bountyhunter

The Trojan frame is known for locking the mag in a shade high with respect to the slide. On a full magazine, it can smash the stack down enough that the nose does not come up when the slide comes forward. On my Trojan .40, I filed the locking slots in the magazine to allow it to ride about .025" lower. It would not feed without this mod, YMMV. Could not this be accomplished by using another mag catch - isn't the STI a little higher than other brands? Hate to start fooling with my Tripp STI specific mags... I've heard some people change the mag catch to one that holds "lower". Don't know what brand to recommend. I bought an aftermarket catch with oversized release button and it held the mag at the same height.

The Trojan frame is known for locking the mag in a shade high with respect to the slide. On a full magazine, it can smash the stack down enough that the nose does not come up when the slide comes forward. On my Trojan .40, I filed the locking slots in the magazine to allow it to ride about .025" lower. It would not feed without this mod, YMMV.

It goes like this: "Baby... if I sold the car, would you still love me?" "Yes... and I'd miss you, too."

We are.

Don't complain.... Before checking, the original ad copy read: "Good for home or orifice use as well."

Nobody ever said beginner's luck would always be GOOD luck.

All the Para bbls I've seen have the rough rotary milling lines you see and that is why I recommended mirror polishing the top of the throat. The nose will drag on those lines. Mr wedge will probably send you a new extractor but it will look just like the one you have. The new one he sent me also was not "finished" at the bottom where it has to be "radiused out" to allow feeding. No way Para will send you a barrel. Those have to be fitted.

The "full cock" notch is usually cut to about .020" - .024" height to give the short, sharp breaking trigger release we all want our gun to have. The half-cock notch is intentionally taller to securely catch the sear nose if the hammer slips when you are thumb lowering. If the overtravel screw is set up too tight, the sear can be moved far enough to let the hammer fall from full cock, but the sear nose can drag (or hang) on the half cock notch. There must be enough sear movement so that both hammer notches can pass by the sear without dragging when the trigger is pulled.

But their lead times are measured in integer multiples of the passing of haley's comet.

My 1640 will stop feeding reliably if the extractor tension exceeds 20 ounces (as measured with a Weigand gauge and trigger pull gauge). Take the slide off, insert the Weigand gauge and pull straight down. Over 20 ounces, mine starts getting FTF's. For the record, I think Para ramps (at least mine) are too vertical and the barrel position too high with respect to the mag. Mine would never feed reliably until I re-worked the ramp on the stock barrel. maybe an aftermarket barrel is cut right, my stock barrel wasn't. I had to cut the ramp angle down a little and lower the "entry area" on the ramp to pick up the nose... and live with the loss of "support area" at the rear of the case this required. My gun feeds 100% now. Also, the "nose against the roof" feed hang you are describing can sometimes be improved by mirror polishing the inside upper throat surface and (if necessary) rounding over the top of the ramp where it enters the throat. I had to do bopth to get my gun to feed right. One more thing: the stock para extractor is a cast piece and mine was not properly radiused at the lower edge to allow the round to "roll up and under". Check the extractor... and then test your skill at launching into the nearest waste basket and replace it with a good one. FYI, the shok-buff never caused a problem in mine.

That sounds right. A Meritt sighter will make both the target and sights be in focus at the same time (optical peep sighter). That's how I do it. That would mean you have lense focus on the sights but eyes are still aligned at target. That's one I have never done.

I noticed the same thing. Forcing actually takes longer than "going with the flow". It's also a lot more tiring. Reminds me of the poster of the turtle with the caption: "The hurrieder I go, the longer it takes."

When I watch a shooter video like John Shaw shooting a Beretta .40 (96FS) and I see the amount of muzzle rise after each shot before the next is only about an inch: it is clear there are fast-twitch muscles activating to stop the rise of the gun and bring it down quickly. I do exactly the same thing and when the gun misfires and those muscles still activate at the pre-set time after trigger pull, the muzzle will go down a bit... the flinch. I have given up believeing I can ever eliminate this and I am not convinced it is a bad thing if it occurs at the correct time. If you drop the muzzle BEFORE you fire, that will screw up the shot. For deliberate slow fire, I think it is easy to "switch off" the "anti rise reflex". As you shoot faster, I believe it comes in automatically. Bottom line, if the shots are going where aimed, you are doing it right.

I am like every other American: I am an excellent driver, and everybody else is an ---hole!

On some hammers I have seen, the half cock "notch" actually has a lip on the front so it is more like a "cup" that catches the sear nose. That makes it much more secure in capturing the sear nose. Problem is, you can sometimes pull hard enough on the trigger to rotate the sear past this lip and get the hammer to fall... and in the process, you are tearing up the sear nose because you are forcing the sear face to drag across that sharp edge on the lip. I agree that the half cock notch is just that: to catch the hammer if you slip on a thumb decock or if the hammer falls off the full cock notch when the slide comes forward. IMO, trying to "trigger force" a hammer to fall from HC is not a valid test and downright dumb since it may tear up the sear.

