No Good Deal Goes Unpunished (The 2011 Koolaid)

[sakodude]

Was a FUN day it was raining Brass, literally raining brass!

I simply do not understand how you could be getting rained on from a covered shooting position.

More like hail as in a hail of gunfire

[Bigslug]

All the things I look for in an action sports gun are there, and overall I'm enjoying the gun, and pleased with the performance, but am not 100% sold on buying a case of the proverbial Koolaid quite yet. I'll be running my trusty Glock 34 in a USPSA match soon, then work will take me away from the game for a bit. Later this summer I'm looking forward to messing with the gun a bit more and getting it on a timer for a better comparison to the Glock. More to follow!

I'm interested in your timer results. It's a conundrum I try to be objective about, but that's often a challenge - I do maintenance on duty guns, but I also do instruction on shooting those same duty guns.

For folks that don't give any thought to the inner mechanics, or folks that haven't really mastered shooting fundamentals, it's usually ALL about ergonomics. I won't say that ergonomics doesn't matter at all, but when you have put in the time and understand that there really isn't much more to the shooting game than maintaining sight alignment and pressing the trigger steadily, it loses A LOT of that emphasis. I'm largely at the point where, so long as the grip isn't made of razor blades, and the trigger feels slightly smoother than 50 yards of gravel road, I'm pretty sure I can adapt and shoot it as well or better than the average bear.

Basically, I've come to see the 2011's as a finely tuned race car that can go 205 miles per hour. . . so long as it's got a lot of refined skill driving it and a skilled pit crew to keep it in the race. Without those things, it's just another car on the freeway. . .or broken down on the shoulder.

A 9mm Glock is a good race car that can go 200 miles per hour. It will run GREAT if you take it to the garage a month or two before the race, and it will generally STILL run at 198 mph with NO pit stops and an inbred Bubba behind the wheel. When it DOES need to go into the pits, it gets turned around and put back on the track in half the time or less of anything else. Give it a GOOD driver who knows how to push to 202 mph when it matters, I have zero concerns about who's winning the race - especially if it's the 24 hours of Le Mans.

And as far as taxing the Ransom Rest mechanical accuracy capabilities of a pistol go, combat shooting requires maybe 75 mph. Even the Hi Points can run for that cup. Considering the goal is to be able to deliver that accuracy when you're statistically in the dark, under stress, under-slept, and over-caffeinated, what the PISTOL can do is largely irrelevant compared to what you can do with it under the circumstances. Mario Andretti in a Corolla is likely to do better than a student driver in an F1 car.

I DO appreciate the attributes of the high-end race cars, but considering the actual needs of the job, and considering that almost nobody wants to do the maintenance (or even read the manual), and almost nobody wants to do the training, I find that 198mph car with the 60% lower price tag VERY appealing. Practically, the Ferraris are an incessant pain in the ass.

(For what it's worth - given that I have only minimal time on only two of them - the Gen 6's ergonomic enhancements seem to put it back on target A LITTLE BIT faster than the Gen 5's. Not enough to make me want to rush right out to buy myself a replacement, but. . .)

[shotgunshooter3]

I've got about 500 rounds through the gun now, and it's definitely a soft shooter. Not one single malfunction with 7 different mags, both OEM and MBX, so also good. I won't get it on a timer until later this summer, so we shall see. I have a feeling that the XL in particular outlived its niche since Limited, as a division, is pretty much dead in USPSA, and that was a .40 S&W dominated division.

More to follow.

[Bigslug]

I've got about 500 rounds through the gun now, and it's definitely a soft shooter. Not one single malfunction with 7 different mags, both OEM and MBX, so also good. I won't get it on a timer until later this summer, so we shall see. I have a feeling that the XL in particular outlived its niche since Limited, as a division, is pretty much dead in USPSA, and that was a .40 S&W dominated division.

Not keeping abreast of the gamer side of things, what's currently trendy? I'm guessing it's comped guns, as we're starting to see them in the duty market too. Kinda hard for me to wrap my brain around the notion of a brake on a full size 9mm, but then, I never was one of the cool kids.

[shotgunshooter3]

Not keeping abreast of the gamer side of things, what's currently trendy? I'm guessing it's comped guns, as we're starting to see them in the duty market too. Kinda hard for me to wrap my brain around the notion of a brake on a full size 9mm, but then, I never was one of the cool kids.

Depends entirely on the game and the division. in USPSA Carry Optics is far and away the most popular division, and is basically meant to restrict the use to "duty type" guns with a slide-ride optic, with a lot of asterisks attached to that, (gamers gonna game). The CZ Shadow 2 is by far the most popular platform in that game, and before all of the drama the P320 was catching up fast.

Limited Optics is the relatively new kid in town, and is rapidly gaining popularity. The division was basically invented for the new slew of slide-ride optic "duty adjacent" (my term I made up) 2011 type guns. Masterpiece Arms, better known for their PRS bolt guns, has a very popular 2011 that seems to be the top contender there. No comps allowed, that still puts you in open, at least in USPSA and IPSC.

This is from 2024, but starting on page 38 here is a gear survery for each division from USPSA Nationals 2024 https://uspsa.org/magazine/display//2025-00

EDIT - I like what Ben Stoeger says about comps on pistols: "It's a thing you can put on your gun that looks cool and makes it louder."