Les Baer 9mm PII

The gun arrived today from John at Proload. He was great to deal with. I had contacted him a few weeks ago to inquire about the availability of these. He said it was uncertain when the next ones would show up, 2 weeks to a couple months. He put my name on one. Called last week. It took a couple days to get things done with the holiday.

It is a full sized Government 1911 in 9mm, arrived today. Did not have time to shoot it. I did do a semi field strip. The barrel bushing turned fairly easily, so I pulled the slide. The barrel bushing had no interest in coming out, so I did not force it. I did put in a slightly lighter recoil spring, and will try it out with that spring first. I can replace the spring at the range if necessary.

The trigger is superb. The manual safety is a bit stiff. Workmanship is great.









It wants to go shooting with it's older and bigger brother.

$1,825 at the dealer's door, $35 for the transfer and background check. I sold a Sig 226 Sport Stock and 220 Sport Stock over on the Sig Forum to finance this.

I'll post some targets. Keep in mind the 57 yr old eyes will not do this gun justice. I need great guns to shoot moderately.

I can sure understand why they wouldn't let people buy these in California. They are identical to the .45s, but in the much more lethal 9mm, and they hold nine rounds at a time!!!!

Sorry Richard. We Oregonians do enjoy commenting on the folks down South

I went to the range this afternoon. I had 250 rounds of Federal American Eagle, 250 rounds on UMC, 100 rounds of Sellier & Bellot, 100 rounds of hand loaded 124 gr Hornady Action Pistol, and lots of 125 & 147 gr lead hand loads.

First 250 rounds of Federal were flawless. Accuracy was OK. Trigger is great. I had put a 10 pound recoil spring in to replace the one form the factory.

Decided to run some of the Hornadys through. Better accuracy. A few function problems. Didn't know if it was the reloads or what. Failure to ejects.

Then I tried some Sellier & Bellot. Very bad problems. Failure to eject every few rounds. The UMCs were about as bad. It was very strange, I would load a new mag, the only one with the gun. Round would chamber. Gun fires and failure to eject. When I drop the mag there is a round floating in the receiver. Drop it out and case ejects. I loaded some rounds singly. They fired and ejected fine. I loaded some from a full mag, then dropped the mag. Fire and eject great.

I thought things might be dirty so did a field strip. Barrel bushing came out just fine. Cleaned the gun and pulled the follower out of the mag and flushed it out a bit.

Put it all back together, with the recoil spring from the factory,same problem. Decided to try some of my other reloads. Ran some 124 gr lead round nose. They were reduced loads. They worked better. I had an occasional round jump out with the spent casing. A fresh round would just pop out in the air with the spent case.

I think I have a mag issue. Not sure just what the problem is, but the gun runs great if the mag isn't in, and runs good when the rounds are saying in the mag until the slide goes forward into battery. The 147 gr reloads were good. I ran 100 through the gun without a hitch and called it a day.

Before shooting with the new Esmeraldas.





Targets at 20 yards with the American Eagle and HAP









Gun filed stripped



Last targets at 25 yards

I shot speed steel this morning with my CA75BD. Had a blast. I did run another 250-300 rounds through the Baer after the match. A couple of my buddies were shooting with me. They like the trigger. We had a 9 1/2" steel plate at 25 yards and the consensus was that it wasn't a challenge at all. Moving among targets would be more of a challenge. Just shooting the one was pretty routine.

I didn't have any more American Eagle. I ran about 150 147gr reloads with no trouble. Then moved to some 125 gr. A few of the same problems. Nothing like yesterday, but the second round in the mag flipped out fairly often. It doesn't affect the shooting or cycling, but it is wrong. Tried the UMC and they wouldn't work at all. They run in my 952 pretty well, and the CZ, so they will get shot.

I'm going to tear the mag clear down and really clean it out good and re-lube with Essox.

Yes, having break-in issues on a new Baer is definitely in the luxury problem category. Also the need for constant cleaning, trying new loads and excessive range time fit there as well.

Took the mag apart. This looks wrong to me. I've never seen a bend upwards like that in the top coil.