New Sig Scorpion 1911

AKA Car Guy Wins again.

That is a brand spankin' new Sig Sauer 1911 Scorpion. It's a 5 inch 1911 pattern single stack pistol in .45 ACP. It has a tactical rail, night sights and the grips form a modest magwell. It's finished in Desert Tan Ceracote.

The grips are Hogue Piranha and are very grippy. It has checkering front and rear. Mags are 8+1. The gun is tight and very well built with excellent quality control throughout. Plus, it's frickin gorgeous.

There is a logical explanation for this that doesn't involve drooling gun lust and poor impulse control. Well not just that. I swear.

As you know by now I am deeply into learning a new shooting discipline, USPSA and IPSC competition. To that end I have been perusing, studying and considering what guns I need and what guns I simply want. Now, follow me here.

USPSA is broken down into divisions
Open - Anything goes and run watcha brung.
Limited - Mostly stock pistols with some minor modifications that are not factory installed.
Limited 10 - Much like limited but with 10 rounds per magazine required (Thanks California!).
Production - Pretty much stock duty type pistols. 10 round mag limits.
Single Stack - About what you'd expect. Dominated by 1911 pattern SS pistols. 
Heavy Metal - This is 3 gun with a 44 mag. minimum, 12 Ga. pump and .308 rifle. More on this later but this division is a big reason for my latest acquisition.
There are some others but, with the exception of Open, for me these are the most important. All those divisions carry a Minor/Major Power factor penalty and require .40 and above (along with a PF calculation that includes velocity and bullet weight) to shoot Major. That's important because Minor carries scoring penalties for any hit outside the A zone. What that means is that .45 ACP qualifies for Major on all counts as does .40.

Ok. I have a Glock G35 in .40 with 15 round mags. Lu says I can borrow her XDM in 9mm to shoot Steel Challenge where there's no Power Factor penalties. With the Glock I can shoot Production, Limited 10 by simply downloading the mags to 10 rounds and Limited with full mags. With the new Sig I can also shoot both Production and Limited 10 with only a 2 rounds per mag penalty. At my modest level that's no real imposition at the moment. It's made for Single Stack and is perfect for Heavy Metal and I really want to shoot that. Badly. 3 Gun with my M1A, 870 and now my new Sig 1911. Can you say Holy Crap That Is Magnificently Awesome?

I'm ready to go right now on Heavy Metal with at least 2 guns I am intimately familiar with and can shoot reasonably well. The 1911 I can shoot I just need to get reacquainted with that whole safety thing. There's one other consideration in this purchase.

I want to see how well I can shoot this competition stuff. I've hooked up with a very good shooter who is coaching me. I'm starting to improve and really getting hooked. There's a whole new category of pistol out there I was ignorant of until recently, the 2011. It's basically a double stack 1911 pattern pistol. Yep, Para Ordnance has been making them for years but they just never registered with me until now. But the high speed guys are mostly shooting them with a few exceptions like Tangfolio and CZ DA/SA pistols.

So. This new gun will allow me to get back into 1911 shooting at about half the cost of that new STI. I'll be able to shoot it in various matches and see if I can actually run one. I can shoot the Glock as well and see how far I can go in the sport. If I fail I still have a great 1911 pistol for whatever shooting purpose tickles me and I can go back to shooting plastic pistols in competition. But. If I can master this new discipline and reach a certain level with both the Glock and the Sig then I'll take the next step and plunk down something north of 2 grand for that shiny new STI Tactical 5.0 or its equivalent.

See? Doesn't all that just make perfect sense? It's not lust and an enabling wife at all. It's actually science!! Settled and everything (Hey, if the global warmers can get away with it then so can I).

The upside of all this for me is that the reason I stopped carrying and shooting 1911s in the first place is no longer extant. I couldn't get past the manual safety on the 1911 after carrying and shooting SA/DA pistols on duty. It was a safety issue. Since I'm no longer on duty I can try it again. And this is a nearly perfect pistol to do that with.

I am so excited. Stay tuned, I'll be having a discussion about competition versus self defense shooting in the very near future. In the meantime there's a new gun and a couple of boxes of ammo in my safe. Time to go shooting!

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