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

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 then 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. 😁