quote:

Originally posted by mlazarus:
The 745 is nice. Now you need one of these.

https://youtu.be/imr54ZBkdpc

Ha, yes i do, and and a 952. But i am broke

So, I made it to the indoor range yesterday.

The 659 parts kit I picked up has some issues. The barrel and recoil guide rod does not work on my 659 frame. The slide does, as long as I use my original 659 barrel, original bushing and original guide rod. It is not something I had experienced here at the house. But somehow at the range I got one of the four parts mixed up causing me no end of issues at the range.

Once home I was able to sit down and figure out what I had done. Long story short, the new barrel is keeping slide slightly out of battery, The plunger on the recoil rod is slightly too large to go into the hole on the 659 frame.

This means if I put the new slide on the gun, I need my original 659 barrel, bushing and recoil rod.

When using just the new recoil rod with my original barrel, the fact it does not seat properly keeps one from inserting the slide lock. It's a unique set of problems I had not expected. I am pretty sure I can figure out how and where the new barrel is keeping not locking up with the 659 frame. It's a matter of will to see it corrected if I can.

Now on to the accuracy tests with the gun, and both slides using the original 659 barrel, recoil rod, and bushing. The fucking same. Not a shits bit of difference between the two slides. Since I can't use the new factory barrel, it's somewhat of a useless test. It does prove one thing though, my 3rd re-assembly of the 659 rear sight fixed its drifting issues and my groups are now all within acceptable levels.

It also proves my first 9mm reloads were shit. I reloaded a number of 115-grain hap rounds prior to using a lee factory crimp die. Once I made it through those rounds the gun ran fine. Including my 147 reloads, factory 115, 124, and 147-grain ammo. The second magazine that was sent to me functions flawlessly with the new spring in it. So for now I will continue to use the pistol with the original slide, barrel, bushing and recoil rod.

On to the 745. I shot it here at the house using my 200grn LSWC's and felt it fired fine. At the range, it was a very pleasant gun to shoot. I with the indoor ranges would provide some lighting from behind to light up the front sight, but even with that caveat, the gun fired wonderful 50 cent piece sized groups. If I did my part, which, most of the time I did not. It is a fantastic pistol. Even the three promag magazines have failed to give me any kind of trouble. The trigger is a crisp 2.5lbs with a reset appropriate to that weight. I am quite happy with it.

The star of the day was my 115grn 357 sig, and 125grn 357 sig rounds. All of them functioned flawlessly and here I had no issues keeping the group sizes small. I had some concerns about setback with 357 sig, and as I didn't load these with a second crimp die (other than the integrated seating and crimp) I was a bit worried. The issue was moot out of the couple hundred rounds I fired.