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Staccato HD range reports

13K views 45 replies 19 participants last post by  JT Lewis  
I know there's already too many HD threads but thought enough people may want to skip 50+ pages of ___, and see what HD owners are reporting from the range. So, anyone shooting an HD P4 can throw up their .02 if they feel like it.

I'm starting with a first impressions at the range. My optics plates arrive Wednesday so today was just pump some rounds through it, see how it feels and hope for no failures. I sold my 24c recently so can't directly compare that but I will say the HD shoots similar to the 24c but maybe a bit less aggressive due to the steel frame.

- Zero failures, ran about 450 rounds.

- Ran - 115 S&B, 124 Fiochi, 124 WIN NATO, 124 PMC. Just what I had handy.

- Ran 2 Mecgar mags that it came with and a couple old beat up Glock mags, 1 with the Glock +2 extension on it. It was nice knowing old G mags with springs that probably have 5-10k rounds through em still ran perfect and locked back every time.

- The sharp edges on the beaver tail that I noticed upon first handling the pistol was non existent while shooting, which conflicts with what Roger Berrera said in his video. I can only assume different hands will react differently with that.

- The goofy plastic buffer isn't noticeable during shooting but it still annoys me. I don't like rattling things.

- The recoil impulse is interesting. I had some slight inconsistencies there but another range trip is scheduled for Wednesday to figure it out. Some mags had that kind of mechanical, slower 5" impulse, but most of the time it was that fast, tight feeling impulse. The main reason I usually gravitate towards 4" pistols. :unsure:

- One thing that's always bothered me is if a pistol is lazy when releasing the slide onto a full mag. I want that round to drive home with authority. Initially the Mecgar mags were lazy to strip that first round, but only with the S&B ammo, which is pointier than the others I brought. The G mags were fine in that capacity, regardless of ammo, and things leveled off throughout the session, so likely a non issue. I do wonder what a heavier spring would feel like in this thing.

- Something I need to get more range time with but initially I'm not sure if I'm liking the redesigned safety, slide release placement. I understand they always need to please the majority and most people had to decide - Break grip or use support hand. I'm probably one of a few that loved the original slide release placement on Staccato's. On reloads just the slight tilt, breaking my grip the tiniest bit allowed me to effectively activate the slide release with strong side thumb on P's/ XC's. Now that it's closer, it just feels weird and I'm bumping into the safety, but no real judgement yet. Aside from that I do love the way the grip feels overall.

- It's been years since I seriously ran irons. Although riding a bike, and I was on target, I couldn't quite quantify how much the pistol was moving around, return to zero, like I can with a dot. Next session will have the RMR HD.

- Overall I'd initially say it's a great pistol. Is it THE pistol? Time will tell.

I'll update after the next session.
Sorry, but I have to chime in with my two cents.

My wife asked me to buy the HD-P4 for her for our 45th anniversary. I was a little hesitant because of the short sight radius, but since she's insistent on adding Trijicon optics, the sight radius is relatively irrelevant. However, I was wrong about the sights. I shot it with open sights and was amazed at how easy it was to acquire the sights and consistently put them on target at 25 yards.

The trigger pull is a crisp 3lb-8oz, and there were no failure to feed or fire, except that when my wife is shooting it, the manual safety engages after every other shot. I shot three mags through it and the safety self-engaging never occurred for me. So I watched as my wife shot again and couldn't tell if her right thumb was lifting the safety or not, but I'm not mounting optics until I go back to Staccato Vegas and have my wife shoot it in front of their armorer. We'll take a trip down to Pahrump in a month or two, then I'll report back on the findings.

Overall it seems like a very fine piece.

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