SteelShooten

from your journal: This may sound strange but when you transition to a target, are you waiting to get a sight picture before you start your trigger pull?

Thank you, everyone, for the sound advice. Yes, it continues to work without a hiccup and 'would' be fine. I was fortunate to have determined what was happening before the damage became more extensive. I am also fortunate that my Model 29 was not similarly 'bitten'. I also have some flat guns that were tattooed by the same batch of primers. The autos are less damaged than the 625, and more difficult to repair, so they will remain as they are. The primer manufacturer has indicated they will cover the repair costs. It looks like the 625 will be headed back to S&W as the safest course.

I have a 625-4. The hammer nose bushing shows signs of erosion due to a batch of defective primers. Faced with the inconvenience of sending the handgun off to have a minor repair like this done prompts me to ask: what tools are needed to do the repair?

I don't know if they are interchangeable exactly because I never tried the 'proper' 9mm gear. I use older (non logo) 38 Super SV tubes in a 9mm version of the STI Edge and have had zero mag related issues. In a single-stack 9mm 1911 (Spartan) we have found Tripp 38-Super magazines work great. Other equipment combinations may work too.

I've used several thousand Wolf small rifle primers in my SP-01. Generally performance had been quite good. Wolf primer cup hardness seems to be somewhat variable and on top of that occasionally I find one that won't go off no matter what's done to it. The stock CZ firing pin is rather pointy. I thought it was doing the job just fine but when I recovered my brass, there were a few impressions in the spent primers that made me wonder if I had simply been lucky that they fired. The mainspring is stock. I put a longer firing pin in my pistol to address the iffy looking hits. Installed it looks like this: Now the impressions look convincing every time and performance has been excellent. Open question to anyone who is using the CZ Extended Firing Pin, how does this compare? The original firing pin was short enough that it could barely be seen when looking at the breech (as above). This one will protrude (slightly) from the breech face when the hammer is at rest so when I use up these Wolf primers, I'll probably go back to the stock firing pin.

The MecGars have witness holes on one side of the magazine only. Strangely they are on different sides: The only thing I -didn't- like about the 17 / 19 round mags is the way the top front of the magazine was formed. Unlike the 16 round magazines, the 17 round tubes had a little tab that jutted up in front of the on-deck bullet in the magazine. The tab looked to me like a hook that could snag the frame during a clumsy reload. Comparison of the 16 round tubes and the 17 round tubes indicates the tab is not a critical feature so I cut the tabs off and ground them smooth so the front of the 17s now look like the 16s. Oh, both styles work great in my SP-01.

Unmodified, the rims of the cases can drag in the loader if the loader fails to stay aligned after the release is triggered. Shortening the skirt allows the loader to separate from the cartridges sooner/cleaner.

I did about the same thing with my SP01 but then made one from a piece of music wire. Since the home-built spring was weaker than the original, I added a couple of crooks, bent inward at the ends of the spring and pared the tips down to limit excess travel of the catch. These keep me from pushing the button far enough to bind the magazine with button side of the catch.

This is true. There isn't enough room on a 9mm breech cut to accept a 40. The reverse situation may be worth a closer look though. I run a non-CZ platform where I can use a 9mm or a 40 barrel with a 40 breech face and it works fine. If the extractor will cooperate it might work. The magazines should fit in the same frame.

Then you wouldn't like my full power blank recipe anyway. I'm sure its loud enough but since it uses black powder, its definitely not an indoor load. I make mine out of worn out 44 Mag shells and I think you run the risk of starting a fire lighting those off inside.

I have a GP-100 that I use to shoot steel from time to time. I don't think the Ruger gives up much against other six-shot guns. With Comp III loaders, the gun can be refreshed equally as fast as S&W using the same technique. The push button cylinder release is a non-issue in my opinion. Both the Ruger and the S&W beat the pull release on a Colt. I decided to try using the Ruger simply to get more practice. I already owned the gun and wanted to shoot it more frequently (everyone else uses S&W). The Ruger trigger is narrower than the Smith. Assuming you were to find one from each company that measures the same on a trigger pull scale, the Smith trigger feels easier on the finger. If you shoot a lot of cast bullets, taking the cylinder assembly apart to get the gunk out of it is a chore on the Ruger whereas cleaning the yoke on a Smith is pretty easy. My GP is at least 10 years old, and Ruger has been making changes; perhaps to speed up production. I looked at a new one recently. My cylinder has two pins to stabilize the extractor star. The new guns lack these pins. I'd have to play with one a bit to see if this causes any issues. Ruger also has shifted over to 'ergonomic' grips with finger grooves. The older, straighter grips were better as I see it. SteelShooten I would tend to agree with that as far as the factory trigger is concerned but the stock parts can be dressed a bit to get a much better trigger.

