bountyhunter

That usually means the overtravel screw was adjusted too tight. Pulling the trigger allows the hammer to fall off the full cock notch, but the half cock (safety) notch usually extends a bit farther out by design to ensure capture if the hammer slips during thumb decocking. If the OT screw is that tight, the sear doesn't get far enough back to let the half cock notch fall by with no contact. Point is, if the sear nose clips the hammer notch each time it tears it up. Always make sure when you set the overtravel screw that when the trigger is pulled, you can raise and lower the hammer manually without the sear touching anything.

Getting a Meritt optical (peep) sighter really helps sharpen up both the sights and target, especially for aging eyes. https://www.eabco.com/css_sts2.html As for being unable to focus on the sights with your distance prescription? Welcome to the over 40 club, it goes downhill fast from here. A solution I use suggested by a pro shooter is to have a pair of glasses made with the distance scrip in the left eye to see the target clearly and a closer scrip in the right eye (if that's the one you use for sighting). If you get them dialed in just right and also use the Meritt sighter, it is possible to see both the target and sights clearly with your eyes relaxed to full distance focus (both eyes open). I shoot that way all the time because I just shoot better when I can see the target clearly. I am regularly reminded by some folks that this is impossible, so I guess I'm lucky that I started doing it before I found that out.

I'll say the thing nobody else has: is it possible your hand is too small for the gun? When my wife shoots my guns (she has small hands) she absolutely can not grip it two handed in a conventional grip. She takes the best grip she can with her strong hand, but the support hand is lower almost under the gun. It'c close to a one-handed grip with the other hand just holding the gun up, but she gets ahold of the lower part of the grip with her weak hand. A gun you could try which is ideally fitted to small hands is the Browning HI-power. Another thing which nobody mentioned: your hands may be getting slick. I'm half Irish and we have pasty skin that sweats a lot. In hot weather, I have a hell of a time getting a solid grip (and I have huge hands). You might try some leather shooting gloves as they stay tacky even when your hands sweat.

The "burn rings" in question are inside the cylinder tubes, not on the face. They are a burned glaze hard carbon ring at the end of the .38 brass. The material that builds up there is about as hard as diamonds and seems to literally fuse to the steel from the flame effect. It is also the cause of some exploding cylinders when somebody puts .357 ammo in which has longer brass. The end of the brass at the crimp is shoved into that glaze buildup. When it fires, it increases case pressure and sometimes will blow out a case. Not frequent, but it happens. As for the black on the cylinder face, I usually ignore it. If I am going to do a 100% cleanup on a gun I am not going to shoot for a while, I use a toothbrush and a little chrome polish and it comes right off.

I had them tell me the same thing when I asked if they would install the "extra leverage" sear lever in my HI-power. That really is a 30 minute job. And after they told me it would be at least nine months to get to it, they told me they wouldn't install the sear lever only unless I bought a complete trigger job... because they said the sear lever would cause "creep". So, I decided to creep on down the highway and declined to pay +$300 for a job that basically involved drilling a very clean hole in the slide in the correct place so a new pivot pin could be installed for the different sear lever. They definitely seem to think that their fecal matter does not issue forth the same type of distinctive aroma as the rest of us mere mortals.

Thanks. I'll order a sample. I'm still trying to find the miracle solvent you can just rub on the burned spots and they wipe right off without hurting the metal. I suspect if ever such a solvent was invented, you probably couldn't find a bottle that would hold it without dissolving.

I read that this stuff is supposed to be a super penetrant that "burrows" under fouling and loosens it so you don't need ammonia or any nasties to get out copper fouling. Sounds good, anybody use it? My real question, how does it work on those stubborn glazed on burn rings you get in the cylinder of a revolver just in front of the end of the brass?

