Good trip to the gun show

[wally]

Good trip to the gun show, Range Report update

My CHL renewal came, so I thought I'd go to the GRB "High Caliber" Gun Show to celebrate while my wife went shopping with her sister.

Got a RAP 440 in .40 S&W for $200 and a 4" Charles Daley 45ACP for $380.

Plus a case of Fiochi 45ACP 230 gr FMJ for $170. Both guns came with two mags each.

Heard good things about the RAP here, and couldn't resist the price.


Definitely took a chance on the CD. I've seen many CD 45s that were pretty crappy, but these (from A&J Guns out of Dallas) were very nice. Its a 4" bushingless barrel with reverse plug so its a design variation I don't have. Mags were 8-rnd Mec-gar Trigger pull on a snap cap is very impressive for such a "cheap" gun and compares very close to my Kimbers. Mag catch was rough and need a touch of the file to get the mags go insert smoothly.

Make no mistake, its full if cast parts, it'll be intresting to see how it holds up. I plan to shoot the bejeezes out of it to see how it holds up. Hopefully I can start tomorrow afternoon. Could have got a parkerized Springfield GI with the IMHO ugly "US" grips for maybe $10 more but its sights were unusable to my eyes and the CD has all the creature comforts I prefer and sights I can see without my reading glasses.

--wally.

 

[cerberus]

Well let us know

How they shoot and hold up.

 

[wally]

The RAP is all steel and very heavy for its size, decent trigger not quite as good as on my CZ RAMI. I'll shoot it enough to have cofidence in it (or decide its junk) but then it'll be mostly a safe queen or an occasional carry gun when I know I'll have to leave my piece in the car at my destination -- currently my Taurus Millenium PT145 fills this role.

The CD I really want to see how well it'll hold up, I'll be sure to report back good or bad.

--wally.

 

[wally]

Range Report Update

Stripped and lubed the Charles Daly since it looked dry. Seemed to be a burr on the ambi safety that made it indermittently hard to engage, cleaned up the area that sildes under the notch in the retaining pin and the issue seems fixed.

First potential reason for concern was the mag well. Grabbed an 8-rnd CMC from my Colt so I'd have a known good mag with me for it, wouldn't fit! Got a 7-rnd Colt mag and while it fit, it wouldn't drop free. A few strokes in the right place with a small file fixed this, but getting the CMC mags to work will be a lot more effort! My other 8-rnd MegGar mags fit fine so I brought my oldest of these along with the 7-rnd Colt mag to the range with me just in case. Since the grips were off I swapped in a set of rubber wrap around figuring it'd help my hand since I planned to shoot it a lot.


The RAP was a good boring gun. Shot 100 rnds of Wolf 180gr FMJ and a few mags of 180 gr Golden Saber JHP and 165 gr Hydrashok without problems.


Started the CD off with Armscor 230gr Ball. First shot was right dead on, good start, but by the end of the mag shots had drifted way left, it was very hot, and sweat was in my eyes, but I knew I wasn't doing that badly. After a few more mags the problem was obvious, the front sight was loose in its dovetail! After a field expedient staking to make it stay put, it grouped well. No problems of any kind with the Armscor Ball.

Next go straight for the difficult test -- my 200 gr lead SWC reloads, my CZ97 or Para P10 won't feed these so I know they can be a problem. Burned thru a hundred rounds with no feed issues but I did have a few failures to go fully into battery.

To address this, I next shot 100 rnds of Wolf with no problems of any kind. Went back to another 50 rounds of lead SWC reloads and again had a few failures to go full into battery. Another box of Wolf with zero problems leads me to conclude I may need a little work to shoot lead reloads (my OAL might be a bit too long as over the years its crept out to as long as it can be and still work in my Colt series 70, I'll make a batch seated deaper before doing anything to the gun)

Finished off with about 50 rounds of 230 gr JHP I had on hand -- PMC Starfire, Golden Saber, & Hydrashok. Again no problems in a now thouroughly dirty gun.

Can't fault the CD function, but the attension to detail and QA/QC is lacking as evidenced by the rough safety, undersized mag well, and loose front sight. Function was 100% out of the box with ~250 rounds of factory ammo. and acceptable with a tough to feed reload.

No doubt about it, the RAP was a great buy for $200. The CD functioned perfectly with factory ammo, but I'd have to say stay away unless you are willing to tinker a bit. Overall so far I'd say its better than I expected but not as good as I'd hoped.

I plan to take the CD to the range every time and shoot the beejeezes out of it so I'll report back periodically on to how well it holds up. I'd like to think one could find a 1911 you could count on out of the box for ~$400 -- there are plenty of good choices at this price for 9mm and 40 S&W. CD seems to have improved, but they've still a ways to go.

Photos show 50 rounds of Wolf at 10 yards, rapid fire. The CD seems to be biased a little low, I expect the left right dispersion to reduce some when I get the front sight tightened up right. The .40 S&W was "old" Wolf with the lacquer coating, the .45 ACP the new polymer coated stuff. I've not seen any difference in feed/extraction but the new stuff seems to be more accurate and I've not had a dud round with it yet (the old usually had one or two duds per case)

--wally.

