by on_one_wheel » 20 Apr 2021, 9:45 am
It looks the goods, did you read the great review left by James?
I’m just getting back into pistol shooting and going through the hurry up and wait phase. I was happy to find this widget available locally given our local firearms regulations define a pistol as more or less anything that looks like a pistol making an overseas import of something similar look a bit iffy.
So what’s there to like about this?
On the good side when you pick it up has a similar feel to my old 1911. It’s a bit lighter, particularly at the muzzle end but it does have some heft thanks to a weighted magazine and a steel weight where the hammer group would be. The sights are fine, although the foresight is red – nothing a bit of marker pen won’t fix. It’s easy to adjust for windage pushing on the dovetail rear sight and both the windage and elevation adjustments on the laser work fine with the supplied Allen key. When you hit the target it falls over then pops back up, and that’s fun, so it does what it is supposed to.
So that’s the good stuff. Here’s a list of the things I don’t really love about it.
First and foremost there’s the trigger. I has a 5-6 pound pull and while the break is reasonably clean it grates on the uptake and then overtravels by a full 4 mm. The closest approximation would be feeling like the trigger on a really bad double action revolver. Actually, I had a SIG P226 that had a trigger almost this bad on DA and sold it for that reason. A target trigger it is not.
That said, this trigger issue is not entirely a bad thing. If you can keep this gun on target and during the follow through then just about any production gun, even with an unworked stock trigger, is going feel great.
Two target units are provided. They feel cheap and nasty in terms of plastic quality but work fine. You need 4 AAs (not supplied) for each one.
Several different clip on targets made out of foam board are provided but, for reasons that totally elude me, the hole for the laser sensor is NOT punched into the centre of the target. In mine, this is a full 10 mm below centre. WTF? 6mm above the sensor is a red diode that also sticks through the target and glows when the unit is powered up. FWIW this diode is still 4 mm below the centre of the target and is an annoying distraction. Also of note is the fact there are no black centre, white/beige outer targets like you see on every pistol range everywhere. I fixed this problem by overlaying an airpistol target, cutting one hole for the sensor (in the X ring, not the 9 ring!) and sticking it on. This also covers the distracting diode.
The last issue is the duration of the laser pulse. It’s too long. The reason this matters is that say you hold right, but push left with your triger finger. The laser will trace a line from 3 o’clock to 9 o’clock, go past the sensor, and register a hit for what should have been a miss. Once again this is not entirely a bad thing because if you shoot (particularly with both eyes open) you can see your “flinch/push/pull/lack of follow through” as a moving laser dot.
So all up, was it worth $279? For me yes, it’s a fun toy and not a bad training aid. When I finally pass the hurry up and wait stage I will use the targets with a laser cartridge in a real gun for dry fire, but even then the rules say I can’t have a real pistol in my office desk for a bit of lunchtime practice, whereas I can with this.
If you can get reliable hits with this at 10 m your technique will need to be pretty good. Last week I shot 270 @ 25m – this week I reckon I’ll be better…
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