The first gun I bought was a 1911 pistol.  It is still my favorite handgun to shoot, although shooting a lot of .45 gets expensive!  So I bought a Marvel Precision .22 LR conversion that allows me to shoot .22 LR,  and then I bought another (used) 1911 so that I didn’t have to keep swapping the conversion on and off.  The collection has grown, but I still shoot both of those pretty often.  I’ve even used the 45 in pistol league a few weeks, and it’s a lot of fun! 

The 1911 is used in some of my all-time favorite movies, used by Robert De Niro in Ronin (I also love the car chases!), by Benicio Del Toro and Ryan Phillippe in The Way of the Gun (I also love the realism of the tactics they use!), and by Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan, shooting at a tank! (the last 5 minutes of Saving Private Ryan and Monsters, Inc get me teary eyed every time!)

A couple weeks ago, the M1911 officially became the state gun of Utah, more because J.M. Browning was a Utah native, and to celebrate the centennial than ay other reason.

So thank you very much, Mr. Browning, for your innovative work!  So innovative, that after selling the 1911 design to Colt, he had to design an entirely new pistol, the Browning Hi-power, to get around his own patents!  The hi-power’s centennial isn’t until 1935, so I have some time to get some of those before that rolls around!

Happy 1911 Day! was originally posted at John's Random Review.

In what has become an annual tradition, we went again this year during spring training. But this year, instead of rifles and revolvers, this year was all about: Shotguns! 

Jim and Art used over/under Browning shotguns, and I used a browning single shot.  We then each shot ~60 birds of trap shooting.  Ben Avery is a huge place, with something like 18 trap fields, so the 3 of us had a trap field to ourselves. This was good since neither Jim or I had shot trap before, and we didn’t want to slow anyone else down.

The range was all automated, with voice activated release.  So there are little speakers on stands in front of you, and when you say “pull” (or whatever you say loud), it flings out your target.  So once you’re up there, there’s no talking, or it will fling out some more targets that nobody will be ready for!  And since the range is all automated, there’s no free targets if you accidentally screw up!

We did all of our shooting from the 16 yard line, which is the closest spot, and for first timers we did really well.  It took Jimbo a little while to get warmed up, and once he was warm he was on fire!  I started off pretty well and stayed pretty consistent.  The only ones I had trouble judging were the ones that fired straight away, with no left or right movement.  I think I shot over the top of those more than anything.  Of around 60 total birds, I think I missed 7, so I was feeling pretty good!  I wanted to try moving back and see if I could still hit anything, but by then, our cards were up!

(If the embedded video is missing, you can see it here)

I think both Jim and I expected a lot more kick from the shotguns, but the trap loads were pretty light, and the shotguns pretty heavy.  I had a tiny little strawberry bruise on my shoulder, but that was probably from one round that I didn’t have the shotgun pulled into my shoulder all the way.  The next day my shoulder was a little more sore, but that could have been from the shooting or from chasing Easy around the pool all afternoon, or most likely both.

The next day, Jimbo was ready to go again, so we know that he enjoyed it.  I had a great time, and can’t wait to see what art has planned for next year!

(If the embedded video is missing, you can see it here)

By some freak coincidence, I think both times I took video, both jim and art missed.  You can’t blame the camera, as in both cases, neither of them noticed .

If we lived closer to Ben Avery, I’d be there all the time; it’s most definitely good for my wallet that we’re a thousand miles away!

Ben Avery Review #2: The Shotgunning Edition was originally posted at John's Random Review.

There are 3 events every week, and you shoot each event twice.

The first part is called “zombies”, and is worth the most points.  10 rounds, 9 targets.  the back row of 3 poppers pops up, and is up for a few seconds.  Then the middle row of 3, then the front row of 3.  The zombies are scored on distance;  the back row is worth 20, 18, 15, middle 12, 10, 10, putting the front row at only 7, 7, 7.  Most people will use as many rounds as they can to get the back row. 

The second part is called “blackjack”.  only 3 rounds, all 9 poppers pop up and stay up 8 seconds.  The object is to get 21 points (without going over!).  All of the targets are again assigned point values:  Ace, 10, 9 in the back row, 8, 8, 7 in the middle, and 6, 5, 4 in the front row.  Most people aim for the middle’ish area, doing 8+5+8.  Depending on a miss, you might try something else, like 8, miss, 10.  With all of the poppers up, seeing and hitting the back row can be a challenge though!  8 seconds seems like an eternity, so almost everyone is going too fast.

