I promised a report from my first visit to the range with my new Canuck stainless 9mm 1911. I bought it from Target Sports, my home range, during the Black Friday sale.
Just so you're clear what I'm talking about, this is the Tisas C19 in it's Canadianized version by O'Dell Engineering (they call it the CAN95). It's a standard 1911 with 5" barrel with the special Maple Leaf blood wood grips. Of which more later.
My first impression when I cleaned and lubricated it before going to the range, is that this is a well built piece of hardware. I've read reviews in Calibre and elsewhere of guns in this price range (Seraphim and Rock Island Armouries and Norinco) and the machining on some of them can be rough. The Canuck was smooth and precise and nothing caught the thin rubber gloves i wear for this. The only problems I had were due to the fact this was my first time breaking down a 1911. So the learning curve is still on the steep side. For the curious, inside the blue locking case you get the gun itself, 2 magazines, owners manual, bore brush, a swabbing rod, the original Tikas grips and a cable lock.
At the range, I shot 3 diferent targets at various distances. The gun was not sighted in, but straight out of the case. In addition, I'm NOT Jerry Miculek, but my shooting was off a bit for a couple of reasons. I have a smaller hand and it may be the blood wood grips make the gun a big large for me. I may try shaving down the back to thin them or just try the original grips. Also, I was using commercial reloaded Wartak ammo and that caused some problems.
I shot 1 magazine (9 rounds with 9mm) at each red square here at 5 meters approximately, aiming dead centre. You can see that the gun (leaving out the flyers) was pretty consistently shooting slightly left but more or less on for elevation. I did the centre, top left, top right then bottom targets in that order. So the first 2, where I was fresher and just letting the sights fall naturally on the centre of the target, there was a pretty consistent group with plenty of overlap. After that I consciously tried to shoot for the bullseye and got fair results with the next 2. The last magazine I shot fairly fast, just to see how the gun would run.
Which brings us back to the one problem I did have. Every so often, there was a failure to eject that lead to a double feed. It was easy enough to clear by stripping the magazine and racking the slide. There was also some failures to feed properly. I spoke to the 1911 guru on duty after shooting and took the barrel out and checked how some reloaded ammo was feeding into the chamber. While I had shot all the Wartak he had another commercial reload. His opinion was that the chamber was a bit tight and that the reloads were sometimes a bit oversized and were getting stuck. Just enough to either not eject properly or to feed into the chamber. I also will use gun grease on the feed ramp next time. It's a fairly steep climb from the magazine to the chamber. I don't know how this compares to other 1911s, but I imagine this is pretty standard. On my next outing I'll use new ammo. I've got a lot of Blazer Brass 9mm, so we'll try that. Just to be fair, I've put about 800 rounds of the Wartak through my M&P9 with no problems.
The next target was shot at about twice the distance, about 5-6 meters. I was just trying it out at a longer distance and the results were that the target was definitely dead. I will say here that the gun has the standard 3 white dots on the sights and they were easy to see, even though the range isn't the brightest in the shooting booths.
The last target was shot at 20 meters. I use corrective lenses in my shooting glasses, but I'm definitely not the best at distance with a pistol. Theres more variation here, but you can still see the pistol was shooting more to the left than the right. How much of that is me, I won't speculate! Still, the main target is pretty much taking centre mass hits.
My shooting was a bit off from the need to clear the stoppages from the misfeeds. So I'll post another report next time and see how we did with different ammo.
Another glitch I noticed was that the magazines sometimes wouldn't feed unless you pressed the mag release. The 1911 guru showed me where they were hitting the release and there's a corner on it that will need to be filed and smoothed down a bit. He also suggested I cut down the spring slightly, as it's a bit heavy for its function. It's a fairly minor correction, but one I'll write to the importer about.
Finally, sometimes the slide didn't lock back on an empty mag. I used the original all steel Tisas magazines that came with the gun and a couple of Brownell 9mm mags with rubber bases. I had the problem most consistently with the Brownells. The guru again pointed out to me slight variations in the way the lip of the magazines are formed by the manufacturers, which was causing this. A little work with a pair of needle nose pliers should take care of it.
Overall, despite the teething problems, I'm quite please with the quality of the gun and I don't think most of the troubles were the fault of the gun. Most guns can be fussy about ammo and since there are so many manufacturers of 1911s and their magazines and other accessories, I'm not surprised there's a bit of variation in the way they work with parts made by other companies. I feel that as I get more familiar with the Canuck and 1911s in general, these glitches will disappear. I'd definitely say I got a good deal here and I'm looking forward to working with the firearm, perhaps eventually in IDPA competition.
