Chris Rhines [10|Nov 08:38 PM]: So I’m sitting here dryfiring my Caracal. Wondering why I seem to only be attracted to guns that won’t hold an IDPA head box at 25 yards.

Chris Rhines [10|Nov 08:39 PM]: I got out a couple of my old Smith and Wesson M&Ps. Also can’t hold a group worth a s***, but I love shooting them.

Chris Rhines [10|Nov 08:39 PM]: My Glocks and my STIs all group really well, so why does shooting them feel like folding laundry?

Chris Rhines [10|Nov 08:39 PM]: WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

pauly [10|Nov 08:42 PM]: yer not drinking enough?

Two Caracal F pistols, one Blade-Tech belt holster, one Ready Tactical magazine carrier. Ready to go.

Specs

The build quality on the Caracal is very good.  There are no visible toolmarks inside or outside and no molding imperfections visible in the frame.  All of the metal parts are nicely finished in Caracals ‘Plasox’ coating.  The magazines are nicely welded steel, with heavy-duty nylon followers and floorplates.  Overall, the Caracal gives every impression of being a high-quality pistol.

The Caracal magazines are dimensionally very similar to the Smith and Wesson M&P magazine.  This is handy for me, because I have a bunch of M&P magazine carriers that I could press into service.

Both of my Caracals are full-sized models with the standard sight arrangement.  One of the unusual features of the Caracal is that the rear sight is integral with the breechblock assembly and cannot be adjusted or (for now) changed out.  The front sight is a conventional dovetailed post.  Both front and rear sights feature white dots in a figure-8 configuration.  Unfortunately, the dots are poorly regulated and the same size, meaning that the rear dot appears larger.  Not usually how I like my sights.  The rear notch is also much too narrow, and the pyramid shape of the rear sight makes it quite hard to get precise vertical alignment.

The overall ergonomics of the Caracal are very good.  The grip frame is very comfortable and allows for a very high thumbs-forward grip.  The grip is textured, although somewhat less than I usually prefer.  The ambidextrous steel magazine release is a little bit on the small side, although I found that I could easily release the magazine with my strong-hand thumb.  The slide stop is on the left side of the frame only, and is somewhat small and sharp, but still more or less functional (I always release the slide with my strong-hand thumb.)

The trigger on the Caracal deserves special mention – it is, quite simply the best trigger on a polymer pistol, ever.  It is a smooth rolling break at about four pounds, a short and positive reset, and no noticeable overtravel.  The trigger action was the first factor that got me interested in the Caracal series.

Shooting

I fired about 200 rounds of my USPSA Minor handloads  (147grn. Berrys plated bullet, Hodgdon Titegroup, Winchester primer, 900fps. avg.) and fifty rounds of 124grn. CCI M882CF, over the course of about two hours.  The Caracal is generally pretty pleasant to shoot, even with the +P pressure M882CF.  I ran some basic draw, reload, and recoil control drills, and while the pistol ergonomics and trigger were excellent, the poor sight arrangement proved a hinderance when rapidly engaging small targets.  My best time for drawing and firing two rounds into a 3×5 card at 7 yards, was 2.4 seconds (from concealment.)  Slide-lock reloads ran about 2.0 seconds from concealment, which is on par with my times for similar guns.  I did manage three sub-6.0 second FAST Drills towards the end of the practice session, which is not bad for a brand new pistol.

Both pistol functioned perfectly, but had an occasional tendency to bounce empty cases off of my forehead.  Annoying, but not exactly the end of the world.

I would rate the long-range accuracy of the Caracal as poor.  I was able to shoot consistent 2″ groups at 10 yards, but the group size exploded out at 25 yards, to over 8″ with significant vertical stringing.  The group size and POI was consistent across both types of ammo.

Impressions

Although the Caracal F is a really nice pistol to shoot, the accuracy at 25 yards was more than a little disappointing.  8″+ groups at 25 yards is just not good enough for serious competition.  The sight arrangement is also sub-optimal (and likely contributes to the accuracy issue.)  Between these two problems, I’m not planning on switching over from my current USPSA/IDPA pistols quite yet.  I do plan on continuing with the testing, so we’ll see if I can get some of these issues resolved.  A replacement rear sight and better groups at 25 yards would make the Caracal F an impressive pistol indeed.

