Bul Armory SAS II TAC 4.25 Handgun (2024 Version)

I have been trying to acquire one of the new 2024 Bul Armory SAS II TAC 4.25" handguns for quite a while now. The only way to buy one without paying more than MSRP is to order it directly from Bul Armory USA, but they are always out of stock due to being so popular. I've been on a "Back In Stock" email notification list for several months, but every time I get a notification and have a chance to log in and purchase one, they are already out of stock again. A few weeks ago, I received another email notification and was finally able to log in quickly enough to purchase one before they sold out!

I specifically wanted the non-ported version because I prefer the DSC Gunworks V-ports over the factory V8 ports. However, with this one I decided to be a little different and get V6 ports instead of V8 ports.  I already have several 2011-style guns with V8 ports and several with V-Slot ports, so I figured the V6 ports might be cool and I was curious as to how they would perform. The V6 ports do not disappoint! 😁 They definitely reduce muzzle flip more than V-Slot ports without having as much of a violent concussion like the V8 ports do. They also don't get the gun dirty as quickly as the V8 ports do. It's definitely a nice compromise, which is what I was trying to achieve.

I thought the wider steel frame of this 2024 TAC 4.25 with it's new full length dust cover might make it a bit heavy, but it's actually slightly lighter than my Springfield Prodigy 1911DS and my 2019 STI Staccato P and only about 4 ounces heavier than my my aluminum frame 2022 Bul TAC 4.25.

While the slide and barrel were away getting ported, I textured the grip module in my Concealed Carry texture as well as all the other refinements that I did on my 2022 Bul TAC 4.25 grip module, which turned out identical. When I received the slide and barrel back, I installed the larger Holosun 507Comp optic and a Surefire X300 light, but I may put the new Cloud Defensive EPL on it when it finally becomes available in 2025. 

Its Great, But There Were A Few Problems...

Now that I've spent some time shooting both my 2022 and 2024 TAC 4.25s, I will tell you that they were not perfect out of the box by any means. The thumb safeties on both guns are not large, but they are wide farther back towards the pivot point, so with my high grip I inadvertently and unexpectedly engage the thumb safety while shooting them fast. I don't have this problem with any of my Staccato guns which all have the same size/width thumb safeties, but the thumb safeties on the Staccatos taper back at an angle towards the rear of the levers.  I realize that this is a "me" problem with my large gorilla hands and the way I grip the gun, but it's still a problem none the less.  To alleviate the issue, I trimmed the thumb safety levers down to be much thinner and taper back at an angle towards the rear. They are now virtually the same size and shape as the Ed Brown thin safety levers that I've installed on my Prodigy 1911DS and my Bul Armory 3.25 Ultralight. The thinner safety levers allow me to get a really high grip on the gun with my support hand without accidentally engaging the safety lever. After trimming them down and making sure they weren't causing me any more problems, I just simply Cerakoted them black again. If I didn't point out that they had been modified, you probably wouldn't ever notice it.

Both guns also needed their beavertail grip safeties adjusted so that they would disengage sooner but still be functional. This is relatively easy to adjust if you know how to do it, and I've done this to every 2011-style gun that I've owned if I didn't plan to pin the grip safety in the fully depressed position for whatever reason.

This new 2024 TAC 4.25 also had a few fitment issues that I had to correct. The slide's inner rails had a small burr on one side that I had to remove before the slide would cycle really smoothly on the frame.  It was kind of gritty feeling before I smoothed out the burr, but it is now buttery smooth and possibly the smoothest cycling 2011-style gun that I own. I also had to file a little bit on the included RMR footprint optic mounting plate. When I first tried to install the plate onto the slide, it wouldn't even go on at all until I opened up the mounting lug hole enough for the plate to press onto the slide (it's still a tight fit).  Once the plate would go onto the slide, the two screw holes were not aligned properly and had to be elongated slightly so that the optic screws would thread into the the slide.  The plate is made from aluminum, so it didn't take much effort to get everything lined up, but it was still a little frustrating for a brand new gun. I suspect that Bul Armory's QC may be a little off as they try to keep up with the high demand of these popular guns.

After correcting all of these issues, I am extremely happy with the guns and I am looking forward to carrying, training, and competing with them in 2025.

