Please give me your opinion on these two pistols.

Contour pistol w/ 7-1/4" bbl

I am thinking about buying a new rimfire competition pistol. I do not know for sure if I want a Hammerli Xesse or Browning Buckmark. The Buckmark looks good but I noticed it does not have an overtravel screw in the trigger, so I would have to install an aftermarket trigger with a set screw in it. The Xesse comes with an overtravel screw installed. the xesse is made in Germany and the Buckmark is made in the USA. Which do you think would be better for CMP? Maybe the Exesse would be more accurate, from what I hear.

This link above here is the Buckmark pistol I am looking at. MSRP is $560 but if I install an aftermarket trigger that brings it to $600. The Hammerli would be more expensive but may be more accurate? I don't know. I want a good accurate rimfire pistol that I can compete with for years and years. But I don't want to spend $2500. I want to keep it under $1000.

I'm open to other suggestions also. I know someone who had a a Beretta 87 that was accurate but sometimes failed to feed from the magazine. That caused it to dry-fire and that damages the barrel. He installed his own overtravel screw in it by drilling and tapping the trigger. 

I want to get a serious competition pistol, not one that is sort of made for camping or backpacking trips. I suspect that the Buckmark is just a more refined camp pistol, but I have not shot one so I don't know.

What about the Ruger competition pistols? What do you think about those? I understand people upgrade them with the volquartzen triggers though.

I shoot a High Standard Victor. My back up is a Buckmark with an Ultradot. I put a Tandemcross hammer and sear spring kit for a 2.5 Lb trigger. I never shot a Hammerli. Accuracy wise I think the Buckmark is as good as the Victor until Iget into High end ammo. Buckmark shoots CCI SV quite well. I am not good enough for the high dollar ammo.

I have a Valquartsen Bull barrel for the bukmark. It shoots better but only functions with earopean ammo. CCI SV or other SV will sometimes not feed no matter which magazine. It functions great with SK standard + ammo and shoots as accurate as the Victor.

Buy what you want once.

David

Do you have a 1911 ? If so, consider the Marvel, Nelson and Advantage Arms .22 conversions.

I would go with the Buckmark. As long as you go with a new model then parts are readily available as well as magazines and after market goodies. Stick with the Model like the hunter and all the grips from the last 30+ years will fit the pistol. There is nothing non-bullseye about this pistol. Also shoots tiny groups. The picture is just a 5 shot group at 25yds but shows what you need to know. The European pistol might be a tiny bit more accurate but an X is an X.

Thank you for your input. I am currently shooting with a 1911 with a Nelson conversion on top. It shoots well but I thought a Hammerli might be better. Maybe or maybe not. I'm not shooting service pistol anymore since the ammo is more expensive and hardball pistols are expensive, and I don't have time to reload. We're buried with work where I work, and we're working 50 hours/week. It's physically exhausting work sometimes and I really don't think I will have much time or energy for reloading in the next 5 years.

Rimfire competition seems much more practical to me. I have some experience shooting centerfire weapons and that's a good skill, but I may be moving strictly to rimfire from now on.

Also I had trouble with my regular 1911 top end. It is a 9mm Range Officer. It was an accurate pistol but after thousands of rounds it lost its edge somehow. I bought some premium ammo the other day and shot it, and it was always on the repair center but was all over the place. I thought wow, I just spent $30 on ammo when I could have been shooting my Nelson all day for $10 and not had to worry about equipment issues.

Those are my slow fire targets at 25 yards with the 9mm. Not very good. I shoot twice as good with the Nelson conversion and rimfire ammo!

Target results
 This is from my rimfire EIC match last week. I do much better with rimfire.

After what you said, I’d concentrate on the Nelson, generally equal in accuracy to most of the top line guns. Ge a solid 2.5 # trigger and concentrate on your process. Unless you just have to have ....

Maybe I can lighten the trigger by bending the leaf spring. It's at 4.5 pounds currently. Maybe if I do that, and practice with the Nelson more, and maybe try some Elly ammo.

Yes, there is an online procedure for getting a 2.5# trigger that’s pretty accurate. I’ll try and find the link

2.5# trigger

For the trigger adjustment alone I would get the Xesse

I would add a KC hammer sear kit and a few spring changes to the RO.  Talk to KC.

Ray Dash wrote:For the trigger adjustment alone I would get the 

Sounds like a $600 solution to a non existent problem to me

I paid 550.00 for this pistol. No trigger modifications ever needed. I found the target in my stash of targets when I was looking for the Buckmark target. It sort of validates David R's suggestion for a Victor.

A recent slow fire target with my Marvel with a 3.75 lb trigger.

I'm not in a hurry to switch to anything.

Don't give up on your Nelson too soon!



I plan on using the same frame for .45 so that nothing changes but the caliber. Same grip, same trigger.

   I will trade a buck mark for your Nelson. 

David

Len is dead on.. get a good 2.5lb trigger job on the Nelson and shoot it. A quality trigger will make a bunch of difference.

CCI std generally shoots as well as most mid priced target ammo and will not kill your budget

If you’re itching for a dedicated top notch super accurate .22 then none are finer than the Hämmerli 208, 208s, or the 215 for the $2k range, the Trailside (pre Exesse) for around $600.00 to $1000.00 range.  Even better if you can snag one tickled by the late Larry Carter.  If not, either the Nelson or Marvel conversion on a receiver with a pro trigger job will get the job done. Depends on your threshold!  YMMV

Thank you very much for your advice. Based on that, my plan is to bend the leaf spring to lighten the pull to about 3 pounds, then buy some CCI standard velocity ammo and keep practicing.

CO1Mtn wrote:Thank you very much for your advice. Based on that, my plan is to bend the leaf spring to lighten the pull to about 3 pounds, then buy some CCI standard velocity ammo and keep practicing.

+1 in my opinion, this is the best solution, you will be shooting on the same platform you will be using on CF & 45 when you get back to it.  I shoot nearly the same scores with my 1911 22 conversion as I do with either my 208s or Pardini 6" Bullseye edition.  And when I shoot the conversion during training & practice I notice a bump in my wad gun scores too.
- Dave

If your shooting Open sights, be carefull, the exsee elevation screw might not have enough threads. We ran into this shooting standard pistol on a collegiate team. Couldn't adjust enough without the screw falling out...

Between the 2, buckmark wins hands down, but if you want an exsee/trailside, I'll sell you one... it's older and shoots fine, but I haven't shot it in years, and the kids have moved on from it

Thanks 10sandxs, let me think about that. I don't know much about that model but I can research it.

james r chapman wrote:Yes, there is an online procedure for getting a 2.5# trigger that’s pretty accurate. I’ll try and find the link

2.5# trigger

I successfully completed the trigger leaf spring modification and got my pull weight to a bit over 2.5 lbs. It used to be 4.5 lbs before I adjusted it. I think that is one of the reasons my slow fire scores were struggling. I've been dry firing with it now and I noticed my trigger jerk problem is much diminished. I'm shooting rimfire only now, so the trigger weight is legal for that category.