Range report, sort of

Doug M.

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A few weeks ago "tt66" advertised a compact 945-1. I am not sure why, but it fascinated me and eventually I bought it. The transaction went as well as could expected with mailing and shipping between Alabama and Washington.

Factory mags for this platform are ... rare. I got two (6 round) with it, but I do prefer to have more mags for most of my autoloaders. Some helpful folks here steered me to a way to make up some 7 rounds 945 mags using parts from Numeric. I screwed up the ordering a bit, but eventually had 4 more mags.

I grabbed some ammo (BH ball and Gold Dot 230 grain JHP, my last duty ammo) and drove the the range. This was first time I had shot a major caliber since my bypass, and between the damage they had to do (filet of chest, etc.) and the atrophy afterward, it was a bit challenging. I did not watch carefully when I had malfunctions. I also had a hell of a time seeing the sights; old eyes and precise sights are not a good mix.

I went back again last week, with the same ammo types, and did some more work. As far as I can tell, the 7 round mags are just not quite right. This is not a surprise; true 1911s work best in GM size format and the compacts are hard to tune. It did seem to work fine with the 6 round mags. I did try harder to see/align the sights, which was a slow and not perfect process, but I did see good accuracy when I did my part.

I plan to go back to the range tomorrow with some other ammo. I am pretty sure I have some BH with the 185 grain Barnes loaded, and plan to give that a try. I am also pretty sure I need to replace the sights, as I simply cannot see them well enough/fast enough for serious use. I have had XS big dot sights on several pistols and found them very useful for my needs. I suspect I will get a set of them (DXT2 Tritium Big Dot and Standard Dot Night Sights | XS Gun Sights), and have them put on. I may even just send the slide to XS; I did that once before and they did well. I'll keep the OEM sights in case of future sale.

So far, so good.
 
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FYI: Because this is a PC product, XS was unwilling to work on it. Apparently S&W had some odd ball slide cuts at some points and fitting to them can be vile. I did contact a local gunsmith who is willing to look into the project. He was not in the shop when I went over, but one of his employees had heard (half of) the conversation and was up to speed. He, like me, was pretty sure that this specific pistol had standard Novak cuts so we should be good to go. Not as fast as I would like, but the ability to do the work and do it right is more important.
 
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