I'd recommend it to anybody who had more than just basic knowledge and firearms experience and who isn't afraid to do minor adjustments themselves.
Just so you're clear what I'm talking about, this is the Tisas C19 in it's Canadianized version by O'Dell Engineering (they call it the CAN95). It's a standard 1911 with 5" barrel with the special Maple Leaf blood wood grips. Of which more later.
My first impression when I cleaned and lubricated it before going to the range, is that this is a well built piece of hardware. I've read reviews in Calibre and elsewhere of guns in this price range (Seraphim and Rock Island Armouries and Norinco) and the machining on some of them can be rough. The Canuck was smooth and precise and nothing caught the thin rubber gloves i wear for this. The only problems I had were due to the fact this was my first time breaking down a 1911. So the learning curve is still on the steep side. For the curious, inside the blue locking case you get the gun itself, 2 magazines, owners manual, bore brush, a swabbing rod, the original Tikas grips and a cable lock.
At the range, I shot 3 diferent targets at various distances. The gun was not sighted in, but straight out of the case. In addition, I'm NOT Jerry Miculek, but my shooting was off a bit for a couple of reasons. I have a smaller hand and it may be the blood wood grips make the gun a big large for me. I may try shaving down the back to thin them or just try the original grips. Also, I was using commercial reloaded Wartak ammo and that caused some problems.
I shot 1 magazine (9 rounds with 9mm) at each red square here at 5 meters approximately, aiming dead centre. You can see that the gun (leaving out the flyers) was pretty consistently shooting slightly left but more or less on for elevation. I did the centre, top left, top right then bottom targets in that order. So the first 2, where I was fresher and just letting the sights fall naturally on the centre of the target, there was a pretty consistent group with plenty of overlap. After that I consciously tried to shoot for the bullseye and got fair results with the next 2. The last magazine I shot fairly fast, just to see how the gun would run.
Which brings us back to the one problem I did have. Every so often, there was a failure to eject that lead to a double feed. It was easy enough to clear by stripping the magazine and racking the slide. There was also some failures to feed properly. I spoke to the 1911 guru on duty after shooting and took the barrel out and checked how some reloaded ammo was feeding into the chamber. While I had shot all the Wartak he had another commercial reload. His opinion was that the chamber was a bit tight and that the reloads were sometimes a bit oversized and were getting stuck. Just enough to either not eject properly or to feed into the chamber. I also will use gun grease on the feed ramp next time. It's a fairly steep climb from the magazine to the chamber. I don't know how this compares to other 1911s, but I imagine this is pretty standard. On my next outing I'll use new ammo. I've got a lot of Blazer Brass 9mm, so we'll try that. Just to be fair, I've put about 800 rounds of the Wartak through my M&P9 with no problems.
The next target was shot at about twice the distance, about 5-6 meters. I was just trying it out at a longer distance and the results were that the target was definitely dead. I will say here that the gun has the standard 3 white dots on the sights and they were easy to see, even though the range isn't the brightest in the shooting booths.
The last target was shot at 20 meters. I use corrective lenses in my shooting glasses, but I'm definitely not the best at distance with a pistol. Theres more variation here, but you can still see the pistol was shooting more to the left than the right. How much of that is me, I won't speculate! Still, the main target is pretty much taking centre mass hits.
My shooting was a bit off from the need to clear the stoppages from the misfeeds. So I'll post another report next time and see how we did with different ammo.
Another glitch I noticed was that the magazines sometimes wouldn't feed unless you pressed the mag release. The 1911 guru showed me where they were hitting the release and there's a corner on it that will need to be filed and smoothed down a bit. He also suggested I cut down the spring slightly, as it's a bit heavy for its function. It's a fairly minor correction, but one I'll write to the importer about.
Finally, sometimes the slide didn't lock back on an empty mag. I used the original all steel Tisas magazines that came with the gun and a couple of Brownell 9mm mags with rubber bases. I had the problem most consistently with the Brownells. The guru again pointed out to me slight variations in the way the lip of the magazines are formed by the manufacturers, which was causing this. A little work with a pair of needle nose pliers should take care of it.
Overall, despite the teething problems, I'm quite please with the quality of the gun and I don't think most of the troubles were the fault of the gun. Most guns can be fussy about ammo and since there are so many manufacturers of 1911s and their magazines and other accessories, I'm not surprised there's a bit of variation in the way they work with parts made by other companies. I feel that as I get more familiar with the Canuck and 1911s in general, these glitches will disappear. I'd definitely say I got a good deal here and I'm looking forward to working with the firearm, perhaps eventually in IDPA competition.
I'd recommend it to anybody who had more than just basic knowledge and firearms experience and who isn't afraid to do minor adjustments themselves.