I'm not BOO, but I ran my 686 at about 5# for a long time when I was shooting reload ammo with soft primers. One thing to realize is the mainspring and the rebound spring have to be matched for minimum pull weight. The RB spring has to return the trigger against the mainspring force, so a lighter main allows a lighter RB and still get good trigger return. I used the Wolff RP mainspring and also backed out the strain screw as required for my ammo (do apply loctite to the screw). Then, I would cut down the rebound spring until I got the trigger return feel I am used to. Understand, if you have to crank up the mainspring to shoot stiffer primers, you may need a stronger RB spring. Inside the SW is a lot of places tht have to be polished to get the light and smooth pull. The most critical is the two flat sides of the rebound slide that run on the frame... and the frame faces they rub against. I spent a lot of time truing and polishing those. The slide can be oil sanded against 600# paper to get smooth (round the sharp edges too). The frame is harder. After the slide is done, I apply some rubbing compound to the frame and rub th slide as it will be in action. That will shine up the frame high spots. There are other points polished in a basic action job, but smoothing the RB slide and faces (and applying a good grease) will give you about 90% of the total improvement. I am told the Mikulek video does a good job of describing the proper action job.

Impossible. If you have two eyes focused on the front sight, it will be in focus but parallax will put one of the two rear sight images in front of it. You can only get a single sight image with sight focus if one eye is closed. It sounds to me like this technique is an "intermediate" focus method where your eyes are actually focused at a point between the sight distance and the target.... enough so you can still get a single "sight line image" with the second gun image moved far enough to the right to not obstruct the sight image you are using to shoot with.... yet the nearer focal point is giving you a sharp enough sight image that you perceive it as "in focus".. and it probably is infocus well enough to align accurately. One thing to realize is there are two kinds of focus: visual focus and brain focus. I can focus both eyes on the target and raiss the gun into sight line (second gun image to the right) and the sights I see are blurry due to not being in "visual focus" . But without changing my eyes, I can shift my "brain focus " (awareness) to the blurry sight image and align the gun very accurately then return awareness to the target and fire. I also use a "nearer" lense in the sighting eye to shift sight focus in closer, so I see a relatively clear sight image and also a clear target image with eyes relaxed to distance... and simply shift brain focus back and forth to align the gun and then fire. I suspect that intermediate sighting lense is doing what you are describing.

The trigger force to pull on an original 1911 (no series 80 crap) is primarily due to three components: 1) The leaf of the spring which presses on the disconnecter/trigger. A four leaf spring has two seperate leafs for this, a regular spring just has one leaf here.. 2) The leaf of the spring that presses on the sear since you must rotate it . 3) The "drag force" moving the sear face across the face of the hammer hook. This one depends on face angles, smoothness, and the mainspring weight. You can measure the various forces with a trigger pull gauge. On mine, I set up the first two for about 12 - 14 ounces each and the last one generally is about 8 ounces as I recall. My pull is usually around 2 1/4 to 2 1/2. Going under two pounds is getting into the region where you really have to do it all right.

Wash hands before the hugging part.

My favorite was when the boss would say: "I wish this company had a dozen men like you.... unfortunately, we have hundreds."

Yes. I think that is the real worst case test, because live firing will give a lot more inertia to the slide and "slam by" any hesitations in feeding that you can pick up when slow cycling. Of course, actual firing is the final test. Just be careful if you hand cycle live ammo.

Watching the news coverage of the state of the union address last week. My wife looks up at the TV and says: "I guess the Wizard never got back to you on that brain you wanted?"

NO, you can always hope weather will improve or wait until the wind dies down. If they screw up the lanes, they just continue to get worse as you bowl on them and the oil carries down to the back end.

Bowling and shooting are a defective analogy (I bowled for about 25 years and quit with a 195 average). There are WAYYYYY more variables in bowling which are beyond your control. Primarily, the lane surface and what particular oil pattern has been laid down. That not only affects what line you have to use, but may change which BALL you need to use (soft rubber, hard rubber, plastic surface). Also, the pinsetters are sometimes "nasty" and keep setting pins off spot. The approaches may be rough.... I would dispute that your performance on any given day bowling DIRECTLY reflects preparation. Being well prepared is a necessary but not a SUFFICIENT condition to good bowling... one may be fully prepared and perform at peak level and still score very poorly. In shooting, the bottom line is you have complete control of the gun and ammo.... and when it comes right down to it, the game is to put a hole in the right place. I see that as the competitor having virtually 100% control of his destiny.... in bowling, it's a whole differnt story.

Who is going to "call around" for a discount on a part that retails for 79 cents? Even if I found a place that had them half off, it wouldn't pay for the phone calls.