fbzero Posted February 23, 2023 Share Posted February 23, 2023 So my wife decided to move away from P320's towards the end of last year and settled on a Rival to replace it with. She bought one and I bought one to mess with at the range that I figured could also act as her backup, and they've just been sitting in the safe all winter. We both shoot CO, and I've been shooting a nicely set up Shadow 2 with Primary Machine cuts, SRO, CGW trigger job, etc Needless to say, its no slouch. I wanted to travel to some bigger matches this year and put together a clone of what I've been shooting, just in case. Fast forward to last week and I finally got time to get out to the range and sight in the two Rivals, completely stock configuration. Started at 7y to get everything right on paper, then moved back to 25 yards to fine tune. Within 15 rounds or so(each), they were sighted in. One of the first things I noticed is that my groups at 7y were clover leaves. Not hard to do by any means, but it felt effortless compared to any other stock pistol I've shot. After the fine tuning, I spent about 2 magazines(each) at 25y shooting the plate rack and missed one time. I haven't shot since maybe last October, so needless to say, I wasn't particularly expecting to look like a competent shooter on this outing. The only real "complaint" I had was that there was more muzzle flip than I am used to(objectively, yes yes, I know the 9mm doesn't have much recoil), but the slide returned to zero after recoil and I know this would be easy to tune with recoil springs and actual competition loads instead of the full power factory 115's I use to break pistols in. The P320 X5 my wife is used to is a hefty beast, so I decided some weight should be added. Put in W74 tungsten guide rods, 15lb recoil springs, TF brass backstraps, and brass baseplates on the magazines for a very well balanced pistol weighing in at 37oz(with empty mag). It's time to go out and test fire them with my USPSA loads now, and to be honest, I'm a little nervous. If the parts improved their performance by even a modest amount, I'm going to be half tempted to shoot one of them myself this season. At this point, I'd definitely recommend them to any new shooter first getting into the sports. To those who have "nicer" pistols and think they wouldn't be impressed, I'd say they might change their minds if they gave one an honest try. I'll probably end up running drills with both and comparing times before I decide, but from what I can see so far, the Rival doesn't just shoot good at it's price point - it shoots good at any price point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcmmotorsports Posted February 23, 2023 Share Posted February 23, 2023 (edited) They are amazing guns! Glad you are enjoying it. I shot mine in Carry Optics for a bit and loved it but decided to go back to Open. I put them both up for sale, sold one already, other one is still available. Edited February 23, 2023 by mcmmotorsports Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheChef1 Posted February 24, 2023 Share Posted February 24, 2023 Your story is almost identical to mine. I used to shoot shadow 2s. Bought a rival for my wife. This is me now lol https://imgur.com/a/UHOY37J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fbzero Posted February 24, 2023 Author Share Posted February 24, 2023 (edited) 8 hours ago, TheChef1 said: Your story is almost identical to mine. I used to shoot shadow 2s. Bought a rival for my wife. This is me now lol https://imgur.com/a/UHOY37J Nice! What do you think of the steel one? Glad I'm not the only one, feels a little crazy to be considering with the Shadows I have... Also, what optic plate is that you're using for the SRO's? Looks a bit lower than factory. Edited February 24, 2023 by fbzero Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WxGuy Posted February 24, 2023 Share Posted February 24, 2023 I think it is plate 02. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fbzero Posted February 24, 2023 Author Share Posted February 24, 2023 52 minutes ago, WxGuy said: I think it is plate 02. I think that is the correct factory plate for RMR/SRO, but the one in TheChef1's picture doesn't look like one of the factory plates unless I'm imagining things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WxGuy Posted February 24, 2023 Share Posted February 24, 2023 Hopefully he chimes in and sets the record straight! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheChef1 Posted February 25, 2023 Share Posted February 25, 2023 14 hours ago, fbzero said: Nice! What do you think of the steel one? Glad I'm not the only one, feels a little crazy to be considering with the Shadows I have... Also, what optic plate is that you're using for the SRO's? Looks a bit lower than factory. Yeah i felt the same way. It felt weird ditching a gun inhad about 2grand into for one i was about $700 all in. I just felt like it does just about everything better than the shadow 2 except maybe recoil impulse. The steel one is still pretty new to me. Only one match and a few range sessions under my belt. If you like the weight of the shadow you will like the steel. I felt the shadow 2 to be nose heavy and unbalanced. Lok brass grips helped that but man the thing was a tank. The steel rival and a good in between at about 40 oz with the SRO on. I do like it a little better than the poly but both are great. I have no regrets ditching the S2. the plate is from Disruptivedefense and it lowers the dot down by about half because they remove the stupid slide racker hole. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheChef1 Posted February 25, 2023 Share Posted February 25, 2023 12 hours ago, WxGuy said: Hopefully he chimes in and sets the record straight! Yeah it’s from disruptivedefense. Drops the dot down quite a bit. I like it a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fbzero Posted February 25, 2023 Author Share Posted February 25, 2023 11 hours ago, TheChef1 said: Yeah i felt the same way. It felt weird ditching a gun inhad about 2grand into for one i was about $700 all in. I just felt like it does just about everything better than the shadow 2 except maybe recoil impulse. The steel one is still pretty new to me. Only one match and a few range sessions under my belt. If you like the weight of the shadow you will like the steel. I felt the shadow 2 to be nose heavy and unbalanced. Lok brass grips helped that but man the thing was a tank. The steel rival and a good in between at about 40 oz with the SRO on. I do like it a little better than the poly but both are great. I have no regrets ditching the S2. the plate is from Disruptivedefense and it lowers the dot down by about half because they remove the stupid slide racker hole. Awesome, thanks for the thoughts and information! Ultimately, I think I'll let the timer/score pad decide what I do because it's really the only objective way to decide. The first S2 I bought was from a local shooter who had it as a 2nd backup and was unfired(expensive to have a 2nd backup of for a total of 3 of them lmao..guess he decided he went overboard). Already had the Primary Machine slide cuts, so it actually felt fairly balanced. When I bought the backup one, I realized just how nose heavy the things come from the factory and sent it off for the cuts without firing a round through it. Also added SSI Scale 4.0's, which are a bit heavier than most grip panels, so the balance is very good. I expect they are somewhere close to 50oz, so definitely tanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheChef1 Posted February 26, 2023 Share Posted February 26, 2023 10 hours ago, fbzero said: Awesome, thanks for the thoughts and information! Ultimately, I think I'll let the timer/score pad decide what I do because it's really the only objective way to decide. The first S2 I bought was from a local shooter who had it as a 2nd backup and was unfired(expensive to have a 2nd backup of for a total of 3 of them lmao..guess he decided he went overboard). Already had the Primary Machine slide cuts, so it actually felt fairly balanced. When I bought the backup one, I realized just how nose heavy the things come from the factory and sent it off for the cuts without firing a round through it. Also added SSI Scale 4.0's, which are a bit heavier than most grip panels, so the balance is very good. I expect they are somewhere close to 50oz, so definitely tanks. Yeah I let the timer do the talking for me also. My splits were slightly faster with the S2 but pretty much everything else is faster with the rival. Now with the freedomsmith trigger and some more practice with it the splits are the same. To me the rival especially the steel is better in pretty much every way compared to the S2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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