ParaUSA Tac-5

Today, as many of you know, is buy a gun day!  Robb picked up his heater yesterday, and is really enjoying his new mousegun.  I actually recieved my BAG Day purchase a couple of weeks ago, but have been holding off on blogging about it until today.  My new gun is a ParaUSA Tac-5, which is a build up of their 18.9 LDA gun.

From Para Tac-5

The Tac-5 is an 18 round 9mm, which is fed from Para’s double stack magazines. This gun has some improvements on the bone stock 18.9 LDA, which make it an ideal fit for practical pistol or tactical applications. As you can see in the picture, the pistol comes from the factory with an expanded magazine well for faster reloads, a compact beavertail for acquiring a fast grip on the gun, a single side extended thumb safety, and an extended magazine release. Additionally, the Tac-5 uses a standard 1911 guide rod – no full length guide rod to add extra weight to the gun.

From Para Tac-5

The keystone of the gun is Para’s proprietary Light Double Action trigger, which gives the shooter a trigger pull similar to a fine-tuned DA revolver. The trigger on this guns breaks at about 6.5 pounds, and that will wear in after I start pushing rounds through the gun. The best feature of the gun though isn’t the trigger (which I really do like), but rather it’s the sights. From the factory, the gun comes with a set of adjustable Novak sights – the rear sight is two black posts, with a large white dot on the front post. Usually on my competition guns I change out the front sight for a fiber optic, but on this gun there isn’t any need to do that, as the huge white dot is very easy to acquire.

Now, the final feature of the gun is pretty fun – I was checking out it, and there’s a little button on the back of the magwell labeled “stealth”. So I pushed it just to see what would happen, and holy crap my gun engaged a cloaking device.

From Para Tac-5

That’ll be a great feature for open carry! I kid a bit there – but back to the gun, this gun comes ready right out of the box to be a serious gun for IDPA Enhanced Service Pistol division, or to run in Limited-10/Limited if you don’t mind shooting minor. One of the neat things is that this gun is light – Para was able to save weight in several places, so the gun is 7 ounces lighter than the full on 18.9 LDA. Doing dry-fire, the gun moves easily from target to target, and I’ve got a gut feeling that this gun will be murder on steel plates.

This gun is coming with me to Bianchi Cup. It’s legal for the new Bianchi Cup Production Division, and I’ve been getting a load of trigger time with LDAs lately, it’s only natural I’d want to bring a light kicking 9mm along with me. I’m heading out to Atlanta Conservation Club tomorrow with a bunch of 9mm to put the Tac-5 through its paces.

12 Comments

  1. Awesome.

    I’ve got an STI Ranger II, a commander length gun in 9mm. It’s easily the most fun gun I own. It’s a good intermediate step between my 22 and 45 when I’m running drills, super accurate, and good for training less experienced shooters that don’t like 45 ACP recoil right away.

    I’ve wanted a Para 18.9 for many years, but I still haven’t made room in my collection.

  2. 9mm because ammo is cheaper to practice with. For Bianchi Cup, the power factor is 125, which means you can meet PF with factory 9mm loads; and there’s a lot less muzzle jump with an all-steel 18 round 9mm than there is with even a fullsize 1911 in .45 ACP.

  3. For IDPA, the power factor for ESP (where I use this gun) is 125, so 9mm meets that.

    In USPSA, it’s a little more complicated – you can shoot 9mm in any of the divisions, Production, Limited, Single Stack, Open, etc – but with the exception of Production where the power factor is set at 125, 9mm doesn’t have the oomph to make major. So you’re going to meet the power factor for minor, but you get scoring penalties for using a gun that’s shooting minor in Limited or Single Stack.

    It’s further complicated for this gun because it has the magwell opening on it. Bianchi Cup doesn’t exclude magwells for production division, but USPSA and IDPA do, so you can only run the Tac-5 in Limited/10 or ESP. If I run it in Limited/10, I take the handicap for running at minor.

  4. That’s only in open though – Limited/10 has a caliber restriction. The minimum bullet diameter to make major for Limited/10 is .40. I guess they got tired of people blowing up hotrodded 9mms or something.

  5. Jesus, it seems like they can’t make up their mind.

    I’m pretty sure IPSC still allows 9 Major, right? It’s just USPSA that got all reactionary?

  6. Probably, I’d have to look at IPSC’s rules vs. USPSAs. You can still hot-rod a 9mm for Major in OPEN for USPSA, but nomass in limited. Which is too bad, because with a 9×23 barrel and some other modifications, this gun would be Dr. Rockso in L/10.

  7. Pphhtthhht! Weak!

    Show up with your CCW blaster and shoot production.

    Problem solved; no math involved.

  8. No no, his CCW blaster is a .45 ACP Glock. Go to an IDPA match with it and shoot CDP to piss off all the 1911 fanatics.

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