“Stop and Go” on the dueling tree is the last part, and this part is timed!  10 rounds, 7 targets. When the green popper in the background falls (it pops back up instantly) time starts: shoot the 3 green targets on the tree, then the green popper in the background, then the three red targets on the tree.  Time ends when you hit the last red target, or when you’re out of ammo. Scoring is 5 points per target hit, minus one point per second on the clock when you’ve hit the last target or are out of ammo.  This one is everyone’s favorite, it seems.  The fastest people (I’m not one!) are doing it in around 5 seconds.  I think I’ve been in the 7’s mostly, although one week I did have a 5.66.  The fastest people are doing bottom to top, so that you follow the recoil up to the next target.  Although I think people are still working down the red side after shooting the popper though…

The theoretical maximum number of points each week is ~320.  After 6 weeks, I’m averaging ~185 with a high of 241 (I was #1 last week, but only because most of the high scorers were gone ). The highest person in the league is averaging 256 with a high of 291, so I have some work to do!

Here’s a phone video of me doing one run of stop+go:

Random Review: Pistol League @ SSNW was originally posted at John's Random Review.

Here’s the panorama view from where we were sitting. I should have gotten a couple more shots to the left, though!

Here’s the view from space:

The main 200 yard range is just eastnortheast a bit of where the orange dot is on the map. If you zoom in you can see what 200 yards looks like from space. Then zoom back out and see HOW HUGE that place is! It was awesome! Weather was nice, not too warm, not too cold. A little windy, but not so much that it really affected us at the distance we were shooting.

We went on St. Patrick’s day, and expected it to not be very busy. Boy were we wrong! (and boy am i slow finally getting this post up!) We had to wait for a while before we got a lane (originally we were hoping to get a lane each), but that gave Jimbo and I some time to soak it all in and see what was going on. The range masters were all business. There were rules, and rules were followed. Even 6 weeks later, i can still remember the rules they kept repeating during every cease fire, which occurred every 15 minutes. It was basically 15 minutes shooting, then 15 minutes with the range cold to check + move targets (but stay away from the benches. hey, you! move away from the bench. HEY! YOU, YEAH YOU! away from the bench during cease fire!)

We shot a whole bunch of revolvers in .22, .22 mag, .38 special, and .357 magnum, then bolt and lever rifles in .22 mag, 30-30, and a .308 autoloader. I’ve never been much of a revolver guy, but i really liked the .357 mag revolver. The smaller revolvers just seemed like they had too small of a grip for my hands. my hands aren’t huge or anything, but i just couldn’t get a comfortable grip on the smaller guns.

All in all it was a pretty awesome day at the range, even with the wait. Hopefully it will become another yearly tradition when we go down to AZ for spring training!

Random Review: Ben Avery Shooting Facility was originally posted at John's Random Review.

Go to the original review.

In 2009, i put more than 2300 rounds through it, with only 27 failures. And of those 28, 15 were on one day early in February, where i tried to use CCI Mini-mags. Lets just say that it doesn’t like those! I also think i went through a bad batch of ammo in January, where i had ~100 light strikes or duds. It happened with 2 separate lowers, so I don’t think it was hammer or spring related.

Since i got it, i’ve added an Eotech (off an ebay pawn shop ), and a knockoff magnifier. I didn’t spend a lot on the magnifier because i wasn’t sure how well the setup would work, or if i’d like the combination or not. For a cheapo magnifier, it actually works pretty well. I got a used noveske kx3 flash hider, but mostly for looks. The barrel isn’t short enough to really need it, although i am tempted to have the barrel cut down and have the kx3 permanently mounted. Tempted, but not sure.

From March of 2009 to date, i’ve only had 2 failures, both failures to feed, and one bad round in 1600+ rounds.

Statistics

I started keeping really detailed logs a few years ago. I may be off by a few rounds, but not by much!

In the previous review, i talked about how much cheaper .22lr ammo was than .223 or 5.56. Since then, the price of 22 has gone up a bunch, and the cost of .223/5.56 has come back down to a more reasonable (read: non-panic) price. Because of this, i also have an AR chambered for 5.56, so i shoot that too, and shoot my spikes’s 22 a little less often.

Spike’s Tactical AR-22: one year later. was originally posted at John's Random Review.

A Springfield Armory M1 .30 Caliber Rifle, commonly called an M1 Garand.

The serial number is in the 278xxxx range, which, according to Fulton Armory (via Scott Duff), makes its manufacture date in March of 1944.  By the proof marks on the stock (pics to follow!) it looks like the stock is much newer, either HRA or IH from the mid to late 50’s.  Either way, i think it is the oldest thing i own!

It is in great condition, and it is beautiful!  Laura even said, “That’s way prettier than the AK”

Random Review: A piece of history was originally posted at John's Random Review.

Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.