 

[wally]

CD mag well followup

I may need to retract my claim of the CD magwell being undersized, it was tight as evidenced by the 7-rnd Colt mag not dropping free but I just got out a pair of blued CMC 8-round mags and they fit and drop free fine. Looks like I've at least one oversized stainless 8-round mag -- supposedly Colt brand it has the "prancing pony logo and G S on the base plate -- does fit my Colts, Norinco & Kimber.

The Kimber mag also fits and drops free in the CD. Got the 8-round stainless Colt mag out of my Series 80 and it fits fine, so looks like I have a near min spec mag well in the CD and at least one near max spec stainless mag and the pair don't play together.

Still leaves two problems out of the box "stickly" safety and loose front sight:-(

--wally.

 

[WhoKnowsWho]

Good luck on the CD torture test. The only problem I had with my full sized CD was the main spring needed to be replaced with a standard 18.5# to go fully into battery. No loose sights or any other problems though. And it survived its first outing with another guy trying to load rounds directly into the chamber and then trying to make (slamming with palm on back of slide) the extractor go over the rim... It hasn't quite made it to 1000 rounds as far as I know. Hmm... maybe it has, I should keep better count.

 

[wally]

Put another 250 rounds thru it after work today. Started with another box of my SWC lead reloads and had a couple of failures to go fully into battery again -- only with my reloads not factory ammo. I might try a little polishing on top of the chamber since they are feeding fine but occasionally hang such that a little slap on the rear of the slide has it ready to shoot again. Tolerable for cheap practice (~$0.06 per shot for my reloads vs/ ~$0.12 per shot for Wolf).

200 rounds of Wolf fed and fired perfectly but I'm getting warning signs that the extractor may need a bit more tension, a few times the last round was sitting in the chamber -- not a jam because when you drop the mag it follows it out. But on the next to last mag of ammo the last round had the empty hang its rim on the mag lips preventing the mag from dropping free -- this is the first and only failure with ~ 450 rounds of factory ammo.

I'll clean it and adjust the extractor a bit tonight. In fairness, this is more rounds than my Para P10 and Springfield Micro Compact (P12 clone) went before needing an extractor adjustment. We'll see if the results are as successful for the CD as it has been for the PO and SA guns.

I took a prick punch and anchored the front sight by making four "dimples" where the bottom of the sight hits the dovetail, and added a drop of red locktite to each side.. Stayed put and accuracy was noticably better.

I don't have the time to do a 1911Tuner-like torture test, but I plan to shoot it every range trip to see if anything breaks.

--wally.

 

[wally]

You can pay a lot more for a gun and still have problems!

You can pay a lot more for a new gun and still have problems!

http://forums.1911forum.com/poll.php?do=showresults&pollid=513

I'd probably send a ~$900 gun back for repair instead of messing with it too!

OTOH, my first Colt (which wasn't cheap circa 1982!) needed work to be reliable -- I'd rather learn what it takes to get and keep 'em running right just in case the SHTF when these "hobby" skills could come in very handy!

--wally.

 

[wally]

After a minor adjustment to the extractor and good cleaning I put another 250 rouds of Wolf thru the Charles Daly with no failures. Did lots of left handed and one handed shooting no extraction or ejection problems.

Still having a few failures to go fully into battery with my lead SWC reloads. I found a slightly stronger recoil spring and will give it a try next time out as I'd like to be able to use my cheap reloads.

Other than the three rather easy to fix initial problems -- discovered and fixed before firing a shot, and the loose front sight dicovered after a coupe of mags, its been great, my loc-tite and staking job seems to have done the trick on the front sight. I really like this gun for the price.

Put another 100 rounds thru the RAP. Doesn't shoot as nicely as the CD but at half the price it was a great deal and is accurate enough for defense.

--wally.

 

[wally]

Well the extra strength recoil spring didn't really help the going into battery problem with my cast lead SWC reloads. Shot 150 rounds of them and had 6 or 7 failures -- two were bad rounds that just wouldn't chamber, the others fed fine from slide lock when I cleared them and put them back on top of the mag. It could just be the old brass has rims that are too beat up in spots that they will hang on the extractor, but I don't generally have this problem with this ammo in my Colts, Kimbers, Norinco or Springfield.

Since the going in to battery problem didn't stop and ejection was weaker with the stronger spring, I put the original spring back in and went thru another 200 rounds of Wolf FMJ witout a bobble. This was some of the old lacquer coated stuff.

Im feeling pretty good about this purchase.

I'll stop with these reports now, and report back only if something breaks down the road or I hit a major milestone line 5K rounds without problems beyond what I have with my SWC reloads. I can't continue to shoot a case of factory ammo (even if its Wolf!) every 8 or 9 days.

--wally.

 

[WhoKnowsWho]

I can't continue to shoot a case of factory ammo (even if its Wolf!) every 8 or 9 days.

I know, doesn't that suck?

Good luck! Hope to hear about 5K soon!