Link, with updates.

At least one person has been unable to replicate this malfunction, so my guess is that there’s a tolerance stacking issue with the firing pin block or its related parts.

This is not good news for Caracal.  But, they seem determined to deal with the problem in a professional manner.  Offering to buy back guns subject to the recall is something I’ve never heard of in this industry.

Stay tuned for more news.

-C

I had a fairly strong match, with only a few minor mistakes.  I ended up 4th overall, so apparently everyone else had a strong match, too.  I need to get this house thing finished with, so I can get back into some kind of regular training…

- Speaking of the reloading press, I had two failures to fire during the USPSA match with Glock #2.  Upon inspecting the unfired rounds, I noticed that the primers weren’t quite seated below flush.  Good reminder to inspect your match ammo, especially if you use lighter hammer/striker springs.

- Go over here, and give the retention holster roundup a look.  I’m a big fan of retention holsters for multigun shooting – in fact, I use the Safariland 6378ALS on a 6004-FLEX drop rig.

- This coming Saturday is the regional multigun match at Peacemaker National Training Center.  Go sign up, if you haven’t already.

“Oh the pain, the horrible pain!”

I was breaking in the new Glock 34 during my usual Thursday night live-fire practice at the NRA Range.  I spent a fair amount of time doing concealed draws at 7 yards, and during one of my runs I managed to slice my finger open on the razor-like Warren Tactical rear sight.

I also worked on the emergency reload for a bit, and noticed a possible hitch. Four times during the practice, the slide failed to go into battery.

Glock Perfection

Weird, huh? This happened with a few different magazines, so I’m wondering if I might need to replace my magazine springs. I’ve also seen this kind of stoppage with longer-than-spec ammo, so I should probably check the loading press over.

Other than that, I have some high hopes for this particular Glock.  It has one of the better out-of-the-box triggers I’ve felt on a Glock, and I’m holding consistent 3″ groups offhand with it (five shots at 25 yards.)  I’ll be wringing it out more thoroughly over the next few weeks.

I’ve lately been trying out that trendy new shotgun quad load.  I’m not as fast with it as I am loading weakhand, but it’s getting better.  I might need to order some more carriers soon.  On the other hand, my pistol shooting was a little bit sloppy.  I’ve been spending most of my dryfire time working on that shotgun reload, and it’s showing a little bit.  Sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

I should have some photos up soon.  Stay tuned.

Recently, over at Pistol-Forum.com, there was a great discussion about managing the Glock pistol trigger at speed.  P-F.com member and firearms instructor Wayne Dobbs posted an excellent comment, including a training drill that I just got a chance to try out.  I’ll repeat the highlights here:

“During live fire training I usually shoot 15-25 shots on what Larry Vickers calls command fire. The drill is run at five to seven yards on the X ring of a B-8 bull or a similar sized (~1.5 inches) target. The shot timer is set to .25-.30 second on delay, the sights are aligned and the trigger slacked out. On the beep, I fire a shot inside the time limit using perfect (and rapid) trigger control and the shot must be well inside the target zone. If I miss, I stop and do five to 10 remedial dry presses and start over. It’s mentally tough and requires solid focus and attention to all the details. It is a method to solidly ingrain the skills needed to manage the trigger well.”

I tried this drill out last night, using 2″ dots at 7 yards, and found it very useful for curing the tendency to slap through the trigger on a Glock (the source of a lot of mysterious low shots.)  I continued the drill with press-outs from high ready, trigger finger in register, with a    0.7 sec. par, for the same number of reps.  The point of this is to practice getting the trigger fully prepped before the sights are on target.  The next natural step, of course, would be draws from the holster.

Give it a try, see how it works.  Oh, and check out that thread on Pistol-Forum.com, there’s a lot of good discussion going on.

I’m honestly blown away.  This is the best gun-related commercial I’ve ever seen.  Glock has just scooped the entire industry when it comes to marketing.

I hope to see more commercials like this, from more gun and shooting-related companies.