Rob’s home page

A Portal to my areas of interest.

My bullseye .45—Pardini gt45

This is a Pardini GT 45 with a 6” barrel, purchased from Don Nygord. As you can see in the photo, this pistol has a very short Weaver rail attached, which limits my options for mounting a dot sight. More on that later.

I started shooting in competition with a retired IPSC .45 that I “accurized” myself. What a nightmare. The first time I shot a real Bullseye .45 it dawned on me that my “frugal” nature was not really saving anything—except the 10 ring on my targets!

Back to the new Pardini. I first tried an Adco Mirage that I have had for ages. This sight has proven very reliable over the years, and has a very small, sharp red dot. Great for ammo testing, although perhaps a bit too small for best accuracy. I've read that a somewhat larger dot helps avoid waiting for a perfectly centered sight picture, which often results in a snatched trigger release and a 'snowbird' out in the white. In any case, I was unable to work out a satisfactory setup with the rings I had available. The sight body is long enough that there is insufficient space on the weaver mount for the rings. I attempted to mount the sight with both rings in front and in back of the sight body without success, as the tube is too short to find a good balance point; in either case the dot extends several inches behind the pistol. Very ugly, horribly balanced, and just plain goofy.

My .22 has a Tasco Optima 2000 (yes, I know ...) which is workable, if you can handle the limitations of the breed. In short, this type of dot sight takes you back to the days before micrometer adjustments - loads of fun! On a .22, I don't find this an insurmountable obstacle. Annoying, yes, but certainly workable. Given the absolute dearth of alternatives, I guess it has to be. I spent some time looking for a similar (but click adjustable) sight for the .45 with some success. I E-bayed a $45 off-brand special that featured a built in Weaver-style mount as a proof of concept. There were several pricier and presumably higher quality alternatives (Hakko, ATN) but I wasn't sold on the concept and decided to give it a test run on-the-cheap. You'd think I would learn at some point...

More problems, of course. First, the built in Weaver mount is a high-rise design that placed the HUD sight well above the line of the bore. Ugh. In the spirit of what-the-heck, as I had already wasted the 45 bucks, I tightened everything up and headed out to the local range. This was early summer, sunny, and an altogether perfect day for shooting. Perfect, that is, if your brand-spanking-new dot sight, with a fresh battery under the hood, can come up with enough juice to generate a VISIBLE dot! To make matters worse, the 25 yard line was chock full of nimrods doing the "guns go bang, cool" thing, forcing me over to the 50 yard stripe. Let me tell you, sports fans, that testing a new sight with a just barely visible dot at 50 yards is no fun, and a waste of time and ammo. I did eventually get the shots on-paper by using the old "shoot at highly visible garbage on the backstop" method, but all in all the experiment was a dismal failure. Back to the drawing board.

Fast forward a couple of months. I have been scouring the catalogs, reading specs on web sites, shopping around, and generally searching high and low for a sight that will fit my shorty Weaver rail. I gave Larry Carter a call (after the unfortunate passing of the late, great Don Nygord) but received a severe sticker-shock at the quote for a replacement scope mount from his Pardini parts-bin. I didn't think it was a great stretch, given past dealings with Don (four pistols purchased in 24 months) to expect a little give-and-take on a swap of mounts, but Larry wasn’t inclined to pass along any deals. He doesn’t know me, so I guess you can’t blame him. In any case, the problem remains unsolved.

 An IPSC shooter going the C-More route would love the mount that is on my gun. In any case, I didn't purchase the new Pardini mount from Larry. I toyed with idea of buying a Witness or Tanfoglio mount (same frame, in theory) and taking the whole shebang to a gunsmith to get sorted out. If the current experiment fails, in fact, this is the fall back position as the EAA and Tanfoglio mounts retail for about $100US, well within the limits of my built in cheapometer. I know of a Tanfoglio dealer in New Zealand that has provided bargains in the past when I was putting together a Springfield P-9 and needed high-cap tubes. But I digress.

The result of the long search has led me to purchase (via E-bay again) a Millett SP-1 Compact dot sight. This is about the smallest tube-type dot sight out there, with a body that is only about an inch long. This leaves me a solid 1.25 inches to try to squeeze a couple of skinny rings on my rail - thankfully these are supplied with the scope. More to come when the Millett arrives.

Sometimes, you just want to kick yourself. The Milletts come in both a 1” and 30mm tube size. Figuring bigger is always better, I opted for the 30-mil. Oops. This does not feature the nifty-bitchin’ inch-long body. Same problem as the Adco mentioned above, albeit not as pronounced. I slapped it all together with both rings in front of the sight body and gave it a go.

Not too horrible, but I must admit that this rig is getting a bit heavy for my tastes. The Weaver rail is not slotted, but was drilled for a lug (a roll pin stuck in the hole). Very entertaining day as I did not realize the lug had headed south early in the session. This left me thinking “My handloads must be completely screwed up” as I was getting six inch vertical strings, and the zero was all over the map. Then the sight fell in the mud, and it all became clear as — MUD!

Ok, so I hate the way the tube sights are setting up, back to the HUD search. The latest candidate is Pride-Fowler Industries, who seem to have a pretty sweet sight based on the Optima/Jpoint/Docter form. More to come when it arrives …

Change in plans — again. PFI never got back to me regarding the availability of a Weaver mount for their sight. That’s a shame, as it looked like a winner. I’ve settled on the Red Dot Open Sight from Truglo.

The one major difference between the Truglo and the JPoint that is mounted on my .22 is that the sight does NOT have to be removed to change the battery. Hallelujah! Another bonus is a built in Weaver mount—it attaches directly to the rail with captured screws. Here’s hoping that the electronics are up to snuff, the dot is bright, and that the search is finally over.

I’ve detailed my struggles with the Truglo sight in my Blog — interested parties can follow the link to read all of the gory details about my red dot nightmares.

The Pardini GT-45 has been traded to Larry Carter for a Pardini PGP-75 Free Pistol. A new page will be arriving soon to detail this new acquisition. I was hoping to get a chance to shoot the final match of this season at DCPA, but there was a snafu in executing the trade and the Free Pistol did not arrive in time. Bummer ...

I’m done with Italian .45’s — why try to re-invent the wheel? I really like the feel and grip angle of the Tanfoglio 75 based pistols; the Pardini seemed like a perfect marriage of a frame style that I love and a two-stage match trigger. This particular pistols setup problems proved insurmountable, primarily due to my refusal to pay $300 for a new sight base. I’ve purchased a Caspian-based Wad Gun from a Bullseye-L member. Check out the new page to get the details.