Skywalker

Kinda very strange, since it was Scott Carpenter himself that asked Breitling to manufacture a 24-hr dial version of the already available Navitimer, 'cause when you're orbiting around the earth it's quite difficult to tell if it's morning or afternoon. For more reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitling http://forums.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?t=4034 http://donindiano.lanetcie.com/watches/bre...monaute/history http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/52298

Thomas, you're more than welcome. If anybody has new contributions, I'll be happy to add them.

I was going to post something not very nice about Rolex watches, but reading some members have one, I'll just say I'm more into professional watches like: Omega Speedmaster Professional, Fortis B-42 Official Cosmonaute, Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute.

Thanks Dan, I'll keep it in mind for the next frame.

Thanks TL, I appreciate it, but I can safely say I'm not talented, truly, I'm just stubborn ... Dan, is the radius desirable to relieve metal stress in the area, since sharp corners are usually the starting place for cracks, or is it only for cosmetics and/or ergonomics? I can guess why 20 lpi is easier to do: larger lines, easier to manage, all in all I figure being the lines larger and deeper, they're more forgiving for slips and errors, but I have tried 20 lpi and it's definitely too coarse for my hands. I prefer the 25 pattern on my hand, it has the traction of grip tape without really pricking my hand like the proverbial fakir's bed. I'll ask a machinist teammate of mine to do it. Any recommendation on the blasting media size or its application? I took me more than 5 times that, I guess this is the difference between an amateur and a professional. Thanks everybody for the (much needed) tips.

Thanks FS. I studied a lot of pics of checkered frontstraps before attempting it, and I have considered rounding the grip below the trigger guard, but I wanted to get the highest possible grip on my gun, similar to what I cut on the plastic grip of my SVI, thus I opted for a squared, high, cut on it. I will report back after the gun is finished (hey, I hope a home-made complete customization of a plain singlestack will raise my status in the "Singlestack elitist snob club" ... Jay you hear me? ) and I have shot it, so I can comment first hand on the effectiveness of such shape. The magwell opening is where I had to be extra cautious. I saw the metal was real thin there, and I wanted to have all lines square with the opening, thus I hand filed the incomplete diamonds off. I haven't kept a record of how much time it took me to finish it, but i guess I'm in the 15/20 hrs ballpark. It took me about 75% of the time to cut the long, vertical lines, then in about half an afternoon I cut the horizontals, and another half afternoon was needed for final dressing. Of course this has been all done for personal pride and desire to learn, since it's not even remotely time/cost effective ... Oh, yeah, when I'll be mastering it ... since I have just started with my first attempt, I guess I'll be trying that within a decade or so ... Nice tip BTW, so now I know when my Para shooting teammate will come up asking for the same job on his gun I will politely tell him my backlog is full for the next few years ... One last question: I would like to get rid of the different shading that can be seen across the whole pattern: would a bead blasting eliminate it?

All right, I did my first experiment. I re-shaped and checkered the frontstrap of my stainless steel Colt .45". It has been done totally by hand filing and sandpaper. I'd be interested in constructive criticism and general comments, thanks.

Don't know if this applies to your situation but here in Italy almost any association, being it for sporting purposes or whatever, has a discipline board, which is entitled to act against members of the association whose behaviour is not what it's supposed to be. If a memeber of an association gets reported (formally, by the association president or BoD member) to the discipline board he might face: verbal reprimand (1st warning) written reprimand (2nd warning) temporary suspension from association activity banning from the association As MD, if the troublemakers are from a different club, I'd: explain them the problem (1st occurrence) explain the problem to the president of their club (2nd occurrence) will not accept their match registration (3rd occurrence)

Looks like somebody edited the thread title.

Was going to ask the same thing, and was really scared to look at any posted photo ...

Thanks Julien. Now let's imagine to shoot a targets array of 3 or 4, involving steady shooting and very short transitions. Targets are no more than 10/12 far away, full sized, no NS or HC. What is your focus shifting sequence (assuming a type 3 shooting and focus)? When do you shift your focus from aimed spot on target to front sight?

Crusher, Flex, thanks for the good advice. I'll try and incorporate this in my dryfire training. I know in wide transitions I'm not just rotating my torso, but rather bending the knee opposite to the rotation direction, but it never occurred to me to bring the gun closer to the chest, and then push it forward again on the target: I thought it would have slowed me down. As I said, I'll have to experiment with this in dryfiring.

Maybe I didn't express myself correctly. I normally shift my focus from the target spot I'm aiming to, to the front sight, as soon as front sight hits brown, not when it's on the exact spot. This means that I shift my focus while the gun is still moving. The "perceived" effect of this is that I somewhat loose track of aforementioned spot, because I have now a fuzzy picture of the target and a clear one of the front sight. The fact that I have way too many hits not going exactly where I wanted them to go, gives me the feeling that this practice (shifting focus as soon as front sight hits the target, and the gun is still moving) might have been a bad practice. Thus, I wanted to know exactly what better shooters do in this case: a step-by-step description of the whole process. This is something to look at as well, will do. Phil, so you are shifting your eye focus while the gun is still moving, and use the target borders/sights placement relation to refine your aim?

Before grinding the sizing die, you might want to experiment with this setup: this way you just need to process all fired brass (from a different handgun) once, then it will be good to go in your chamber from then on. Even though the pics are missing, the basic setup is a single stage press with a fitted Lee Factory Crimp Die, whose crimp sleeve and stem have been removed, to work like a tunnel. The press ram has been fitted with a rod (punch) that will fit (almost) exactly the internal nominal diameter of the brass. The operation is quite simple: slide the brass to be resized upside down onto the rod, pull press lever forcing the brass & rod all the way up the FCD die, pick up the prass when it's completely above the die.

