XD Problems - It's always the little things...

I remember a friend that used to race buggies in Baja always would say how it was always the little things that put him out of the race, never had a problem with the engine or blowing out tires but a stupid little 5 cent bolt that broke and left him stranded.
Well this was exactly what happened to Ryan in this year's Spring Steel match, 8 stages and I think his gun only ran one of them without a malfunction. Initially, I thought he was just so use to the 1911 he'd been shooting for the last several months that he wasn't letting up on the trigger enough to reset but after I told him he would deliberately take is finger off the trigger to assure it went forward enough and still nothing. His trigger was definitely failing to reset intermittently. We took it into the safety area several times to check it out but never could find anything wrong.
It wasn't until my drive home today from work that I had the 'Aha moment' and I figured it out. I remembered showing him how the trigger worked in the XD and noticed that the over travel screw wasn't adjusted properly and at the time didn't think much of it until I realize that if the screw backed up far enough it would hit the magazine which would prevent it from resetting - we never saw this because magazines aren't allowed in the safety area. But I confirmed this was the case as soon as I got home. Yep a stupid little 2 cent screw stopped Ryan from putting any sort of performance together for the match.

Shoot of another sort

My best finish yet at the Western States Single Stack Championship. 31st overall, and 3rd in class.

Nordic Components NC22 First Impression

Last November I picked up a certificate for an NC22 rifle off the prize table of the Area 2 Desert Classic. I didn't really know what it was but I thought it'd be fun for my Son to shoot since my real AR is still a bit big and heavy for him.

Well the rifle arrived last week and I was extremely pleased to find how well made this rifle is. It appears that Nordic components fits a custom upper, specifically designed and optimized for running 22lr rounds to a standard AR lower. The upper to lower fit was nice and tight without a bit of slop or rattle.

The rifle came with one BlackDog 10 round magazine. I fitted it with a spare CMore sight (that I also picked up off the prize table) and went to the range to sight it in.

While I didn't shoot any groups as with a CMore, I wasn't setting this up to be a target rifle. But what this rifle is is FUN. A well balance AR platform shooting .22lr rounds just doesn't recoil and makes double taps and rapid fire strings a blast to pull off.

I shot about 700 rounds of a mixture of Federal and Winchester 36gr. copper plated bulk ammo through it and it never skipped a beat.

Ryan and I shot it this week in a local tactical rife match that was half close range rapid fire targets and half long range work - I took fifth which I thought was pretty good considering I didn't know what I was doing and a 12MOA red dot CMORE isn't the right tool to be pulling off long range work.

The one down side of the rifle is that the trigger leaves MUCH to be desired, but that could just be that I haven't shot a stock trigger in years. It does appear that they're just standard GI parts so I may have a go with some polishing compound and some spring cutting to see what happens.

So my bottom line on the Nordic Components NC22 Rifle? One hellova fun gun that's built right.