Model19

Not off the top off my head, but I sell a ton of the CQC where I work, and first you need to determine just where the thing is hanging up. The usual spots are slide width, dustcover or rail depth, cqc lock area, and front sight clearance. The CQC is a hard one to modify dimensionally due to the material it's made of. I just took a quick look at Para's site, and I'd guess that you're hanging up where the frame gets real wide from the trigger on back. It must have taken a good shove to get that all the way in the holster. I let customers bring their pistols in the shop to test fit all the time, and when we start to feel resistance I tell them to stop trying. Only once have I had to break a holster to get a pistol out. Other than maybe trying a heat gun to soften it, which I have not done, I bet you're out of luck with that combination. It's not Kydex. Geoff

I found that a few rounds had not crimped as I like and were hanging up slightly on reloads. That's why I asked. If I get bored some day I'll check and trim a bunch. .45ACP headspaces off the case rim. When I used to load that checking length was stressed as important.

I noticed some inconsistent crimps at the range the other night. That got me thinking about checking my brass length. I'm talking .38spcl here. I hate to admit it, but I've been lazy and never check that. It was mandatory when I shot lots of .223 Highpower, but these wheelguns and minimum PF loads don't beat up brass like that so I've pretty much ignored it. How often do you guys check that? Geoff

8 for me. 3 in a Sflnd triple, three in individual kydex carriers and two reserves in the tinky cheap Sflnd single metal holders.

Duh. You keep them all and sell the dishwasher. And don't say she would object!

No way Jose!! I see the guys at my club run those things. The comps make them deafening to bystanders, they only run well after weeks of painstaking load development and spring tweaking, and they cost as much as a semester of my kids in-state college tuition! But on the plus side, they're fast to the next target, take the least possible reloads, look like something out of Buck Rogers (the old strip, not the TV show), and they blow lovely smoke rings straight up in the air on a misty day. That's an idea, I'm going to start kidding the guys about their Bilbo guns.

Yeah, and don't forget that the bill of your cap may act like a big black wall right in your line of sight too!

I saw that picture. Looks fine if that position ends the string or stage. Like you said, I'd not want to have to get up fast from it. Some of the more full figured guys have a hard enough time getting up from a more conventional prone position as it is. But some of them still shoot better than I do!

Interesting. It was a start standing and go prone, elbows not allowed past the line. Having been a Highpower shooter before taking up the handgunning game, I just assumed my usual position, only with both elbows even, and went for it. I actually shot that string very well, but I'd think it would be hard not to with that much support. I'll have to see what that roll-over-prone position looks like. Seems backwards as I picture it in my mind.

I shot a prone string for the first time, and having 8 speedloader holders on my belt, all across my front, had me worried. I got through it fine by only having the hip position ones full. But what if you don't have that option in a longer stage? The rules (USPSA) say removing gear from the belt during a match is not allowed. So where do you guys typically wear your moon/speed holders? I do the border shift reload too, as that must play into it I'd think. Can you have carriers behind the holster? Geoff

Thanks everybody. Like Ledge said, my reloads are a weak point. Seems I did much better two years ago when we did a bunch of IDPA shoots. Probably just a lack of seat time making its presence known. I chamfered my cylinder and modded the grips Friday night before today's match, and I might need to crimp a little harder to smooth the edge of the brass a bit more. Towards the later stages/strings some rounds were not seating fully in the cylinder too now that I think back on today's action. I probably should have brushed out the wheel between stages. The grip mod at least helped get all the spent brass to fall away more consistently today instead of having one hang up as was happening before. The grip mod also ripped off a good dime sized flap of skin from the web of my thumb during that 50 round stage! Oh well. Wait'll next time!

Phew. Just got home from my first match. 5 Stages including one Nuevo Prez qualifier. My brain is tired. The longest stage was 37 rounds comstock, which took all 8 of my speedloaders plus my initial load. I finished with just 4 rounds left in the cylinder. You can figure from that how lousy I did on that stage...but it was fun! Shot my first Texas Star in another stage. Most of the time I managed to remind myself to slow down and I did A's, but things like a row of plates would throw me off. Go figure. By the last stage, which was 4 strings, 6 rounds each on 6 targets starting prone at 60', yadda yadda and ending up weak hand at 20', my head was in the game enough and I had slowed down the tape speed in my brain so to speak enough to be breaking the shots when I wanted them and I was letting the recoil carry the sights over to then next target and my eyes were getting there first and picking up the front clearly again and I was keeping the trigger moving so I was nice and close to the break point as I got the sight picture. That was cool. And I was the only revo guy there of course. I have no idea what my score was, but I don't really care at this point. It was fun and educational and next time I'll do better. I've shot IDPA before, but this is a different ball of wax altogether. Holy high round count batman!

I rooted around and found a decent screwdriver. It weighs 13 oz with no grips at all on it. So add two oz. for the stock wood stuff and I'd say 15oz is accurate. That 12.5oz weight was probably factory figures akin to the HP ratings out of Detroit back in the day.. measured at the advertising writers pen!