The only thing I can think of is that the extra 2mm makes the round, the brass, too long. In other words, the chamber is 19mm long and you are inserting a 21mm piece into it. Shay, that's not possible. Stefano is located in Italy, and here we are not allowed 9x19mm caliber guns. All 9mm caliber guns sold locally are chambered for 9x21, or as the foreigners call it, 9mm "Italian", even though it was originally developed by I.M.I. to bypass 9mm Parabellum prohibition. On second thoughts, probably it would be a good idea to do the following: 1. Resize and decap a batch of 100 brass, 2. Disassemble the gun barrel and manually chamber gauge them, to ensure they fit freely in the chamber. 3. If any of the above brass doesn't chamber, look for the culprit: it either is brass bulge at the bottom (near the base), thus it needs deeper resizing, or the chamber is not deep enough (problem to be solved by the manufacturer/importer). 4. Load a batch of rounds using the brass that passed check in step no. 2. 5. Manually chamber gauge all loaded rounds in the (dismantled) barrel, to check if they freely drop in. 6. If any of the loaded rounds doesn't drop in, then it must either be the bullet that bulged the case during insertion (and the subsequent crimp didn't remove it), or the bullet tip is prematurely contacting the rifling (solution: load shorter). 7. Shoot all rounds that passed check in step no.7 and check for jams.

For the records: 9x19 and 9x21 do not differ in anything else than a 2mm longer brass for the latter caliber. They share the same O.A.L., the same ballistics, and the same loading data, thus a 9x19 O.A.L. applies as well to a 9x21 round. The only difference between the two is that a 9x21mm has 2mm more brass contact with the bullet, hence maybe a higher friction when the bullet leaves the casing upon firing. I doubt this makes hardly any difference. Stefano, given the kind of jam you report, I would suggest you chamber gauge rounds that jam the gun. Pick up a round that jammed the gun, disassemble the barrel, and check if the round drops freely in the barrel, down to the bottom. This way you will be able to tell if it's a matter of bulged brass at the base, or a matter of the bullet tip prematurely contacting the rifling (i.e. cartridge loaded too long) and preventing the gun from going into full battery. It might also help if you could completely resize some brass (see this thread), and test reloaded rounds based on fully resized brass. Firing commercial ammo could help as well.

Let's say I'm re-building my shooting skills, and I'm willing to re-learn it all by questioning everything I might know. Yesterday evening I was dryfiring in the basement, practicing wide transitions from a standing position, let's say about 60°/90° swing, between two targets: I was actually pulling the trigger while dryfiring because I want to train myself to take a mental picture of the sights alignment the very moment the trigger is pulled, and want to train on processing this mental image to know in real-time if the sights were correctly aligned or not, in order to immediately make up the shot. What I noticed is the following: upon calling the last shot on the first target, I snap my eyes shifting the focus on a spot on the next target and, as soon as the front sight hits brown, I start shifting back my focus from the target to the front sight. The effect of this is that I loose track of that spot I was aiming to, and the front sight generally ends somewhere near the spot, but not as much precisely as I would like. The accuracy suffers from this, since what I meant to be an A hit might end up being a C or worse. Having realized this, I started to stay focused on the intended target spot until the (fuzzy) front sight was exactly on it, then, depending on the shot difficulty, I was pulling the trigger without re-focusing on the front sight, or focusing on it after I had pulled the trigger the first time, but before pulling it again for the second shot. For more difficult shots I was focusing back on the front sight, but after the fuzzy front sight was placed exactly on the aimed spot. Now I'd like to ask to more experienced/accomplished shooters if this is the correct sequence of action, or if I'm totally mistaken. In this latter case, I wish you could describe the exact sequence of actions you perform.

I don't think you can seat primers too deep, unless you start crushing the cup (which, BTW, should require quite a big effort compared to normal priming). You might want measure the primer pocket depth before priming, and then compare it to the primer cup height: if the seated primer face distance from brass back face is greater than (pocket depth - primer cup height), then you're crushing cups.

Hi guys and gals, I wish to bring this website to your attention: Luger P08 Artillery. An old friend of mine, Mauro Baudino, with whom I shared several years of college during our university days, in the end succumbed to firearms mania (not that I didn't have a role in this ... ) but instead of turning to competitions, he devoted himself to classics, and this is one of the most classy classics that I can think of. Enjoy.

"And all this science I don't understand It's just my job five days a week A rocket man, a rocket man." Elton John - Rocket Man (1972) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24617833/

Hey ... must have been a really good one if I remembered it after all these years ...

Stefano, you'd better warn our mutual friend that this is an illegal modification under IPSC Production rules ...

Slight variation on a theme ... hunting ... Still a good one.

The draw is the presentation of the gun to the target. The first part of it should be focused mainly on establishing a firm and secure grip on the gun. Speed here comes second. The second part of it is to exactly aim the gun onto the target. Speed here is crucial, and this is by far the area where most beginners loose the biggest time. From the moment the gun clears the holster, the front sight shall trace the shortest/smoothest path towards the aimed spot, stopping on it at the end of arms extension. There's no point in doing a blazing fast presentation, if then you have to wobble the muzzle all over the target to stop on aim. The key point here is to strongly push the gun towards the target to generally aim, and slow down the last 2" of travel to refine your aim.

Good thing you had a video showing you what to do and how to do it ... the first time I did it I reassembled the safety plunger lever of my Series 80 Colt backwards ... can you imagine the laughter of my teammates when I showed up at the range and tried to get one round go bang?