ken_mays

The Remington 51 is worth a look, though personally I feel it's fugly. Browning High Powers have some potential but they have downsides too, many of which are ergonomic for me. A stock BHP will need a fair amount of work before I'd want to do much shooting. Hudson is going to introduce a lightweight version of their H9. While the aesthetics of it are debatable, it should fit your criteria.

Believe Dawson Precision has the EMP fronts in different heights. If they are not in stock, they'll run off a batch if you order one.

They are saying (on Facebook) that they're going to be shipping more F series pistols in July. I hope they do start hitting shelves this year. I have an original F series that's been recalled that I'd like them to swap out. I think the F series recall was a drop safety recall. Better than the C series, which if I remember right, involved the slide breaking in half.

Stick with Rugers. You can get sights, accessories, holsters, etc. for something like them a lot easier than some imported revolver.

The CCP is an Umarex made gun with Walther's name on it. Not really a direct relationship to the PPQ and P99s. Umarex makes all the crappy stuff in the Walther line like the P22.

The holster that comes with the SFX is a piece of crap. It has a spring loaded detent that is supposed to be cammed out of the way by the trigger guard, but more often it just refuses to move. The detent needs to be reshaped so that the trigger guard will actually cam it out of the way instead of just hitting it and getting stuck. The gun itself is OK. I think mine shot pretty high with the stock sights, but I put a Vortex Venom red dot on it. I don't really have more than about 200 rounds though it and will probably end up sellling it because it's just not that much fun to shoot.

Because it would be invariably in the wrong spot on your gun Better to be able to drill it exactly where you need it, though something of a hassle if you don't have at least a drill press.

I've had one for about 6 years and it's been solid. They are well designed but built with lightweight (not to say overly cheap) materials. I think they are sprung right on the ragged edge of reliability when using something like Federal bulk pack. They generally loosen up after 500 rounds or so enough that they will run most brands of ammo without too many failures. You can try using a lighter mainspring to increase cycling reliability but this may be a trade-off in ignition reliability. Something like 80% of the parts are interchangeable with 1911 parts. There is also a thread adapter for the barrels that will allow use of a standard threaded suppressor. I need to buy one to try out.

I got my General license about 10 years ago. I quickly put together a field rig and bought a couple of mobiles and handhelds. The field rig doesn't need to be fancy or expensive; it basically consists of a mobile with 2m / 70cm band capability, a power inverter, a battery and a roll-up antenna. I can't say the ham bug really bit me, since I rarely did more than get on the 2m band and talk to buddies around town on repeaters, and since I sold my car that had the mobile installed, I haven't even done that. However, I learned the basics of how to use repeaters and how to behave on nets, as well as the actual real-world capabilities of my gear. As much as some of us spend on gun and gear, ham radio is a shockingly affordable hobby and there are many facets to it which should interest most everyone. If you're interested in getting licensed, I strongly suggest dragging a couple of buddies along so that you'll have someone to talk to.

I've used Armslist quite a bit, mostly buying. I've had good experiences but I stick to face-to-face transactions. I'm not interested in mailing the gun and payment back and forth, and I say so in the ad. The scam potential is way too high for all that. If I'm going to go interstate, I use Gunbroker. At least there is a feedback system that gives you a bit of security.

I've heard of people Cerakoting the barrel extension and using Loctite or Rocksett to fill in the rest of the space. A lot of AR-10 builders need to do it because apparently there can be a big variation in dimensions between manufacturers. I think in your case, it was a smart move to just use a different upper... .007" is a lot.

I think I'm headed in the opposite direction. I just sold 2 of my Tanfoglios and 2 CZs, a pre-B 75 and a CZ P-09. The standard Tanfo/Witness is an OK handgun but were hampered by a mediocre trigger and sights. On the older ones that were more of a direct CZ 75 clone, you could easily improve the trigger by swapping in a lighter mainspring, but the last one I bought had a shorter mainspring which was a bit tricker to deal with. Two of my rear sights had pretty good dings on them from the previous owners, and I never had any luck finding a replacement sight of the right height. I liked the P09 better but this one had the suppressor height sights and threaded barrel, neither of which I had a use for. I already had a standard P09 that I actually prefer over any CZ-75 I've owned. My pre-B 75 was a mess when I got it. Apparently it had badly rusted, and the previous owner attacked it with a buffing wheel. This got rid of the rust (and the rollmarks) but not the pitting, and he'd rounded off the now-shiny front sight. I milled it off and cut a dovetail so I could install a STI front sight, filed most of the light pitting out, and refinished the gun in Cerakote. I crowned the barrel and installed a Beretta "D" mainspring, which did wonders for the trigger pull. It shot dramatically better after that.

