The Wiry Irishman
Member
The Gun:
Les Baer Premier II
1.5" Guarantee
Adjustable night sights
Bead-blasted hard chrome
Solid trigger
Ordered February 2009, received August 2009
Ammo
200 230gr. Gold Dot
200 230gr. +p HST
9000 230gr cast LRN reloads, loaded with mostly 4.8gr. Bullseye or 6.0 gr. Unique (excluding load development, also one or two thousand were loaded with 6.3 or 6.5gr Unique. 1000 Mastercast bullets, 8000 Missouri)
600 200gr cast SWC reloads, 3.6gr. Bullseye (Lasercast bullets)
Magazines:
Metalform 8 round, traditional metal follower
Metalform 10 round, rounded metal follower
Shooting Star 8 round, traditional metal follower
Baer 8 round, plastic follower
Tripp 8 round, hybrid follower
Tripp 10 round, hybrid follower
Kimber 7 round, traditional metal follower
Maintenance, etc:
18.5# recoil spring changed every 3000 rounds
Firing pin spring changed with every recoil spring (hey, they come with the Wolff recoil springs, so why not?)
Cleaned after every firing (ranging from 200 - 1000 rounds in one session)
Lubed with CLP initially, switched to FP-10
Detail stripped and detail cleaned every 2000 rounds
Mainspring replaced at 10,000 rounds
Issues:
2600 rounds - Barrel link pin broke. Contacted Baer, spoke to the man himself, had two free new ones at my door 48 hours later.
6000 rounds - Nub on slide stop that gets pushed up by follower broke clean off. Gun still functioned, just would not lock back on an empty mag. Also the rear sight blade seemed kinda loose. Sent it back to Baer, they fitted a new slide stop and gave me a new rear sight free of charge, I also had them fit a pair of spare extractors and a solid trigger on my dime. (after receiving the pistol, the speed hole trigger was the only thing I wished was different) Total time at Baer: a little less than a months. Impressive considering they had to have the slide stop and extractors plated. The gun came back almost as tight as it was when it was new.
9000 rounds - Tab on sear spring that holds it into the frame broke. Fitted a spare that used to be in my Kimber, it was back up in running in less than an hour.
About a quarter of my Metalform 8 round mags did not like to feed the last round, the slide would just skim right over it and lock up on an empty chamber. These mags were marked and set aside for range use. After returning from Baer to have the slide stop replaced, these mags functioned normally. I have had two malfunctions outside of breakin that were not magazine (aforementioned issue with Metalforms, the Baer mag it came with flips hollowpoints vertically inside the mag but feeds ball just fine) or ammo related. (backwards primer in reload, etc) Both were failures to feed where the bullet missed high going into the chamber and the case head stayed in the magazine. The last one occured between 6000 and 6200 rounds, making at least 3800 rounds since its last malfunction.
Wear, Accuracy, and Picturey Goodness:
My 10,000th round:
Said round being fired:
Accuracy - I only bench rest the gun during load development because its possibly the most boring thing you can do with a handgun. I was hoping I could get some nice little groups today to show how accurate this gun is, but I was a little off my game and they had some disappointing spread to them. I even completely missed the rings once. They were all shot at 15 yards, standing, 50 rounds per bull.
Sometimes your first shot on target is so good you just have to leave it alone and move on to the next one:
Stripped down after I got it home: (10 1911 nerd points to the first person that can identify what part is missing)
Extractor:
Ejector:
Slide locking lugs:
Barrel locking lugs:
Bottom of slide:
Top of frame:
The best shot I could get of the bore with crappy light. It still looks like it did new, but shooting all lead like I do, it should last close to forever:
Breech face:
And it all put together again:
General Thoughts:
I really love this gun, which explains why its my highest round count gun and how it got there so quickly. I really can't think of anything I'd want to change about it, or any real criticism of it. I especially love the hard chome finish, both the look of it, and the fact that it doesn't really wear, it just gets shiny. I do, however, find it amusing that I had more parts breakages with this gun in the first 6000 rounds (2) than I had with my MIM-filled Kimber that the internet tells me will crumble to dust at the first sign of danger (0). I'd be kinda miffed about that, but every company makes a few bad parts, I have been running it kind of hard (though I don't think the gun would know the difference between 10,000 rounds in 6 months and 10,000 in 6 years) and Baer service for my problems has been excellent. I couldn't be happier with my purchase.