— From ABCNews.com

I love how all of a sudden a marking like JN8:12 is a “Secret Jesus Code”, instead of a passage in the bible.

This whole article is fully of quotes so hilarious, it should really have been published by the Onion:

“It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they’re being shot by Jesus rifles,” he said.

OMG, since the scope on the rifle has a bible passage book/section number on it, its magical? Do they have the pope sprinkling them with holy water too? Or just the ammunition? I wonder if this will finally put to rest the 5.56mm vs 7.62mm myths to bed. “7.62 has more stopping power!” “Oh, but my scope has 5.56 bullet drop compensation marks and HAS SECRET JESUS CODES!!!!!” “5.56×45 wins!”

“This is probably the best example of violation of the separation of church and state in this country,” said Weinstein. “It’s literally pushing fundamentalist Christianity at the point of a gun against the people that we’re fighting. We’re emboldening an enemy.”

Really? Really? A private company stamping 2COR4:6 on some scopes is the WORST thing that’s ever happened in the separation of church and state? I’d think putting “In God We Trust” on every piece of currency we’ve ever used, or adding “under god” to the Pledge of Allegiance would rank a little higher.

I’d bet the bible markings have a more insidious purpose: anti-counterfitting. Everyone marks production numbers, etc on their stuff, and real ACOGs are not cheap. this is a great way to get that but in a meaningful way. Worst case, Trijicon can just replace the text with the number of the book in the bible, like N4:8:12. (The N for New Testament)

I wanted an ACOG before. Now I need an ACOG. The power of Christ compels you! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!

Now I want an ACOG even more! was originally posted at John's Random Review.

If you’ve never seen one stripped down, you might not recognize it. Here’s a better “pre” picture that will make everything clear.

OMG SO SCARY AK47 MACHINEGUN!!11!! No, its an AK variant, a Yugoslavian M70AB2 underfolder. Its semi-automatic, not a “machine-gun”, so don’t get your panties in a bunch. It’s less powerful than most hunting rifles. Yes, it accepts 30+ round magazines, but so does almost any semi-auto gun these days. Why do i have one? Because (1) i like guns, and (2) the bill of rights says i can, so there! And this way when zombies attack or red dawn goes down, i’ll be ready…Everyone should have at least one AK!

But to me it doesn’t look right with all that plastic, so here are the parts getting replaced (bottom), and the replacements (top):

Inbetween sanding and painting other house projects the last couple days, I’ve been sanding, fitting, oiling, and waxing those wood pieces. Finished, looks much more correct now. The result:

Unfolded to its full size:

Thanks to Ironwood Designs for the fantastic quality, made in the USA handguards and grip. Well worth the wait!

A small wood finishing project. was originally posted at John's Random Review.

Michael’s post is really just a link to a government document full of statistics about “tons” of guns going to Mexico. All of the block quotes here are quotes from the government document.

Mexico is having huge problems, yes, but now people are trying to make it sound like this problem is our fault. And because it is our fault, we should limit our own rights. But that won’t solve the problem. If there really is one. Let the statistics begin!

It is an undisputable (sic) fact that the weapons and firearms used to fuel the drug-related violence in Mexico can be traced back to guns procured legally or illegally here.

Wow, how vague. “weapons and firearms”. plural. That could be one knife and one gun, or one baseball bat and one gun, or could be many more. For an indisputable fact, that isn’t very specific.

In fact, according to ATF’s National Tracing Center, 90 percent of the weapons that could be traced were determined to have originated from various sources within the U.S.

Again, wow. “90% of the weapons that could be traced…” 90% of how many? How many couldn’t be traced? I read this as 9 of the 10 weapons that had serial numbers. the other 300k didn’t have serial numbers because they weren’t manufactured in the united states.

In FY 2007 alone, Mexico submitted approximately 1,112 guns for tracing that originated in Texas, Arizona and California. The remaining 47 States accounted for 435 traces in FY 2007.

Finally! some numbers: 1547 guns in a year. That is “tons” now? they still don’t say how many were traced, just 90% of the TRACEABLE ones were traced. Even if 100% were traceable, that means that 1392 were from the USA. ATF stats for 2007 say that 2.7 MILLION guns were produced that year. Not only that, but 207,000+ guns were legally exported. So if 90% of the guns that were traced to the US turns out to be 1392 guns, that is less than 1 percent (0.67%) of all exported guns, and less than 5 hundredths of a percent (0.05%) of all of the guns sold in the us in 2007. The only way this is tons of guns is if you measure it by the pound.

And again, this is only the guns that were submitted to the ATF for tracing, and those that could be traced. Best case, that’s all 1392, worst case that is NINE.

