Springfield Armory Loaded Operator - First Impressions

[sava]

First Range Trip

The next 40 (Federal) rounds were double taps with the pistol drawn from my duty holster. Draw and fire 2 rounds in rapid succession at 5 yds. No stoppages or malfunctions of any kind.

The next 28 (Federal) rounds were triple taps with the pistol drawn from my duty holster. Draw and fire 3 rounds in rapid succession at 5 yds. No stoppages or malfunctions of any kind. This is the target after all 100 rounds of Federal.


I came home and gave the gun a good cleaning. Everything seemed to be working well and the slide travel felt even better after the cleaning. Smooth as butter.

I am very pleased with the performance of the gun so far and will continue testing it. I'll post updates in this thread and will try to answer any and all questions. If it continues performing flawlessly up to the 1500 round mark I may make it my duty carry until the WC shows up.

I wanted to post this little review in case any of you guys were contemplating on purchasing this pistol. Based on what I'm seeing so far, I have full confidence that this gun will continue performing well. If I encounter any issues I'll definitely update the thread.

Next up - The Duty Ammo Test

[sava]

Range Trip #2
Earlier today my buddy and I decided to hit the range for some quick shooting. This was the second time I have fired the pistol. I was unable to procure the necessary amount of duty ammo to make this an official "Duty Ammo" range day, so I brought what I had on hand.

I brought and fired 310 rounds of various ammunition.

-100 Winchester White Box 230gr FMJ
-100 Federal 230gr FMJ
-50 Tula 230gr FMJ
-20 Federal Hydra-Shok 230gr JHP
-20 Speer Gold-Dot 230gr JHP
-20 Winchester PDX1 Defender 230 gr JHP




I fired 100 rounds of the Winchester FMJ while drawing from my duty holster. This was done at 5 yards. Hands down at my sides, then draw and fire 2-3 rounds with an emphasis on speed. When it came time to reload I dropped the mags and reloaded from my Bladetech Quad mag pouch (also testing this mag pouch for possible duty use). I only paused long enough to reload the six magazines I brought with me. Four 8-round Wilson Combat ETM's and two of the 8-round MecGar's that came with the pistol.

Since I only had 60 JHP's available for this test I decided to load them in a staggered formation. One round FMJ, one round JHP, one round FMJ, one round JHP.....so on and so forth. The Federal FMJ's were used during this phase of the shooting. I ensured that the top round in each magazine (the one that would feed into the chamber first) was a JHP. I shot the Hydra-Shok's first, followed by the Winchester Defender, and lastly the Gold Dot's. These were 3 round drills shot from the holster. 2 to the body and 1 to the head. Hands down at my sides, then draw and fire with an emphasis on speed. Reloads were normal speed reloads and this was shot at 5 yards.

I loaded the remaining Federal FMJ's and did 4 round drills. Hands down at my sides, then draw from the duty holster and fire 4 rounds at the head. When the gun went empty I did a normal speed reload to get it topped off again.

I can definitely say that the 1911 is a more natural handgun for me to shoot. It points more naturally I don't have to try as hard to get good hits. It's difficult to explain, but it feels a lot more natural than shooting the Glock. As I bring it up the sights line up more consistently and quicker when compared to the Glock. This is just my opinion based on my shooting....I'm not looking to start a debate as to which platform is better.

Here is the target after 160 rounds of the staggered FMJ/JHP. I am grouping low left, which is my fault and something I have been working on. The gun shoots POA/POI.


Finally I loaded up all 50 rounds of Tula and did a few mag dumps into the target. Hands down at my sides, then draw and fire the entire magazine. When the gun went empty I did a normal speed reload.

The gun continued to function flawlessly. No malfunctions of any kind. All 310 rounds fired and ejected as expected. The action continues to get smoother the more I fire it. 610 rounds and zero malfunctions (thus far). I am beginning to gain faith in this pistol and am actually hoping it passes my reliability test. From what I am currently seeing, I wouldn't mind carrying this as a duty firearm.

Now for the bad part.

I noticed a peculiar issue with one of the WC ETM magazines. I noticed this during my first range trip and marked the magazine to easily identify it. When doing a speed reload this specific magazine would hit the concrete floor and the baseplate would slide slightly forward. This happened consistently each time the magazine was dropped during a reload. I examined and compared this magazine to the remaining three ETM's and noticed the metal retaining pin was shorter, thus causing the baseplate to be easily bumped out of position. I will contact Wilson Combat and hopefully get a replacement.



The remaining ETM's are working reliably....as expected.

The MecGar magazines have been reliable and I have not seen any issues with them.

I will update this thread with my third range trip, at which point the gun will hopefully have over 1,000 rounds through it.

[sava]

Saved x 2

[Rhyyke]

Argh I am jealous... this is the all black "Long Beach" operator correct?

[perpetual otter]

Sweet gun!

[pablo7]

Very nice, tuned in.

[claylakers]

Nice!

[sava]

Argh I am jealous... this is the all black "Long Beach" operator correct?

It seems to be the same build specs, but this is the new 2015 model. You can look up the specs on the SA website.

http://www.springfield-armory.com/wp-content/themes/springfield/pdf/2015Catalog-new.pdf

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[NightHawk]

Very nice write up, OP.

[Rhyyke]

It seems to be the same build specs, but this is the new 2015 model. You can look up the specs on the SA website.

http://www.springfield-armory.com/wp-content/themes/springfield/pdf/2015Catalog-new.pdf

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah that's the one I was talking about. Nice piece!

[kappatxl]

great write up OP - congrats on the Operator...can't wait to see the WC.

[Seaweed02]

Heck of a job

What a great review! Thanks for taking the time to do such an in depth write up and review. And what a nice looking pistol you have there. It may even still be your favorite after the Wilson Combat arrives!

[mike.h]

very nice

[HibikiR]

I wasn't aware that Springfield was now blending speed chutes to the frame.

Haven't they always been doing that with their higher end models?

[Paulo]

very nice. I assume it is off roster right ?