bountyhunter

Problem is: since FedEx and UPS company rules expressly forbid shipping a handgun any way other than the very expensive options (they told me I would have to overnight it), you risk losing everything if one of them "handshakes" a deal for you to ship it ground. If the gun is lost or stolen, you can not collect on the value of it.I have shipped handguns through three different gun shops locally for the last twenty years and the most expensive was 50.00. I can't get a quote for less than 100.00 from the big two shippers. I wouldn't think that every local gun shop would ship guns illegally but, you never know. I have been to gun shops where they charge you paperwork fees and shipping fees, but not locally.The gun shops are using USPS. I use them too because even though they charge a handling fee, it's still cheaper than either UPS or FedEx who require overnight service be used.

The bad thing is, I think that's in dog years.....

Problem is: since FedEx and UPS company rules expressly forbid shipping a handgun any way other than the very expensive options (they told me I would have to overnight it), you risk losing everything if one of them "handshakes" a deal for you to ship it ground. If the gun is lost or stolen, you can not collect on the value of it.

Anybody with an FFL can legally ship using US postal service. Very cheap, extremely unreliable.

OK. So you then define "work fine" as digging into the finger joint of right handed shooters. Try reading the OP. "Upon disengaging the safety i realized on my strong hand the AMBI safety on the right side digs into my index finger 1st knuckle joint." I have had the same problem with them and in some cases, removed them and ground off the end of the shaft. My point was a better design would be if there was a build option or mod where the shooter could select which side the safety was on.

I'd still spend the extra $100 and go with an STI.

Never saw the point of ambi safeties. It's like selling cars with a steering wheel on both sides.Maybe it's because of left handed shooters like me....My point was it would be a lot better to make the safety on one side or the other, with an option to switch it over for left handed shooters.

A compensator actually does reduce recoil because it has an expansion chamber and a flat "wall" that the forward moving gases slam into creating a forward force along the barrel axis which offsets part of the recoil force. It will reduce recoil and the attendant muzzle rise which is the result of the recoil force axis being above the wrist joint causing rotation there. As for barrel holes, ports, vents etc I have never seen one that reduced recoil or (to my perception) muzzle flip but some peple think they work. Compensators absolutely work.

Probably, depends on several things. The first recoil pulse is affected by how much energy it takes to "unlock" the slide and allow it to start moving back which depends on hammer springs, recoil springs, and other effects. Generally I think a bigger gun will feel like less recoil because it's mass has more inertia so it takes more energy to make it accelerate back against you. That is the theory, a lighter spring at forward slide position allows unlock at lower force level. But it doesn't alter the hammer spring which is a bigger determiner in force needed to unlock. I have about five autos with dual rate "recoil reducers" and I don't find noticable reduction in recoil but some people do. It's subjective. No, guns are a little more complicated. I think the greatest tool in reducing recoil is a compensator if that is possible for you.

Never saw the point of ambi safeties. It's like selling cars with a steering wheel on both sides.

Broken link? Is it possible you had a squib round and fired into it and bulged the barrel? That is one of the more common scenarios for jammed slides.

The total recoil energy is the same, but the perceived may be totally different. Remember that autos are recoil operated, so a considerable portion is eaten up moving the barrel and slide and compressing the recoil spring. On an auto, the recoil back to you is in a peak pulse (at discharge) then a ramp up with lower peak as the recoil spring compresses, then a small pulse as the slide hits the frame. The relative amplitudes of the pulses can be tweaked by changing springs. So, even though the total recoil energy is constant, the peak you feel can be manipulated. Recoil is very much dependent on bore axis relative to the wrist pivot point which is why gripping higher reduces felt recoil. In general, a heavier gun will probably feel like less recoil to you.