Blanks still throw a considerable amount of debris and at close range are risky. At contact distance they can be downright dangerous. Your concerns about using a real gun are equally valid. You could get around that by selecting a Russian Nagant (cheap, ammunition for it won't be on the shelf at Wally world) but you'll need to develop shells for it. If all you want is a simple noisemaker, take a dozen pieces of empty brass and modify them to accept shotshell primers. You won't need any powder and hearing protection is recommended. Sometimes these tie up the gun if the 209 primer is too tight. Do not aim them at people's faces even if they are wearing eye protection. Paint ball guns would be a better choice for the stated purpose.

I agree with this because its about as good as you can do. How well it holds up depends on the distance to the target and the ingenuity of your local idiots. Inside about 100 yards, 223 will still gnaw the surface of AR500 even though the plate will shrug off 308 at the same distance. It'll hold up better than cold rolled.

I have the target model. I used it to shoot steel locally for a couple of seasons now it's often used just for casual shooting. Having the magazine catch above the trigger guard made it a good trainer to get my finger out of a the trigger guard during speed reloads. Most of the people I've met who own/shoot one have been pleased with theirs.

The chamber in this barrel was already properly sized. Going from the chamber to the point where the rifling was fully formed was a steep transition. I bought a 0.355 straight reamer from MSC and had the machinist modify it. The leading 1/4" of the reamer we ground down to Ø.201 and forced a brass sleeve over that portion to act as a pilot. The outside diameter of the pilot was determined by the largest gauge pin we could slide into the fully rifled portion of the barrel. This gave us an unfinished reamer with a brass pilot that is the diameter from land to land but it had an abrupt step from the pilot diameter up to .355. He put the reamer back into the grinder and changed the step into a smooth transition from one diameter to the other. From there the barrel went into the lathe. It was a matter of advancing the reamer in .010 increments and frequently checking with the over-length cartridge I provided as a gauge. Given how little material had to be cut I might have over-complicated the procedure. The results were good though.

+1 I have a battery of things chambered in 9mm, including a 2011, and having one load that works any of them is...well, ideal. We don't have a good way to describe the curve the nose of one FMJ has compared to another one. Normally it would go unnoticed but in the CZ chamber it can make a difference. Most people do understand bullet and weight and cartridge length though this doesn't quite capture the problem. You might be lucky, like SIG2009, or you may have to come up with a work-around like some others.

Insufficient leade seems to be a common issue with CZ. I was loading 124gr bullets at ~1.160 and while this fit comfortably in the magazine and would chamber, I ended up in a fight with the (loaded) gun when it came time to unload and show clear because the bullet had jammed in the rifling. Rather than re-develop a load that works perfectly in a bunch of other guns, I had a machinist cut more leade in my CZ barrel. Nothing really aggressive. I loaded a cartridge out to 1.175 and gave it to him to use as a gauge. He cut a little at a time and measured often. There were no functional issues that cropped up. The gun runs fine, UASC no longer requires a rawhide mallet. No apparent difference in accuracy but this gun is used to shoot steel, and doesn't see much paper.

I'm using: RRA upper / modified bolt Hahn dedicated mag block Stag lower / DPMS hammer and lightly modified disconnector modified (German surplus) UZI magazines "armorer level"....You have to drift out the roll pin that the bolt stop uses as a pivot and remove the bolt stop. The dedicated block is inserted into the mag well from the top side of the lower. Then you replace the bolt stop. I used the dedicated block in the one I built and recommend it highly. It can run Colt magazines (spendy but activate the bolt stop) or modified UZI magazines which don't cooperate with the bolt stop but were easier to find. I bought surplus UZI mags and modified them myself. The UZI mag tubes are soundly built and feed perfectly. Spikes shows a Promag in the gun on their site....I can't say I've had good experience with the Promags. A buddy bought a few and they wouldn't work properly in his carbine and he asked me to try them in mine. They would work if you didn't load more than about 12 round into them; jams otherwise. He bought some UZI magazines and had a machinist do the mods. No worries since. The Hahn block feeds everything, including hollowpoints. You may need a non-notched hammer to work with the 9mm bolt. I ground heavily on my bolt to smooth out the way it acts on the hammer (hoping to avoid the pin breakage problems that I read about) and get rid of that useless notch on the underside of the bolt. I did advance the timing of the disconnector slightly.