USPSA Action Pistol Match - 12/07/2024

USPSA Action Pistol Match at the Southwest Shooting Center in Clovis, NM with the Southwest Performance Shooters club. I was shooting my custom V8 ported Bul Armory SASII TAC 4.25" from concealment (AIWB) in the Open division. The gun ran great, and my stage plans and executions were pretty good. I had a miss on a swinger target (I should've taken another shot at it!), which landed me in 5th place Overall out of 20 total.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwhlFm2AEAg

Outlaw Action Pistol Match - 11/16/2024

Outlaw "Hit Factor" Action Pistol Match (USPSA scoring) at the Southwest Shooting Center in Clovis, NM with the Southwest Performance Shooters club. I was shooting my recently updated custom Walther PDP 4.5" from concealment (AIWB). The gun ran perfect, but even with a two port compensator it still had slightly more muzzle flip than I am used to compared to any of my ported doublestack 1911s. I feel like all of my stage plans were solid, and my execution of them went well, however I did manage to hit a couple of "no-shoot" targets on two stages which cost me some points. I ended up in 4th place Overall out of 17 total.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GwLw1Q-NJA

Bul Armory SAS II TAC 4.25 Handgun (2022 Version)

I was browsing Gunbroker for double stack 1911s again and came across a really good deal on a brand spanking new 2022 Bul Armory TAC 4.25, which is the previous version of their new 2024 EDC line of pistols. For some reason, I've always liked the look of these guns despite the lack of a full length dust cover. I really liked my older 2020 Bul Armory Tac Commander too, but I sold it due to my frustration with the lack of availability of their proprietary magazines in the US at the time and I wasn't really that fond of it's thinner slide serrations.

This 2022 TAC 4.25 has the wider and deeper slide serrations that I prefer and is also optics ready from the factory with an RMR/SRO/507 mounting plate included. The frame rails on these Bul Armory pistols are much longer than other double stack 1911s, so the aluminum frame on this gun should theoretically be more durable than other aluminum frames and makes it a little easier to daily carry versus a steel frame.

Bul Armory's magazine availability in the US is also much better these days, so I'm no longer concerned with not being able to get extra magazines. This gun actually came with 4 magazines, and I ordered two more directly from Bul Armory USA. I installed +2 extended base pads and spring/follower kits from Arredondo Accessories on the four mags that came with the gun (each has a 21-round capacity now), and the two new mags with flush fit polymer base plates are for daily carry. While it would be nice to be able to use STI/Staccato magazines in these guns, their proprietary magazines hold one extra round in the same flush fit length and have been proven to be very reliable.

To take advantage of the factory window cuts in the slide, I sent the slide and barrel to DSC Gunworks to have their V8 barrel ports done as well as to have the end of the barrel flush cut and reverse crowned so that it doesn't protrude out of the end of the slide. I refinished the beavertail grip safety, grip screws, mainspring housing pin, and hammer/sear pins in Graphite Black Cerakote to black out the gun. The barrel modifications and the small parts coating update the look of the gun to the new 2024 EDC Pro. I also installed a Holosun 508T optic and a new Streamlight TLR-1 HLX light that I acquired for holster making at RFV Tactical.

I textured the grip module in my Concealed Carry texture (because that's what I do! 😁), chamfered the sharp outside and inside edges of the trigger guard, put a smooth border on the bottom of the mainspring housing to match the magwell border, and chamfered the magwell opening as well as the outside edge of the bottom of the grip. Just some little details that make the overall look and feel of the gun a bit more refined and higher quality. 👌

A step cut grip chop is not really feasible on the Bul Armory full-size grip modules because their proprietary compact magazines are much shorter than the Staccato C2 compact magazines, which would leave the mainspring housing and the back of the grip hanging down lower than the bottom of the magazine, so I just removed the magwell to make it more concealable as I will be carrying it and shooting it at matches for a bit before I go back to rotating through all of my regular carry guns, which are pretty much all double stack 1911s these days. 😎

Walther PDP Handguns

After acquiring my Walther PDP 4" Compact for holster making purposes at RFV Tactical, I quickly started liking the gun. I made a few tweaks to the gun to fit my large gorilla hands better like shortening the slide release levers and recontouring the beavertail and modifying the large backstrap. I also cut three coils off of the factory recoil spring to make it shoot a little softer, as PDPs are notoriously over-sprung from the factory. With those modifications, it worked surprisingly well for me and earned it's place as my absolute favorite striker fired pistol.

I then acquired a full-size 4.5" PDP and did a lot of custom stuff to it including having the slide and barrel ported by Impact CNC Machine, changing out the recoil spring assembly with ZR Tactical components, and I also installed a Walther Performance Trigger.

