The "Ask Nathan a Question" Thread

Nathan the Machinist said:
Attn: Bright machinist with serious personality disorder



If anybody is sending me a Springfield 2011, you should probably disassemble it and send it in multiple packages.
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Uhhh... Supposing one has a Springfield 2011 that one had put all the work into getting the kinks out of and now it runs fine, what might that shake loose...

😁
 
madcap_magician said:
Uhhh... Supposing one has a Springfield 2011 that one had put all the work into getting the kinks out of and now it runs fine, what might that shake loose...

😁
Click to expand...
I know this is an “Ask Nathan” thread, but a question for you is the Sprngfield worth getting the kinks worked out or should I just spend a little more and not have to worry about it?
 
darsk20 said:
I know this is an “Ask Nathan” thread, but a question for you is the Sprngfield worth getting the kinks worked out or should I just spend a little more and not have to worry about it?
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Mine has run just fine (4.25" version). Only thing it didn't like was some Fiocchi 147gr FMJs that I had lying around. Other than that, I have 600+ rounds through it of mixed target ammo and JHPs, no issues.

Seems like the 5" version is a bit undersprung and some people were having issues with some mags.

It's a lot of fun, likes to be run fast and it's very accurate.
 
darsk20 said:
I know this is an “Ask Nathan” thread, but a question for you is the Sprngfield worth getting the kinks worked out or should I just spend a little more and not have to worry about it?
Click to expand...
Depends... a lot of them seem to have had function issues, but most of the function issues seem to be related to SA running the recoil spring weight as light as humanly possible combined with some roughness on the disconnector. Other known issues are poor extractor 'tuning,' and the chambers being incorrect dimensions.

So it depends. If you get one that works, then you have a very comfortable, soft-shooting 2011 for $1,500. If yours doesn't work, then the odds are a $15 spring kit from Wolff will fix it. But if that doesn't work, then you'll have to send it back to SA, and frankly my experience with that was that they didn't listen to a word of the two-page letter I sent them outlining things I thought were causing the malfunctions, they just tore it apart, measured everything, and corrected everything that was out of spec, which apparently in my case was just the chamber dimensions. So they reamed and polished the chamber. My local smith buffed the feed ramp and the disconnector. None of those things fixed it, but dropping in a 14-lb Wolff recoil spring did. I had told SA that I thought lightening the mainspring and using a slightly heavier recoil spring would probably fix it, because I was having a 10% failure to feed issue where the bullets nosedived into the ramp without ever getting into the chamber in the first place, so it seemed unlikely that was related to the chamber dimensions...

The 5" model has a 9-lb recoil spring, and the 4.25" has a 12-lb recoil spring. If yours feels sluggish returning to battery and you have failure to feed issues, increasing that to 11- and 14-lb springs seems to help in many cases.

The obvious question is "Are the tradeoffs worth the savings over a Staccato P or C2?

My best answer is... it depends on whether the difference is a little bit of money to you or a lot of bit of money. It's not a small amount of money to me, I mean, you could get a SA 1911DS Prodigy and a Shadow Systems MR920 Elite for the same price as a Staccato P or C2 built to match the Prodigy features.

Comparing it against the P, which is closer in size, the base-model P is $600 more expensive than a 4.25" Prodigy, and if you add the optic cut, it's another $300 more expensive. Plus the Prodigy grip module is just flat better than the Staccato Gen 2 texture with the star logo texturing, so if you want the Staccato Tac grip module, which is as good as the Prodigy one, that's another $100 on top, so now you're at $1,000 more than a Prodigy. The Prodigy also comes stock with the Agency optic mounting system, which is a really nice system, although the plates are sold separately.

Against the C2, the base-model C2 is $500 more expensive, add the optic cut for $300, and you can't get the Tac grip module for the C2, so send it to Elusive Arms for a retexture, and that's another $200 or so including shipping, aaaaand it's $1,000 more than a Prodigy.

That being said, the Prodigy is full of MIM parts, SA didn't even bother trying to tune the extractor, and you'll probably need to buy a spring kit. The spring kit is cheap, so no big deal, but if you're anal about MIM parts, replacing them with EGW or Wilson or Ed Brown parts or something and paying a smith to fit them if you can't do it yourself will make up most of that $1,000 difference between SA and Staccato. Alternatively, you can ship it back and forth to SA until they fix it to your satisfaction. So what I'm saying there is you can't make a Staccato for $1,000 less than Staccato charges, and making a Prodigy into a Staccato equivalent will eat up all the cost savings you saved on the base gun.

You can also, I think, get the best bang for your buck by keeping most of the stock parts in a Prodigy and just having a decent smith fit and tune a pair of new Wilson Combat Bulletproof extractors and doing the spring weight change. The rest of the parts are MIM, but they're OK, and you probably won't notice the difference in shooting it. You can always change the rest of the ignition parts and the slide stop, grip safety, and trigger out later.