There are related statistics to these 1392 guns that were traceable that i would like to see:
1) how many of them had been reported stolen?
2) how many of them were reported lost or stolen by the US Government? State and Local governments?

Those are harder numbers to find. So lets look at state by state trace information published by the ATF.

If you look at only the Texas ATF trace statistics for 2007, they traced 14,111 firearms to that state alone. Of those recovered, there were seventeen “machine-guns”. 17 of fourteen thousand!

What is the distribution of the guns given to the ATF for trace? How many hanguns? revolvers? shotguns? rifles? how many were “scary black rifles”? If you go with the texas numbers from above, it would be about half autoloading handguns, then about a fifth revolvers, a fifth shotguns, a fifth rifles, the rest random stuff.
How many exactly were fully automatic? That’s what everyone is talking about, drug runners with scary machine guns!
If you go with the texas numbers above and do the math, it would be less than 2. Yes, two. Two machine guns. All this press and rhetoric about two machine guns.

California has much more restrictive gun laws, so That state must have much fewer guns than Texas, right? Heeeeeeell no. Lets do the same things with the 2007 Cali statistics:
Traced weapons in california in 2007? 27,672. So around double that of Texas and twenty times as many as were done for Mexico. The pistol/revolver/rifle/shotgun distribution is about the same as Texas. How many machine guns? 62 in California. About two tenths of a percent of those recovered. So that would round up to be 3 machine guns in the mexico batch.

In addition, drug traffickers frequently resort to using “straw purchasers” to gain firearms from federally licensed gun dealers in the U.S., dealers who often are unwitting participants in these schemes.

Yes, and straw purchases are already illegal. Its the first checkbox on the ATF 4473 form you fill out when you transfer a firearm. paraphrasing: “Are you buying this for yourself? If no, stop right here.” If someone’s going to lie on the first question of the form, why wouldn’t they lie on every other question on the form?

ATF also has seized large quantities of ammunition for use in these firearms.

Define “large quantities”, that is a very subjective term. Almost everyone who owns a .22LR gun has large quantities of ammunition as they sell ammo in 550 round bricks. People buy .223 and 7.62×39 by the 1000+round case, because its the cheapest way to get it. People build ammo forts and take pictures. Go to any standard retailer (like Cabelas) website and go look at prices for ammunition. Nobody is going to buy ammo 20 rounds at a time for $1 / round when they can buy 1000 for 33 cents/round.

Unfortunately, in the past six months we have noted a troubling increase in the number of grenades, which are illegal to possess and sell, seized from or used by drug traffickers, and we are concerned about the possibility of explosives-related violence spilling into U.S. border towns.

This is the best part of this document. Something that is already illegal to own is being sold to drug traffickers. OMG PONIES! People breaking the law are selling illegal things to other people breaking the law! Lets change the law for selling other things that have nothing to do with this to solve that other problem!

Update 4/2/09:Seems that i’m not the only one who’s complained about this number. FoxNews (yeah, i know, i know) did some real research and got real numbers from someone. the 90% number is exactly what i said it was. A percentage of a small percentage of some smaller number of guns. The real number is around 17%, which is much more reasonable to me based on the size of the border and the number of guns produced here. Its still unclear from that number, though, how many of those were M16′s that might have been produced here under military contract for the mexican government:

More than 150,000 soldiers deserted in the last six years, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo. Many took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.

The article says they are Belgian produced, but some portion might be from the US.

Truth, lies, and gun statistics was originally posted at John's Random Review.

Assembly

It all starts as what they call a “stripped lower receiver”. This is the part that the government classifies as a “firearm”. Even though it barely resembles a gun (its just a milled piece of aluminum with some holes cut in it), it has a serial number, you have to buy it at a gun shop and fill out paperwork and everything.

The rest of the parts you can get just about anywhere, from gun stores to pawn shops to online. The lower parts kit is a large amount of springs, pins, and the other pieces to make the stripped lower into most of a firearm.

Stripped Reciever	Lower parts kit

Since i was building a .22 AR rifle, i shopped around and watched for reviews until i found the place i bought most everything from Spike’s Tactical. There were other .22 kits for the AR, but the most common, the ceiner kit, had a lot of bad reviews, and seemed that were very inconsistant and required a lot of tuning to make it work right. Spike’s has a 22 based upper receiver with a .22 barrel and chamber with a special bolt. Being a popular company and only able to make the bolts so fast, there was 6-10 week wait on all of their 22 uppers over the summer. I’d imagine the way gun sales are going since the election that its an even longer wait now than it was then!

