Went to a local IDPA match this weekend and had a chance to shoot my P3AT afterward. I bought it new at a gunshow in Birmingham in late October, but just now have had a chance to make it to the range..
Ended up paying $269+ tax, a little more than I wanted to spend, but it was the only one there and a local shop has theirs marked at $309
.
I fired about 80 rounds thru it with no failures to feed or extract. On the next to last round I had a light strike, but I reset the trigger and it fired fine. All ammo was Georgia Arms FMJ and their defense ammo that uses Gold Dot JHP's. I frequently mixed ammo in a single magazine to try to induce stoppages, but this seemed to have no effect. The recoil was noticeably more than the P32, but not unmanageable at all.
At 7 yds I was able to keep 2-3" groups if I concentrated, but I got better groupings in defensive scenarios where I was retreating from contact distances and rapidly dumping the mag in one or two targets. This is a more realistic scenario for this weapon, but I have no doubts about my ability to hit well out to about 15 yds or so.
Extraction was excellent, had only one piece of brass hit me in the forehead as I have heard this pistol has a habit of doing. Two other people shot some rounds out of it and I noticed the brass was mostly flying over thier right shoulder and landing 3-6ft. away.
Negatives- I have large hands and cannot wait to get a mag extension to give my middle finger more area to grip. Also it dug an app. 1/4" hole in the thumb side the web of my hand. This was caused by the pin that came with the belt clip grinding into my hand during recoil. Since this is a carry alot/ shoot a little gun I am not overly concerned with this (that being said, I may file the edge of the head of the pin to alleviate this).
Overall I am very happy with it and after about 125 or so more trouble free rounds, I will feel ok about carrying it. I did notice that the JHP's were occasionally hanging on the feed ramp only when cycled by hand, but I polished the feed ramp last night and we'll see if still does it.
Mino
Ended up paying $269+ tax, a little more than I wanted to spend, but it was the only one there and a local shop has theirs marked at $309
.I fired about 80 rounds thru it with no failures to feed or extract. On the next to last round I had a light strike, but I reset the trigger and it fired fine. All ammo was Georgia Arms FMJ and their defense ammo that uses Gold Dot JHP's. I frequently mixed ammo in a single magazine to try to induce stoppages, but this seemed to have no effect. The recoil was noticeably more than the P32, but not unmanageable at all.
At 7 yds I was able to keep 2-3" groups if I concentrated, but I got better groupings in defensive scenarios where I was retreating from contact distances and rapidly dumping the mag in one or two targets. This is a more realistic scenario for this weapon, but I have no doubts about my ability to hit well out to about 15 yds or so.
Extraction was excellent, had only one piece of brass hit me in the forehead as I have heard this pistol has a habit of doing. Two other people shot some rounds out of it and I noticed the brass was mostly flying over thier right shoulder and landing 3-6ft. away.
Negatives- I have large hands and cannot wait to get a mag extension to give my middle finger more area to grip. Also it dug an app. 1/4" hole in the thumb side the web of my hand. This was caused by the pin that came with the belt clip grinding into my hand during recoil. Since this is a carry alot/ shoot a little gun I am not overly concerned with this (that being said, I may file the edge of the head of the pin to alleviate this).
Overall I am very happy with it and after about 125 or so more trouble free rounds, I will feel ok about carrying it. I did notice that the JHP's were occasionally hanging on the feed ramp only when cycled by hand, but I polished the feed ramp last night and we'll see if still does it.
Mino