As strange as it sounds, the trigger problem could be in your mind. Many shooters think they need to squeeze the shot off when the sights are in perfect (or near perfect) alignment and so they rush the shot. A secondary contributor is muscle fatigue. Vince Lombardi said fatigue makes cowards of us all, and for shooters it makes us afraid if we don't hurry up and shoot the gun will move. It took me a long time to master this (or at least understand the problem), and it comes down to winning a mental game and driving out the slightest doubt that: 1) You can hold the gun steady for as much as 60 seconds if you want to without letting fatigue ruin the shot. 2) The slight movement of the gun with respect to the target causes an error that is many orders of magnitude less than yanking the trigger will cause. Addressing #1 required a long program of conditioning in the shoulder area. Since I am really old, it took several months to get up to where I needed to be. I shoot a bullseye gun that probably weighs 70 ounces with ammo in and I shoot it in two successive leagues (open and stock) back to back and I have enough muscle endurance to do that now. Curing the #2 component was trickier: I use that bullseye gun with a red dot which can shoot 1/2" groups at 25 yards. I shoot freehand groups focusing on EXACTLY where the red dot was when I fired, allowing the gun to move naturally and not fighting it. 99.9% of the time, you overestimate how far off target center the dot was and where the hole will be. After shooting dozens and dozens of ten groups on the bullseye target at 25 yards, the brain finally learns that you don't have to focus on dot location when you fire to hit the ten ring: you put the gun in the right position with respect to the target and then shift all controls over to trigger pull. When my brain finally believed it was when I started shooting perfect scores on occasion (300/300) at 25 yards. Obviously, that isn't 50 yards like the pros do, but it's still damn good shooting. Another aspect of a smooth trigger pull is that most people don't realize how much they jerk the trigger. If you shoot a red dot gun for the first time and pay attention, you will be surprised how much the gun moves when you pull. When you fine tune it to the point that you actually are executing a smooth pull, you will see a huge difference.... and when you get hurried and rush a shot (and use the old jerky pull) you will immedaitely see the difference as the shot sails into the eight ring and you start kicking yourself.....

I wonder if you relaxed more than usual because the fact that it was a borrowed gun meant you didn't have the innate expectation to shoot your best and so you just went on auto pilot and let it rip. Same thing happened to me once in our Grandmaster PPC league: one guy beat me every single week by a few points. On finals night, I knew I'd have to shoot almost aperfect score to have a chance so I basically wrote it off before the shoot. I went out and just cranked them off, only using about half the alotted times per segment. I wasn't even aiming that carefully. I put up a 598/600 and snuck by him by about 1/2 point overall. Relaxation can do wonders.

When the slide is locked back, the disconnector will be held below the sear feet, preventing the trigger from exerting any force on the sear. Even if you hold the trigger down and drop the slide, the trigger is "disconnected" from being able to push back against the sear. The screw in the face of a 1911 trigger is an overtravel adjustment. I do not believe it could possibly cause a hammer follow regardless of how far or which way it was mis-adjusted.

You are correct that it is very bad practice to make a habit of dropping the slide from lockback on an empty mag because it tears up the lower barrel lugs, slide stop pin, and trigger parts. That said, many smiths will do it once or twice after a trigger job because it is a worst-case test for seeing if a hammer will follow, exactly as your hammer is following. The reason is that with no ammo, the slide whacks into battery with maximum velocity (therefore, shock) which would jar the hammer off the sear if the engagement angle was marginal. As you know, normal firing doesn't jar the gun as much as an empty drop, and your gun is still working OK during normal firing... but, it could be close to doubling. I'd want to look at the hammer and sear faces for wear or rounding. The sear spring in yours might be weak, but a well cut trigger/sear set will not follow at very light sear spring pressures so I suspect there could be a problem with your trigger group parts.

I have read several posts from the comp shooters here that they did not clean their barrels during "shooting season" to maintain consistent accuracy, but did clean their guns. I have also read numerous times that if you shoot jacketed bullets, the abrasion of cleaning the barrel does far more wear than the shooting does.

Actually, steel wool will embed fine steel particles into the surface which will then propogate more rust. Use a green "scrubby pad" like for doing pans.

