| 53,526 rounds | 9 stoppages (+1 w/non-LCI extractor) |
0 malfunctions | 1 parts breakages |
The only shooting I got in during the holiday was the inaugural KSTG match at the NRA Range. I shot the match with my everyday carry gear, including my Federal 124gr +p HST carry ammunition. And hey, I won! The fact that I designed every stage, ran almost every shooter through every stage, was the only guy with a laser, was one of the few with a weapon mounted light for the low-light stage, etc. probably had nothing to do with it, right?
There was one bobble with the gun on the second run of the F.A.S.T. drill. See if you can catch it:
When I drew the gun, I managed not to reach the trigger safety. That’s happened to me a couple of times in dry fire recently, as well, and is a result of the Crimson Trace LG-850 Lasergrip. It only happens when I rush my draw and get my thumb farther around the left side of the gun than usual. I’m not sure yet whether it’s the added girth simply increasing trigger reach or if there is something about the grip’s contour that entices me to center the gun in my hand differently. Obviously, it doesn’t happen often but I’ll need to change something (my technique or the grip) because a second-long pause when I’m desperately trying to shoot the gun as fast as possible from the holster just sucks.
Just to be certain, I disassembled the gun and examined some specific areas of the trigger mechanism and frame with some guidance from an experienced Glock armorer instructor. While he said he wasn’t aware of any wear-related issue that could cause the trigger safety to stick in the “on” position, it was still good to rule that out as a potential cause. Playing with it dry fire, it’s very clear what I need to do to make the problem appear and it is 100% a repeatable function of where the gun sits in my hand.
Otherwise, the Lasergrip rocks and I cannot believe I let myself forget that. Here’s a great example:
The targets with the big red “X’s” are good guys… there’s a big penalty for hitting them even if the bullet passes through a bad guy (no red “X”) first. Trying to handle all of that visual chaos while focused on the front sight is a lot harder than just looking at what’s happening downrange and seeing your aiming point magically track where you look. You can see it most clearly with that first swinging target.
Of course, the more I play with the laser the more I wish it worked as well outdoors in sunglight. Crimson Trace has always shied away from making a green version of their Lasergrips because battery life would be ridiculously low. But to be honest, I’d rather replace the batteries after every 15 minutes of actual being “on” than give up their benefits even some of the time. Something to talk to them about at SHOT, I suppose. But don’t hold your breath.
See you in 2012!
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
Previous Glock 17 gen4 Endurance Test posts at pistol-training.com:
- Week 39
- Week 38
- Week 37
- Week 36
- Week 35
- Week 34
- Week 33
- Week 32
- Week 31
- Week 30
- Week 29
- Week 28
- Week 27
- Week 26
- Week 25
- Week 24
- Week 23
- Week 22
- Week 21
- Week 20
- Week 19
- Week 18
- 25,000 Rounds with the G17 gen4
- Week 17
- Week 15
- Week 13
- Week 12
- Week 11
- Week 10
- Week 9
- Week 8
- Week 6
- Week 5
- Week 4
- Week 3
- Week 2
- Week 1
- 99.8%
- It Lives
- Week Zero
- When Will It Stop?
- Announcement
Is the laser diode accessible to possibly being replaced with a green laser diode? Or is it all molded into the grip itself?
Green vs. red under bright sunlight are just varying degrees of suckiness. If you can see the red laser at 7 yards, the green would be visible at 12 yards. Neither works that great under a blazing sun and both are very target color sensitive.
The green advantage really starts showing up under dim conditions where the intensity and the range increase substantially over the red.
The red comes back into its own under pitch black conditions where the green is sometimes too intense and at ranges beyond 25 yards where the reds tend to hold a finer dot.
Todd,
With having medium sized hands at best, I sometimes find myself doing this with the Gen3 or earlier Glocks due to the overall trigger reach and how I prefer to align the pistol in my hand while using my preferred method on the trigger. It was not frequent and mostly showed itself when really pushing speeds but was something that was of concern. Not until the reduced sized Gen4 grip did the problem resolve itself for me. At least for myself I very much relate this to the trigger reach and my preferred technique.