P30 Update

A regular P30 Thursday will be coming along next week, but after yesterday’s trip to the range it seemed appropriate to give a little update. While the P30 was carried and even saw some dry fire over the unplanned 3-week holiday, yesterday was the first live fire since I returned from January’s Aim Fast, Hit Fast in Memphis.

Firing 2,002 rounds in one day may have been overdoing it, though, I’ve got to admit. Luckily, half a dozen folks at the range helped out, shooting a mag (or six) each over the course of the day.

The pistol was not cleaned prior to the shooting, though it was disassembled to replace the parts that were supposed to get changed out at the 75,000 mark:

• extractor
• extractor spring and buffer
• recoil guide rod assembly
• sear spring
• trigger return spring

HK sent a P30 trigger return spring, but after 15 minutes of frustration trying to get it installed, I just used a P2000 LEM spring like the ones I’ve been using since the original P30 spring broke at week 11. The P2000 LEM spring gives a better reset, anyway.

Some lubrication was added to the rails and off we went. Over 2,000 rounds in one day with no cleaning or added lubrication… it’s the first one-day 2,000 Round Challenge success I’m aware of.

There were two bobbles on the way to the finish line. First, a round of the now-notorious 124gr TMJ American Eagle Leadfree ammo failed to fire. Per the 2k Challenge rules, a clean and properly lubricated gun of another brand was located (G17) and it, too, failed to fire the round. Not wanting to surrender so easily, I put the round back in the P30 and hammered away until, on the eighth primer strike, it finally went off.

Second, a round of the same ammo had a primer blow out. The projectile stayed in the cartridge rather than flying down the barrel. However, the gun cycled normally, ejecting the full cartridge and then loading the next round. The only sign of a problem was the “snap” rather than the typical “BANG” … I recovered the bad round and didn’t even need to check the barrel because clearly it wasn’t a squib.

Early in the day I ran the F.A.S.T. as mentioned in a previous comment, with the following results:

• 4.82 (clean): 1.56, .50 / 2.04 / .25, .25, .22
• 5.27 (clean): 1.65, .57 / 2.43 / .21, .21, .20
• 4.62 (clean): 1.55, .48 / 1.98 / .20, .22, .19

The second run was a huge conglomerate of little errors. I didn’t do a good press out on the first shot then failed to track the sight well for the follow-up. This not only slowed the shots but led to staring stupidly at the card during my reload instead of looking at the gun, which in turn led to a fumbled reload. Then I turned the selector a little farther toward cyclic for the 8″ circle shots and was lucky they were all in.

Another drill I’ve started doing involves hitting a 2″ circle from concealment. I give myself a 1-second exposure time on the turning target system at the NRA Range (which is actually more like 1.75 seconds total) and engage the circles at increasing distances. I’m consistently near 100% at 5yd (14 out of 15 yesterday) and do all right at 7yd (12/15 yesterday). At 10yd it all falls apart, though, with yesterday turning in an above-average 6 out of 15. It’s a simple drill, easy to set up, and I find it helps me with two key parts of the draw that I can improve upon: getting the gun up into the ready/press-out position as quickly as possible, and doing a fast but precise press-out.

From there, I go to a drill I call 26662 for reasons that will be pretty obvious. It uses the target pictured here at right (click on the small pic to get a downloadable full size .pdf version) which consists of two 2″ circles and one 6″ circle.

On the start signal, draw and fire one round at the top 2″ circle, three rounds at the 6″ circle, and then one round at the bottom 2″ circle. I do the drill from concealment at seven yards with a 3-second exposure (so about a 3.75 second par time).

I ran the drill nine times yesterday, scoring 14/18 on the 2″ dots and 26/27 on the big dot. The biggest challenge is exercising the discipline to break the first shot properly without rushing to get over to the 6″ circle… a challenge I failed four out of nine times apparently.

The P30 has 79,394 rounds through it so far and we’re still on track to hit 100,000 in a year. We’re got until 30-April to make it happen.

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

Previous P30 Endurance Test posts at pistol-training.com:

• Week Thirty-Four
• Week Thirty-Three
• Week Thirty-Two
• Week Thirty-One
• Week Thirty
• Week Twenty-Nine
• Week Twenty-Eight
• Week Twenty-Seven
• Week Twenty-Six
• Week Twenty-Five
• Week Twenty-Four
• Week Twenty-Three
• Week Twenty-Two
• Week Twenty-One
• 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