Smokin deals on Grand Power 9mm's/.22's and range reports

[jimbo14]

Started playing with one of my K22 mags last night. After I removed most of the guts and only had the follower in it, it was clear these are made poorly. There was much resistance in moving it up/down in the groove. Turns out the middle area of the groove has a bend in it (towards inside the mag) so the follower binds a bit. After some filing inside the mag to level that out and on the follower itself, it's much freer now. I also trimmed the helper buttons a bit because those bind on their own.

I also cut off a few coils from the spring to reduce the tension a bit. Hopefully this will reduce or stop the ejecting of a live round, but I'll also make a note of the orientation of the top round in the mag to see how that angle affects the initial feed attempt. I've marked this mag and I'll compare it to the others tomorrow night.

I wouldn't be surprised if they specified the high tension spring to make up for all the binding inside the mags. Not impressed.

 

[Can-down]

Started playing with one of my K22 mags last night. After I removed most of the guts and only had the follower in it, it was clear these are made poorly. There was much resistance in moving it up/down in the groove. Turns out the middle area of the groove has a bend in it (towards inside the mag) so the follower binds a bit. After some filing inside the mag to level that out and on the follower itself, it's much freer now. I also trimmed the helper buttons a bit because those bind on their own.

I also cut off a few coils from the spring to reduce the tension a bit. Hopefully this will reduce or stop the ejecting of a live round, but I'll also make a note of the orientation of the top round in the mag to see how that angle affects the initial feed attempt. I've marked this mag and I'll compare it to the others tomorrow night.

I wouldn't be surprised if they specified the high tension spring to make up for all the binding inside the mags. Not impressed.

Just feeling it in my hand when working the follower manually I came to much the same conclusion.... for $15 a pop right now I don't mind smoothing out the mags.
Once they are smoothed out, follower's stops trimmed to allow easy 10 rounds they should run pretty good. Perhaps a bit of tuning of the feed lips and notch at the front but we will see......

 

[Hitzy]

Soooo got her today GP100....first question I got for Canuck....are the Dlask serial numbers specific to their order? Just curious as it starts DA0###....
First impression out of the box..... It's OK. That's pretty much it....nothing spectacular or terrible.... Just OK lol.
Stuff I like...
Grip feels pretty much like an M&P...if I closed my eyes it would be hard to tell.
It's heavy for a poly pistol, feel is solid and appears quite durable.
There is basically no texture on the grip, it's pretty smooth... but I like that for my shooting as I like to put lots of rounds down range on a trip.
Single action trigger pull is nice. Not 1911 crisp, but pretty damn good for a TDA pistol.
Slide serrations are decent, sharp enough for a good grip.
The fit is TIGHT...side to frame is tight which you don't see on poly pistols, no play at all. Barrel also tight, should shoot well.
Barrel is very nicely machined, finished, and looks heat treated as it has that nice purple tint to it from bluing hardened steel.
Safety is fine with me....it works, no gripes or praises there.
Full ambi is nice.

Stuff I don't like...
Mag release sticks on right side even after lubing...like sticks right in....on a new gun.
Other then the barrel, every metal part has tool marks... Slide serrations and frame block are the most noticeable.
DA trigger pull is long....longer then my Beretta 92, its about the same weight as a D springed 92, but my finger is at the top if the trigger which is as far as I can reach....can't start pulling from the middle or lower on the trigger in DA.
Bore axis...I was expecting lower due to the rotating barrel. It's not any lower then any other pistol I own really, and higher then some. Lower then my SIG, but higher then Glock/M&P.
Sights are fine on their own....nicely machined but odd looking rear sight, plastic front, standard 3 dot variety. Sight picture is weird to me though due to the almost 45% angles milled on the sides of the slide....makes it pyramid like....guess I just need to get use to it. Everything else I got has squared up slides mostly.
Captured plastic guide rod? I hope it never breaks! Or is there a way to remove it without tearing down the frame?

