the testing begins

[Lloyd Smale]

got my psa dagger today. Its a glock 19 clone. Came with 10 pmags for 350 bucks shipped. Loaded up the 10 mags with  120 hp cast pc coated ammo. Took it to the pit without oiling or cleaning it and dumped all 10 mags as fast as i could pull the trigger. Not one burp so far. Ill load them back up in the morning with a 130 flat point cast pc coated bullets. Same load (4.5 grains of br2 (aa2) )  to be fair i did pull the slide off and palmetto did oil it. So far i really like this thing. The grip is way better. Almost as good a smith M&P. Also has steel sights and recoil rod vs plastic on the glocks. It may not be a glock but if you factor the mag cost its around 250 bucks. Glock could sure study on that grip frame and make that there gen 6 gun. It IS that much better. It has a trigger like an m&p too. Hinged vs the tab. I didnt have a pull gauge but its typical glock poundage. It broke clean though and that trigger is nice and wide and feels much better and it makes the trigger feel better then it is. If this gun turns out to be reliable long term its got to be the best bang for the buck on the market. Ive got 9 glocks and needed this like a hole in the head but my curiosity got the best of me. Now im trying to find a way to justify another. Wife wouldnt going for it though when i told her she needed one

[Lloyd Smale]

another 150 rounds of cast today out of the 10 mags and it even ran two 30 round cheapy ets sticks so another 210 rounds. Pulled the slide off of it and it was surprisingly clean. that aa2 sure burns well. That and at least half the bullets were pc coated so less bullet lube fouling. Loaded them back up for tomorrow. So 360 rounds and done as fast as i could pull the trigger and slap new mags in it. Barrel was smoking hot at the end of both days. Should break 500 tommarow. Id like to get to a 1000 before my surgery on the first of feb. That will put me out of commission for a few months.

[Lloyd Smale]

well i had a first bobble today. Dont know if it was my fault the mags fault or the guns. I was shooting steel and took 3 shoots out of one of the mag and the mag dropped out. Stuck it back in and the rest ran fine. Shot the 10 pmags and 2 ets 30 rounders and other then that it ran perfectly. I marked the mag in case it happens again. I did slow down and shot steel instead of just doing mag dumps becaues we had a balmy 30 degree day and the snows settled enough i could get into the range. So that 560 now without touching it. That used to be my magic number for new 1911s. If they made 500 trouble free i kept them if they didnt they went down the road. Slight differnce though. My 1911s were shot with the best mags. Chip mccormicks and wilsons. This gun has seen exactly two glock mags and the rest cheap pmags and ets. Im shooting for a 1000 before i pull it apart and clean it. Shot a few more mags out of the 27 too. I really like that gun. Its a tough choice for carry between that one and the 30s.

[billy_56081]

I have a couple of P80s, the G19 sized one has a Dagger upper on it.

[Lloyd Smale]

well i officially ended the test. It made 1050 rounds and the last mag i shot it started to act up and miss feed. Didnt have any more mag drops. Remember this was never cleaned or oiled. I could see toward the end the slide was getting sluggish and it could be partially blamed on the 30 round ets mag. They have given me trouble in some guns. Especially the first generation. the gen 2 mags have glock springs in them and work better. Took it home and hosed the mud out of it and even cleaned the barrel which look pretty clean as it was. No leading what so ever. Oiled it and took two pmags and stepped out the back yard and shoot them off. Ran perfectly again and no more sluggish slide so most likely it was just gummed up from the bullet lube. Id bet if all i shot was jacketed it would have went another 1000 rounds. 10 years ago you would have never convinced me a cheap gun like this would be that reliable. I remember jumping up and down and bragging when my new high dollar 1911 made 500 rounds without a bobble.

[darkgael]

Thanks for taking the time to do the shooting and enduring the task of reloading all of that ammo into magazines. I enjoyed the reports and the details.

[Lloyd Smale]

terrible job but someone has to do it   shooting is my passion. Loading? not so much. Where i draw the line today isnt even on primers. Its brass. 9s are everywhere for cheap 40 is still pretty easy to find but the days of testing 45acps like that are long gone. Ive got a crap pile of large primers but have you tried to find once fired 45 brass lately.

[darkgael]

.45 brass…. I am careful to pick up all of my .45s. The days of finding 50 fired and left by other shooters are years gone where I am.

[Dee]

I've shunned 9mm for decades, but round capacity seems a little more important in my neck of the woods these days. 357 magnum prices are ridiculous these days if you can find it, 40 is a little better, but you can get 9mm for under 200 dollars a thousand.
I'm beginning to like the Sig, but there's so much going on here, I now take my wife grocery shopping, and park by the door to make sure she gets to the car safely in broad daylight. For that chore I take more than a pistol.

Now that you know the cheapee pistol is reliable, what happens to it now?

[Lloyd Smale]

probably give it to one of my nephews or nieces that i havent already gave a gun to. I was never a big fan of the 9s either. Always had a couple but honestly rarely shot them. What changed it for me was about 5 years ago when we had the first 22lr shortages. I couldnt find 22s anywhere at any price and wanted to shoot cheap and looked at the 9 and that was the answer. Bullets were free because i cast them. Powder? 4 grains of aa2 is plenty for plinking and a lb of powder goes along ways and back then surplus aa2 was selling for 60bucks for a 8lb jug. Primers were still a 120 bucks a case (not a brick) It was about as cheap as 22s and i had an unlimited supply right in the loading room. At first the idea was to buy 9s that were indentical to my serious guns so i could even do muscle memory stuff. Somewhere in it i found that theres nothing much more fun to shoot then 9s and 556s. Then if bought a couple 9mm ar15s. Found they were very accurate even out to a 100 yards and if you closed your eyes and could shut down your ears youd never know which one you were shooting. Recoil is about indentical. To me theyve about replaced 22s. Only 22 i shoot anymore is my smith ar22 pistol with a binary trigger. Its fun to rip a mag out of and is an accurte 22. Every bit as accurate as my 10/22s so it does small game hunting too. I love to shoot so 9s have become the most shot things in the house. I prefer a 40 or 45 for carry but keep a smith shield 9 in every vehicles glove box and do on occasion carry my glock 43 in the hot t shirt weather. I said it before. If i lived where you live id rethink my carry guns because theres at least a 1000 percent better chance you will actually need them then i will up here. I think if i lived there it would be  one of my favorite glock 22s uncomfortably in an iwb holster. Or maybe my 27 with a spare glock 22 mag. Ammo count would mean MUCH more to me then it does up here today.

[nw_hunter]

S&W M&P beats the Glicks hands down every day. They are 400 yrd guns. Here's proof.........   In this video, you see an average shooter with his Smith at about 400yds on steel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK0EdI_RluY