40,342 rounds
7 stoppages, 0 malfunctions, 2 parts breakages
The 40,000 round mark was reached and passed this week. It’s been twenty-one weeks, which included seventy range sessions totaling two hundred and seventy-two and a half hours on the range so far.
Notable shooting results this week:
- I shot the Triple Nickel drill for the first time (in front of an AFHF class in NC). Scored a 4.66, clean, from underneath an untucked polo shirt.
- 9-for-9 on the Hackathorn 3-Second Standards from concealment (also demoing for the NC class).
- 5-for-5 on a 2″ dot at 16yd during a walkback drill (17yd didn’t go so well…).
The only hiccup this week was the Heinie rear sight. Five hundred rounds into my practice session Wednesday night, the rear sight slid a quarter of an inch to the right in its dovetail. I moved it back into position but one of the two set screws is locked so tight I can’t get it to budge (and wrecked the head in the process). The other is now holding the rear sight in place all by itself. A call to Heinie resulted in unfortunate news: the new P30 sights which were expected in September are still another 4-6 weeks away. We’ll just keep our fingers crossed that the rear sight doesn’t disappear between now and then.
Luckily, we should have some very good news to report in the next couple of weeks related to the P30 test … news which will sound very familiar to those of you who followed last year’s M&P9 test. What could it be? What could it be?
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
Previous P30 Endurance Test posts at pistol-training.com:
- Week Twenty
- Week Nineteen
- Week Seventeen
- Week Sixteen
- Week Fifteen
- Week Fourteen
- Week Thirteen
- Week Twelve
- Week Eleven
- Week Ten
- Week Nine
- Week Eight
- Week Seven
- Week Six
- Week Five
- Week Four
- Week Three
- Week Two
- Week One
- Initial Report
Let me guess, a Pistol-Training commemorative edition, special run?
If that set screw is still stuck, get a screw extractor from Grainger. The smallest one they have. I had to remove a stripped set screw from my M&P rear sight and it worked like a charm. Got replacements from the local Ace Hardware.
gtmtnbiker98, that was my guess as well. Just my luck too being that a P30 is next on my list(aside from trading up to a Gen 4 19 when those happen), if it were true of course.
Hey, I’m new at this, I just bought my first gun last week. A Walther
PPS, 9mm. I went to the range and put 100 rds, of Winchester 9mm, 115gr. luger bullets through it and about every 10 or 12 rounds I encountered “failure to go into battery”. A quick push on the slide with my thumb enabled it to continue firing, but it was disconcerting to say the least. I wonder if anyone knows if this is just a “new gun” thing/ a bullet quality thing/ or a defect in the gun itself? I took it back to the shop where I bought it and they just filled out a repair form and sent it back to the manufacturer. No idea when I’ll get it back!!!!!
Hi Todd – you’ve certainly mastered the P30! I was looking back at the M&P9 Endurance test parallels – given a quality platform, it seems to come down to the operator with effective training / practice to meet the performance benchmarks you’re setting.
What’s happened to the M&P PT version? Been a few months without any visible indication of release. Any news?
Cheers,
Pk
Pk — We should (finally) have an announcement about the PT M&P very soon. Stay tuned …
What could it be? Either some suit is going to shoot the 50K round or there’s a PT version of the P30 coming???
Todd:
That is awesome shooting, especially the Triple Nickel. Out of curiosity, at what point did you do the reload? And, did you go left-to-right or right-to-left? Do you think it makes a difference?
Greg — I set up my gun in advance so I go to slidelock after the fourth target, doing my reload there and then finishing up with the fifth. I’ve always shot it from left to right because it’s more “natural” for me, but I doubt it makes any kind of appreciable difference.
Wow. Your description doesn’t specify a slide-lock reload, which makes it even more impressive. I understand you release the slide with your left thumb, as I do, and even though it can be done very quickly, it still eats up some of your time. I asked about the direction because,as I’m sure you know, some theorize that recoil can help you move the gun quicker in one direction vs. the other, sort of like swimming upstream vs. downstream. Just curious whether you thought there was any appreciable difference on a drill where small differences mean a lot.
Of course, at 4.66 you could probably slingshot the slide and still pass. Any idea what the record time is?
Greg — Actually, given how I do a slidelock reload, it’s really no slower than an in-battery reload. Setting the gun up to slidelock, however, helps me remember that I need to do a reload without having to concentrate on counting, etc. I suppose you could also do 2-reload-8 but most folks tend to slow down a bit after a reload due to imperfect grip, etc.
Also, I drop the slide using my strong hand (right) thumb, not my support hand thumb.
No idea what the current Triple Nickel record is, but perhaps one of the current coin holders will chime in?
I’m guessing that the good news is going to be an announcement from H&K that they will be importing the V4 P30 for sale in the US.