Stuff I HATE lol
The take down and reassembly is ####ing ridiculous for a modern pistol design. It should not be that difficult.... Really there is no other moden pistol that is that idiotic to take down for cleaning. My M&P 22 is similar and the first thing I thought with it was "well this is ####ing ridiculous".... Lol and it is much easier to tear down and back up then this thing. Huge negative marks for that. And yes it did it enough times that I am confident and comfortable with tear down and back up. But it will forever suck balls every time I have to do it.

For some reason it reminds me of a Ruger center fire pistol... Built solid, some corners cut to save $$, but priced appropriately due to that.....that's kind of the quality bracket I would put it in...Ruger like.
For a real price and not the blowout Dkask deal.... I dunno what I would be comfortable paying for one of these...?
I guess I should wait until I shoot it first to answer that lol

 

[jimbo14]

Just feeling it in my hand when working the follower manually I came to much the same conclusion.... for $15 a pop right now I don't mind smoothing out the mags.
Once they are smoothed out, follower's stops trimmed to allow easy 10 rounds they should run pretty good. Perhaps a bit of tuning of the feed lips and notch at the front but we will see......

Mine were $35 back when I bought the gun....
Anyhow, another 4 mags should arrive today so I'll have 8 to play with and can afford to bugger up a couple. I'll see what happens tonight.

Hitzy: you made me lol a lot.

 

[VanMan]

Got in another round of testing. I think I have tuned my K22 X-Trim as much as I can, and have settled on CCI Minimags and Blazer 40gr RN ammo running with the large diameter spring to run the most reliably. The net for me is, I`ve got a new handgun with handling and trigger pull similar to my X-Calibur`s so I can get in some cheap practice and trigger time. If I wanted a .22 hand gun that can shoot just about any cheap bulk ammo, I`ll go to something else.

Test Conditions:
- K22 X-Trim cleaned and lubed
- outdoors @ 8 degrees Celsius
- small diameter recoil spring
- 50 rounds of each type of ammo
- a bit more tuning/reshaping of the extractor
- all 5 mags tuned (follower & helper stud adjusted to move freely within the mag, mag spring trimmed 4 coils)

During the testing above, ~50% of the time, the slide did not return fully into battery on the 1st round of a fresh mag after auto-forwarding. I manually pushed the slide into battery and still experienced the above failure to fires, but they were dispersed pretty evenly amongst the rounds in a a mag.

I did some further testing with the most reliable ammo and the larger diameter spring.

With the larger diameter spring, the slide consistently returned fully in to battery. It did impact the reliability of some of the lower velocity or lighter ammo (ie higher FTE`s and the slide not going back far enough to lock back on an empty mag)

I think this version of the K22 X-Trim that we just got from Dlask, is always going to need 40gr high velocity (>1230 FPS) ammo to cycle properly. The main challenge will be the heavy slide @ 270gr. The 2nd challenge will be finding ammo that will be of consistent high velocity. I`m a bit disappointed in the American Eagle 40gr RN ammo - it`s rated @ 1240FPS, but I could feel some rounds were definitely not as powerful as the Blazer rated @ 1235 FPS). The K22S model with the slide @ 210gr should be much less sensitive to lower velocity and/or lighter bullets. Looks like the newer K22 X-Trims have a lighter slide than ours, so it`s probably less sensitive too.

Just for fun on a rainy evening, I weighed the slides on some of my other .22 handguns. It`s no big surprise that the Ruger and Buckmark have a very light slide (and stronger recoil spring) and can also reliably cycle through any and all of my cheap bulk ammo. Note: the Browning Medalist and Colt Woodsman were weighed with the recoil spring assemblies still installed. All other slides were weighed without.

 

[jimbo14]

Thanks a lot, VanMan. I might introduce my brother's milling machine to the X-Trim slide and see how they get along....

 

[Hitzy]

Here you go....best I could do with my phone but I think it shows well enough.
That meant I had to tear it down AGAIN......MF! Lol





I'm certainly not pissed about it (for $329)....a few tool marks are not the end of the world (for $329), just observations out of the box. I forgot to try the mag button with a mag in the gun....you're right, it's when I press it with no mag it sticks in and I have to push it out from the other side.
So my s/n is mid 100's....I'm guessing this was 200 or so of the basic mk12 he wasn't able to sell at $550 or whatever they were listed pre-sale?

