Range Report 2-6-2020

Range Report: 2/6/2020 – Firing Line, Aurora, CO

The players: Brand spanking new Springfield Hellcat OSP, 9mm; Walther PPQ M2, 9mm; Glock 19 Gen5, 9mm

The main purpose of this session was to break in the new Hellcat.

Where to begin… no blood was spilled this time… so there is that. The range master had to tell me I had “schmutz” on the top of my nose. My response was if a little gunpowder residue was the worst of what I ended up wearing by the end of the day…I’ve got it made. You all know by now that brevity is not my strong suit, so here goes…

Springfield Hellcat

Hellcat – I ran about 150 rounds through it. Ammo was a combo of Herters and Monarch, both 115 Gr FMJ, brass.

Somewhere around round 50, I had a FtF. Weird. Wasn’t expecting that, doesn’t sound like a common issue with these. Dumped the mag, ejected the one in the chamber, reseated the mag, racked it, again.

At that point I noticed that the slide was catching just about 1/8th of an inch short. I’m honestly not knowledgeable on what causes these specific little issues so I’m not sure what it was. I dumped the whole mag, ejected, grabbed the other mag, same thing.

Each time, I made sure to clear it completely, double checked that nothing was stuck in the barrel. Made sure to give the mag a smack to be sure it was seated firmly.

Finally, I took the first round out of the mag and replaced it with the other brand. Racked and fired with no problems.

So at that point, my assumption was ok…it just doesn’t like the Monarch Ammo. That sucks because i don’t really want to have to keep track of what ammo brands it doesn’t like when my other firearms will take about anything.

But…I went on to continue to fire it with the remaining rounds being the Monarch. I had no further issues with ammo.

I’m certainly open to advice if someone has an idea of what caused that, I’ve been shooting for decades and I’ve never experienced anything like that where it FtF repeatedly but then was fine.

On a personal performance note:

I’ve got some work to do. The Hellcat is so much smaller than anything I usually shoot. I’ve got larger hands and tend to gravitate to larger firearms. 🤷🏼‍♀️

After the first mag, I had to stop and evaluate my shots and deduced that because the entire firearm is so much smaller than I’m used to, I had to completely break down my grip and start over with re-seating the beaver tail, examining where my fingers all went and how I was pulling the trigger. I believe the major issue is that I’m squeezing the grip when I pull the trigger.

I do have some nerve damage in my hands, and I tend to drop things often, so it stands to reason that as I don’t wish to drop a firearm, I probably instinctively squeeze the grip of my hand doesn’t feel tight around it already. It seems like a reflexive motion because there simply isn’t as much grip to fill my hand. That’s just going to take practice and is probably something I should have been doing all along.

Dealing with grip issues

Because of the grip issues, I struggled to get groupings at all. I stayed at about 6-7 yards because I just didn’t feel I had anything close to groupings to be able to move on. Nonetheless…if the target was a bad dude, he’d be just as dead.

I also found that I was having to pull the nose up just a bit more, rather than having the tritium circle centered within the U rear sight, and fairly straight line across the top metal of both sights, I needed to lift the front a bit. I’m not going to mess with the sights for right now but am going to continue working on my grip and once I’m certain that’s corrected, I will look at whether sights need to be adjusted. On the pic of the target, I circled in yellow those first shots before I stopped to evaluate my grip and stance.

Other than that, there was some slight grittiness in the trigger that tends to be normal with a new firearm, other than that it feels like a really good, crisp trigger to me. I didn’t do anything with double taps where I would have paid much attention to the trigger reset, and I probably should have at least checked it before I left. I feel fairly certain that after I’ve cleaned and lubed it, next time out it should be fine.

I honestly don’t have anything else to add about it that every reviewer ever hasn’t already pointed out, the texturing is nice on the grip, didn’t feel like it was going to slip out of my hand. I wouldn’t have minded the slide having just a little more aggressive serrations but I didn’t struggle with it either.

If I can master this sucker, it’s likely going to become my primary EDC.

Comparing the Springfield to the Glock & Walther

I mainly brought these other two along to have comparison, I’ve only had them for about a month and have brought them to the range 4 times. I’m not a master of either of them yet but I feel pretty competent with both the Walther and the Glock. (My comparison is always the snub nose revolver I carried for nearly 10 years that I was a proficient, intuitive shooter with.)

Walther PPQ M2 – also Herters and Monarch 115 GR FMJ brass. The PPQ is quickly becoming “old familiar” and as I was beginning to doubt my skills with the Hellcat, as soon as I picked up the Walther, my confidence returned. I only ran two mags (25 rds total) through, had no problem with decent groupings for both head and center mass shots, left the target at the 6-7 yard spot also.

Glock 19 Gen5 – also Herters and Monarch 115 GR FMJ brass. Ok, so this is technically hubs’, but we believe in every shooter in the family being as proficient as possible with every firearm in the household, to each person’s comfort level. I’ve not shot Glocks all that much so I try to bring it along just to make sure I stay familiar with it since it’s quite a bit of a different feel than my other firearms.

Shooting

I put 3 mags through for a total of 45 rds. Same as with the Walther, had no problems with decent groupings both head and center mass. I actually found that my groupings were just a bit more centered and tighter with the Glock than the Walther. For the last mag, I bumped the target back to about 12-15 yards and started to get quite a bit more spread on the shots. Arms were wearing out too. I didn’t switch out targets between the Walther and Glock.

Something that occurred to me that I hadn’t previously given much consideration to is the practicality of intentionally seeking out different size handguns REGULARLY, for the purpose of improving skills across the entire range of sizes.

I alluded to this a little above. I’ve generally avoided sub and micro compact handguns because I didn’t care for the size or capacity. I don’t personally consider myself to be an experienced and skilled shooter if I can’t pick up almost any firearm (barring the more specialized ones anyway) and shoot proficiently with it.

While I’ve been busy avoiding the smaller firearms, I’ve missed the opportunity to improve my skills and if a situation were to arise where I needed to use a firearm other than my own…well, I wouldn’t do very well with it. Same goes for the larger pieces and larger calibers that I rarely shoot.

Couldn’t tell you the last time I shot a .45. I’m going to make it a point to try to rent some different sizes outside of my comfort level once a month or so, so that I can work on that more.