The Springfield Prodigy Came Back From PerfectZero: My Comped 2011 Hasn't Had an Easy Start

I have spent quite a bit of time looking at 1911- and 2011-style pistols.

My Staccato C2 has already shown me why people like the platform. It looks right, feels right, and shoots remarkably flat without needing much help.

But I wanted something different for the next 2011: a full-size, compensated range pistol that emphasized shootability rather than carry.

That led me to the Springfield Armory Prodigy 5-inch DS AOS Comp.

Rather than buying a completely stock pistol, I bought mine from PerfectZero with additional gunsmithing work performed before delivery. On paper, it checked an awful lot of boxes. Then I took it to the range.

Almost immediately, the thumb safety began engaging under recoil. Not occasionally. It was happening after essentially every shot. That made the pistol effectively unusable.

I initially wondered whether grip position, ammunition, or magazines could somehow be contributing, so I tried more than one load and magazine configuration. The problem continued.

There was also an incident in which the pistol failed to fire and required me to rack the slide and eject a live round. At that point, there was no reason to keep experimenting. The Prodigy went back to PerfectZero.

Because I purchased the pistol through PerfectZero and they had already performed additional work on it, I returned the gun directly to them.

Their gunsmith inspected the pistol and reported performing several checks and corrections.

PerfectZero checked the firing pin, tuned the magazines, and machined the pocket on the thumb safety so that the safety would require more deliberate movement and be less likely to engage unintentionally under recoil.

They then performed both bench testing and range testing before returning the pistol to me.

That distinction matters. This was not a Springfield Armory factory return. PerfectZero handled the problem, the corrective work, the testing, and the return.

To their credit, they also communicated what had been checked and what had been changed rather than simply sending the gun back with a vague 'could not duplicate' response.

The real test, however, was whether it behaved differently for me.

It does. On its first trip after returning from PerfectZero, the thumb-safety problem did not repeat. That alone made the session considerably more enjoyable.

I shot the Prodigy alongside my Staccato C2 and ZEV OZ9, which made for an interesting comparison because each pistol approaches shootability differently.

For the first time, the Prodigy was able to show some of the qualities that made me buy it in the first place.

There is one issue I still want to resolve: with the factory sights, my impacts were consistently high and right. They were consistent enough that I could compensate for the offset, which is actually encouraging. A repeatable offset is a much simpler problem than a pistol randomly scattering rounds.

I already planned to put a dot on this gun, so I'm not particularly concerned about making the factory irons the final word.

The current plan is a Holosun 507Comp GR.

I generally prefer Holosun optics and particularly like green reticles.

For a full-size compensated range-oriented 2011, the 507Comp makes a lot of sense: large window, competition-oriented reticle system, and plenty of viewing area for quick follow-up shots.

Once that is installed and zeroed, I'll have a much better basis for judging the Prodigy's practical accuracy.