Salient MK25 Prototype 10,770 rounds and counting…

So I broke the 10,000 round mark yesterday, and the gun’s round count currently sits at 10,770. Which seems great until I think of the other 14,230 rounds I need to fire by the end of the month to complete the test on time. My hands are holding up for the most part, and surprisingly my wrists have experienced almost zero discomfort, which is a blessing. Anyway, let’s talk about the gun…

Since the jacked up recoil spring on round 3,124 the gun has experienced zero issues. The recoil characteristics of the gun felt marginally better with the reduced power spring in it as compared to the factory, but the single strand Wolff spring did not play nice with the rest of the gun. This is apparently a known issue that I wasn’t aware of (whoops). I actually feel bad that I didn’t let Salient know it was a potential problem beforehand since my experience with the Sig platform was one of the reasons they got me involved in the development of the Prototype in the first place. In doing a bit more research, it turns out that GGI makes a fat guide rod for Sigs that alleviates that issue that I had with the single strand recoil spring. When I return the gun to Salient for evaluation adding a GGI guide rod  to the build if a single strand recoil spring is to be used will certainly be one of my suggestions.

I know I’ve said this before, but the gun continues to be an absolute joy to shoot. The drilled trigger, which I was afraid would chew my fingers to shreds, provides, in my opinion, the exact right amount of tactile feedback. I notice this most when I shoot the gun either weak/strong hand only. There are still no issues to report with the frame, or where they reshaped it, other than it really does a good job of lowering the bore axis of the pistol. This has provided a noticeable improvement in sight tracking and recoil control in general.

So far it’s been 7,646 rounds since it’s last malfunction, and it went 7,143 rounds before I broke down and cleaned it.

In case you missed it “7,143 rounds before I cleaned it…“

That’s pretty damn impressive, and the gun continues to run well ahead of the industry standard of 2,500 between failures. Much to the dismay of all the random people on the internet who have said with absolute certainty that the lightening cuts in the slide will allow debris into the action that will effect reliability, the gun continues to not have any issues. When we get towards the end of the test I’ll try and introduce some foreign debris into the gun that people who EDC the finished product may actually have to deal with. I’m thinking I will clean the gun entirely, under lube it to represent months of inactivity where the lubrication has migrated, and drop it into a bucket of dryer lint over night. I’m hoping this will be a bit more applicable to the typical carrier than sand or mud tests. Like I said, that will be once I’m sure I’m going to hit the round count I need to. Or maybe I’ll just keep shooting it and not worry about silly things, we’ll see… 😉

I continue to see training gains as I work on the test. In addition to simply being faster than I’ve been in the past, as well as more accurate, my consistency have improved greatly. I do wish that I were doing the test in March or April as opposed to December simply because the weather here has not been conducive towards training, but I’m doing the best I can given the circumstances. One of the things that I’m really trying to do is break some previous training scars I had, such as coming off the target too quickly after knowing how many rounds I’m going to fire. Reloads continue to be the bane of my existence, though I’ve seen some consistency and speed gains the sub 2 second reload continues to elude me. Nothing that more practice won’t fix. Speaking of practice, here I am shooting the 3×5 Bill Drill, which is quickly becoming my favorite drill.

On the agenda for today, more shooting, and the Surefire X400U Green is FINALLY showing up after several supply and shipping delays. Happy holidays everyone, and stay safe!