"IRAQI CORPORATION You have two cows. They go into hiding. They send radio tapes of their mooing." You have two cows. The UN claims you have 2,000 cows which are capable of giving more milk than you are allowed to have under their resolution. They demand you kill the 2000 cows and give them the bodies as proof you complied. You reply that you don't know how to kill cows you don't have. Your failure to deliver 2000 dead cows is ruled a "material breach" of the resolution. Then somebody claims that you are breeding cows which give poison milk and threaten the world. You claim that your cows don't even give any milk anymore because they are too frightened by the fighter planes flying over all the time. Then they show pictures at the UN of large dangerous looking buildings where they have proof that millions of deadly cows are being cloned and weaponized. You reply that it's actually a picture of a parking garage near the mall. They give you an ultimatum that you must stop weaponizing cows and deliver all 200 million of the deadly cows or face invasion. You reply that 200 million cows would not even fit in your country. So, you are invaded. The cows are never found and that is taken as absolute proof that they were here, or else why would you have hidden them so cleverly? Most of your country is laid waste and life becomes very bad..... but at least you have democracy. Actually, you don't... democracy is where you get to vote for whoever you want. What you have is the kind where you get to vote for who ever the occupational force puts into the ruling councils. But, trust us, they're nice people and you'll get to like them.

Wouldn't that depend on what ammo you were shooting in it (ie, how hot)?

Use the wooden handle of a hammer to smack across the frame about 1/2 way down if it's stubborn. I had a 66 that had a plate so tight it was a real bugger to get off and I ended up having to fit (shave) the edge so it would go on and off.

I'd agree if it wasn't for the fact your brain dead body will consume about $500,000 worth of taxpayer funded care at the county hospital before your heartbeat stops and you officially become a "donor".

Well, stupid comments generally start from stupid sources. I agree the lock is harmless, my pet peeves are the ugly MIM hammers and triggers and the stupid frame mounted firing pin.

The most important thing I learned when using the Miculek Spring Kits is that 1. Primers have to be COMPLETELY seated. 2. The extended firing pin from C&S is a must and 3. DO NOT go below 7.5lbs on your double action pull. I set mine at 8lbs and have 100 percent ignition, anything less than that, you really need to send it to a gunsmith who knows what he's doing. As far as replacing the firing pin, once you take the side-plate off, there is a small pin that you can pull out using a set of needlenose pliers, simply pull it out and the firing pin will pop out. I think the Wolff ribbed mainspring (reduced power) gives a little lighter pull for the same "strike force" because the way the spring works. I have gotten pulls down to 6.5# very reliably on mine as long as the soft primers were used.

Maybe it's just me, but I was not thrilled with the two C+S extended firing pins I got for my guns. Neither fitted correctly and both needed some filing to get to fit. I am also not totally convinced they do a whole lot for increasing ignition force. I have them in both of my 66's, just not sure they are worth the money and fitting required.

I have actually hypnotized people at parties and I have never been trained in it. One thing I know for sure: you can't make anybody do anything they would not normally do. You can make them cluck like a chicken after you wake them up..... which is really funny when you're drunk. As for self-hypnosis, I don't think it exists. It is placebo effect, but any doctor will tell you placebo effects work if the person believes they do. Simple as that. They are not doing anything they couldn't do, just psyching themselves into thinking something magic is happening which will "free" them to perform at their peak. If it works.... no harm.

