I did it. Range report 850rds.

[WinchesterAA]

Bought the High Standard Crusader Compact

Read a few good things about them but there's not a whole lot of info out there so I was too curious to pass it up. Bought the crusader, 100rds of magtech 230gr ball, 400rds of fiocchi 230gr JHP, and 350rds of handloaded crap at the range (I couldn't stop shooting, it was just so much fun... Even brought my fiance along to enjoy it with me) and a wilson combat 8 round mag. Gave it a light coat of oil and headed to the range.

Here's what I learned.

chewing holes in paper is easy with it, but it shoots 2 inches or so low at 15 yards. No biggie.

I had 3 malfunctions on the last couple of magazines with the handloads, after it was nice and dirty it failed to return to battery, but a very fragile nudge on the rear of the slide chambered the round.

It's even more fun to shoot than my colt, and for whatever reason, is FAR FAR FAR easier to control and shoot rapidly. I had two bullseye targets setup on the range glider thing and was transitioning between them as fast as I could, which was pretty fast. Easy on, easy to control, an absolute blast to shoot.

The novak magazine and the Wilson Combat 8rder I bought both worked equally well, and overall I have not a complaint whatsoever.

I was scared though.. Thought it might be a dud, but so far so good.

All ammo worked very well, from what I could tell there was no discrimination between HP and FMJ.

Spent a crapload of money, but luckily it was not in vain.

My fiance is tiny, and quite frail, and it jumped a bit when she shot it. She couldn't aim very well at all, but mostly due to her being very new to shooting and all of that, but it didn't jam on her either.

I'm happy =) I have a CCW piece!

I'm not sure what the deal is with me being more proficient with an entirely new pistol than with the colt I've had for about a year and a half now. That kinda weirded me out. I was expecting something along the lines of my experience with a seacamp that just wasn't working for me at all as far as followup shots went, but with the Crusader it was like I'd been shooting it forever. Weird, and I'm not going to complain about it any further.


I do wonder though about the failures to return to battery. That happens with my colt and the handloads from that range too after a few hundred rounds. Rubbing the gunk off of the feedramp fixes the issue temporarily, but after putting a heavier recoil spring (to 1911tuners apparent displeasure) in that hasn't happened. What's the real issue there, aside from the obvious of the grime making things a little sticky?

847 of 850rds fired were flawless on a NIB knockoff pistol that comes with a manual that clearly states "BREAK IN PERIOD REQUIRED" aint bad right?

 

[Geronimo45]

Nice report. Were the malfunctions on the last round of the magazine?

 

[WinchesterAA]

No, 3rd or fourth round each time, 3 times, on my last bag of ammo, in both magazines (handloaded 240gr ammo).

Thru my colt with it's compensator this ammo makes absolutely mandatory that you have eye protection, as more times than not a good bit of unburnt powder gets blown into your face. Like a kid throwing dirt in your eyes, and some of it burns.

So, I feel pretty safe blaming the ammo. Hate that stuff, but it's atleast 5$ cheaper than anything else I can find, and I wanted to shoot a lot. + short torture test.

 

[Claude Clay]

lot of unburnt powder......were the reloads on the light power side? between the accumulated 'stuff' and a marginal power load, failour to battery could happen. 3" are a lot less forgiving than 5 or even commander size when less than clean. sounds like a keeper, good luck. how was accuracy?

 

[WinchesterAA]

Accuracy was pretty good actually. At 15 yards it was shooting about 2 or 2 and a half inches low. I normally chop out the centers of targets over a few magazines, which is what I did today but there was a nice center ring shaped hole in the target 2 inches lower than the center, so with fixed sights I don't know exactly what I can do aside from replacing them, which will have to wait a bit after all of that $$ I blew today.. I got a bit carried away there. For now I'll just learn how to aim higher accurately and resume chopping centers.

That's pretty acceptable IMO.

They don't list specs on the reloads, but probably not too far under factory loading?