Most of the recommended stances and grips use pre tensioning. Even the lean forward (getting your nose over your toes) will load the calf muscles and achilles tendons to counter the imbalance caused by moving your CM forward. In the arms whenever you feel tension, it means one muscle group is tensioning against a different muscle group. Since nothing is moving, any force applied in one direction by one muscle must be offset by another muscle. I think it's like tightening the guide wires on an antenna mast to hold it securely. The problem of tendonitis may come or maybe not. YMMV. But it comes most often in the areas that get stressed by other activities which are the wrists and elbows. But once they start, they can become chronic and are very hard to treat.

"Tendons connect muscle to bone. These tough yet flexible bands of fibrous tissue attach the skeletal muscles to the bones they move. Essentially, tendons enable you to move; think of them as intermediaries between muscles and bones. " If you pre load muscles as described (whether calling it locking tendons, pre tensioning or whatever) it puts strain on the tendons. Younger guys, and guys with healthy tendons can get away with this but believe it: there will come a time and age where the tendons start howling and you will not be able to do this. Guess how I learned that. And the problem with tendonitis is it becomes chronic and hangs on for months (or years).

That is the problem. Plaintiffs know the cost and time is so high they also know how much they can get on a "nuisance" payout to go away. No doubt the system is flagrantly abused, but forcing losers to pay would lock the door to the courthouse for anybody who is not a millionaire. Lawyers would no longer accept contingency cases and only people with big bucks could ever affgord a trial, regardless of the merits of the case. That's a lot worse IMHO.

Fine for younger guys but us older ones can't stress the tendons like that and expect to be able to keep shooting. You see enough threads about people with tennis elbow (which is tendonitis).

I'm in California where gun makers have to pay big $$$ and supply guns for "testing" (destruction) to be able to get onto the "approved for sale" list. Sieg Heil mein freund.....

I don't suggest using them. There are too many dimensional differences in the rounds to work as reliably as I want without modifications to the extractor, which are not easy to get spares of.+1 I fitted a 9mm conversion on my XD and it did not extract 100% because the extractor has so little range of travel. I had to modify an extractor to get it to work right.

I mirror polished the sides on my Para 1640 stainless using 600, 800 paper and oil then rubbing compound and polishing compound and a soft cloth wheel.

That is called hammer follow, it's not normal and is potentially dangerous. The slide hitting the frame coming into battery is jarring it sufficiently that the hammer slips off the full cock notch and falls to half cock notch. The likely reason it doesn't do it with a mag/ammo is because stripping the round and forcing it in slows the slide slightly. The "empty slide drop" test is done to see if the trigger job was screwed up or the gun needs work. Hammer follow is a fail and means the gun needs fixing.

So.... you are not familiar with the "starve them then gouge them" principle of economics? Put gas in your car.....

The problem with using hard single front sight focus for CQB (defense) situations is that closing one eye probably eliminates 80% of the field of view since the gun is obscuring so much of the view with the sighting eye, which is the only one left to see with. I agree you absolutely need to see the sights, but you certainly can see them well enough by "looking through" them with soft focus to score a 3" group or less at the sub-7 yard range that 99.99% of all defense situations involve.

There are two kinds of focus: mechanical (eye lense) focus and brain focus. If you eye focus on the front sight, it will double image the target. If you eye focus on the target with the sight picture in your sight line, it will "soft focus" the sights but you can give it brain awareness and align sights. The second method for nearsighted pwople like me is to have glasses made where the eye focus of the laft eye is distance and the right eye is at sight length. In that case, I can use both eyes with left eye target focused and right eye sight focused and shift brain attention back and forth. You can also use a peep sighter (Meritt sighter) which actually allows focusing the sight image and the target at the same time, or very close to it.

I put EFK Firedragon 9mm conversion barrels into about five different autos..... and my XD was the only one where the barrel did not drop in and work right. I had to send the slide to EFK and they fitted a new barrel for me. The said that they had problems dropping in barrels for the XDs.

I have the dual spring recoil rod setups in about five different autos. I have never seen a reduction in recoil or muzzle flip, but they do keep the slide from hitting the frame which is worth it.