Not really. dB is on a log scale, not linear. For instance, 3dB is double, or half, depending on what direction you are going. So, you cannot just do simple subtraction or addition to determine what the actual result is. Actually, dB calculations are done by adding and subtracting. You are correct they are logarithmic, and logs were invented for use by astronomers who had to do multiplication of huge numbers specifically because logs are added to multiply and subtracted to divide. It made the multiplication process simpler in the days before computers. The decibel scale is logarithmic and the decibel was invented at Bell labs as a convenient way of measuring sounds. This is because as sounds get louder, the power level goes up exponentially. A log scale is necessary to measure this. But to the subject at hand: SPL (sound pressure levels) are typically measured in dBA, which is a logarithmic sound level scale with a specifically defined level to which all others sounds are measured. The dBA is also measured on the "A" weighted audio scale which has a frequency response which is similar to the ear: peaks between 1k and 5k and rolls off at high and low frequencies. It is true that in dB a voltage doubling is a 6dB increase, a power doubling is a 3 dB increase, but for acoustics a noise level increase most people PERCEIVE as twice as loud is about 10 dB. An SPL change of 3 dB is hardly noticable. dB pressure level reductions of hearing protectors are subtracted from the peak levels of applied sound, because that is how they are rated: for example, a set of muffs with a NRR (noise reduction rating) of 30 dB reduces the applied signal by that amount. If it is 160 dBA, then 130 dBA reaches your ears. The test vehicle is a plastic head with sensors in it and the muffs are placed over it. The dBA difference between the outside noise and inside noise are measured and rated as a dB ratio (ie, NRR: noise rduction ratio). It becomes trickier when you stack protectors: A set of 25 dB plugs used with a set of 30 dB muffs do NOT provide 55 dB of reduction. In looking at the A scale we care about, I have found that inner plugs add about 10 - 12 dB of added reduction when used with muffs (empirical). So, 30 dB muffs and good plugs give you about 40 dB of protection. Important because tht brings ear shocks down from about 130+ dB to about 120 dB by adding the inner plugs with the muffs. Above about 120 dB is where damage occurs very quickly. By comparison, 90 dB music is pretty loud, rock concert levels run about 110 - 115 dB. An hour of exposure to 110 dB will leave your ears ringing and greatly reduce your hearing temporarily.

Swing out the cylinder and look at the breech face as you push the latch all the way forward. Is the flat end of the pin getting all the way flush with the face of the recoil shield? If not, that's the problem. Options are to file the slot in the frame, file the edge of the latch where it meets the front of the frame, or build up and machine a little extra material onto the front of the pin that pushes on the cylinder release pin.

Actually, IRL was born of the big $$$$ and pure greed. Once upon a time, all US open wheel cars were sanctioned by CART (championship auto racing teams) which sponsored a series of races, the most famous of which was the Indy 500. Then, the owners of the Indy 500 track decided they were important enough that the tail should wag the dog: they created the Indy racing league (IRL) and stated that you must join the IRL to race at Indy, and you must race in a minimum number of IRL events which (SURPRISE!) were the same days as CART races but at other places. I believe they also made minor rule changes so the CART cars had to be different than IRL cars. They conducted the races, ran the league, and put the money in their pockets and intended on destroying CART. The first year, CART had a race called something like the "World 500" at another track the same day as the Indy 500.... hardly anybody came. Eventually, IRL and CART went separate ways and the result is that the drivers pool was diluted in half, team owners were forced to choose, and fans at all events pay full price for tickets to races where only half the big time competitors attend.... ain't capitalism wonderful? Funny how the TV announcers had to adapt: the 40 years I have watched racing, they just called them "Indy" cars. Now they call them either "Indy" cars or "Champ" cars depending on whether its IRL or CART race.

I feel like such a goober... I don't have a reloading press. I buy all my reloads and stimulate the livelihood of those who do the reloading. Severe arthritis, advancing years, and a wife who would not tolerate stocks of gunpowder in the abodal area rule that out (maybe my next marriage?) FWIW: I though it would be no sweat to fix just by shortening the shaft of the release itself, where the oversized release button threads into it. That way the button would start out closer to the frame and I could dial in the "insertion depth" of the release shaft. Then, I wore out two files on the end of that shaft and I didn't even get the bluing off. I kept checking the length with my micrometer and I swear it was growing on me! Finally just built up the under lip of the release button and ground that down until the mags dropped just right when I pressed the button all the way. I don't know what metal they made that release shaft out of but I am sure it came from the planet Krypton.