Hello. Today, I was able to get back to the range to do the 25 and 50 yard portion of the report on the Dan Wesson Patriot Expert Stainless .45 ACP.
I could NOT do the 50 yard shooting today. Too many folks were on that range trying to get their deer rifles at least on the paper before moving to 100 yards. Sorry. The farthest I could shoot was 25 yards. To "make up" for the lack of 50-yard groups, I fired some off-hand and rested groups at 25 yards and there are more rounds fired at both 7 and 15 yards.
Today, I also used several different magazines in the pistol. It's been my experience that most 1911 guys have quite a few magazines and they're not all the same make. Here's what was used today:
Left to Right: Wilson 8-rnd, Wilson 7-rnd, Pachmayr 7-rnd, McCormick 8-rnd (came with gun), Colt 7-rnd, and an old Randall 7-rnd.
There were
zero failures to feed or lock the slide back on the last shot with any of them. Most of the time the weapon was fired with a full magazine and one in the chamber as that's the way most would carry their pistol. As most know, magazines can have different shaped lips and this, too, made no difference; they all worked.
Here's the McCormick magazine on the left and the old Colt magazine on the right. Both are loaded with a CSWC handload. You can see differences in the magazine lips.
The pistol: The pistol was used as received and had not been cleaned internally since all of my shooting with it began. I'd estimate that at about 350 rnds ago. The exterior WAS wiped off after each session. While the Fedex package containing the new magazine release did arrive today, I was already back from the range when it did! I'll put it in and if there are any problems will report back, but I expect none. This explains why the magazine release on the gun in these pictures is blued; that's what I had in my spare parts!
Ammunition: As you might recall, I had some problems initially with a handloaded 200 gr CSWC. The slide, on occassion would NOT go fully into battery. Last night, I did some checking and measuring around and found out that this was likely NOT the gun's fault; it was mine. What happened was I'd been loading some of the same bullets for Auto-Rim cases for use in my Model 625 and had altered the seating depth a tad. When I changed plates and did some ACPs, the LOA was about 0.02" too long! I bumped back to 1.25" before going to the range today. These work fine, but in my opinion will be seated another 0.01 or 0.02" shorter to freely work in any magazine I have. Right now they barely work in some. The Dan Wesson bbl is sized for minimal slop. I checked them in another pistol I have with a match bbl and the same problem was present.
The problem was my ammo, not the gun.
No ball was fired today. A friend had asked me to run a "motherload" of SWC through the gun. The motherload today consisted of 200 rnds of the CSWC handload; the same one that caused problems before, but shortened as mentioned above. I also used mixed, fired and resized cases to see if any particular brand case causes problems. This likely DOES affect the load's accuracy, but I don't shoot well enough for it to show up unless it grossly affects it; it didn't.
I also fired 50 rnds of a handload using Hornady's 200 gr XTP.
The Loads:Hornady 200 gr XTP
7.2 gr Unique Powder
New TZZ Cases
Federal LP Primer
LOA: 1.215"
Rucker 200 gr Cast SWC
5.0 gr Bullseye
Mixed, fired cases
Winchester LP Primer
LOA: 1.25"
Shooting: This was done at 15 yards off-hand, 7 yards off-hand and rapid-fire, 25 yards off-hand and rested.
Here's the targets at 15 yards using the SWC handload. They are 9-shot groups using the McCormick magazine fully loaded and the gun "topped off."
Also at 15 yards, here's a group with the Hornady XTP handload.
It, too, was fired with a "full" gun, but using a Wilson 7-rnd magazine.25 Yards:This 9-shot group was fired with the XTP handload; I like it.
It was fired from a rest. Even so, I pulled one low.This 25-yard group was fired standing, w/2-hand hold, no rest. It was fired slow-fire and uses the CSWC handload.
Pulled a couple there, too!This group was also fired at 25 yards, but was from a rest.
I do not really remember how many rounds were fired, but several more than usual as this was also a check on feeding reliability with the pistol and this load.
7 Yards: Starting at either a low or high ready position, I fired sets of controlled pairs at this target using the CSWC handload.
By this time, I've lost track of which magazines were used, but all did get used more than once and all worked fine! Sorry.
It was pretty muddy, so I also did the obligatory "mud expansion test" using the XTP load.
Doesn't prove anything, but I've had good luck with them on animals.
One gentleman had remarked that I'd not shown the relieved area under the Patriot triggerguard. Hopefully, the picture below corrects that. It doesn't appear as "relieved" as my STIs, but I think I prefer the more subtle DW in this regard.
Observations:Now that I've fired something over 500 rnds through the pistol, I feel that I can make some comments.
The trigger's smoothed up a bit from when I first got it and is a very,very good trigger out of the box.
The sights have held true and adjustments have been positive and repeatable.
Fit and finish on the pistol are very good.
Bbl-to-slide fit is such that there is no movement when the gun's in battery.
Frame-to-slide fit remains very, very good.
There were no problems whatsoever from the small, 9mm-size firing pin. There were zero misfires and primers were well dented.
There were utterly no problems with extraction. The external extractor
does work in this pistol. I note NO abnormal or unusual wear on it after these shooting sessions. Spring tension remains strong.
The Patriot seems to be a very reliable pistol. The problems were due to improper handloads. This gun's been fired with factory ball from more than one maker, factory JHPs and handloaded JHPs in different weights. When the SWC handload was corrected, the gun ran with them just fine, at least for 200 rnds. I think it works fine.
We did have a minor parts breakage, but that was the first one magazine release I've ever seen break. As mentioned in the original report, I think it was a fluke. I'm going to replace it with another just like it; we'll see.
In short, I consider the Dan Wesson Patriot Expert to be a very fine pistol and appreciate the chance to wring it out for myself and others.
This has been as objective and straight as I know how to do it.
Best.
