If you want to drive up to Cherry Point, I'll sell you mine. I need to upgrade to further enable my purchasing...
Is the Mk III Target similar to my Mk II Target, with the relatively longer stainless bull barrel? I love my Mk II. It goes to the range with me most non-competition trips, as it's such a great little skill builder. Great to practice the fundamentals with it, before moving on to larger calibers. But man, is that thing a (comparative) bitch to put back together. But give me it, a box of Super Colibris, and a steady stream of stray cats trying to shit in my yard, and I'll be occupied for HOURS.
Range report!
Good news. Took the MK III, LC9, Glock 22 and DevilWoman (first time shooter) to the range here in Jax. Devilwoman shot the Mk III and my LC9; she was a little gun shy at first but warmed up to it once she figured out a: shooting stuff is fun and b: she's really fucking good at it (better than I am, not surprising). MKIII had a few fail to feeds, but I'm thinking it's either a magazine break in issue, shitty ammo (armscor), or my wife's interesting method of releasing the bolt. I'm still trying to think of a way to convey to her how to do something that seems second nature to me. Her hands are too small to hold the gun as though you were shooting it, thumb the release AND pull the bolt back and let it go. Weird. However, the gun went bang every single time, once we got the feed issue worked out.
The MK III lived up to its reputation as a fun, accurate as hell, easy to shoot, reliable plinker. We had a blast with it. Besides the magazine feed issues, it ran through everything as fast as we could pull the sweeeeeeeeeet trigger. Good gun, great value, not going to sell this one in a million years. The grip angle and slim profile made it easy for Devilwoman to shoot, and I like that everything is in the exact same place as it is on a 1911. Best part: 500 rounds through it cost me less than 20 bucks. It's relatively heavy, but well balanced. Recoil on a 22 is obviously minimal, and the weight and balance helped me punch a quarter size hole in the target at 10 yards all day. Fun fun fun. The wifey liked it a lot. She did ask me if it was a pussy gun, and I said no, dear. It's a training gun.
Only problem she had was with the general saturday morning range retards shooting hand cannons in the next stall. I doubled up her hearing protection, and she was better, but she still didn't like the fact that the people were retarded and had guns. Merrica, Fuck yea!
She was unsure of the LC9 at first, so I loaded it up with 2 rounds and had her shoot at the 7 yard line. I told her "take it off safe, point for the middle of the square, pull it till it goes bang twice, and we'll see where they end up." 2 9mm size holes directly in the middle of the 10 ring allowed me to shut the hell up. When I finally got to play with it, the LC9 ran like a champ through 200 rounds. No FTF, FTE, or feed issues. I like the sights, accuracy is better than I am, and it's comfortable in my hands. I like the single stack. I started shooting with the double stack glock, and I'm good with it with practice, but I really like the way the LC9 fits my carnie hands. The safety is easy to take off safe, hard to put on. I like that, especially in a gun designed for concealed carry. Devilwoman liked that it had a safety; something she could look at and immediately tell whether the gun was on safe or not. I'm not a huge fan of external safeties as I don't think they promote good handling practices, but I didn't have any other problem with this one. Trigger pull is weird; the best thing to compare it to is shooting a revolver. It is looooooooong, at best. If theres one issue I've got with the gun, it's the trigger. I may take it to a smith and see what they can do for it.
By the time I got to shoot my glock, I was too worn out to actually care. I put 2 magazines through it just for funzies and to give myself a reason to break it down and clean it, but other than that, it was a pretty good day. As usual, it ate everything, put it close enough to center mass to satisfy me, and made a loud boom. Me love it long time.
A few more of these days and she may be up for going to a gun store and picking something out she can actually carry for self defense. We'll see.
