3 Shadow 2s after a season of shooting

[zen_grasshopper]

Three Shadow 2's, and my notes from using them all season.  First two guns, the Urban Grey and Black (red grips) arrived in November of 2017 and the third (blue grips) arrived in February 2018.  Previously I was shooting SP-01 Shadows and an Accu-Shadow.  Biggest reason for the change was the new frame, this gun fits me very well especially with the Scale grips. 

 

Load used all season was mixed range brass, CCI or Winchester primers, 1.115" OAL, 3.8 grains of Titegroup and a 125gr RN Blue Bullet. 

 

When new the triggers were decent, but the Urban Grey had some creep in SA.  So I installed a Cajun Gun Works kit in it, and liked it so I did the same to the other 2 guns.  This was the older kit with the T1 not T5 disconnector.  All installs went easy, and I polished everything while doing the install.  I used the 11.5lb mainspring and an 11lb recoil with the buffer.  DA's are all just around 5.5lbs, and the SA is just under 3lbs and crisp.  Weights were perfectly fine for me and the disconnector didn't need fitting and good enough for me.  Dawson .090" front fiber, but I might switch them to .100" for this next season.  I also pulled the Shadowline triggers out, and put in the "new" style 85C triggers.  

 

Urban grey is my main dry-fire/practice gun.  I don't track round count in each gun, but I shot just under 40k this year, and this gun got the brunt of it.  I would say probably 20-25k as I used the red gripped gun for a couple weeks in practice.  Countless dry-fire, trigger presses, reloads, table pickups, etc.  Cleaned about 4 times this year, just hosed it out with brake cleaner and a bore snake through the bore.  I would pull the extractor and clean that area as well.  

 

One broken trigger return spring early in the season, it was the reduced power Cajun part and it was replaced with the factory "red" spring which is still running strong.  The other two guns just kept the factory TRS.  No other parts broken.

 

7 malfunctions which were all ammo related as I don't inspect my practice ammo, just load it up and shoot it.  Each was a failure to go into battery, reducing my OAL to 1.09" should solve it as I was just too close to the rifling.  I also had my first squib, and it was my fault, just knocked the bullet out of the barrel and went back to training.  Nothing else was replaced, same recoil spring, same hammer spring and same buffer all season.

 

 

Practice/match back up gun.  About 7k to 10k through it, some dry-fire, but somewhat limited compared to the UG gun.  No malfunctions, no broken parts.  Cleaned only before a major match, again knock out the chunks and blast it with brake cleaner and clean the extractor.  No malfunctions.

 

 

Match gun.  Approximately 5k 7k on it, generally only used for matches after I shot 2k through it when new.  This gun got wiped out before each major as a half assed cleaning and re-lubed.  2 malfunctions, first at Wisconsin Sectional with a failure to go into battery.  Reducing OAL will fixed it.  The other was at Nationals on stage 5, grabbed the mag off the barrel and somehow angled it just right that the round started to come out of the magazine and when I loaded it in the gun it popped out and flipped over, entirely my fault.  

 

 

Now that my off-season is here, they will all get fresh springs, stripped, cleaned and inspected.  The backup and match gun will get new slide stops and the used ones will be used with the practice gun until the break or get mangled.  As you can see the guns needed very little maintenance throughout the season.  

 

Really can't go wrong with the Shadow 2 in my opinion!

 

Jon

 

Edited November 30, 2018 by zen_grasshopper

[ClangClang]

Great write up and good data points, confirming what we already knew - CZs have short chambers and everyone should keep spare TRS on hand for the eventual breakage.

[Hi-Power Jack]

Makes me ready to give up my BHP and switch over to CZ - nice looking guns    

 

I recommend a backup gun, but why two backup guns ?

[magpulled]

Dude the urban grey finish is wore out, in a good way of course. With the dry fire you apparently are doing you better have made GM. Your probably the guy whose setting the bar on all those hhf’s 

[zen_grasshopper]

43 minutes ago, ClangClang said:

Great write up and good data points, confirming what we already knew - CZs have short chambers and everyone should keep spare TRS on hand for the eventual breakage.

I will say that with the factory Shadow 2 TRS it is less of a concern as it works well.

 

35 minutes ago, Hi-Power Jack said:

I recommend a backup gun, but why two backup guns ?

Last year, I only had 2 guns and right before a major my backup gun launched it's bushing out the front.  I didn't like going to the match with only the one gun.  So when I went to the Shadow 2, I decided that it wouldn't be a problem anymore.

 

5 minutes ago, magpulled said:

Dude the urban grey finish is wore out, in a good way of course. With the dry fire you apparently are doing you better have made GM. Your probably the guy whose setting the bar on all those hhf’s 

Just 91% M class.  Getting closer!

[Nathanb]

That urban gray is so sexy like that. 

[yigal]

what PF u shoot with the guns?

[zen_grasshopper]

29 minutes ago, yigal said:

what PF u shoot with the guns?

 

135 at Nats. 

[NoKimberDave]

Great post! Thanks.

[igolfat8]

What is TRS?

[Foxj66]

16 minutes ago, igolfat8 said:

What is TRS?

Trigger Return Spring 

[vrwm]

Great write up! I’m  glad to see Shadow 2s  run pretty much flawlessly with high  counts . How have the slide stops been holding up?  Have you had any issues with setting off primers running the 11.5  lbs hammer spring? I’ve been using the 13 lbs  hammer spring and have had no problems, but wanted to see if I’d have any reliability issues with the 11.5 lbs. What height Dawson front sight have you been using? 

