DixieBoy said:
Didn't Col. Cooper explain all of this to us years ago? - DixieBoy
I wonder what he would think of things as they stand now?
I will give my general opinion on drop in and also not so drop in modifications to today's varying array of pistols.
I shoot a lot and have been doing so for many years, so I now have acquired a fair amount of guns in my life and I enjoy them. I have almost always divided my guns into broad categories; home defense, personal defense, fun guns and various levels of range guns.
I don't modify my personal defense/carry guns as far as actions are concerned, I may change out sights or grips but I don't want to change the original intent or design of the gun. There are a lot of reasons for this and remember these are my opinions and observations.
My main carry gun is a Kahr CM9, I have found this gun to be the best that I have tried for almost only personal reasons. I owned a couple other guns that I thought may be, could be, might be the one but they weren't. I might even change my mind on the Kahr at some point but it has been 100% reliable so far.
I know many own just a few guns, this will change with some and they will acquire more and more as time goes on and they may end up feeling as I do or maybe not.
I have highly modified and not so highly modified range guns and I love shooting them, they are accurate beyond belief and are just a joy to pull out of my range bag or holster and let it rip. Many of my modifications I did myself and I'm comfortable with them because these are range guns. I wouldn't feel all that weird even using some of them as a home or property defense weapons either but I have plenty of those.
I will not modify a carry gun's firing group be it, trigger, springs, hammer, striker assembly or any other component that makes it go boom. I know that some will assume it is because there have been stories of gun owners getting railed for using a modified gun in an otherwise legit shoot, these stories have some legs but the more they are repeated, the more hollow they sound but they are a point to consider. My main reason is safety and reliability, well I guess that's two reasons but they go hand in hand.
I want all that bothered to read my ramblings to now go get your favorite little bitty carry boomer, make sure it is unloaded and cock it and pull the trigger. Now cock it again but push the slide just slightly out of battery and pull the trigger, did it "fire"? If it didn't great, your gun works right. Now go buy every thing that is available on line and stick those super awesome parts in your favorite CCW pistol. after you've spent the couple of hundred dollars or so, I want you to do the same test and I will almost guarantee that half those pistols will fire out of battery.
Why? ...because most guys, just like me will end up with a small carry gun like an LC9 or such and those guns don't take to modifications as well as a larger pistol will, although you can make a big pistol into a hammer with the proper amount of money and modifications. Little guns don't move much, their recoil is stunted, the ejections have a small window, they're harder to hold so little things cause issues but the biggest issue with most is if you play with the pivots and springs and camming actions they stop working as intended and start to become dangerous to you or somebody else or they become unreliable and I don't want that and I bet the old Colonel wouldn't like that idea all that much either.