I had your experience when I tried to use a lanolin based spray. I switched to One Shot; it was recommended by a friend. Since then, I've resized 30-06, 308 and 223 in quantity using the aerosol. Grab a good handful of brass 75 ~ 100 cases, drop them in a freezer bag and then give them a few second dose of the spray. Knead to distribute the lube. I pour the cases into an aluminum pan and then grab another handful of empties and put them in the bag to 'steep' in residual lube while I size the ones I just dumped into the pan. If I pick up a case that doesn't seem to be lubed, I toss it back in the bag to participate in the next batch. When the pan is empty, spray the next batch, knead, dump them in the pan and stage another batch... This stuff is not Imperial sizing wax but I've found it to be effective, using it specifically for rifle cases. I'm using Dillon Size/Trim dies and an RCBS single stage press and it still goes relatively quickly.

+1 My CZ-75 barrel had minimal leade cut in it. It was like they rifled the barrel, reamed the chamber and then blended the leading edges of the lands. It would shoot OK but when it came time to unload and show clear, it was sometimes a struggle to get the gun to relinquish the round from its chamber because the bullet had wedged into the beginning of the rifling. Yes, you could see marks on the bullet. Good thing I don't use a light crimp, the case could have been pulled out leaving the bullet behind. This simply would not do. The cartridges fit comfortably in the magazine, they shouldn't be too long to work the gun. I had a machinist friend of mine increase the depth of the leade slightly (or at least make the transition less abrupt) and that problem has gone away.

I can't say I used anything special. My primary criteria was to find a load that would work in any one of several guns. I use 5.7gr of W231 and a Zero or MTG 230gr FMJ first loaded at 1.265; then later at 1.245 when the CZ97 turned out to be a prima-donna and I had to recheck everything again. It clocks at about 820 and seems to be a compelling argument versus a reluctant popper just about every time its tried. Depending on which manual you look at this is either a max load or a moderate one so the usual caution should be applied when seeing if it works in your own gun.

The gun is big but it shoots well and accurately. I have one of the earlier ones and after some trigger work to achieve a cleaner break, it was pretty fun. I bent the magazine brake so the magazines fall free. You may find that the pistol won't like certain overall length cartridges. Mine didn't like hardball at 1.260. Oh, it didn't choke all the time but when it choked nothing short of a complete magazine change would revive it. During feeding, as the slide returns, the nose of the cartridge apparently dips before it contacts the feedramp. If the cartridge was of a certain length the bullet would still be nose down when it struck the bottom of the feed ramp... and stopped everything cold with a round trapped between the slide and barrel. TRB worked once in a while but usually failed. Typically it was with 7 or 8 rounds left in the magazine. The mag wouldn't drop free with this type of stoppage, it had to be yanked out. I put up with it because it was an occasional problem and I couldn't pin it on a specific magazine. After it failed miserably during a stake shoot, I spent a lot of time trying to sort this thing out. Polished the feed ramp to a mirror and fed countless rounds by hand and then started measuring the cartridge lengths to see if it helped. Making the rounds longer would cause trouble with another pistol so perhaps shorter... It ran like a top after I shortened the COL to 1.245. The new length must give the cartridge enough space to bounce and meet the ramp on the way up. So it worked great until about the 3000 round mark when the barrel lug sheared off. I'm not loading 45 Super here. 230s @ 820 CZ was very helpful. I sent them the gun and the pistol was returned rather quickly with a new barrel fitted and a new bushing. After a bit of test firing to confirm that the sights agreed with the new barrel, I took the gun to a steel match and was thoroughly embarrassed stage after stage by the same old feed problem. The ammo was at 1.245 and having frequent trouble getting past the new feed ramp. Not interested in going through the ordeal of making further changes to the cartridge, I pulled the barrel, wrapped some 300 grit sandpaper around a Ø3/8 rod and recontoured the center of the ramp at the bottom by deepening the curvature in the center and then re-established the mirror finish. My resurfacing of the ramp did not go far enough up the ramp to effect the chamber, it blended with the existing contour before then. So far its workin'.

Like this: or this:

+1 Moonclips do a good job of covering this kind of mistake since everything is positively extracted. If you use loose ammo, like 357s from speedloaders, the above is vital to maintain good habits.