[Red_Dot]

Curious how dry you ran the guns once they were broken in. I’ve seen it pretty polarized between running pretty dry vs pretty wet

[GrumpyOne]

On 11/28/2018 at 7:25 PM, Hi-Power Jack said:

Makes me ready to give up my BHP and switch over to CZ - nice looking guns    

 

I recommend a backup gun, but why two backup guns ?

Why not?

[zen_grasshopper]

12 hours ago, vrwm said:

Great write up! I’m  glad to see Shadow 2s  run pretty much flawlessly with high  counts . How have the slide stops been holding up?  Have you had any issues with setting off primers running the 11.5  lbs hammer spring? I’ve been using the 13 lbs  hammer spring and have had no problems, but wanted to see if I’d have any reliability issues with the 11.5 lbs. What height Dawson front sight have you been using? 

 

No issues with any primers, I run CCI.  I do have a 1050 which seats the primers nice and deep.  Front sight is a .240” rear sight is a couple clicks from bottom.  Slide stops are holding up fine, it is worn and had a flat spot.  Photo from my Urban Grey framed gun.

 

8 hours ago, Red_Dot said:

Curious how dry you ran the guns once they were broken in. I’ve seen it pretty polarized between running pretty dry vs pretty wet

 

I run the gun pretty wet, I use Lucas as it was in a prize table bag.  I shoot about 600-1000 rounds per practice so I would lube it up and go shoot, but never had to add lube during the session.  I place it on the barrel, the lugs, in the peanut, between the and frame each side of the trigger bar.  Also on the rails and a drop in the sear cage and the hammer and strut at the back of the hammer.  The gun got filthy but stayed wet and ran.  Example photo. 

 

Edited November 30, 2018 by zen_grasshopper

[abb1]

I have the Scales 2 grips on all my Shadows, simply the best grip for my hands. They look awesome on the S2, almost makes me want to get one ..........

[MemphisMechanic]

@zen_grasshopper given any thought to having the barrels throated to take ammo loaded to a more “normal” length?

 

I cut all of my guns (tanfo, M&P, Walther) to take “difficult” bullet profiles out to 1.150 or so. In each of them the accuracy sweet spot has still turned out to be around 1.115 to 1.130” and that means I never have an ammo-length related stoppage.

 

(The tricky part was finding a carbide reamer that’ll cut hardened conventional & polygonal rifled barrels. Now I can throat any gun made.  )

 

Edited December 1, 2018 by MemphisMechanic

[zen_grasshopper]

@MemphisMechanic I bought a reamer and did both my Accu and Shadow, but when I got the 2’s I knew the reamer wouldn’t touch the nitride so I just loaded shorter.  No real big deal, the load runs in all my guns and this length should give me plenty of room.  

[MemphisMechanic]

Gotcha!

 

 I went the opposite route and bought the badass reamer so I don’t have the bulged cases that happen when shoving a long 147 back into well used brass.

 

Both routes work.

[RufusParnell]

Awesome write up. The S2 is basically all I pay attention to in the competition world, I ran mine in my first two matches this year. 

 

I’ve loaded my 147 RNFP as long as 1.125” with no issues in training, my match ammo is at 1.106” and I allow .002” variance.  Chrono’s at 920fps. 

 

I dont have the luxury of a couple of a backup pistol yet, I will likely order spare slide stops and a TRS just for piece of mind. My eyes were opened today to how poorly I’ve been maintaining mine with regards to oiling - I was missing a ton of key areas. I’ve never had a failure, but it was a good lesson to learn now. 

[kmanick]

great post, I just finished using my S@ in it's first season of USPSA and steel challenge matches.

Had very few "incidents", a couple of jam ups early on but we got the bullet length issue squared away.

I use a performance Center M&P 9L as my back up..............haven't had to pull it out yet

I'm guessing I've put 4 thousand rounds through it so far. I have a stock slide and a milled slide for CO

I only use the CO slide now as shooting Production no longer appeals to me at all.

[gunner01]

On 11/30/2018 at 11:36 AM, zen_grasshopper said:

 

 

 

 

I run the gun pretty wet, I use Lucas as it was in a prize table bag.  I shoot about 600-1000 rounds per practice so I would lube it up and go shoot, but never had to add lube during the session.  I place it on the barrel, the lugs, in the peanut, between the and frame each side of the trigger bar.  Also on the rails and a drop in the sear cage and the hammer and strut at the back of the hammer.  The gun got filthy but stayed wet and ran.  Example photo. 

 

Pardon the possible dumb question.  What is "the peanut".

 

[yigal]

1 hour ago, gunner01 said:

 

peanut  lube   secret lube for champions.

[zen_grasshopper]

10 hours ago, gunner01 said:

Pardon the possible dumb question.  What is "the peanut".

 

The lower lug of the barrel, the cutout that the slidestop goes through kind of looks like a peanut. 

[zeroryde]

Nice write up. Wanted to ask which dawson sight height did you go with. I initially went with a 240" x 100 and I believe I fitted mine incorrectly as I filed the dovetail sides instead of the base so now after several matches I'd find the front sight working itself loose even with blue Loctite on the set screw. So I put the original back on but I'm used to the 100 and now I want to get another one but I remember when I had the 240 I had to adjust elevation a bunch of clicks. Just wondering how you like the .90?