USPSA Action Pistol Match 04/10/2021

Wow... it as been another couple of months since I've attended an outdoor action pistol match, and it was really good to shoot again. At this USPSA match in Lubbock, TX, I ended up in 3rd place overall (25 total), so I guess my shooting skills haven't deteriorated too much. After reviewing the video, I can see that my performance wasn't stellar by any means, but it was still a lot of fun.  I was shooting my new Glock 34 build at this match, and the gun ran great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LefrWSGTn3I

RFV Tactical - Holsters, Mag Carriers, and Other Cool Stuff

I've been very busy in December of 2020 as I decided to start my own small business making kydex holsters, mag carriers, and other custom items.  I've been making my own holsters for over 5 years and I've been slowly refining my holster making techniques.  About 2 years ago, I came up with a holster design that indexes on a Streamlight TLR-1 weapon mounted light rather than the gun itself so that I could use multiple guns in the same holster as I like to rotate through several different types of guns for concealed carry.  I'm on my 4th version of this type of holster, and I've fabricated my own custom modular mold so that I can make it for each of the popular fullsize weapon mounted lights that are wider than the frame of a gun (Streamlight, Surefire, Inforce, and Olight). I felt like this latest version was a good enough design that it would appeal to other people.  I will admit that it's probably not a large group of people that would be interested in it, but currently there are only two other companies that make this type of holster and those holsters aren't very aesthetically pleasing to the eye in my opinion.  I realize that it's not important for a holster to look good as long as it works well, but why not have a holster that works well and also looks good? I also came up with my own inside the waistband magazine carrier design a few years ago that I've been using every day that is a minimalist design and works universally for double stack and single stack magazines.  I'm on my 4th version of this type of magazine carrier as well, and I've recently incorporated a LOT of features into the design so that it would appeal to a large group of people as it is now reversible for inside the waistband and outside the waistband. I'm also making non-light bearing holsters for a select number of popular concealed carry guns, since the majority of people aren't as fanatical as I am about carrying a gun with a fullsize weapon mounted light every day. 😜

The company name is RFV Tactical. RFV stands for Ready For Violence as in... "always be Ready For Violence to happen".  I've spent the entire month of December making products for display/photo purposes for the new website and social media, and I've even managed to make a few holsters and mag carriers for customers too. I don't expect the business to take off quickly and keep me super busy, but over time I'm hoping that it will be something to keep me busy after I retire from my fulltime job in the telecommunications industry.

Go check out the website that has links to the Facebook and Instagram accounts as well.

http://www.rfvtactical.com/

IDPA Action Pistol Match 12/27/2020

It's been a while since I've been to an outdoor IDPA action pistol match.  Due to Covid-19, our local matches have been pretty far and few between. I was shooting my new Bul Armory SAS II Tac Commander at this match after having a lot of troubles with it at the last IDPA match back in September.  That last match went so bad with gun troubles that I never even posted anything on this BLOG or published the video on YouTube!  Today's match went really well and I only had two instances of the trigger not resetting, but those absolutely could've been me short stroking the trigger. I ended up in 3rd place overall out of 14 total. I am going to embed both videos below so you can see the difference in the gun's performance.  By the way, both of these IDPA matches were half IDPA and half USPSA so that we could all enjoy the variety of both games at one match.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-0NU9BatII

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFRvgrChX-Y

Bul Armory SAS II Tac Commander Handgun

After acquiring multiple compact 2011 handguns for my carry gun rotation, I decided that I needed a 2011 specifically for competition usage.  I picked up a Bul Armory SAS II Tac Commander from GP Arms for this task, and immediately went crazy modifying the crap out of the gun.  I replaced all the controls with stainless steel parts from Fusion Firearms and all the ignition parts with components from EGW. I sent the slide to Primary Machine to have it milled for a Trijicon SRO using their proprietary RMR/SRO mounting plate that doesn't have an integrated rear sight, so the SRO is mounted farther back on the slide and doesn't hang over the ejection port.  I am not aware of any companies that offer aftermarket front sights specifically for the Bul Armory guns, so I ordered a fiber optic front sight for a Kimber 1911 from Dawson Precision hoping that it would fit, but I had to custom fit it to the dovetail in the slide, which was a pain in the ass! I made a custom rear "iron" sight using 1/8" black pinstripe tape that is applied to the front of the optic window which co-witnesses with the new 0.360" tall front sight. I also installed the grip module and tactical magwell that came off of my STI Tac-Lite 4.0 2011 that I stippled, which was surprisingly not that difficult to install. Since this is basically a Frankenstein build with a mix-match of modified parts, it took quite a bit of troubleshooting and tuning to get this gun to run reliably.  Every time I would fix an issue, a new problem would pop up like a never ending domino effect.  Very frustrating for sure, but I've finally got the gun running reliably. 1911/2011 handguns are not legal in the Carry Optics division of USPSA, so I'm going to just run the gun in the Open division and have fun with it. I'll also be using it in the Open division of my local outlaw 3-Gun matches.