Here’s the upper and lower receiver, handguards, grip, stock, sight, and everything else You need to build a rifle:

All the parts	Fully Assembled

You can buy a complete rifle, but there’s an additional tax on complete rifles. You can buy a completely assembled lower as well, but then I wouldn’t have learned anything, would I? Putting the lower together myself was pretty cool. The mechanism of how the trigger and hammer work is pretty slick. Plus, when you buy an assembled lower you’re also paying for someone else’s time to put it together, so it was cheaper this way too. If you build it yourself, you also get to pick exactly the components you want, like which stock (in this case, a Magpul CTR), and which grip (in this case, just the standard grip), and which trigger (again, standard).

Break-in

I’ve been using the federal bulk pack (red box) ammo exclusively. Its the cheap ammo that spike’s tests with and recommends, and its alright. My marvel 22 pistol doesn’t like it very much, as the ridge area at the rear of the bullet would binds up when feeding. During breakin, a similar thing happend in the rifle too.

FTFd	Crazy FTE

Just that one crazy failure to extract, I’m still not sure how it got in there like that. You can’t see it well in the small picture, but there’s an empty case in there sideways! It was trivial to clear, but some people have reported a similar situation except that the case ends up higher inside where the gas tube would normally be and then gets stuck in there where you have to use a tool to get it out. I haven’t had any problems like that.

During the first 600 rounds, there were a ton of failures (59 to be precise), mostly failures to feed, with a handful of failures to extract. In the last 750 rounds, I’ve only had 7 failures, all but one being failures to feed. So that’s about 1 failure every 4 mags, which for a semiautomatic 22 is pretty good!

The other thing i’ve had a lot of is light strikes (25). The firing pin dents the rim, but not hard enough to fire the round. They’ll fire from my 22 pistol, so i think that its a little bit the rifle, but probably mostly the inconsistency of the cheap ammo.

Performance

Aside from the occasional FTFeed or light strike it works like a charm! I only shoot at an indoor range that maxes out at 25 yards, but even at that distance i’m a pretty good shot. I’ve never fired from the bench or from a rest or anything, so i’m positive it could to a lot better than it does if i had the time and patience to really dial it in. But then again, i’m firing cheapo federal bulk pack, so its not like the ammo is very reproducible.

25 rounds @ 25 yards, standing, unsupported with an Eotech 511
20 rounds @ 25 yards at each target. Again standing unsupported, but these were all with iron sights instead of the eotech.

Statistics

I started keeping really detailed logs of all of my trips to the range about a year ago. I may be off by a few rounds, but not by much!

I load the mags to 25 rounds, so right now, thats about 1 fail per mag, but that ratio has been falling rapidly after the first few hundred rounds.

If you do the math there to compare .223 or 5.56 ammo vs .22LR, thats a huge amount. Federal Bulk pack .22LR is 500 rounds for less than $20. so 2000 rounds would be about $80. Current prices on .223 is about $250 for 500, if you can find it anywhere. so 2000 rounds would cost a cool grand. So on ammo alone i’ve saved almost grand!

Random Review: Spike’s Tactical AR .22LR rifle was originally posted at John's Random Review.

My mini-2 year review of my Marvel Precision .22LR 1911 conversion. This is a continuation of my adventures with it, continued from the original post, and my 1 year followup!
I’ve been keeping religious track of range time in a Numbers spreadsheet for about 9 months now, so I can give exact numbers and ammo used and everything. in the last 9 months i’ve fired:

CCI Mini-mags:	300
CCI Stingers:	133
Total:	433

Follow the jump for the rest of the details and some pics.

In the last 9 months, in 433 rounds, I’ve had 2 Failures, total. For a .22LR pistol, that is completely acceptable to me! Both of them were failures to feed, one stinger, one mini-mag. when it happens, it happens hard. When they get stuck like this, sometimes they can be a pain to get out. most of the time its no big deal though. Other than 2 FTF’s in the last 9 months, i’ve had no issues.

2 years of shooting and here’s what you get (pardon the the poor iphone pics!). All of the pics are at flickr, some of them have additional notes on them if you want more details.

Stingers: 10 @ 30′

I love my Marvel conversion. Aside from the initial break in trips to the range, and trials with cheap ammo, things have been great. I use mini-mags almost exclusively and have hardly any issues, except maybe one failure to feed a month. It shoots more accurately than i could ever hope to! I should really bench rest the thing and see how well it shoots without me! This was all at Sam’s, where i was freezing to death! i could see my breath when i was shooting. And its an indoor range! Brrrrrrrrrrr.

Nitpicks: the only “issue” i’ve had is that the screw that holds the compensator to the barrel comes loose (i even have red loctite on there) from time to time. every few mags i try to wiggle the comp, and if it moves at all i’m done shooting .22 for the day! I’ve only had one problem there where the compensator went downrange (oops!).