 

[jimbo14]

I need to hack off more coils from my .22LR mags. More live round popping action tonight! ####ing POS. One landed on my elbow. This only happened on the first three rounds of a full mag. It wasn't consistent, but happened often enough to piss me off.

 

[VanMan]

I need to hack off more coils from my .22LR mags. More live round popping action tonight! ####ing POS. One landed on my elbow. This only happened on the first three rounds of a full mag. It wasn't consistent, but happened often enough to piss me off.

I'm pretty happy with cutting off 4 coils from the mag spring and then bending the last 1/2 coil flat. I have one mag with 5 coils cut off. Going to see if it will consistently feed dirty/waxy rounds.

 

[sailor723]

i had my K22S out again the other night. Using the light spring I put 50 rounds of Remington Thunderbolt 40gr LRN through it loaded 5 rounds to a mag (indoor range rules). I had 4 FTF ...all on the first round of a fresh mag and all went on the second strike. This was even after I started giving the slide a firm push after it was in battery. No failure to load or eject.

Overall @ 299 I'm still happy enough with the gun. If I had paid regular retail I think I'd be a lot less pleased right now.

What I still don't understand about the X-Trim is if you need to stone & polish parts, tune the extracter and do mods to the mags to make the gun function reliably why doesn't Grand Power build them that way????

If I went out and paid Browning Buck Mark or Ruger MkIII pricing (or more) for a X-Trim and got a gun that functioned new out of the box like VanMan's did I'd be pissed!

 

[Hitzy]

Saw up that .22 and mail it back to Slovakia.... Lol that would drive me nuts.
Does Trigger Wholesale know they are gonna take a bath on this deal with GP like all the previous dealers to date?
A good product will sell itself.... I know GP is fairly new but they have been in North America for a decade and have never "flew off the shelf" to date. There is a reason they are not a mainstream pistol and I don't think it's previous dealers that are to blame....

 

[VanMan]

Most of the tinkering I've been doing is just speeding up a good break in with some quality high velocity ammo. Most gun stores will tell you to break in a new .22 semi-auto with a couple thousand rounds of Minimags. For my Ruger Mk III's, I've tinkered with them quite a bit with Volquartsen sears, hammers, and extractors. With the Buckmark, about the only thing I did was the Heggis Flip. I've just found that with the .22 bulk ammo - the quality varies very widely. So all my .22 semi-autos (including my 10/22's) have received some form of tuning, polishing & stoning of moving parts to improve their reliability using bulk ammo (I'll confess I'm cheap haha)

The thing I am finding that sucks is their mags. They are cheap at $16 - and their build quality reflects it. The magazine spring is too strong - probably to compensate for the sticking follower. So filing down the mag follower and cutting some coils off the magazine spring definitely helps. I wish they would adopt the same mags as the CZ Kadet. They would probably be a lot more expensive, but worth it for the higher quality and the metal feed lips.

Definitely worth running the heavier large diameter spring, as this eliminates the out of battery FTF.

i had my K22S out again the other night. Using the light spring I put 50 rounds of Remington Thunderbolt 40gr LRN through it loaded 5 rounds to a mag (indoor range rules). I had 4 FTF ...all on the first round of a fresh mag and all went on the second strike. This was even after I started giving the slide a firm push after it was in battery. No failure to load or eject.

Overall @ 299 I'm still happy enough with the gun. If I had paid regular retail I think I'd be a lot less pleased right now.

What I still don't understand about the X-Trim is if you need to stone & polish parts, tune the extracter and do mods to the mags to make the gun function reliably why doesn't Grand Power build them that way????

If I went out and paid Browning Buck Mark or Ruger MkIII pricing (or more) for a X-Trim and got a gun that functioned new out of the box like VanMan's did I'd be pissed!

 

[sailor723]

I think I'll go and shoot my K22S one more time and then make a decision. Nothing really wrong with it but I'm not sure I'm in love. It may be EE bound.

edit...

