I have a Stainless Loaded Target, but it's 9mm. I've had a little trouble with it but it was mostly self inflicted, and Springfield took care of it even though it really was not their fault.
It always seemed to suffer from "light strikes". This did not really cause a big problem until I sent it to a well recommended "gunsmith" for a trigger job. Welcome to Failure to Fire City. Sent it off to Springfield with full disclosure and they put it back in working order, as far as the FTF problem.
It had another problem, where the slide would hang. By that I mean it looked like it was locked open except the slide release was not engaged in the notch. They failed to fix that on the first trip. They tried to tell me my thumb was hitting the slide release, but I actually got them to listen to me. The second trip fixed that problem.
Springfield paid the freight both ways, both times, and only kept the gun for 3-5 days, I had it back pretty quick, and fixed....more or less.
At this point I was back to the light strike problem. Never failed to fire with factory ammo but my reloads were a different story.
Springfields, lacking the firing pin safety, use an ultra-light titanium firing pin and a rather heavy firing pin spring to prevent drop-fires. I bought a replacement firing pin and spring from one of the big name 1911 shops. For reasons that escape me, the firing pin won't enter the channel (it's supposed to be the correct Springfield 9mm firing pin), but just swapping the spring out solved the problem and someday I will readdress that firing pin.
The problem with the "gunsmith's" trigger job was he replaced the hammer spring and apparently that's not a good idea on Springfields with the original firing pin and firing pin spring. Of course when it went back to Springfield they "un-did" the "trigger job" by restoring it to the original configuration. Trigger is still a little heavy for my tastes. But it's not bad really I'm just picky.
I'm not real wild about the two piece guide rod. It did work a little loose on me once, now I feel like I have to watch it like a hawk, but that's mostly my own paranoia.
SO most of my problems were of my own doing. Yet Springfield took care of it. Excellent customer service. Nice gun. It's not where I want it to be yet but one day....it's not going anywhere.
