With the three
Springfield Prodigy handguns that I currently have, I felt like I needed a 3.5" Compact to round out my collection. I have been patiently waiting for a used one to become available, but they have been very scarce. One finally popped up on Gunbroker and I was able to snag it for under $1000. This one was still in really good condition, with no obvious blemishes or wear on the slide and frame, but the grip module's textured area had some flat spots from rubbing up against something. That was no biggie for me, since I obviously planned to do my
RFV Tactical Prodigy specific grip texture work on it.
Photos from the Gunbroker auction
Other than the grip texture work, the only other change that I made was to swap out the ambidextrous thumb safety levers to a thinner
EGW single sided thumb safety lever that I already had. As part of my normal
reliability and performance tuning for a Prodigy 1911DS, I changed out the undersized and over-sprung firing pin with an EGW firing pin and
ISMI spring. As with
my 4.25" Carry Comp, the firing pin hole in the slide measured 0.064", so I had to turn down the tip of the 0.068" EGW firing pin to just under 0.064". I didn't even bother test firing the gun with the factory firing pin because it measured 0.060" and I knew there would be light strike issues caused from primer shearing. I also tuned the sear spring for a 3 pound trigger pull, which also eliminated any disconnector hang-up on the slide, tuned the extractor for reliable feeding and extraction, polished and radiused the barrel's feed ramp, trimmed down and radiused the top edge of the hammer to reduce the friction on the underside of the slide during cycling, and adjusted the engagement point of the beavertail grip safety so that it doesn't have to be fully depressed to disengage it. The gun now cycles very smooth and passes all of my reliability testing.
I did the grip texture on this one a little bit different than what I normally do. As an experiment, I tried to mimic the factory texture by using a fine point tip on my iron. The texture is slightly more aggressive than the factory texture, but less aggressive than my normal Concealed Carry texture. It looks and feels good, but it was very time consuming to make it look consistent, and was honestly not worth the effort once I finally finished it. I haven't done my normal dehorning, blending, and
Cerakote work on this one yet, because the original Cerakote finish is still in really good condition, and the dehorning and blending that I do to make the gun more comfortable in hand is not really necessary for a gun that is not used frequently for training and/or matches. I may do all that work to it in the future with a two-tone color scheme or a custom color mixture if I find myself carrying it frequently (or I get bored and need a new project), but I'm just going to leave it as is for now as I view this gun mainly as a shop gun for holster fitment that I will probably only carry occasionally.
I installed a
Trijicon RMR that I pulled off of another shop gun and mounted it with a
Dawson Precision mounting plate that positions the optic at the very back of the slide and eliminates the rear iron sight. I thought this configuration would look really good on it's shorter slide and the RMR's small window doesn't get blocked by a tall rear iron sight. I also installed a
Streamlight TLR-7A compact light which fits flush with the end of the 3.5" slide/barrel.
The gun carries and conceals really well with it's lighter weight aluminum frame and short grip, but it is a little less snappy compared to my two
Bul Armory Ultralight guns which are both extremely lightweight. It's a really great carry option for when I want to go a little lighter or more minimal than normal but still have a similar feel to my larger 2011-style carry guns.