Les Baer Premier II
1.5" Guarantee
Adjustable night sights
Bead-blasted hard chrome
Solid trigger
Ordered February 2009, received August 2009
Ammo
200 230gr. Gold Dot
200 230gr. +p HST
9000 230gr cast LRN reloads, loaded with mostly 4.8gr. Bullseye or 6.0 gr. Unique (excluding load development, also one or two thousand were loaded with 6.3 or 6.5gr Unique. 1000 Mastercast bullets, 8000 Missouri)
600 200gr cast SWC reloads, 3.6gr. Bullseye (Lasercast bullets)
Magazines:
Metalform 8 round, traditional metal follower
Metalform 10 round, rounded metal follower
Shooting Star 8 round, traditional metal follower
Baer 8 round, plastic follower
Tripp 8 round, hybrid follower
Tripp 10 round, hybrid follower
Kimber 7 round, traditional metal follower
Maintenance, etc:
18.5# recoil spring changed every 3000 rounds
Firing pin spring changed with every recoil spring (hey, they come with the Wolff recoil springs, so why not?)
Cleaned after every firing (ranging from 200 - 1000 rounds in one session)
Lubed with CLP initially, switched to FP-10
Detail stripped and detail cleaned every 2000 rounds
Mainspring replaced at 10,000 rounds
Issues:
2600 rounds - Barrel link pin broke. Contacted Baer, spoke to the man himself, had two free new ones at my door 48 hours later.
6000 rounds - Nub on slide stop that gets pushed up by follower broke clean off. Gun still functioned, just would not lock back on an empty mag. Also the rear sight blade seemed kinda loose. Sent it back to Baer, they fitted a new slide stop and gave me a new rear sight free of charge, I also had them fit a pair of spare extractors and a solid trigger on my dime. (after receiving the pistol, the speed hole trigger was the only thing I wished was different) Total time at Baer: a little less than a months. Impressive considering they had to have the slide stop and extractors plated. The gun came back almost as tight as it was when it was new.
9000 rounds - Tab on sear spring that holds it into the frame broke. Fitted a spare that used to be in my Kimber, it was back up in running in less than an hour.
About a quarter of my Metalform 8 round mags did not like to feed the last round, the slide would just skim right over it and lock up on an empty chamber. These mags were marked and set aside for range use. After returning from Baer to have the slide stop replaced, these mags functioned normally. I have had two malfunctions outside of breakin that were not magazine (aforementioned issue with Metalforms, the Baer mag it came with flips hollowpoints vertically inside the mag but feeds ball just fine) or ammo related. (backwards primer in reload, etc) Both were failures to feed where the bullet missed high going into the chamber and the case head stayed in the magazine. The last one occured between 6000 and 6200 rounds, making at least 3800 rounds since its last malfunction.
Wear, Accuracy, and Picturey Goodness:
My 10,000th round:
Said round being fired:
Accuracy - I only bench rest the gun during load development because its possibly the most boring thing you can do with a handgun. I was hoping I could get some nice little groups today to show how accurate this gun is, but I was a little off my game and they had some disappointing spread to them. I even completely missed the rings once. They were all shot at 15 yards, standing, 50 rounds per bull.
Sometimes your first shot on target is so good you just have to leave it alone and move on to the next one:
Stripped down after I got it home: (10 1911 nerd points to the first person that can identify what part is missing)
Extractor:
Ejector:
Slide locking lugs:
Barrel locking lugs:
Bottom of slide:
Top of frame:
The best shot I could get of the bore with crappy light. It still looks like it did new, but shooting all lead like I do, it should last close to forever:
Breech face:
And it all put together again:
General Thoughts:
I really love this gun, which explains why its my highest round count gun and how it got there so quickly. I really can't think of anything I'd want to change about it, or any real criticism of it. I especially love the hard chome finish, both the look of it, and the fact that it doesn't really wear, it just gets shiny. I do, however, find it amusing that I had more parts breakages with this gun in the first 6000 rounds (2) than I had with my MIM-filled Kimber that the internet tells me will crumble to dust at the first sign of danger (0). I'd be kinda miffed about that, but every company makes a few bad parts, I have been running it kind of hard (though I don't think the gun would know the difference between 10,000 rounds in 6 months and 10,000 in 6 years) and Baer service for my problems has been excellent. I couldn't be happier with my purchase.