EDIT: Actually, in addition to the extractor, there is one other thing - the guide rod is a screw-in two-piece, which is just a terrible idea on SA's part. The 1990s called, and they want their guide rod back. This doesn't impair function, but you will need to torque that down hard and regularly tighten it until you eventually get annoyed enough to replace it with a Dawson Precision guide rod.

So the answer for the end user is - are you satisfied with the risks of doing some tinkering on a Prodigy to get a functioning 2011? Right now, I have a functioning 2011, but I had to ship it back to SA once, buy several different-weight spring kits on my own dime (wasn't sure which weight would be best, so got several), buy two Staccato mags (hedging against the possibility that it was the SA OEM mags that were the issue) and have my smith polish the feed ramp and disconnector. But my gun works, and I was out about a month, 700 rounds of troubleshooting ammunition, $45 in parts, $120 in extra magazines, and a fair amount of hassle to get it that way, and to be honest, the extractor should be replaced and tuned, because right now it flings brass right over your right shoulder, and sometimes you get brass to face. But it works.

The plus is... it is a real comfortable, soft shooter. It's stupid accurate. Once it works, it's a real fun gun.
Nathan the Machinist said:
Idunno, it just depends on what I happen to have at the moment? SSSDFK, DEF and?
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Well, I do have a DEF from the preorder and a SS SDFK, but if you're interested in a trade, boss, I'd be all ears, especially if one of those hideous clip point bowie SS SDFKs was part of it and/or you could muscle Mark into a CR35. Please see above for my full disclosure about the gun's history, though. The gun was $1,500, so that'd be what I'd estimate trade value at, and I'd throw in a 17- and 20-round Staccato mag as well on top, which are $60 each usually.
 
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madcap_magician said:
Depends... a lot of them seem to have had function issues, but most of the function issues seem to be related to SA running the recoil spring weight as light as humanly possible combined with some roughness on the disconnector. Other known issues are poor extractor 'tuning,' and the chambers being incorrect dimensions.

So it depends. If you get one that works, then you have a very comfortable, soft-shooting 2011 for $1,500. If yours doesn't work, then the odds are a $15 spring kit from Wolff will fix it. But if that doesn't work, then you'll have to send it back to SA, and frankly my experience with that was that they didn't listen to a word of the two-page letter I sent them outlining things I thought were causing the malfunctions, they just tore it apart, measured everything, and corrected everything that was out of spec, which apparently in my case was just the chamber dimensions. So they reamed and polished the chamber. My local smith buffed the feed ramp and the disconnector. None of those things fixed it, but dropping in a 14-lb Wolff recoil spring did. I had told SA that I thought lightening the mainspring and using a slightly heavier recoil spring would probably fix it, because I was having a 10% failure to feed issue where the bullets nosedived into the ramp without ever getting into the chamber in the first place, so it seemed unlikely that was related to the chamber dimensions...

The 5" model has a 9-lb recoil spring, and the 4.25" has a 12-lb recoil spring. If yours feels sluggish returning to battery and you have failure to feed issues, increasing that to 11- and 14-lb springs seems to help in many cases.

The obvious question is "Are the tradeoffs worth the savings over a Staccato P or C2?

My best answer is... it depends on whether the difference is a little bit of money to you or a lot of bit of money. It's not a small amount of money to me, I mean, you could get a SA 1911DS Prodigy and a Shadow Systems MR920 Elite for the same price as a Staccato P or C2 built to match the Prodigy features.

Comparing it against the P, which is closer in size, the base-model P is $600 more expensive than a 4.25" Prodigy, and if you add the optic cut, it's another $300 more expensive. Plus the Prodigy grip module is just flat better than the Staccato Gen 2 texture with the star logo texturing, so if you want the Staccato Tac grip module, which is as good as the Prodigy one, that's another $100 on top, so now you're at $1,000 more than a Prodigy. The Prodigy also comes stock with the Agency optic mounting system, which is a really nice system, although the plates are sold separately.

Against the C2, the base-model C2 is $500 more expensive, add the optic cut for $300, and you can't get the Tac grip module for the C2, so send it to Elusive Arms for a retexture, and that's another $200 or so including shipping, aaaaand it's $1,000 more than a Prodigy.

That being said, the Prodigy is full of MIM parts, SA didn't even bother trying to tune the extractor, and you'll probably need to buy a spring kit. The spring kit is cheap, so no big deal, but if you're anal about MIM parts, replacing them with EGW or Wilson or Ed Brown parts or something and paying a smith to fit them if you can't do it yourself will make up most of that $1,000 difference between SA and Staccato. Alternatively, you can ship it back and forth to SA until they fix it to your satisfaction. So what I'm saying there is you can't make a Staccato for $1,000 less than Staccato charges, and making a Prodigy into a Staccato equivalent will eat up all the cost savings you saved on the base gun.

