just about to say... I shoot down at ETTS in Waxahachie and will be out there Sunday morning for Falling Steel. It's great and the people there are unbelievably friendly. They recently put up some nice tarps at the competition bays so you don't get obliterated by the sun during the match. If you come out I'll be the awkward skinny guy with the Silver FJ Cruiser and the blue Pategonia hat. The Multigun scene is strong at Cresson too and I hope to get over there one of these days.

Hi Rumble. I'm new to the forum as well and I'm local to central Dallas. Where are you planning on shooting?

What guide rod / spring weight would you all recommend on a Gen 5 Glock 34 when I'm just shooting off-the-shelf 124 grain (Blazer or Fiocchi)?

I can get 23 on my TTI mag extensions. Tight fit but has no problem feeding the round on a Glock 34. I did find out the hard way that you have to forcefully seat the magazine if you're going with 23 rounds. I made ready, went to holster and my magazine came flying out of the magwell and onto the dirty, dirty ground. Thank God I'm a complete novice or that could have been really embarrassing.

Saturday, July 13th 2019 I did two things: 1. Spectated and then guest-starred in some USPSA shooting 2. Ran the five Steel Challenge stages completely unsupervised... Both types of shooting were immediately humbling. I wound up spectating the local 'super squad' at my home range (Extreme Tactics and Training Solutions) in Waxahachi TX, and was in awe of the local GMs' shooting ability. Everyone was more than friendly and were inquisitive about my interest in USPSA and shooting sports in general. After spectating a stage and a classifier, Scott, one of the local GM's, invited me to shoot a stage with them. It was at this moment I realized that all of my gear is wrong. I don't have the right belt, the right holster, and my mag pouches are probably not ideal. This is what happens when you get pulled in by the marketing hype of YouTube range ninjas and wind up buying a bunch of tactical gear that doesn't translate well to competition. The next big purchase will be a Double-Alpha belt, a USPSA approved holster and a Ben Stoeger hanger; all black. I still feel good about the Gen 5 Glock 34, which I have set up to rapidly transition between Production, Limited Minor, and Action Steel events just by switching out a few components. So everyone runs the stage and I'm last to go. I get up to the starting position and make ready, whereupon I fail to properly seat my extended magazine and then watch in horror as it comes flying out of my magwell as I go to holster my gun. I'm off to a great start. The RO chuckles and I'm on the receiving end of some much deserved chiding. Whatever else happens, though, I'm not going let it affect my headgame. The stage is pretty straightforward, but it's my first time running a course of fire outside of Steel Challenge. The targets are arrayed symmetrically in front of me. I must first run to my left and engage three targets, and then shift rapidly just to the right and engage a far target and a close target. I then should run over to the right side and do it all over again. After engaging targets on the left and right side, I then run down a corridor and shoot two targets on the left and right side before coming to the end of the corridor and, again in a perfectly symmetrical arrangement, shoot two steel poppers and partially obscured targets behind barrels. Perfect. Got it. I hear the starting beep and bolt to the left. Six shots on three targets and I'm off to a good start. I then run past the two targets I'm supposed to engage next. Wow. Hold back the tears, now. Run over the right side, shoot the five targets over there and then double back. This I do, and put it out of my head. I surprise myself by how fast I transition between the left / right side targets in the corridor, and wrap up the stage cleanly. Time is 35.8 seconds, which is still 15 seconds slower than the GMs' times. How do they do it? I stun everyone by not being ludicrously dangerous, and apparently my shooting isn't complete s#!t. Someone is already taping the cardboard before I can even return to reality, though, and I don't get a chance to see how I would have done point wise. No loss, though, because I'm shaking from the adrenaline. The pump from running the stage is rewarding enough. Sold for life. It surprises me that I can hardly remember anything from running the stage though. It's like they say in all the training books: a stupendous blur wherein conscious thought fades to nothing and only action exists. Clearly, I have not reached the state of either focus or awareness that Brian Enos speaks of in his book. There might have been some focus - SHOOT THE TARGETS - but I cannot for the life of me recall or evaluate all the nuanced stuff. Someone recorded me, so at least I have some reference material to view. Was my grip too loose? Too tight? Were my joints locked? Were my sights tracking up and down and not all over the place? It's all a mystery to me. I hope the lack of mental clarity gives way to greater awareness in time. I don't know if the video will embed properly, but here's the unedited account: <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EgCE-FTCIl0" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> Steel Challenge brought out a lot of other problems with my shooting. Five to Go shows me that my marksmanship is not as good as I think it is. I cannot consistently hit the 3" plate at 18 yards. Worse yet, I'm having trouble either seeing or hearing my hits. In one case, another shooter has to tell me that I've hit a plate two or three times. I'm also transitioning away from plates I haven't hit yet: Ugh. My times (per string) are all over the place, though. 5.5 seconds. Then 8.8. Then 11.75. Maybe one at 4.1 here and there. My most consistent stages I'm able to maintain times between 5.5 and 7.5 seconds. All the time I'm aware that two seconds is an eternity in speed shooting. The coup de grace for the whole affair though is that I show up to the last stage - Smoke and Hope - and some plinkers, unaware that these stages are set up for competition, have moved the targets backward from their customary positions. I sigh a long sigh. Better make the best of it. Through some practice, though, I'm able to bring my time on Smoke and Hope down to 4.40 to 5.25 seconds per string even with the non-standard steel placement. People on YouTube are smoking this stage at 2 seconds per string. I weep internally. All said and done, today was intensely humbling. I'm humbled by the talent and ability that's out there, and the time people spend to attain mastery in the various shooting sports. Better yet, though, I can see a place for myself in this world, and I can't wait to get better.

