InvestArm Plains Pistol 100 Shot Review | Blackpowder Pistol Range Test
In this video, we take to the range with the InvestArm Plains Pistol kit (that we built on the channel) and shoot it 140 times to get a feel for how it performs. I test the overall function of the pistol, as well as accuracy, field maintenance, and more.
InvestArm Plains Pistol Review
Full disclosure, Muzzle-Loaders.com sent me this pistol in its kit form to review and talk about, so if that negates in your opinion, my thoughts on the pistol after this 100 and plus shots at the range day, I totally understand. I just want to put that out there and be totally upfront about it.
At the end of the day I counted the caps that I had left, I had opened up a second tin of caps because I was having so much fun and I wanted to keep going, and I burned through 140 shots in total in this one day. That's the most shooting I've done in one day in quite a long time. If you're in the muzzle loading competition sphere that's about 14 muzzle loading pistol targets, so it's a bit of a workout.
Jumping to accuracy because we just finished up our last five shot group for the day, I mentioned that the trigger pull on the range was super heavy and I thought that that might be contributing to me pulling the shots to the left. I came home put the pistol on a scale and verified that our trigger pull weight is around 6 lbs plus or minus. Which makes sense for a mass-produced model, it's something that you see several pounds being put into triggers on uh firearms and general very heavy liability issues, totally get that, but it's something that I do want to fix moving moving forward. I've heard folks say that they like to hunt with a one or two lb trigger and I've heard match competitors talk about wanting a couple ounces on that trigger to shoot it as accurately as possible. I think we're going to try to put this somewhere in between those two numbers. I'm thinking maybe around a pound or maybe a half a pound just so we still have a little bit of safety on this. I'm not going to make this into a race gun of a muzzle loader here but I would like to bring that down. In a future video we're going to pop this apart, we're going to do a little bit of an adjustment to see if we can diagnose that as the issue and then see what our groups look like after making that kind of adjustment.
That being said I don't think it's totally detrimental that the kit comes with that heavy of a trigger. You can see I was still able to get holes touching get holes fairly close at 25 yards there, with it so it's up to your personal preference.
For my thoughts on the pistol as a whole it really worked well. Personally I think that right now with modern manufacturing and modern materials I think it's really hard to produce a total piece of junk when it comes to the muzzle loading space. I know people have their opinions about imported locks and parts and pieces and things and I totally get that but as far as percussion goes like on this Italian kit and even the Spanish kits of course, it's hard to make a total piece of junk and I think that that shows through in these InvestArm Kits. InvestArm has the legacy of producing kits for Lyman and producing muzzle loaders for Lyman for a few years, and as far as I can tell it's the same level of quality pushed through here now just under the InvestArm name. If you have been looking for or been considering a Lyman model of the plan's pistol and you can't find one and you're kind of wondering back and forth if this InvestArm Plains Pistol is going to be the same thing of the same quality you can expect a lot of the same. Across the board in the 140 shots that we took today, I had two hang fires or failure to fires. The first was right after cleaning, I dried the boore I thought loaded back up took back to the range and just popped the cap the second shot it did go off and then I did have what I believe to be a bum cap at about 75 shots in so about 25 shots after our cleaning at around 50 shots had a failure to fire put a new cap on it fired with the second cap those two failure to fires were the only issues I had the entire day with this pistol and I think that they were component and shooter issues really.
It's a little silly, but something that caught me up at the range was when you pull the hammer back to full cock after half cock you have to make sure that it clicks twice. The first click is the tumbler passing the fly, and the second click is full cock. This is not a major issue, it's a personal adjustment I had to make. I was so excited to be on the range that I soemtimes didn't get the hammer back to full cock and the hammer fell back to half cock. It's an auditory habit that I'll work to break with this pistol.
Last but not least, the belt hook, as cool as it is and as much as I like the idea and I like walking around the range with it empty with it on my hip, you know "Big Iron on my hip" and everything, the belt hook does get a little irritating if you're just wanting to burn through shots all the time. It's not that it's extra weight but it's just this extra thing dangling there at the side all the time and it's not something that you need when you're going from a loading bench to the firing line. The hook makes a ton of sense out on a woodswalk or at a Rendevous but for the on the line shooting that we were doing here it got in the way a couple times and there were a couple times where it snagged on my jacket on my pants or my bag and it's it's not something that you need. I think moving forward I might remove it depending on what I'm doing with the pistol but that's just something I want to make a note of. I've not personally shot a lot of pistols with the belt hook so I don't have a lot of experience with it so it did catch me off guard and I wanted to mention that.
At the end of the day The InvestArm Plains pistol worked and I had a lot of fun. I shot a variety of targets things worked out pretty well. After that number of shots I have a good idea of how this pistol behaves, I can make some modifications like we talked about and make it more applicable to my situation. I'm not necessarily going to go out and deer hunt with this but it's a fun range thing and pistols are always fun.
Whlie writing this, I circled back to thoughts on beginner muzzle loaders and I think that this is a really good contendor for a lot of people out there. I've mentioned for years that a muzzle loading pistol kit is a really great way to get started in muzzle loing because it's cheaper than a full rifle kit and it's cheaper to feed. I was having a lot of fun and shooting fairly accurately with 15 grains of powder and I can make a pound of powder last forever on 15 grains a shot. I think that the InvestArm Plains pistol is a great introductory to an intermediate level muzzleloading pistol.
I found that after shooting the 140 shots I was really happy with the decisions that I made about the shape of the grip and the stock on the kit, I liked it a lot better than the feel that I've seen from some of the from assembly line at InvestArm with a much more straight kind and narrow grip. I think right now this retails for around $310-$320 depending on where you're getting it and I think that it's at least in the kit form, I should say, I think it's a good value at that.
Again, it was sent to me I did not pay for it, I put a lot of sweat into it though making it look nice and making it the way I wanted. After 140 shots I'm pleased with it and I would not hesitate to purchase it if I was looking for one down the road. I don't receive anything from InvestArm and I've really liked the quality that I've seen on the Gemmer Haweken and now the Plains pistol. I think they really have a nice one-two punch If you go for that Gemmer in the Plains pistol.
You'll be seeing this pistol more in videos in the coming months and years because I'm going to hold on to it. This was a lot of fun, maybe we can circle back and do like a 500 shot review or something towards the end of the year, if we can put some more pounds of powder through this thing once again I'm Ethan, I love muzzleloading, thank you so much for reading, we'll catch you next time.
