Took my new Springield GI to the range today along with a box of Blazer Brass 230gr ball, a box of UMC 230gr ball, a box of my reloads- 200gr lswc over 5.0 gr W231 and a handful of Fiocci 230gr ball rounds. For a warmup I slow fired half of the box of UMC without a hitch and then I started in with the reloads, another 30 or so rounds. No hiccups yet. Accuracy good at 30yds, not great but good enough to make me happy considering it aint even broken in yet. After the 30 rounds of reloads I loaded up the clip with the Fiocci (had bad luck with this same batch of ammo in another Springfield-a milspec I had for 2 days once) and I slid the clip into the mag well with the slide already locked open and depressed the slide stop and the slide went forward and stopped out of battery. This was because either the mag may have not been clicked into place, crappy bullet lube all over the feed ramp from the reloads, generic Fiocci ammo or because I didn't slingshot the slide from closed to load the round. Take yer pick but I don't think it was the guns fault. Anyhow, another try with a mag full of Fiocci and a sling shotted slide and the gun fired right through all 7 no problems. Then I finished off the rest of the fiocci and went back to the reloads till they were gone. Had one more failure to go into battery with them but this time it was obvious that the feed ramp was pretty fouled from sticky bullet lube and powder. I cleaned it off best I could with my index finger and started with the Blazer ammo next. About halfway through the box I had another failure to go into battery on the first round (didn't rack the slide, just released the slide stop) stopped reloaded the mag again, racked the slide and finished the clip off without a hitch. After that, towards the end of the box of Blazers I think I had one more failure to feed on the last round and that was the last of the failures. Went back to the UMC ammo and shot through the rest of it without incident.
In all I'm more that impressed with the gun, I think if I'd have not shot those dirty shooting reloads the gun would have faired much better today so, I didn't see anything which would cause me to worry about the guns reliablity. The slide action is still a tad gritty and slide to frame fit is quite tight yet. It's nowhere's near broken in good yet. Next time will be better. Otherwise, ejection and extraction were decent, no stovepipes like my Norinco was good for. Also, accuracy quite nice, at one point I had a splendid 30 yard 2.5" 5 shot group with the Blazer ammo and the thick wood grips helped soak up much of the recoil nicely. Now to go clean her up for next time. I'll strip and clean the inside of the magazine this time also and possibly stone the bottom edges of the follower, they seem a little rough as well, which could explain some of the failures today. I'll report back here next weekend after my second trip to the range, this time with all factory ammo!
In all I'm more that impressed with the gun, I think if I'd have not shot those dirty shooting reloads the gun would have faired much better today so, I didn't see anything which would cause me to worry about the guns reliablity. The slide action is still a tad gritty and slide to frame fit is quite tight yet. It's nowhere's near broken in good yet. Next time will be better. Otherwise, ejection and extraction were decent, no stovepipes like my Norinco was good for. Also, accuracy quite nice, at one point I had a splendid 30 yard 2.5" 5 shot group with the Blazer ammo and the thick wood grips helped soak up much of the recoil nicely. Now to go clean her up for next time. I'll strip and clean the inside of the magazine this time also and possibly stone the bottom edges of the follower, they seem a little rough as well, which could explain some of the failures today. I'll report back here next weekend after my second trip to the range, this time with all factory ammo!