My only other nitpick is that the marvel precision website doesn’t seem to work right in firefox or safari on a mac. things that are links (like the ordering page!) on IE aren’t in firefox or safari. wierd. might not help your sales

I like the conversion enough that recently I’ve bought another 1911 (used) so that i can have a dedicated “lower” for it. That way my springer can go back to being a pretty stainless .45!

If you have any issues with images on this page, you can see them in this set @ Flickr.

2 Years Later: Marvel Precision .22LR 1911 Conversion Review was originally posted at John's Random Review.

I’ve had my Marvel Precision conversion kit for more than a year, and my first review of it here was just over a year ago. So In a year, and probably close to 4,000 rounds through it, how has it held up?

10 rounds at 30 feet →

What worked great

The whole package worked awesome.
More specifically,

• The magazine loader, once i bought it.
• CCI mini-mags. probably ~2k of the rounds i’ve fired through it are mini-mags. probably a dozen FTE’s, 20 tops.
• 550 round bricks of Federal ammo worked well enough, but not as well as mini-mags.

Overheard at the range

One of the best parts about having the marvel conversion with a compensator and a red dot scope was the hilarity of conversations I overheard while people were standing around behind me at the range. I’m not the best shot (this gun is WAY more accurate than I am, and i don’t shoot anything at distances more than 40 feet very often. I’m usually shooting from 21 to 30 feet, and in that range, even I’m amazingly accurate with this thing. I hear the usual “wow, he’s pretty good” kind of comments from bystanders when i hit the same spot twice (i mean, besides inside my head, where i’m also saying it ). But the other things i hear are priceless:

Guy 1: That guy’s gun is quiet!
Guy 2: Thats because he has a silencer on it!

Random Dude A to his friend: what kind of gun is that?
Random Dude B: looks like a 1911 45 caliber converted to 22.
Random Dude A: why would you want to convert a 45 to 22? for the power of 45 with a smaller bullet?
Random Dude B: it doesn’t work that way, man.

I overhear the strangest things at my range!

Incidents…

• 1 sheared scope mount screw
  extra screws, 3 screw holes. 2 functioning screws holding it all together. problem solved.
• 2 giant blisters
  that problem went away after getting the mag loader. problem solved.
• 1 loose compensator mount screw causing the comp to fly about 10 feet downrange. Causing the rangemaster to force a cease fire for a minute while i (nervously) went downrange to pick it up. its dangerous walking on all that spent brass, (don’t walk, shuffle!) and being downrange from 10 armed people waiting for you so they can continue shooting was unnerving…fortunately, there was an extra compensator screw in the package. problem solved.
• hundreds of ruined rounds of ammo. the cheap ammo did not feed well, especially anything that wasn’t copper jacketed. Anything that wasn’t smooth had a chance of not going up the feed ramp correctly, then jamming. During break in this was a big issue, but after that much less so. (But again, i had almost no problems whatsoever with the mini-mags!)

All in all…

Overall, like any 22, the marvel conversion can be picky about ammo. I have no problem with that. The long wait to get it was painful. Breakin was a little disappointing while i figured out what worked, but after that I’ve had no real problems. Having extra screws was a bonus. Would I buy another kit from Marvel if I needed one? You betcha! If you do the math of 4000 rounds of 22 vs 4000 rounds of 45, I’ve saved a ton of money. If i had to shoot 45, it would have been cheaper to invest in reloading and learning to reload than to buy all that ammo…

All in all, if you want to shoot your 1911 cheaper, a 22 conversion is the way to go, and the marvel conversion has not been a disappointment! Getting used to the trigger and weight of the gun by shooting all these rounds has made me a much better shot, even when i convert it back to 45. Now i’m looking for a bottom half of a 1911 so i can keep the conversion on one frame all the time and take both the 22 and the 45 to the range at the same time

1 Year Later: Marvel Precision .22LR 1911 Conversion Review was originally posted at John's Random Review.

I previously posted a review of my Springfield 1911, and after using my Marvel Precision Unit 1 1911 .22 LR conversion kit for a while, here are my notes on that. This is a continuation of a previous article, about my Springfield Armory black stainless 1911.

This is one of the most popular pages on the whole site! For more information, you can also see the update to this review, one year later, and another update, the two year review!

I ordered the Marvel Precision Unit 1 1911 .22 LR Conversion Unit a few months after after I got my Springfield 1911. Shooting the .45 was fun, but ammo was getting expensive! Even WWB ammo at walmart is like $20/100 rounds. After going shooting with a friend who brought his brother’s .22LR (with a red dot scope), who had just bought a brick of 550 rounds for like $8, I started looking into getting .22 pistol or a conversion for my 1911 to save on ammo costs. I figure the ammo costs alone will pay for the conversion pretty quickly. (That or i have to start reloading myself, and i’m not ready for that yet!)

