Title says it: My first ever .45ACP is a Glock 30S, and I finally just got a chance to get out and shoot it.
TL;DR: I do believe reliability is paramount, but a couple of minor hiccups, is it the end of the world? All Ammunition was Freedom Munitions.. Read on.
I was bullied and peer pressured into buying a "Man's Caliber" or The Lord's Caliber by none other than @40/45
I will say that .45ACP is a stout round, not having fired it in years, and that was a mag or two then. Very fun to shoot, though.
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We had some... issues... Wish I could say it went better, but more on that shortly.
First mags, side by side on with the snappiest (LOL) 9mm I believe I have, my Glock 43. As I said above, I needed to shoot a real caliber, and now the 43 feels like a BB gun.
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It was also an interesting chance to finally get out and fire the "infamously" snappy Hellcats. Well, I also shot the Hellcat and Glock 43 side by side, and I'm not getting this whole "Hellcats are the snappiest"; it shot just fine. I didn't have much time to run more than a few mags through the 9mms.
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I'll be posting excerpts of this range rep into my Hellcat post, so if you read this same text, oh well. Yeah, I feel as though my inexperience or close mindedness did not give the Hellcat Pro a fair shake in the past. It shot just fine, also, though believe it or not, I was a little sharper with the Hellcat. I've found a new Micro 9mm I love and it's the Hellcat. Hands down, just a solid little shooter.
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So, the issues with the 30S. To preface, the gun is new to me, and did not appear to have been fired much. I did clean and lubricate this a few days ago before ever taking it out. All ammunition was new manufacture, Freedom Munitions 200 gr FMJ and 200 gr X-DEF. 125 rounds total fired, 75 of it being the X-DEF JHP. I chose to keep firing defensive ammo, because that's what I gotta be able to trust.
2nd out of first mags exhibited this failure, JHP X-DEF round. This happened again, later, and it was consistently about halfway through the mag. A simple hard tap on the bottom sent it into battery and off we went.
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The problem is, this kept happening, but no more than 3 or 4 more times. I was watching the numbered mags, and only 2 of 3 did it, but the 2nd mag doing it was a surprise, because it did it later. I'm assuming all 3 will do it. It did happen with FMJ ammo, also, as pictured above. The failure was exactly like that, each time; the round was nosing up and to the left. All but one instance of this was easily rectified by a sharp tap on the mag; one instance the round nosed up even more, requiring stripping the mag out. I'm very unfamiliar with .45 and Glocks, so I'll be Googling around after posting this, if it's a common and easily fixed issue.
Next issue we had, was this: I ran 30 more rounds of the X-DEF at the end of the session (total 31 rounds) to give the 30S a chance to redeem itself. Well, no Failures To Feed, but Failures To FIRE: I had one dud round, so I popped it out. Then the next round also FTF'd. Wow. I did recover these rounds and ran malfunction drills, attempting to fire each round, 2 more times. Tap Rack Bang did quickly eject the bad round and fed and fired the next.
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Here is firing pin protrusion post range trip, now:
![Image]()
I wish I could say it went better. However, in my TL;DR, I did make note that today, many of us (myself included in the past) tend to obsess over absolute 100% reliability. It's not realistic, is what I've learned. Sometimes, even great guns have an issue.
I'm also somewhat inclined to blame the ammo. I know Freedom has a generally solid rep, and my 357 and 38 I buy from them has never had an issue, but that's just it, I don't buy autoloading ammo from them. I don't know how their .45 and other autoloading cartridges really are. Two light strikes or hard primers out of one box, and of defensive ammo, no less? I'm thinking about emailing or calling them and seeing what they have to say.
Anyway, everything else, including the monster here, ran 100%.
![Image]()
I didn't get to run more than just a couple mags through the Hellcats and 43, but just running defensive JHP loads through them and they rocked and rolled, which is all I really ask for.
TL;DR: I do believe reliability is paramount, but a couple of minor hiccups, is it the end of the world? All Ammunition was Freedom Munitions.. Read on.
I was bullied and peer pressured into buying a "Man's Caliber" or The Lord's Caliber by none other than @40/45
I will say that .45ACP is a stout round, not having fired it in years, and that was a mag or two then. Very fun to shoot, though. 
We had some... issues... Wish I could say it went better, but more on that shortly.
First mags, side by side on with the snappiest (LOL) 9mm I believe I have, my Glock 43. As I said above, I needed to shoot a real caliber, and now the 43 feels like a BB gun.
It was also an interesting chance to finally get out and fire the "infamously" snappy Hellcats. Well, I also shot the Hellcat and Glock 43 side by side, and I'm not getting this whole "Hellcats are the snappiest"; it shot just fine. I didn't have much time to run more than a few mags through the 9mms.
I'll be posting excerpts of this range rep into my Hellcat post, so if you read this same text, oh well. Yeah, I feel as though my inexperience or close mindedness did not give the Hellcat Pro a fair shake in the past. It shot just fine, also, though believe it or not, I was a little sharper with the Hellcat. I've found a new Micro 9mm I love and it's the Hellcat. Hands down, just a solid little shooter.
So, the issues with the 30S. To preface, the gun is new to me, and did not appear to have been fired much. I did clean and lubricate this a few days ago before ever taking it out. All ammunition was new manufacture, Freedom Munitions 200 gr FMJ and 200 gr X-DEF. 125 rounds total fired, 75 of it being the X-DEF JHP. I chose to keep firing defensive ammo, because that's what I gotta be able to trust.
2nd out of first mags exhibited this failure, JHP X-DEF round. This happened again, later, and it was consistently about halfway through the mag. A simple hard tap on the bottom sent it into battery and off we went.
The problem is, this kept happening, but no more than 3 or 4 more times. I was watching the numbered mags, and only 2 of 3 did it, but the 2nd mag doing it was a surprise, because it did it later. I'm assuming all 3 will do it. It did happen with FMJ ammo, also, as pictured above. The failure was exactly like that, each time; the round was nosing up and to the left. All but one instance of this was easily rectified by a sharp tap on the mag; one instance the round nosed up even more, requiring stripping the mag out. I'm very unfamiliar with .45 and Glocks, so I'll be Googling around after posting this, if it's a common and easily fixed issue.
Next issue we had, was this: I ran 30 more rounds of the X-DEF at the end of the session (total 31 rounds) to give the 30S a chance to redeem itself. Well, no Failures To Feed, but Failures To FIRE: I had one dud round, so I popped it out. Then the next round also FTF'd. Wow. I did recover these rounds and ran malfunction drills, attempting to fire each round, 2 more times. Tap Rack Bang did quickly eject the bad round and fed and fired the next.
Here is firing pin protrusion post range trip, now:
I wish I could say it went better. However, in my TL;DR, I did make note that today, many of us (myself included in the past) tend to obsess over absolute 100% reliability. It's not realistic, is what I've learned. Sometimes, even great guns have an issue.
I'm also somewhat inclined to blame the ammo. I know Freedom has a generally solid rep, and my 357 and 38 I buy from them has never had an issue, but that's just it, I don't buy autoloading ammo from them. I don't know how their .45 and other autoloading cartridges really are. Two light strikes or hard primers out of one box, and of defensive ammo, no less? I'm thinking about emailing or calling them and seeing what they have to say.
Anyway, everything else, including the monster here, ran 100%.
I didn't get to run more than just a couple mags through the Hellcats and 43, but just running defensive JHP loads through them and they rocked and rolled, which is all I really ask for.
