No hatin' on me for lack of pictures, please.
When the
GSG 1911-22 first came out, I was intrigued. As a kid in the 80's, I had read about the Colt Service Ace and the floating chamber, a REAL 1911 pistol in .22LR, wow! It baffled me that they quit making it and that nobody else would make one. So when the GSG, the new Umarex/Walther Colts and the Chiappa came out, I was really interested. Here's something I wanted as a kid,
finally available to buy and for low bucks.
Of course then I had to rationalize it...and kill all the fun. "It'll never be as accurate or reliable as my bull barrel Ruger Mark II, so why bother?" Well, most of my friends started getting them. All of them had great experiences with them and the two of them that I shot were a blast. Low bucks and they ran well, and it was more than a look-alike 1911, these pistols are as close as you can get without actually mounting a conversion kit on a Gubbmint Model. And the price? C'mon, I just had to get one.
So I snagged one of the last ones the great guys down at
Gun Envy had. I stripped it, cleaned it, lubed the ever-lovin'-hell out of it with FP-10 and ran the slide a LOT to ensure that it was going to get a shot at a smooth operation with no "new production" kinks or burrs or what have you. I replaced the grips with some low-buck hard rubber pebble grips. Then I had to wait nearly three weeks to get it to the range because of scheduling and weather issues, but I finally got it out there today.
It's maiden voyage coincided with my first ever try with a chronograph, a recent purchase of a tool I wanted eons ago. So I set up at the steel plate range with 5 loaded magazines, each stoked with bulk Federal Champion 36gr plated . This is the stuff you get from Wal-Mart in a 375, 525 or 550 round box. I've found this ammo to be amongst the absolute best of all the cheap bulk buys out there. I wouldn't trade one box of this for three boxes of bulk Remington or bulk Winchester, no damn doubt.
My first target was a paper plate--wanted to know for certain where the bullets were going to go with this box-fresh pistol. Though I was to be shooting
at a chrono all day, I sure didn't want to
connect with one!
At about 15 yards, it was dropping a 2.5-inch 10-rd group and I wasn't trying very hard. That made me smile. The second magazine went in to steel plates and such on the range. It seemed to be shooting to point of aim.
So I put the next two magazines through the chrono-- and for numbers junkies, the box data said 1,260 FPS at the muzzle, and that's surely out of a rifle. From a 5-inch GSG, 20 shots averaged
1,094 FPS. So my first shots through the new chrono were from a brand new handgun. A couple of us having a saying we use... "Gun Karma." There's some right there!
I used the chrono throughout the day with many different loads (centerfire handloads, obviously) but I found plenty of time to wring out the
GSG 1911-22 and the net results are worthy of being posted in a range report thread.
While there are plenty of subjective things I could add and anyone's experience could be different on any given day, here is what unfolded in this day:
3 kinds of ammo: the aforementioned bulk Federal 36gr, 50 rounds of circa 1989 production Federal Lightning 40gr lead, and 50 rounds of bulk CCI Blazer 40gr lead solid. Total shots fired:
353 rounds. (why the odd number? Early in the game, I found that the GSG mag would accept 11 rds, and I loaded it as such 3 times, then thought better of that idea and stopped doing it. I shot 7 volleys of 5 full loaded magazines.)
The net result:
ZERO failures to feed.
ZERO failures to eject.
ZERO failures to fire.
ZERO bobbles, goofs, mag drops, rounds inadvertently popping out of the top of the mag, double-feeds, failures to lock back, hitches in going in to battery, stove pipes, duds,
you name it.
Heck, just shooting new production bulk rimfire won't give you a 100% success rate out of most anything on any given day--bulk ammo is too cheap and anyone who has broken it down and witnessed the erratic priming will back me up. That I also ran 50 rounds of ammo that is absolutely
23years old with no failures is bordering in comical. I bought that ammo at K-Mart in '89, I'm not taking artistic license.
I do NOT expect that rate of perfection from any rimfire, nor this pistol. I am nearly certain and would bet cash money that when I pound another 300+ through it on it's next trip, I'll have at least a couple minor stoppages of some manner. How could I not?
For
$319 down at Gun Envy's great new store, you can't go wrong with one of these. I don't believe it will hang with my KMK-512 in accuracy, but for the time being--it's a heap of fun bangin' for the buck and I look forward to changing out some of the parts with ones I like better.
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