ken_mays

I recently acquired one of these in a trade. It had been on my Maybe I'll Pick One Up Someday list, and the right opportunity came along. I took it to the range a couple days ago and I put about 120 rounds through it (124gr hard cast reloads). Ergos / handling: It shoots and handles better than it looks. The squared-off rear of the frame which I initially had concerns about ended up being no issue whatsoever. The gun in 9mm simply doesn't recoil enough for this to even begin to be a problem. The backstrap / grip inserts slide on and off after being unlocked with a 1/4 turn of a recessed Torx cam. It looks like the cam moves outward to lock the insert into place, and inward to allow removal. There were a couple of sharp corners on the inside of the lanyard slot which dug into my hand, but a couple of quick strokes with a file fixed that. It wasn't an issue on any but the smallest grip insert for some reason. I don't much care for the exaggerated palm hump on the large and medium backstraps so I left the small one installed. The ambi magazine button was actually quicker to hit with my thumb with the small backstrap installed. With the large backstrap, it's harder for thumb reach and easier for trigger finger activation. The grasping serrations on the slide rear were very well designed. The crosscut serrations provide a superlative grip. The takedown lever has a bit of a protruding shelf that makes a handy place to rest your support thumb. Unfortunately it prevents it from fitting into holsters for other brands that would actually be a pretty good fit otherwise. Trigger reach is easy and comfortable for me. There are no sharp edges or other unpleasantness on the trigger shoe like there can be on other designs (XD, Glock). Shooting: It ran through all my reloads with no feeding problems. I was doing offhand shooting at a 2" dot at about 20 yards and I was able to keep all the shots either on the dot or within an inch of it, so accuracy was certainly adequate for my purposes. Brass ejection was a bit erratic but thankfully none came near my face. The sights were regulated such that the front sight dot represented your point of impact. I usually prefer my POI to be the top of the sight blade, but whatever. Sight picture was good enough that I will probably leave the factory sights on. The trigger pull was similar to the XD pistols. The pull itself was not heavy enough to complain about, probably 5 pounds or a little less. There was a fair amount of creep but it was smooth and consistent. The reset point was about 2/3 of the trigger forward travel, which is a little longer than most people like but not a real problem. The reset was distinct and clear. About all I would want is a little less creep and a little shorter reset if I were going to be doing a lot of shooting. Muzzle flip was negligible, despite the rather slick grip. The mags easily dropped free and locked in consistently. Mags were not difficult to load to full 17 rd capacity. TL;DR: It performed well and I liked it more than I expected to.

I saw one today in G&A in Memphis.  Price was a litte over $1k.   I can wait.

I've got the CMR and I'm now looking to pick up a PMR.   Since this is the handgun forum, I don't want to derail with a discussion about the CMR, but in summary, I'll say I like it a lot and would buy another.   I do wish ammo weren't so ridiculously hard to come by.

I picked one up, very lightly used. Once I shot it, I figured out why. It had a wicked case of trigger slap. I sent it back to SIG and they replaced the trigger with their "adverse" trigger, which seems to have fixed the issue. Kudos to SIG for taking care of that. The trigger is still a little heavier than I like, but it's something I can easily live with. I think they did a lot of things right, ergonomically. I like the shape of the grip. The placement of the controls isn't awful. I wish the bore axis were a bit lower, but it doesn't seem to make much of a difference for me on shot-to-shot recovery. I really like the fact that you can buy a complete plastic grip for about $40 and swap it out in about 2 minutes. Mine came with the "medium" girth grip and I swapped it out for the "small". Accuracy on mine is about par with everything else of its type. I haven't had any reliability issues yet; I think I have a bit less than 300 rounds through mine. I would own more of them but I don't often seem to run across deals on them.

http://www.tacticalmachining.com/80-products.html

Here's an earlier one I did for the same owner. The French cut is a little more obvious in this photo.

Thanks guys!  I don't do a whole lot of checkering, it's tough on the hands, wrists and elbows... but there's nothing I prefer more for a frontstrap treatment.

I just finished this one up. High cut under the trigger guard and checkered at 30 LPI to match the mainspring housing. French border cut on the slide. I refinished in Norrell's moly resin to color match the original parkerized finish. Larger photo here: http://www.guntechtips.com/images/doc-sa-2.jpg

I've been using this one    http://www.orschelnfarmhome.com/pecan-picker-upper/ctl16754/cp60813/si5826906/cl1/   for a few years and I like it better than the rolling nut wizard.   Mine doesn't pick up more than a handful at a time, but it's more easily emptied and can get into tighter spots.    The nut wizard is superior if you have a lot of brass concentrated in one big flat area.

I am on the lookout for one of these, as well as a FNS longslide 9mm.    I'll pick up the first one I see locally but I don't want it bad enough to order it online.

I have found the SR1911 to be a bit oversprung in the recoil spring department and the factory mag spring a bit weak.   My observations are that the slide can overrun the cartridge before the mag can present it to the top.   Swapping in a 16# Wolff spring has helped in the two SR1911s I've owned.   I also lack confidence in the Ruger factory mags since on two occasions, it has squirted the whole stack of rounds onto the ground when I bumped the edge of the mag pouch while pulling the magazine during a speed reload.     I throw them back in the factory box and use either Wilson 47Ds or CMC Powermags which work well in about every 1911 I own.