I've shot the full-size 4.5" at several action pistol matches and did really well with it. I really wanted to build another completely custom full-size PDP with a compensator, so I acquired a factory gray polymer 4.5" lower and a 4" upper so that I could add a Parker Mountain Machine barrel and 2-port compensator to give it a 5" slide length (I really wanted a 5" lower, but I couldn't ever find one). Once I got the 4" upper and compensator put together, I decided to use it on my original full-size 4.5" lower, and put the ported slide and barrel on the new gray frame along with a ZR Tactical long-stroke recoil spring assembly and a Holosun 507Comp optic. The performance of the compensator is noticeably better than the ported barrel, so I really wanted to pair it with my custom stippled and Cerakoted frame and the Trijicon SRO optic.

While the performance of  the two full-size guns is awesome, there was just something about them that didn't feel as good as the Compact. I determined that the modified large backstrap of the Compact just felt so much better in my hand and gave my support hand more room to grip the gun. Unfortunately, the large backstraps for the full-size frames do not have the same shape and feel as the Compact's large backstrap, so I sacrificed an unused backstrap and melted pieces of it onto the two full-size large backstraps to build them up and then contoured them to be almost identical to the modified large backstrap of the Compact. This was a time-consuming and tedious task, but it was definitely worth it!  Now all three guns feel the same in my hand, and I am really happy with the way they turned out.

These PDPs are very similar in performance to all of my double stack 1911s, which is not easy to achieve with a polymer frame striker fired gun. While they are noticeably snappier than a lot of my other custom guns, they return back to zero so quickly and consistently that it honestly amazes me every time I shoot them. 😁

Outlaw Action Pistol Match - 10/26/2024

Outlaw "Hit Factor" Action Pistol Match (USPSA scoring) at the Southwest Shooting Center in Clovis, NM with the Southwest Performance Shooters club. I was shooting my custom V-Slot ported Springfield Prodigy 1911DS from concealment (AIWB). The match was 6 stages (3 stages, each run from two different positions) with a high round count on most of them. Stages 3 and 4 were very long memory stages with most of the targets at 15 yards or farther out. I was one of the few people that shot those two stages without any "failure to shoot at" penalties. With how the targets were all arranged, it was difficult to tell which targets you'd already shot and which ones you still needed to shoot from each shooting position. I ended up winning stage 3 with my solid stage plan! 😎 On stage 4 (stage 3 just run in reverse), I ended up hitting the edge of a wall on a long distance target which earned me a miss, and I also hit a "no-shoot" target... twice... as I hit it again with my make-up shot, which also earned me another miss. 😞 Overall my performance and stage plans were pretty good and the gun continues to run flawlessly. I ended up in 2nd place Overall out of 16 total, and I also had the most "A-zone" hits of the match. 💪

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ3SJxZ2bDM

USPSA Action Pistol Match - 10/05/2024

USPSA Action Pistol Match at the Southwest Shooting Center in Clovis, NM with the Southwest Performance Shooters club. I was shooting my custom V-Slot ported Springfield Prodigy 1911DS from concealment (AIWB) in the Open division. The gun ran great and my performance was good too (I was nailing my reloads! 😁). We only had 9 of us that showed up to compete (all good shooters), and I ended up in 2nd place Overall. 👍

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mAEc3wL-To

Outlaw Action Pistol Match - 09/28/2024

Outlaw Action Pistol match (USPSA scoring) at the Amarillo Rifle and Pistol Club. I was shooting my new custom V-Slot ported Springfield Prodigy 1911DS from concealment (AIWB). We had the most people ever at this match (28 total) so it took quite a while to get through all 4 stages with only one squad allowed in the large single bay. The gun ran great, but my performance started declining by the last two stages. I was trying to go too fast through all of the steel targets at the end of the third stage and I kept missing. I also hit a long distance "no-shoot" target on the last stage which earned me a miss plus a penalty for the hit on the no-shoot and landed me in 2nd place overall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niW-nIJnHUo

Outlaw Action Pistol Match - 09/21/2024

Outlaw "Hit Factor" Action Pistol Match (USPSA scoring) at the Southwest Shooting Center in Clovis, NM with the Southwest Performance Shooters club. I was shooting my new custom V-Slot ported Springfield Prodigy 1911DS from concealment (AIWB). Unfortunately we only got to shoot 3 of the 6 planned stages because a severe thunderstorm rolled in quickly and forced the match to be canceled. The gun ran without any issues and my performance and stage plans were pretty decent. I really wish we could've finished the match before it started raining. 😓

