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I put 200 rds thru it yesterday with no failures... nice!

I've also installed a Hogue grip sleeve and Pearce mag extension and bought an extra magazine. I really like the trigger and the profile/size of the gun. Hopefully the FTE issues are over and it will fire reliably from now on.

for carry and home defense, I like Hornady's Critical Defense... I hope this 709 likes it

Thanks for the advise, Waco1959... I gave it a good cleaning again this evening and headed back to the range. Bought some Federal white box 115gr and it worked much better, at least no failures today. I couldn't believe how filthy it was after just 50 rounds... but gave it a good scrubbing and applied Hoppe's Elite gun cleaner aerosol. The magazine is still a bit stiff, so cleaned and lubed that as well.

I think the issue could be the ammo I was using... I had some Freedom Munition's Blaster, which are factory reloads. I'll stick with Federal white box for now, since it seems to like that, and give it a few hundred rounds before trying FM again...

Overall, looks and feels quite nice... if/when it fires reliably it will become my EDC.

I picked one from Academy for $299... in black. I really like the size, the thickness (compared to my G26) and some of the features, such as the "memory marks" for thumb and index fingers. Should make a really nice CCW.

Out of the box it was quite greasy... so I gave it a good cleaning and took it to the range. Loading it was a bit hard, even with a loader. First mag emptied fine with no problems, on the second mag I got a failure-to-extract, but was hard to clear: the empty case was in the barrel, the next bullet was trying to feed thru the ramp and the magazine wouldn't release. One guy at the range helped me clear it, but we couldn't get the empty case out (didn't have something long enough to push it back).

I think the issue may be with the magazine, not feeding the next round smoothly... so looks like it may take a while to break in.