I looked into lots of options in 22′s and conversions at several places, like ARFCOM and 1911Forum.com. After reading up at those places, reading reviews, etc, i decided on the Marvel Unit 1.

The marvel unit 1 (which now comes in several lengths: original, commander, and long slide) comes with a detachable adjustable sight rib, a scope mount, or both. I ordered the unit that came with both, because i wasn’t sure if i was going to get a red dot. Well, i was pretty sure i was going to get a red dot, i just didn’t know how long it would take me to find one i wanted.

The website says “please allow up to 6 weeks for shipping”, but i’ve ordered stuff with that kind of warning before without a problem. Marvel must be busy, because after the 6th week of waiting, it still hadn’t arrived. I sent an email, and they responded back that mine would ship out the next week. About a week later, i got another email from marvel indicating it had been shipped, and another with a couple dollar credit back to my credit card. I assume that shipping was less than the original estimate, and that was the reason for the refund, but i wasn’t complaining!

A few days later, the package arrived via USPS. Inside was a zipper bag with the kit, the optional compensator, scope mount rib, screws, the test target, and 2 magazines. (the kit comes with one, i ordered a second). My stuff looked just like this pic from the marvel website, except that my case is red.

Here she is with all the goodies! While i was waiting for the conversion to arrive, i found a red dot for a reasonable price, so i bought that. There’s nothing like getting a scope and then having to wait another month to attach it to something! So while i waited for the conversion to arrive, i mounted it on my airsoft MP5, and “psuedo” sighted it in in the garage. The fully auto airsoft mp5 in the garage is a nice way to kill some time, and shred unwanted credit-card offers! A few weeks later, i sold the adjustable sight rib online because i like the red dot and have no intention of going back to standard sights on this thing!

Shown in the pic is my black stainless springer, with hogue rubber wraparound grips, the marvel conversion with scope mount and compensator, and the red dot scope. Looks pretty bad ass!

Assembly was pretty trivial, just remove the standard top end, attach the conversion, and tighten it down. Getting the slide release in isn’t anywhere near as complicated as the upside-down trickery and idiot scratch avoidance on the normal setup. The only problem that i had? The scope mount and adjustable sight mounts use different screws! They send you sets of each, but i didn’t notice that. So when attaching the scope mount and tightening down the screws, i overtightened one and sheared it off! ooops! Good thing there are three screw locations! I then noticed that the ones i hadn’t tightened down were nowhere near being flush, so maybe i was missing something. I dug through the bag-o-stuff again, and found that there were 2 bags of screws, one mounted “scope mount” and the other bag labelled “adjustable sight”. Sure enough, the scope mount screws were a bunch shorter. So i removed the adjustable mount screws, put in the scope mount screws, which did sit flush, and then removed them and locktite’d them in.

Breakin

Breakin was a little disappointing, to say the least. I had heard that most 22′s, and the marvel unit specificly, were very picky about ammo. I can verify that firsthand. A brick of 550 rounds winchester (i think?) from walmart didn’t go through very smoothly. The first round of each magazine would feed and fire without issue. After that, i had failures to feed or failures to eject/extract every third round or so. Some rounds went in at a wierd upward angle, and the steel barrel would shave off some of the bullet. They would then jam in good enough that i would need to remove them using my fingers or tools. A few fired, and then would not extract at all. I needed to squeeze the extractor and cycle the slide to get them out. From the pics you can see the bent/scratched rounds, and the shavings that were all over the place during the first day of breakin. Some of the shavings appear to be from bullets, some from the brass itself.

After the first disappointing day, i checked the marvel forums to see what people had recommended for breakin, and everyone had different opinions and results. Some said CCI MiniMags worked awesome, others said they didn’t cycle reliably. some people recommended CCI Velocitors, or CCI Stingers. Some people had only used cheap ammo. some only used copper plated, some only high velocity. So i went to midwayusa and bought a variety of ammo. A bunch of minimags, stingers, and velocitors. The one thing i didn’t notice at the time is that the velocitors are steel cased and not brass. My usual range doesn’t allow anything but brass, so to shoot those i had to go somewhere else.

The copper plated ammo worked great compared to the cheap stuff, and the stingers worked almost without incident. The minimags would jam about once per magazine, if that. The stingers failed maybe 1 every 50 rounds, but nothing like the 1 in 3 with the cheap ammo. After going through a few hundred rounds of stingers, i also noticed that the minimags were working much more reliably as well. After going through all of my ammo from midway, it was eating just about anything i fed to it. Even cheap ammo was working more reliably.