I in no way represent Schmeisser or ATI, but I noticed that their polymer 60 round mag has finally hit the street and I decided to Guinea Pig it myself to see if it's all German hype: https://www.americantactical.us/6088/detail.html Ordered today through Fed-Ex and it should arrive next week. The other big competitors in the 60 round mag category are of course Surefire and Magpul - with the hat-tip going to Magpul for uncontested reliability. These magazines typically retail for $120-$129 though can be found on sale or used for less sometimes. The Schmeisser mag retails for $70, or nearly half the cost of either the Surefire or Magpul 60 round magazines. My testing will involve taking 500 rounds of Wolf steelcase ammunition and another 250 rounds of brass and running them through the magazine under different shooting conditions: Prone, on barricades, upside down, and with the magazine itself being used as a barricade stop to see if changes in orientation cause feeding issues. I don't reload, so I won't be able to provide any feedback on ammunition that is loaded long. I also have a phone with a camera that doesn't suck, and I'll try to record the different shooting positions so you can see how it runs. I plan on utilizing the magazine in multi-gun events in a gilded future where reloading is thing of the past.

Thanks! I also keep forgetting that Practiscore is a thing and I can just search for matches in my local area.

Thanks!

Are you happy with the Franchi so far? I just took a look at the Affinity 3.5, and I like the magnum length loading port. Can you also suggest a good gunsmith for the Franchi mods?

I've looked at the Taran Tactical M2 and while It's definitely a sweet gun, the $3k price tag is a gut punch. Granted, they keep their value. I could probably put 100k shells through the gun and sell it for $2,600. I have been looking closely at the Hawkeye ordinance M2 Atgeir. For $1,850, it seems like the right balance of cost / performance. I've looked at the Breda B12i as well, but my tendency is to at least handle a gun before I buy one. Here in Dallas, you can't find one anywhere (I've looked ). Nonetheless, it's the right price, shares most of the same parts with M2, and can quad load* out of the box. *People still open up their Breda's loading ports, which I suppose demonstrates that there's no such thing as too open.

So, functionally speaking, the angled block keeps the lifter locked in the upwards position? Pardon my ignorance of the 1301 operations, but what causes the lifter to spring back into position once you've finished loading?

Thanks I'll check out the FB page!