Unfortunately, changing to an STI grip module does not allow the gun to accept STI magazines as the metal frame of the gun also has to be permanently modified for that. Since extra factory Bul magazines were still unavailable when I purchased the gun, I'm using modified Remington 1911 R1 double stack magazines (same basic magazine tube as the Bul SAS II magazines) with Arredondo Plus-2 extended base pads for Para/Remington magazines (also modified to fit the STI grip module with a tactical magwell) for a 20-round capacity.  To get the magazines to work in the gun I had to increase the height of the magazine catch slot from 0.150" to 0.230" using a Dremel cut-off wheel and a small square file, and shave off just a small bit of material from the very top of the magazine to ensure that it doesn't drag on the underside of the slide. I also had to tune the feed lips of each magazine to get the gun to feed reliably, but this inadvertently resulted in the slide locking back with one round still in the magazine.  I tried trimming down the followers to resolve that issue, but I believe the enlarged mag catch slot introduced too much deviation to be 100% reliable, so I just modified the followers so that they don't lock the slide back at all.  Since the gun's intended usage is USPSA and 3-Gun where you rarely run the gun dry, I'd rather the magazine not lock the slide back when empty than have it lock back unexpectedly. If I absolutely need the slide to lock back on an empty magazine for a specific stage or scenario, then I'll just use the two factory magazines that came with the gun.

Update March 2023: due to the frustrations I had with Bul Armory's magazine supply clain, I ended up reinstalling all the factory parts and sold the gun to fund the purchase of a Staccato P that I customized with V8 barrel ports. 

USPSA Action Pistol Match 09/12/2020

Not a great performance for me at this USPSA action pistol match in Lubbock, TX.  My first stage went horrible because I was trying to go too fast and I had two misses on a long distance head shot. I also had a no-shoot/miss on the classifier stage at the end of the match (again... trying to go too fast).  All of this put me at a 40-point deficit, which is impossible to place well with.  I ended up in 12th place overall out of 48 total.  From the video, it looks like I did pretty decent on stages 2, 3, and 4, and those all felt good, but the damage was already done on the first stage. 😞

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TictzIB7564

USPSA Action Pistol Match 08/02/2020

This was an outlaw action pistol match (USPSA scoring on the paper targets) at a brand new local range built by a fellow local shooter.  There were a lot of small steel targets at this match, so it took a lot of precise aiming and disciplined trigger control. Most of the paper targets were at least 12 to 15 yards out, so there wasn't any "hosing" at this match. We even had some really awkward shots through various ports in a barricade on a few stages. I ran in the Open division so that I could use my new STI Tac-Lite 4.0 carry gun in my normal concealment setup.  The gun ran great, and the match was really fun.  I am looking forward to shooting more matches at this new range.  I ended up in 4th place Overall (11 total), and I was the only idiot at the match using a carry gun from concealment. 😜

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-PSLhtrVGc

STI Tactical Lite 4.0 2011 Handgun

Hey... remember when I was considering buying an STI Tac-Lite 4.0 with a compact VIP grip as a second 2011 carry gun, but ended up buying the Bul SAS II Ultralight instead?  Well... I got tempted into buying a Tac-Lite after seeing it unsold on GunBroker week after week for what seemed like months.  It was apparently the LAST brand new Tac-Lite 4.0 in existence for sale.  I probably paid too much for it, but I'm so glad I bought it! 😎  I had to sell three competition guns that were no longer being used to help fund the purchase, but it was worth it. I really wanted to buy one of these guns about 5 years ago when they were still in production. I had planned on selling several guns to fund the purchase back then too, but I just couldn't stomach the price tag and gave up on the idea.  Now that I've already purchased a few other 2011s and have gotten over the "hump" of paying over $1500 for a handgun, I decided to buy this one and turn it into my "ultimate" carry gun.  By the way, I don't regret buying the Bul SAS II UL at all. I actually like that gun so much that I ordered a Bul SAS II Tac Commander that I'll be using for USPSA and 3-Gun matches.

The first thing to do was to buy and install a shorter VIP grip since this would be a carry gun. I hadn't seen the VIP grips readily available that weren't already stippled, but STI just happen to have a few brand new ones in stock on their website, so I ordered one the second I won the auction for the gun on GunBroker. After I installed the VIP grip, I was playing around with the tactical magwell that came on the full size grip and realized that it actually fit onto the VIP grip and was held firmly into place solely by the tension against the bottom of the mainspring housing. I really like the look of the tactical magwell on the VIP grip because it looks too "cut off short" without it. The gun prints a little bit more with the magwell installed, but it looks awesome and actually helps with reloading quickly. I also blended the inside of the mag opening in the grip to transition smoothly from the magwell as much as possible and I inserted a small piece of soft rubber hose into the magwell to fill the gap between the magwell and the bottom front lip of the VIP grip.

After putting a couple hundred rounds through the gun to make sure it functioned properly, I sent the slide off to Vulcan Machine Werks to be milled for a red dot sight and I also had them cut a window into the top of the slide to reduce the weight a little and increase the cool factor a little.  While the slide was away getting milled, I struggled with whether to stipple the grip or leave it with the classic checkering.  I ended up stippling the unused full size grip first to see how it would turn out, and that convinced me to go ahead and do the VIP grip.  I also used melted plastic from a sacrificial STI magazine base plate to fill in the faux screw holes at the bottom of the grip to give it a more custom look. I am extremely happy with how everything came together on this gun!

Is this gun the "best" carry gun that I own?    Probably not. 😐

Is it the most practical carry gun that I own?    No. 😕

Is it the most expensive carry gun that I own?    Yep. 😳

Is it the softest shooting carry gun that I own?    Yes it is! 😀

Is it the COOLEST carry gun that I own?    Absolutely YES! 😁

Tactical Magwell Update

I've been wanting to acquire and install the updated version of STI's tactical magwell, but unfortunately they have been discontinued and unavailable for a while. I ended up buying an airsoft replica version of that magwell, and it fit exactly like the STI magwell. I think it looks better, and there is less bulk at the bottom of the mainspring housing around the back of the grip, so it feels a lot better in my hand when gripping the gun and it also prints less when carrying it concealed.

See more recent updates to this gun here!