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSQoqllp8OQ

USPSA Action Pistol Match - 09/07/2024

USPSA Action Pistol Match at the Southwest Shooting Center in Clovis, NM with the Southwest Performance Shooters club. I was shooting my V-Slot ported 2019 STI Staccato P from concealment (AIWB) in the Open division. The gun ran flawlessly this time with my reloaded brass case ammo and no trigger reset issues either as I had adjusted in a little bit more pre-travel on the trigger bow. I guess the gun just doesn't like steel case ammo, because I haven't done any extractor tuning since the last match. Unfortunately, I inadvertently engaged the thumb safety during a reload on stage 4 (a classifier stage), which cost me a little bit of time to recognize and resolve. 😕 I still managed to come in 4th place Overall out of 25 total. 👍

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrOfs0CmZ6U

Another Springfield Prodigy 1911DS

While randomly looking on Gunbroker for various double stack 1911s (my new obsession), I came across a penny auction for a used Springfield Prodigy 4.25" 1911DS that had been ported similarly to my V-Slot ported 2019 STI Staccato P which is a $200 to $300 modification (the porting appears to have been done by Mag-na-port). The bids were still pretty low, so I submitted my maximum bid and ended up winning the auction for much less than my max bid and well under what I thought the gun should be worth.

Photos from the Gunbroker auction

There were some obvious blemishes and scratches on the slide and frame, which is probably why the bids didn't get very high, but that didn't matter to me as I planned to Cerakote the slide in Graphite Black (H-146) and the frame in Stainless (H-152) for my preferred two-tone look after dehorning all of the sharp edges and some other refinements like chamfering the front edges of the frame to better match the slide and blending the pinned beavertail grip safety and the frame together with softer lines. I already had a set of Evolution Gun Works ignition components, Ed Brown controls, and an Atlas Gunworks tool-less guide rod that I removed from my last Springfield Prodigy that I installed on this one to replace all of the factory MIM parts and the two piece guide rod. I also replaced the trigger with a Fusion Firearms K-hole trigger that I had left over from my Bul Armory SAS II Tac Commander as I'm not really a fan of the old classic three-hole trigger for a modern 2011-style gun. As with my last Prodigy, I did another step cut grip chop and texture on the factory grip module so that I can carry it with compact 16-round (120mm) Staccato C2 magazines, as well as a smooth border on the bottom of the mainspring housing to match the magwell border.

Work in progress photos.

New trigger pull is slightly under 3 pounds.

With the experience and knowledge that I gained from troubleshooting all of the issues with my last Prodigy, I was able to get this new one running perfect without too much effort, but it also didn't need nearly as much work as my last one did as Springfield has improved their QC on these guns since the initial launch in 2022. There are some characteristics and aesthetics about the Prodigy that really appeal to me, like the wider/thicker frame and the grip module's ergonomics. When the Prodigy is customized and made to run reliably, they are really great guns. I'm really happy with the way this one turned out. 😎

I normally don't list the cost of parts and work done to my personal guns in detail, but I know people will be curious as to how much it would cost to build a Springfield Prodigy 1911DS similarly to this one (minus the cost of the gun), so here is a rough estimate for all the parts and custom work that I've done to my gun as a reference point. While all of this may add up to the cost of a brand new Staccato P, it is obviously way more customized to look and feel exactly how I wanted it, as well as having the benefit of barrel porting. With all of these upgraded parts and custom work, it also runs just as smooth, fast, and reliably as all four of my Staccato P 2011s! 😁

Barrel Porting - $200-$300

Parts list:

EGW Ignition Components - $150

Ed Brown Controls  - $125

Atlas Tool-less Guide Rod - $100

Fusion K-Hole Trigger - $40

RFV Tactical Work:

Dehorn All Sharp Edges (slide and frame) - $50

Pin and Blend the Beavertail to the Frame - $50

Cerakote the Frame and Slide (two colors) - $170

Cerakote Small Parts (controls and hammer) - $50

Step Cut Grip Chop for Compact Magazines - $75

Smooth Magwell Border (mainspring housing) - $25

Concealed Carry Texture (360-degree wrap) - $125

Small Parts Fitment and Trigger Tuning - $100

Update: I am now offering a complete enhancement package for the Springfield Prodigy 1911DS at RFV Tactical that improves it's performance, reliability, ergonomics, and aesthetics.