The trigger parts on the Gen 5 guns are apparently completely different from prior generations. I don't have the link handy, but Recoil magazine had photos of a detail strip. This is obviously going to be an issue in the short term if buyers aren't happy with the triggers out of the box, but I'm sure aftermarket vendors are working on new parts for them, and fortunately, most accounts seem to confirm that the factory triggers are very good out of the box.

The Gun Crew has a lot of them in stock.

9mm 1911s are a lot of fun too. I tend to shoot them a lot more frequently than my .45s. And when you get tired of single stacks, you can pick up a 2011 in 9mm that gives you twice the fun per magazine. Decent 2011s aren't cheap, but you'll ask yourself why you waited so long when you finally get one.

I agree that the M&P 45 1.0s had some horrible triggers. The weight was far out of proportion for what was reasonable IMO. This is due to an extra strength trigger spring, apparently. I was able to replace mine with an Apex competition spring kit which contributed a large amount of improvement. The M&P 2.0 triggers are uniformly a big step up from the 1.0 triggers. The sear face has been shortened to decrease some of the creep that was felt on the old sear style. Overtravel was another problem on the 1.0 triggers; the trigger would travel so far after breaking that it would noticeably cause the front sight to twitch when it bottomed out on the frame. The Dan Burwell DIY trigger job showed one good way to correct this. I performed the Burwell mods on all my M&Ps which saved me from buying a lot of Apex sears. I haven't sat down and measured the overtravel on the 2.0 but the sight twitch is pretty much gone. As to the CZ P10C, the trigger is not bad out of the box and can be improved a little simply by putting a dab of grease on the striker surface. Mine will never approach a good tuned M&P trigger but it's perfectly serviceable. What worries me about the P10C is that the trigger safety blade can hang if you don't get a close-to-perfect trigger finger position so that you pull the trigger straight back, and of course the documented striker rotation problems. I hope CZ can address that with a drop-in redesigned part. My gun apparently doesn't suffer from that problem, but peace of mind would be worth replacing the striker anyway. I like the P10C a lot and would like to see it succeed. I never had much luck getting it to fit the G19 holsters as advertised, but it was a pretty good fit in many of my M&P holsters; go figure.

Thanks for the link; I'm tempted to order one to try it out. The SCR has intrigued me for a while; it seems like a smarter Mini-14.

It saddens me that we see this before we see the full sized SCR rifle.

A 7/32" chainsaw file is pretty close to the nominal .200" slidestop diameter, if you need to do some filing. I like to fit my barrels tight, so there is always some hand work that needs to be done after the lug cutter to allow the barrel to go into battery. I also like to start with a .195" slidestop so that I can swap in a larger pinned part if the lockup ever loosens up.

Aesthetics aside (and I think this is probably the best looking handgun he's done yet, not that it's saying much), I wouldn't bet on JJ being able to build a functioning longslide.

Quick update: I put another 250 rounds through my H9. No malfunctions to report. Groups continue to be pretty good but I think I could see better groups with a pound removed from the trigger pull. I also notice that if you put too much finger on the trigger, the bottom of the trigger can cause irritation as you can get a slight pinch between the trigger shoe and bottom of the trigger guard. Not really a big deal in the scheme of things. I do want a shorter and thinner front sight. I have to cover the point of impact with the front sight, which I'm not used to doing. I like to have the POI just at the top of the front sight. But the orange front sight is easy to pick up and center, so I could live with the width of it if it were a bit shorter. I continue to be impressed with the feel and ease of operation of the controls.

There have been a dealer or two in Memphis who've said they have one, on Facebook.

You can often find STI 2011s on Gunbroker for around $1500. VIP and 4.0 models.

The "big deal" about the Hudson is the recoil spring design and bore axis. By moving it in front of the trigger guard, they were able to lower the centerline of the bore axis, which is supposed to decrease muzzle flip. I don't know if the juice was worth the squeeze on THAT benefit, but there are enough other neat things about the gun that I liked what I saw and thought it would be a neat one to own.

No, I haven't. I don't use Youtube for much.