PT145 Range Report 6-14-07

Last Saturday I purchased a brand spankin' new 2007 model PT145. Three days later, my buddy picked up a PT111 that was JUICY right out of the box. Literally...it was soaked in oil.

We stocked up on ammo, and hit the road. After reading some of the posts made by a few of you about breaking in your new gun, I brought my cleaning kit.

My buddy had two boxes of WWB (100rds), and I gave him a box of Rem 9mm (50rds). All 115gr ball.

I had three boxes of Blazer .45acp, two boxes of Remington .45acp, and a box of Magtech .45 acp(all 50rd boxes). All 230gr ball.

First 50 rounds through both guns...FLAWLESS.

He didn't bring his cleaning gear but I brought mine, and as it turns out, I forgot a few things which made my attempt at cleaning pretty useless. I'm not really sure why, but there was some residue left in the bore back near the feed ramp that would just NOT come out. I didn't bring my toothbrush with me, so there's some scrubbing for me to do later tonight.

Anyway, we ran another 50 through both guns. FLAWLESS once again. We then began running the bore brush that comes with the gun through it after ever magazine.

My 145 had a failure at round 153. I was using Blazer, and it seems like the bullet fed up the ramp correctly, but it failed to feed into the chamber.

My next failure was at 210, this one was from a dirty magazine improperly pushing the bullet up the feed ramp. I cleaned it and was off once again.

My buddy ran a couple mags through it and had a limp wrist failure at around 245. Then again at 247. (We were dual wielding them...had to do it once, you know?)

The last 50 rounds came from a box of Blazer, and were flawless.

His gun, ironically, didn't have one single hiccup in the 250 rounds he fired through it.

So my piece had a few burps, they were mainly operator error...and the fact it was dirty as hell. Even so, I was very very happy with the way it performed. Took me quite a while to get used to the sights on it, I was used to shooting my Star BM.

I started out shooting all over the freakin' place. I'd never fired a .45 before, so it took some getting used to. I then started grouping them about 7-8 inches low on the target. I wasn't discouraged though, cause hell, they WERE in a group. Over the course of the shoot, my groups started lifting higher and higher until they were all relatively close to the center. The range we go to is outdoors, and the closest you can shoot from is 25yds. At that distance, I can barely see the target...so I didn't think I was doin' too bad. And really, how often are you gonna be shooting at someone 75ft away in a self defense situation? Yea...probably never, cause' you'll be running for cover.

The guy in the stall next to us had a 1911, and he came over to check out our guns. The 1911 he had was a Rock River or something like that. He said he paid $400 for it. We traded guns for a few minutes. I thought it was an alright pistol, but it failed twice for my buddy in just one clip.

Next week we're going to hit the indoor range for some "practical" practice.

I give the PT111 a 10/10 for reliability and toughness. It's a great shooter too, the recoil isn't bad at all.

I'll give the PT145 a 9.5/10, solely because of the feed problems. Which is most likely not the guns fault. But hey, I'd still trust it enough to carry on a daily basis. When it was clean it fired perfect!