You can also, I think, get the best bang for your buck by keeping most of the stock parts in a Prodigy and just having a decent smith fit and tune a pair of new Wilson Combat Bulletproof extractors and doing the spring weight change. The rest of the parts are MIM, but they're OK, and you probably won't notice the difference in shooting it. You can always change the rest of the ignition parts and the slide stop, grip safety, and trigger out later.

So the answer for the end user is - are you satisfied with the risks of doing some tinkering on a Prodigy to get a functioning 2011? Right now, I have a functioning 2011, but I had to ship it back to SA once, buy several different-weight spring kits on my own dime (wasn't sure which weight would be best, so got several), buy two Staccato mags (hedging against the possibility that it was the SA OEM mags that were the issue) and have my smith polish the feed ramp and disconnector. But my gun works, and I was out about a month, 700 rounds of troubleshooting ammunition, $45 in parts, $120 in extra magazines, and a fair amount of hassle to get it that way, and to be honest, the extractor should be replaced and tuned, because right now it flings brass right over your right shoulder, and sometimes you get brass to face. But it works.

The plus is... it is a real comfortable, soft shooter. It's stupid accurate. Once it works, it's a real fun gun.
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A very good summary. :thumbsup:

To that, I would only add to not be put off by a lot of the so-called reviews of the Prodigy on YouTube. A number of them don't even seem to know how to properly clean, lube and run a new gun if it isn't a Glock.
 
Smithhammer said:
A very good summary. :thumbsup:

To that, I would only add to not be put off by a lot of the so-called reviews of the Prodigy on YouTube. A number of them don't even seem to know how to properly clean, lube and run a new gun if it isn't a Glock.
Click to expand...
I will say that you should give a lot of side-eye to the YouTube reviews. There was a very high positive correlation between GunTube folks who have professional relationships with SA and got sample guns sent to them for free (We see you, Tu Lam and Colion Noir) and GunTube folks who had no malfunctions and glowing reviews of the gun.

Nothing new there.

But a lot of very well respected people who know their way around 2011s... but bought their own Prodigy to review had very different experiences, i.e., Hilton Yam. Actually, anyone considering a Prodigy should watch Yam's very careful reviews and recommendations.
 
madcap_magician said:
Actually, anyone considering a Prodigy should watch Yam's very careful reviews and recommendations.
Click to expand...
Agreed again. I appreciate Hilton's perspective on Springfield 1911s in general - as long as one has an understanding of what they are, and what they aren't, they can be a good, reasonably-priced platform from which to tweak/upgrade according to one's tastes and goals.
 
madcap_magician said:
Depends... a lot of them seem to have had function issues, but most of the function issues seem to be related to SA running the recoil spring weight as light as humanly possible combined with some roughness on the disconnector. Other known issues are poor extractor 'tuning,' and the chambers being incorrect dimensions.

So it depends. If you get one that works, then you have a very comfortable, soft-shooting 2011 for $1,500. If yours doesn't work, then the odds are a $15 spring kit from Wolff will fix it. But if that doesn't work, then you'll have to send it back to SA, and frankly my experience with that was that they didn't listen to a word of the two-page letter I sent them outlining things I thought were causing the malfunctions, they just tore it apart, measured everything, and corrected everything that was out of spec, which apparently in my case was just the chamber dimensions. So they reamed and polished the chamber. My local smith buffed the feed ramp and the disconnector. None of those things fixed it, but dropping in a 14-lb Wolff recoil spring did. I had told SA that I thought lightening the mainspring and using a slightly heavier recoil spring would probably fix it, because I was having a 10% failure to feed issue where the bullets nosedived into the ramp without ever getting into the chamber in the first place, so it seemed unlikely that was related to the chamber dimensions...

The 5" model has a 9-lb recoil spring, and the 4.25" has a 12-lb recoil spring. If yours feels sluggish returning to battery and you have failure to feed issues, increasing that to 11- and 14-lb springs seems to help in many cases.

The obvious question is "Are the tradeoffs worth the savings over a Staccato P or C2?

My best answer is... it depends on whether the difference is a little bit of money to you or a lot of bit of money. It's not a small amount of money to me, I mean, you could get a SA 1911DS Prodigy and a Shadow Systems MR920 Elite for the same price as a Staccato P or C2 built to match the Prodigy features.

Comparing it against the P, which is closer in size, the base-model P is $600 more expensive than a 4.25" Prodigy, and if you add the optic cut, it's another $300 more expensive. Plus the Prodigy grip module is just flat better than the Staccato Gen 2 texture with the star logo texturing, so if you want the Staccato Tac grip module, which is as good as the Prodigy one, that's another $100 on top, so now you're at $1,000 more than a Prodigy. The Prodigy also comes stock with the Agency optic mounting system, which is a really nice system, although the plates are sold separately.