I'll try the heavier spring as well....

 

[Can-down]

Hey Canuck can you post some pictures of your recoil spring and slide on your newer generation X-trim?
I've had pretty good luck with mine so far but sometimes it seems the extractor does not hook up with the rim and just leaves the empty case in the chamber. It's hard to see the relationship of all the parts when the action is closed on a case but I was thinking perhaps the notch on the barrel wasn't letting the claw get in on some rims.

 

[Can-down]

Makes sense.
What would cause an empty case be left in the chamber? What if you want to just rack the slide to clear a round from the chamber?
My thought is that the claw still needs to be able to get at the rim to extract the round without the effect recoil so that you can clear a live round without firing.

I could imagine a case where if the parts aren't fit perfectly the extractor skips over the rim as it's camming back off the relief cut.

 

[VanMan]

spending some time with my new X-Calibur, I thought I'd share the way I take the slide off. I find it's easier, and a similar grip that I use to take the slide off my CZ Shadow and Glocks. I grip the frame with my right hand and push the slide back with my left hand. When I hit the slide stops, I change my right hand grip to grip the frame and slide. When I push the slide stops down with my left hand, I pull the slide back all the way with my right hand, and then use my left hand to take the slide off.

 

[terBC]

I took my K22S out to the range today for the first time, here are my results

It was -3C out and my fingers were starting to get cold so I didn't get a chance to try the heavier spring like I wanted, but I ran one mag of the following through in this order

CCI Mini-mag 36 Grain hollow point 1260 FPS No issues
Federal Champion 40 Grain Solid 1240 FPS 1 FTE
CCI Velocitor 40 Grain Hollow Point 1435 FPS 2 FTF (Rounds were chambered but no firing pin strike, removed the mag, and re racked the slide and those rounds fired)
Winchester White Box bulk 36 Grain Hollow Point 1280 FPS 3 FTF so I ran a second mag through except this time I had 2 FTE's.
Remington Golden Bullet 36 Grain Hollow Point 1280 FPS 3 FTF's same as the Velocitor's rounds fed properly and were chambered but no pin strike.

Just as a comparison, my buddy brought his M&P 22 which he's had for a while and it had no issues with the Remington's or the Winchesters so I'm not sure how scientific my results are, if the K22S needs to be broken in, if I need to use the heavier spring, of if the cold was affecting it, I do know that the cold was affecting my fingers which is why I didn't try the heavier spring.

I hope this helps some of you out, the next time I go out, I'll do a magazine of each using each spring and post the result, but it may be a little while till I get to it as I'll want to do that when it's a little warmer out.

 

[Hitzy]

spending some time with my new X-Calibur, I thought I'd share the way I take the slide off. I find it's easier, and a similar grip that I use to take the slide off my CZ Shadow and Glocks. I grip the frame with my right hand and push the slide back with my left hand. When I hit the slide stops, I change my right hand grip to grip the frame and slide. When I push the slide stops down with my left hand, I pull the slide back all the way with my right hand, and then use my left hand to take the slide off.

That's way looser then my GP100, everything has to be lined up perfectly on it or no go....I even have to depress the take down notch when putting the slide back on or it won't go, which is pretty ####ing tricky! Maybe with some use the takedown and reassembly will be easier?

 

[VanMan]

I have about 1000 rounds through that X-Calibur, but I do the same thing with my other X-Calibur and my K22 X-Trim. If you can find the right angle when putting the slide back on, the slide goes right on top of the take down notches and presses them down when you press down the slide onto the rails.

That's way looser then my GP100, everything has to be lined up perfectly on it or no go....I even have to depress the take down notch when putting the slide back on or it won't go, which is pretty ####ing tricky! Maybe with some use the takedown and reassembly will be easier?

 

[Hitzy]

I'm good with the takedown, but like I said, I have to press the takedown latch to get the slide BACK ON, it won't go far enough rearward to mate up with the notches.....yours doesn't seem to have that issue? That adds some frustration to assembly for me....but I just got an idea! Gonna try with it in a padded vice holding the grip. That can be the 3rd hand I need lol and might make life easier.