Saturday, September 7, 2024

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 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, which was 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. 👍




Monday, September 2, 2024

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 $300+ modification (not sure who did the porting). 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 and the frame in Stainless 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.

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. There are some characteristics and aesthetics about the Prodigy that really appeal to me, especially when customized, and I'm really happy with the way this one turned out. 😎