CMMG Banshee .45ACP

[SA Shooter]

About 16 or 17 weeks ago, on 9/2/2020, I placed my order for a CMMG Banshee 200 in .45 ACP.

I'm happy to say it finally arrived on 12/5/2020 which turned out to be a 13 week lead time, plus a few days, for my order to arrive. Long lead times at CMMG were a result of a COVID shutdown and, subsequently, a smaller workforce brought back into their facility to maintain safe distances and such as mandated by local authorities. They were up front about the lead times and all but I sure was getting antsy!

Here are a few pics of the firearm the day I brought it home:





Here are the SGM Tactical 26 round magazines:



I had a EoTech 512 sitting on the shelf so I mounted that pretty quickly:



Went to a local indoor range to sight it in and it works as advertised.

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[SA Shooter]

After spending some time with the CMMG/EoTech combo I felt as if I needed something a bit lighter in the optic department. So off came the EoTech and on went a Vortex SPARC AR optic.

At the same time I knew I was going to need something to keep my hand from slipping forward into the path of those .45ACP chunks of lead so I got a nice, light, forward grip. Lastly I had a nice MagPul MS3 sling so I added a short piece of pic rail for the QD mount on the handguard. The SBR brace has a QD mount build in.







So, I am headed back to the range tomorrow to try out the new optic and see if I can't get it dialed in.

 

[SA Shooter]

I got a good chuckle when I read the serial number on the lower. It starts out with...

WAMO

Yup...that seems appropriate.

 

[delta6]

Nice... interested in how well it functioned and its accuracy.

 

[Old18C]

Nice, sort of want one in 10mm but I got the .45 ACP covered. and they made me give the 10mm MP-5 back.

 

[SA Shooter]

Nice... interested in how well it functioned and its accuracy.

Putting the SPARC AR on the Banshee was just the ticket. I gave it a try yesterday at a local range. Here's my 20 yd zero attempt. It's a bit high but 20 yds is the distance limit at the range so I wanted it a bit high as I was looking for a longer zero. Based on what I've read I'm pretty close to a 50 yd zero. I'll do some more testing outdoors soon.

It didn't take too many rounds to get where I wanted to be. The SPARC AR has some very positive clicks on the elevation and windage adjustment screws which makes it easy to make sure and simple progressive corrections. The caps double as the adjustor as they have a small raised section in the middle that functions as a screwdriver so no need to fumble around for some tools. Of course, my range bag has 'em all but Vortex's cap design is a nice feature.

My only complaint is about my own eyes. I'm getting to the stage where astigmatism has started to rear it's ugly head. Not sure what the solution is so I'll have to do some research. My initial findings reveal that astigmatism sucks.

Here's the target from yesterday. The round furtherest to the left is round #1, the next one to the right is round #2 and the rest were small tweaks to get the elevation and windage where I wanted them, at least for now as tweaking for a 50 yd zero may change the elevation.



All rounds shown here were fired from a partial rest with two elbows planted on a shelf that came up about to mid-chest elevation. IIRC, there were 8 rounds fired in that picture. The rest of my session was fired offhand for gigglez & grinz.

The firearm performed well. I had one failure to feed out of 52 rounds fired. I don't think I have an ejector spring issue (some of the Banshee models in .556 have, especially when suppressed) but I do suspect one of the SGM Tactical magazines needs a little work done to the feed lips or follower.

 

[delta6]

If you wear corrective lenses, the astigmatism problem can be corrected by your eye doctor. Generally, when you take an eye test, they do not test for astigmatism (I found this odd) and you need to ask your doc to do it. I take in a RDS to the exam and tell him/her I want to see this dot "crisp" and the adjust my lens to remove the splash, comet or flare. If you don't wear corrective lenses you can have a lens made for your shooting glasses or you can get a script for a contact lens.