The best thing about the stingers was a noticeable flash through the compensator! They also had a much louder report, and much more recoil compared to the minimags. The other interesting note about the comp is that more than one time at the range, i’ve heard some newbie say “look at that guy! he has a silencer!” Oh man, that’s good stuff!

Loading Magazines is a pain!

The biggest pain of the breakin period was loading magazines. The springs in these colt magazines from marvel were super stiff. The first day i got these huge (huge!) blisters from loading mags. At one point i looked down, and saw that the thumb guide on the magazine was actually underneath the skin of my thumb! when i took my thumb off the mag, i expected blood to just pour out, but the blister formed instead. it was one of the creepiest things i’ve ever seen! After that, i started making sure i was wearing long sleeves and put my hand inside my sleeve to load magazines. That was a lot easier, but still was annoying. Loading 45 mags is so much easier.

Mostly Broken In

After going through all of the higher power ammo, the marvel was shooting very well. I’m no marksman, so the gun is a lot more accuare than i am! But it shoots great. with the red dot sighted in, point of aim is point of impact! Now if i could just point it at the same exact place every time i pull the trigger!

Easier mag loading

A few weeks ago i saw that Marvel was selling a magazine loader for the single stack magazines. If i would have seen that when i ordered originally, i would have gotten one! So i ordered another magazine and one of these loaders. A couple days later, it had arrived, again with the wierd email about a credit to my card. You’d think they might have shipping costs figured out by now . The magazine loader makes loading these mags infinitely easier. It only fits on one way, and it has a hole in it that i put a keyring with a mini carabiner so i just snap it on to my range bag or a belt loop and always have it handy. With this thing i can load 10 rounds into the mags almost as fast as i can load a standard 7 round 45 magazine. The only thing that slows me down is how tiny the 22 rounds are!

Broken in!

Now that its all broken in, the marvel is shooting beautifully. In the last few outings, covering around a thousand rounds, it has only had 5 failures to feed/eject. I’ve been using almost exclusively CCI MiniMags, with a 50 or so rounds from a friend’s box of federal thrown in for good measure. After being very worried about its performance early on, i have had no real problems at all. The only problem i have now is that i’m considering getting another 1911 bottom half so that i have a dedicated 22 and can shoot the 45 without any changeovers.

Paper target destruction

All of this is at the local indoor range (Wade’s, but at the moment, the site seems to be all messed up!), from a distance ranging from 21 to 50 feet. I think i have them labelled correctly with distance and ammo, but I should really be marking at the range somehow so i can remember which are which. In this case i was on my last target and i had some rounds left, so i just stuck a few shoot nc’s on there and finished the ammo i had left. I’ve only been shooting regularly for a year now, so i’m still picking up habits.

	21′ CCI MiniMags		50′ CCI MiniMags
	30′ ? CCI Velocitors		40′ ? CCI Velocitors

Marvel Precision .22LR 1911 Conversion Review was originally posted at John's Random Review.

Review of my new 1911, a Springfield Armory PX9154L, or if you like long names, “Tactical Combat Black Stainless Steel Custom Loaded 1911-A1″.

The pictures just don’t do either of them justice!

Springfield Armory 1911-A1

The basic setup is a Springfield Armory PX9154L. (Updated link, the link goes to the ‘LP’ version, which is the closest but not exactly same one as mine)

The only modifications i’ve done is to swap out the standard grips with some Hogue rubber wraparound ones. They make the grip a little bit wider and have finger grooves. I like them. The 1911 “purists” will definately disagree with my choice, though!

After the initial breakin shooting it a couple weekends, I went shooting almost every week before i went to my gamedev class. I put somewhere between 100 and 200 rounds through it every week for like 8 weeks. Through all of those rounds, i’ve had like 5 failures to eject. Its been super reliable, and i’m using the cheapo winchester white box ammo from walmart! It sure gets dirty fast, though!
r accuracy, i can tell you that its more accurate than I am! Here’s some pics from my camera phone from the range:

I’m pretty sure that the first pic is 10 rounds from 10 yards. The second is probably 17 rounds (7+10 rnd mags). it might be 7+7+10, it might be 7+7+10+10, not sure. I should write that down . Even out to 40 feet, 50 feet i can hit the big shoot-n-c sized target pretty much all of the time. Considering i’ve only been shooting handguns for about 6 months, i think its not too shabby!

Marvel Precision .22LR Conversion Kit

Here’s the link to my review of the marvel .22 conversion kit

Pretty, Pretty Bad ASS was originally posted at John's Random Review.