Which model is that? The J Frame Airweights with an aluminum frame and a steel cylinder and barrel weigh 15 oz. Some of the newer ones with Scandium and Titanium get down to 12 oz though. It's a 37 square butt. I got that weight from an old Stoegers catalog in my collection. I just grabbed our postal scale and weighed it. Empty and with a big set of Pachmayr Grippers it showed a touch over 16 oz. The pachmayr site shows that grip as weighing 6oz, and I'm pretty sure that they are heavier than the stock wood grips it came with. I just swapped those over last week, now I wish it was stock so I could weigh it that way. I don't have a good screwdriver set here at work to remove the grip with so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

I got to handle several of them at SHOT too, and the trigger is very different from any of my Smith's. Not necessarily bad, just different. Staged may indeed be the best way to put it. You could sort of feel several mechanical bits doing their thing in order as the trigger was pulled. If you were just ripping off a cylinder full in a rush I doubt you would notice. If you were pulling the trigger slowly and feeling for when it will break you would notice the little bumps. IMHO the overall feel is kind of cheap and plasticy, but that that's half the point, the plastic part I mean. It aint cheap! And as others have pointed out, it's no revelation in lightness. You can get all metal pieces that weight less for not much more $$. Heck, I paid $250 for a well cared for early '70's Airweight that spec'd 12.5 oz. Yeah, it's not even +P rated, but it will handle them long enough to empty several cylinders worth in an emergency. Anyways, back to the topic, if you can get your hands on one, try it. You might like it. Ford vs. Chevy, etc etc, and to each his own!

Too true. Give it a shot. You can always publish it electronically. I don't know how that exactly works, but if our most famous citizen here, an obscure author named Stephen King, has done it, I bet you can!

My guess is that there would have to be a perceived market that makes economic sense for someone to set out and write a book. The revolver world, especially the revolver competition world is not overly large. And do get Jerry's video - a tremendous visual resource. For sure, although modern methods make publishing a book much cheaper than before the Internet is still how we get obscure information these days. Shame I like books. Sometimes I think back about how I used to research oddball topics and how long it took. Today you can get instant answers to almost any question. May not be correct but they are fast. Boats I'm a book fan too. Some people have a hard time learning from just reading, but that has never been a problem for me. Range time, or hands on in any subject that deals with an actual physical activity, is the final training ground of course. But you can still learn and possibly skip some dead ends or bad habits you might have developed yourself by reading what other knowledgeable people have to say. I find if I read something and review it enough, appropriate sentences can appear in my brain as I do the activity, giving me guidance. I know, what an egghead. But it works for me. And the winter is long and cold up here with 3 feet of snow covering the range. So at least reading can keep my head in the game.

I'm thinking about adding to my library of shooting books and want something more wheelgun technique specific. Any suggestions? Most of the published works are strictly bottom-feeder oriented and reading whole chapters on reload with retention, etc, does not help me much.

+1 the Bangor Punta and Lear Siegler (sp?) guns usually had no pins. The 1955 Target I pictured above also had no pins. Many of the older sights were like these where the entire blade and base were pinned in. Those pins are almost impossible to find. I eyeballed it again this morning and can see no sign of a pin. The sight on the bottom right in that photo, were the entire ramp assembly is pinned on looks like what I may have minus the red insert. But the serrations look like they flow unbroken from the top of the barrel up the sight block ramp. They sure did some fine machine work on these older pieces. Looks like it'll come down to some machining no matter what I decide. I like the Weigand idea. Had never heard of them. Thanks for the tip. I'm going to use this old 19 until it's tired, so I have no fear of modifying it as needed. I buy 'em to use, not to polish and keep in a case.

No pin is visible, but maybe I'll look closer again. Is there a way to tell from the serial # and the mfg date?

Question for ya: I have an older M19-3, mid '70's built I think, and the front sight appears to be machined as part of the barrel. How could I go about getting this modified so I can have a more modern eye friendly sight system? I have painted the ramp yellow, which helps a bit, and I'm thinking of filing the rear blade into a wider notch or semi-circle shape as a DIY fix. And there are NO, ZERO, NUTHIN', pistolsmiths near me.

That must have been one hell of a match stage!!

I think the advantage was not so much in corrosion resistance but in the fact that water would run out of both the end of the barrel and the cylinder/forcing cone gap very quickly and the cylinder itself has little propensity to hold water, unlike a sealed bottom removeable magazine or an auto's chamber might. I've never tried it myself, but what would a semi-auto barrel full of water and sealed at the chamber end by a round (like .45ACP that headspaces off the brass) have for pressure variables if the weapon was fired in that scenario? Might not be an issue I guess but somebody else gets to go first and see. Other than behind the side plate and in the grip, revolvers are pretty much very porous, which might (probably?) be better for immersion and then going into action in the first few seconds it comes out of the water. At the time, those guys were really focused on scenarios involving swimming to oil platforms and the possibility of getting into the fight as soon as they started climbing out of the water. But what do I know, I shoot at a nice clean controlled range with nobody firing back at me. I'm too old for that stuff nowadays and I have a kids college bills to pay off too.

Hey, that's a Blackhawk holster and thigh rig, aint it!? I sell that stuff at work. I bet you like it. I sold our local guard copter medivac unit a bunch of the MOLLE adapter versions of that holster so they could carry the Beretta on their chests instead. The only downside of the 8 shot wheelguns is a lack of speedloader availability. But that TRR8 is one sweet wheelgun.

True that. I sometimes find myself hurrying and doing exactly that... not letting the trigger return full travel. I think it's because I started handgunning with 1911's and you can get pretty lazy with your trigger finger. The lock up phenomenon only happens when I try and get real fast on the trigger. I can't "ride" the trigger out like with a 1911, I need to let it reset, which becomes second nature after consciously practicing it for a bit.