Girsan Regard Yavuz Compact - long term review.

thanks guys
ill try harder for the pin

and i was sure the Girsan compact wasnt the same as the beretta compact
i was told it was a 92f clone
 
Yes, the pin required way more force to remove it than I thought it would. Even pushing the end on a piece of steel didn't seem to move it at all, like it would with most other pistols. Putting it in was easier, but it still required a few good hits to put it flush. It is almost like the recess is not deep enough to allow the pin to freely slide in.

FWIW, I put the Comp spring (#13) in and didn't find much difference in my DA trigger pulls; I have the full-size 4.9" INOX version.
 
twoicebergs said:
Yes, the pin required way more force to remove it than I thought it would. Even pushing the end on a piece of steel didn't seem to move it at all, like it would with most other pistols. Putting it in was easier, but it still required a few good hits to put it flush. It is almost like the recess is not deep enough to allow the pin to freely slide in.

FWIW, I put the Comp spring (#13) in and didn't find much difference in my DA trigger pulls; I have the full-size 4.9" INOX version.
Click to expand...

I can't understand how that could be. With the 13lb spring my DA pull is a night and day improvement.
 
I bought the Woolf D spring as well, plus a number of springs for my CZ clone and my S&W. I just put it in a few days ago. The pull is lighter, but not night and day better. I am somewhat surprised as well as the pull only changed by < 1lb. Maybe it will lighten up as I start using it more. Perhaps it is related to the model difference. I found the pull very smooth right out of the box and it just got better as the round count went up.

A little off-topic, but with the S&W Pro CORE as I fired it the first few times, I hated how bad the trigger felt. After just a few hundred rounds through it, it feels significantly better and I like how it shoots. First impressions can be misleading. However, when I find the time and a tiny hex wrench, the trigger job and spring change will happen. For those with the CORE, you don't have to remove the sight to get the FP block pin out.
 
For my Regard, I cut 3 coils off the hammer spring and it made a huge difference. Haven't had any ignition issues either.

M
 
I was able to put another 200 rounds through it today, shooting AE 124g.The 13lb mainspring worked very well with no hint of light primer strikes. I have thousands of trigger presses, hundreds of reloads and presentations from the holster with the Girsan. I'm 570 rounds into the 2000 round challenge with no issues to report.
 
I'm really impressed with all the good reviews on these Girsan Beretta clones. If I wasn't so hung up on picking up a 9mm 1911 sometime soon I'd really give these a serious look.
 
I now have 820 rounds of AE 124g through the Girsan. It's still chugging along with no issues. 13lb mainspring is giving me zero issues. The gun is absolutely filthy now.



 
Depending what you want it for, this is a good, economical option as well. Even though it is wide open, it is very secure.

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The Girsan now has 1070 rounds through it.

I had 5 stoppages today. :(

I changed ammo today, opting to use 115g Blazer brass instead of 124g AE. No light primer strikes with the 13lb main spring, which was the only good news for the gun today. It started giving erratic ejection (every now and then a round would hit my head). I had 4 failure's to feed and one stovepipe/failure to feed issue. I personally had one stoppage and all the other stoppages were from another shooter. My FTF happened during a drill and a simple smack the back of the slide/hammer fixed the issue. After the other shooter had so many problems I shot 40 rounds through the gun with no further issues.

My suspicion is that it is mag related. I had the same issue with my Beretta with some older mags. I am hard on mags and have never cleaned the 5 Mecgar range mags I have, so I may tear them down and get some of the dirt and rocks out of them and see how it goes. The gun is absolutely filthy, but won't be cleaned for another 1000 rounds.

Here's a pic of what was going on:
 
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Alright, so the mags were quite filled with dirt. Dropping them in dirt, mud and puddles will do that... :cool:

I should have cleaned them before I started the test with the Girsan as most of them saw a few thousand rounds through the Beretta and I hadn't cleaned them. My bad. Hopefully this cures the issues, though as a data point, Beretta mags are not as resistant to dirt as Glock mags. I never had this kind of crud in my Glock mags and they saw many thousand more rounds than the Beretta mags before I cleaned them.

Another data point; Beretta mags are super easy to disassemble compared to Glock mags.

 
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The PF for the light load 124gn FMJ bullets was was 105. With a slightly lighter recoil spring, this load is just enough to cycle the slide correctly, most of the time; so I won't be making anymore of those (I was expecting to hit the bottom at some point). The accuracy seemed to be very good at the 6 different load and powder combinations I tried. Any load above 115 PF works just fine. All of the factory rounds (115 and 124) I fired came in at about 135 PF.
 
Grip and trigger reach wise, is the compact any smaller than the Regard?

M
 
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I put another 190 rounds through the Girsan today. I had hoped that cleaning the mags would solve the the failure to feed and stovepipe issues. No luck.

It worked great for the first 150 rounds or so, then it had numerous failures to feed. I tried to identify a mag(s) as an issue but it happened with all my mags.

So we can officially call the 2000 round test a fail at 1260 rounds. It's just too brutal to suffer through the malfunctions. One can only drill malfunctions so much.:mad:

I'll tear it down in a few days and see if I can discern any parts failures. I suspect the extractor is filthy dirty, which may be causing the problem. In any event it's disappointing, as I genuinely like the Girsan. It doesn't live up to my Beretta in reliability though, not even close.
 
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