Thank you for the feedback. I'm very seriously leaning toward a Gen 2 1301 at this point. I can pocket my $500-$600 in savings and buy some shell caddies and some files from Freight Harbor. What other upgrades would you recommend to the 1301 aside from the obvious ones (magazine extensions and opening up the loading port)?

Haha, just noticed that the link doesn't even include a shot. I scoped some other promotional material though and found a good shot. From the looks of it, the loading port appears to be almost identical to the Gen 2.

Hello all, New shooter from Dallas TX. I'm new to competition shooting but am excited to pursue it as a serious hobby for the foreseeable future. I'd like to do some USPSA matches but there's not much opportunity to do that in the Dallas area, so I'm gearing up to focus on Multi-gun. There's plenty of 3 Gun and UML matches in my area, but I'm missing a good shotgun and caddies. So far I've only shot a Falling Steel match, which was a blast. If you're in the area, I've got a membership to Extreme Tactics and Training Solutions in Waxahachi and am always looking for people to train with. Currently equipment includes; Gen 5 Glock 34 MOS with TTI Grandmaster Connector kit, x3 TTI Basepads, and pretty soon an Apex Tactical trigger shoe and trigger bar. Aero Precision AR build with 16" Ballistic Advantage Hanson Profile w/ 1:8 twist, Spike's tactical BCG, Hyperfire Trigger, JP Silent Captured Buffer and Vortex Strike Eagle 1-8X .

I've emailed the Beretta reps and they say the Comp Pro will be available in August, and retail around $1,800, but I'm hoping street price will be around $1,675. The magazine tube featured in the promotional material will not be included due to import restrictions, and I was advised to pick up a Nordic tube and suitable extension nut (which is compatible with the 1301 Comp). I've been waiting patiently to get into the sport of 3 Gun and have not been able to make up my mind on a shotgun. The Comp Pro seems like the right combination of features for the right price. Improvements over the Non-Pro version: Completely new stock with recoil mitigation and comfort enhancements. Forend features "Comfort Grip" material. 3" Chamber but with extended, 3.5" stock Enlarged loading gate that remains "raised" during loading operations. They claim thumb pinching is virtually eliminated New oversized bolt release Serial number has been relocated to allow aggressive modifications to the loading port. Includes multiple Optima chokes. Street price on a Gen 2 1301 Comp is around $1,000 to $1,200. Do the provided upgrades (which exclude the magazine extension) justify the greater cost of the Pro version? http://www.beretta.com/en/1301-comp-pro/

I've been looking at these too and have futzed around with one in the gunshop and was impressed. If it can be had for $1400 or less, I think it's a good deal, but I'm on the fence otherwise. I priced out a dedicated carry optics build (no mags): Slide Stripped - Suarez International - G4 G17 (On Sale) 240 OEM Frame - Stripped 129 Best Possible Stippling and frame work - Risen Gunworks 470 Barrel - SilencerCo G17 Barrel 180 Johnny Glock Custom Built, Drop-in Trigger 250 Gen 4 Upper Parts Kit 106 Gen 4 Lower Parts Kit (no trigger) 73.74 1448.75 Obviously, you can spend a lot less (or nothing) on a stipple job and bring the price back to down to between $1,100-$1,250. You could also factor in custom upper / lower parts, but I actually like to keep everything fairly stock. I even like the OEM captured recoil spring (at least on the Gen 5's). Some people choose not to run fixed sights for CO, so they're not included, but that would be another $100 or so. In any case, for around the same cost as the OZ9 I can build an utterly tricked out G17 Gen 4 for Carry Optics. I'd really love to shoot the OZ9, though.

New member here, but I have both a Gen 5 Glock 34 MOS and a Gen 5 Glock 19 MOS w/ FS, and can attest that the stock trigger is much improved over Gen 4. I was actually turned off by Glocks until I picked up a Gen 5 and noticed that the tigger had a much cleaner break and less 'mushiness.' With a TTI Grandmaster Connector kit with mirror finished, polished internals, and the trigger is even better. I've had a couple of experienced shooters stop and say "whoa, that's a good trigger"* *"for a Glock" Also not a fan of the finger grooves on previous generations.