Against the C2, the base-model C2 is $500 more expensive, add the optic cut for $300, and you can't get the Tac grip module for the C2, so send it to Elusive Arms for a retexture, and that's another $200 or so including shipping, aaaaand it's $1,000 more than a Prodigy.

That being said, the Prodigy is full of MIM parts, SA didn't even bother trying to tune the extractor, and you'll probably need to buy a spring kit. The spring kit is cheap, so no big deal, but if you're anal about MIM parts, replacing them with EGW or Wilson or Ed Brown parts or something and paying a smith to fit them if you can't do it yourself will make up most of that $1,000 difference between SA and Staccato. Alternatively, you can ship it back and forth to SA until they fix it to your satisfaction. So what I'm saying there is you can't make a Staccato for $1,000 less than Staccato charges, and making a Prodigy into a Staccato equivalent will eat up all the cost savings you saved on the base gun.

You can also, I think, get the best bang for your buck by keeping most of the stock parts in a Prodigy and just having a decent smith fit and tune a pair of new Wilson Combat Bulletproof extractors and doing the spring weight change. The rest of the parts are MIM, but they're OK, and you probably won't notice the difference in shooting it. You can always change the rest of the ignition parts and the slide stop, grip safety, and trigger out later.

EDIT: Actually, in addition to the extractor, there is one other thing - the guide rod is a screw-in two-piece, which is just a terrible idea on SA's part. The 1990s called, and they want their guide rod back. This doesn't impair function, but you will need to torque that down hard and regularly tighten it until you eventually get annoyed enough to replace it with a Dawson Precision guide rod.

So the answer for the end user is - are you satisfied with the risks of doing some tinkering on a Prodigy to get a functioning 2011? Right now, I have a functioning 2011, but I had to ship it back to SA once, buy several different-weight spring kits on my own dime (wasn't sure which weight would be best, so got several), buy two Staccato mags (hedging against the possibility that it was the SA OEM mags that were the issue) and have my smith polish the feed ramp and disconnector. But my gun works, and I was out about a month, 700 rounds of troubleshooting ammunition, $45 in parts, $120 in extra magazines, and a fair amount of hassle to get it that way, and to be honest, the extractor should be replaced and tuned, because right now it flings brass right over your right shoulder, and sometimes you get brass to face. But it works.

The plus is... it is a real comfortable, soft shooter. It's stupid accurate. Once it works, it's a real fun gun.

Well, I do have a DEF from the preorder and a SS SDFK, but if you're interested in a trade, boss, I'd be all ears, especially if one of those hideous clip point bowie SS SDFKs was part of it and/or you could muscle Mark into a CR35. Please see above for my full disclosure about the gun's history, though. The gun was $1,500, so that'd be what I'd estimate trade value at, and I'd throw in a 17- and 20-round Staccato mag as well on top, which are $60 each usually.
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Thanks for the comprehensive post. This sub continues to be one of the best on the forum.
 
bluemax_1 said:
Wait, wut?
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Yeah, it's my understanding that every year they do a collaboration with a different knifemaker designer person and they reached out to me and wanted to produce the UF. We're getting on the same page about the steel etc but it looks like there's a lot of collectors for this line in Europe that are going to get introduced to the awesomeness that is CPK design. Cool huh?
 
And of the major players who could do a tribute to the knife , your OK with Boker? Not a knock, I dont own any of their stuff. Just a curiosity is all .... I have an inkling of your standards and know how protective of you hard work and reputation .
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
Yeah, it's my understanding that every year they do a collaboration with a different knifemaker designer person and they reached out to me and wanted to produce the UF. We're getting on the same page about the steel etc but it looks like there's a lot of collectors for this line in Europe that are going to get introduced to the awesomeness that is CPK design. Cool huh?
Click to expand...
Your knives are cool. I like them. I’m not interested in a boker CPK.
 
Gentlemen, I think you may be missing the point to some degree.

I was a good friend of the late Kit Carson. He and CRKT came to an arrangement to begin selling authorized versions of his Model 16 when they were not a big player in the market. (Far smaller and less well known than Boker.) It opened up a lot of eyes to his work, and...not unimportantly, put money in his family's accounts.

I have some Boker knives...kitchen as well as traditional and they can make a good knife, and they also make some mass market stuff.

But this is a big opportunity for Nate and Jo to get their brand out there even further than amongst us aficionados, and...they are running a business after all.

We may feel superior because of bragging rights regarding our collections. Nathan and Jo have a family to feed, and Pumpkin Ale to purchase.

ETA: (And if Abby's gonna go to college and need a new car every two weeks...well...that runs into money. (Just kidding Abby.)
 
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