Last Week I reported on the return of my Para Ordinance Warthog subcompact .45 ACP pistol from factory service. The pistol had feed problems which we could not seem to remedy, so it went to the Para facility in Tennessee for a thorough going-over. In the last report, I tentatively gave the pistol a good to very good performance rating. Today, I’m happy to say that the gun had absolutely NO misfeeds in about 90 rounds.
I took this picture of my little pistol after I cleaned her up following our weekly trip to the range. She’s aways photogenic, but today she behaved as she should, in my opinion, and I’m proud of her.
I did have one stovepipe, but my feeling is that I might have flinched or squeezed off the round before I completely braced my grip on the pistol. This photo shows the spent brass stuck in the port with another round positioned to feed more or less properly. I racked the slide and the spent brass fell out while the next round went in the chamber. After that, it operated normally until we exhausted all the ammo we brought.
Another benefit is that without worrying about misfeeds and having that bug you, the pistol pretty much hit the target where I pointed it. Bob shot ten rounds through her and had the same observation that the rounds hit where he pointed the gun.
I owe the Para PR folks and Michael Bane a heartfelt thank you for getting me on track with this delightful little pistol.
You say you fired 90 rounds with no misfeeds. You show a pic that says otherwise. Am I missing something. You really ought to think about contacting Para Ordnance again on this pistol. That type of a malfunction should not be happening with regularity, and since it is still happening after they supposedly fixed the gun – yes it is with regularity eough to be of concern. I have literally fired a few hundred to thousands of rounds through my each of defensive pistols with no failures to extract, eject or feed. Sure every now and then I get one, I had some with the Glock 19 recently but we were pretty sure that was due to a faulty magazine.I have fired another 500 or so rounds through it flawlessly since I changed the mag.
Misfeeds, and failures to extract or eject, really should not be acceptable to you. Think about it this way, your life may depend on it working properly. Iof course this one time could have been a fluke. Fire 500 rounds through it as soon as possible. Count the malfunctions, if none, then it is fixed. If you get even a couple or a few more, I suggest contacting Para Ordnance again ASAP>
All the best,
GB
Glenn – the problem we were having before was with misfeeds – the round would hang up on its way into the chamber and the gun would jam. That did not happen yesterday.
The stovepipe in the photo may be the only one like this I ever had with the Warthog. I’m pretty sure that I ‘limp-wristed’ the pistol when this happened. I understand that short-barreled .45s (at least the Paras) commonly stovepipe when the gun is improperly braced by the shooter – especially with smaller people.
I like this gun and I’m going to take your advice and continue to put rounds through it.
I probably will not ever depend on this gun as my sole means of defense. I have a nice little S&W .38 special “Airweight’ revolver close by loaded with Speer +P hollow-points. That’s my first-line of defense.
Good to hear 🙂
So what does your sight picture look like? Before my guide rod broke during the break-in I was shooting low with the dots in line straight across. The range officer shot low as well. I’m thinking I have to have the front sight dot sitting on top of the rear sights and she should be right on target. I wont be sure until I get the controls back from the NP3 treatment and the grip safety getting a speed bump.
When I shot the Warthog Sunday, I lined up the front sight at the same elevation as the rear sights and right in the middle. It looked to me like the rounds hit the target more or less where I pointed the gun.
Let us know how those mods work out for you when you get it back together.
My rear sight is a bit different. Para has it with what looks like the ability to do a one hand cock by using the rear sight. Here’s a link to a pic of mine.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3138/2708439450_87fe8fd32c_o.jpg
I’ll let you know how it works out when I get it back.
[I thought I would drop Mark’s photo in here. Some folks who are behind firewalls run by corporate information Nazis can’t get photobucket, flickr or youtube, etc.]
Thanks, I forgot about corporate firewalls. I’ve had the one at work block sites on my blogroll and the reason given was porn. haha All the while it’s letting me into Ace of Spades blog with no problems at all.
Yep – Ace has quite the vocabulary. I can’t believe they block “Call Me Ahab” for what they say is “high bandwidth” when the truth is he is a pro-firearms site. The people at “WebSense,” which is the firewall utility our company uses, tend to block conservative sites until they’re called on it. They blocked “Little Green Footballs” but he fought it and got them to back off.