Carmoney

Yep, that's me at front left. Three more to go. One of them used to shoot a Sierpina custom .45 comp gun quite often.....

Those are all correct, Dan! Ed is standing at far left. Craig is standing, second from the right. Sia is seated in the middle. That leaves four more....

And that's exactly how we always pronounced it.......mass-rifle-ass-n-inc!

The shooter doesn't get DQ'd though, unless there was also an issue with unsafe gun-handling.

Recognize anybody in this old team pic?

I like and use the CR Speed holster for steel shooting. For USPSA stuff, I have switched back (for the second time) to the BladeTech after the CR Speed dumped my 25-2 on the ground again. I was re-setting steel between shooters and the gun was unloaded, so no DQ, but enough is enough. Flexmoney and I were just discussing this at Area 5, oddly enough. As he pointed out, a lightning draw is not nearly as important in USPSA shooting as many, many other factors. How many times do you actually draw the gun during a USPSA match? It sure seems like starts from a table, from a briefcase, etc., are becoming more prevalent all the time. And how many times do you draw the gun as you're moving to the first position where you can actually shoot something? In those instances, the speed of the draw means almost nothing.

My little old SDB will not reliably seat primers all the way, even if I push really hard on the handle. Of course, that machine has been in service for 23 years, so it might be getting a little loose! I don't mind re-squeezing the primers by hand--it goes pretty quick, and gives me a chance to watch Shooting USA or Top Shot. I don't have a lot of TV time otherwise!

Congratulations to Houngan, who picked up the win at Area 5. Over the past couple years, Matt has shown himself to be a very fine revolver shooter. It was great to see a bunch of my old revolver (and autopistol!) friends at the match, and nice to meet some new folks for the first time. Nice range, good stages, great match staff. It was a fun weekend.

They generally shoot fine with jacketed bullets.

Just don't forget to UASC (in case there's anybody who hasn't seen this laffer yet!)

Shimming the primer seating stem is a good way to get enough travel to actually seat the primer fully. Any loading press has plenty of leverage to do the job if the stem has sufficient travel available. The other option is to hand-seat the primers with a hand priming tool. That's what I do. Incidentally, there is no depth measurement (.003", .004", or whatever) that you can rely upon, because the primer pockets are not that consistent, particularly with mixed brass. What matters is getting the primers seated all the way, ensuring that the energy transferred by the falling hammer is not being partially absorbed by having to finish the job of seating the primer.

Sorry to hear that, Jon. Hang in there.

A little drop of blue loctite is the answer. On the other hand, you can't do your nails with it.

This may be a good time to point out that it is difficult to accurately measure the double-action trigger pull weight on a Smith revolver. Everybody seems to do it a different way. I think Tom E.'s question regarding the rebound spring is well-placed. A super-light action with a mushy and sluggish trigger rebound isn't worth much.

George, I've never used anything other than a file and a ceramic stone. I wasn't aware there was a fixture available for fitting a sear on a S&W revolver, and frankly can't imagine that a fixture would be all that helpful.

Sorry, Bill, I should have put a smiley face after the "silly-ass match" comment, just like I did when I pointed out earlier that this match was meant for a bunch of premature ejaculators, just so everybody would know I was just teasing! Here you go: (I must admit I'm kinda sorry I missed it. I actually set my alarm and got up in time to drive down to OOPS that morning, but had a heck of a headache so I went back to bed. Maybe too many beverages the night before?)

With most 617s, you can reduce the spring tensions a little and still get good ignition reliability. Even more than the centerfire S&W revolvers, though, there seems to be a lot of variability in 617s for some reason. One gun you can reduce the trigger pull pretty noticeably, the next (apparently identical) gun you can't. It's weird. Despite that, 617s do benefit from internal action honing, which can improve the DA pull pretty significantly, even if the spring tensions aren't altered a lot. In the quest to find a way to bring the DA pull down closer to what can be done with a centerfire, I've experimented with every variation of hammer and firing pin, and so far I have not been able to improve upon the factory hammer and the stock 617 firing pin. The wider .500" beavertail spur hammer might be a touch better, but probably not enough to justify the cost. Tom E. is correct that you do not want to reduce the weight on a 617 hammer--seems counterintuitive considering what we now know about the benefits of reducing hammer curb weight on the centerfire guns, but it's certainly true. I installed an Apex hammer in Bob Perdue's gun, and it didn't really seem to create any improvement over the stock hammer. Bob and I have had several long conversations on the topic of improving the DA pull on the 617, and it sounded like he had a couple of interesting ideas to test out. I'm hoping Bob might be able to invent a solution to the 617 problem--they don't call him the Mad Genius of Revolver Division for nothing. In the meantime, 617s are still great guns to own and shoot. Maybe the heavier trigger pull is good practice anyway--kinda like swinging two bats in the on-deck circle!

deleted

Another favorite--this one features left-handed reloads being performed by a highly skilled Limited shooter who doesn't own a wheelgun. He is borrowing a S&W Model 10 and Comp IIIs from a sadistic buddy. Many of you will recognize he is shooting the most popular classifier to date (other than perhaps good 'ol El Prez), "Can you Count?":

Here's one of the best wheelgun videos ever, of Shooterdoc having a hapless moment:

Polishing the internal action parts and adjusting springs is not hard. Polishing the parts properly without changing a couple of key dimensions, and getting the springs in proper balance to each other.....well, that's a little harder. The real difficulty comes in diagnosing and fixing issues that are occurring between the cylinder, extractor ratchet, the hand, and the cylinder stop. Getting the cylinder rotating smoothly and freely (yet without excess play) and indexing and carrying up correctly is critical to a good action job. Cylinder problems are very common in these guns, including a good portion of factory-fresh brand new revolvers. Ever handle a revolver with a cylinder that binds or sticks, or locks up intermittently? Or one that feels nice on four chambers but heavy on the other two? Those are the guns where the custom revolversmith really earns his pay. Or so it seems to me!

Puh-lease. Darren knows where he stands! I wasn't going to show up for this silly-ass match. 100-round stages, all at virtually point-blank range? Looks like a way to reinforce bad habits to me!

Interesting......by far the largest gap between those scores is between 1st and 2nd place! As usual, Jerry stomped the competition soundly. Congratuations to those who finished high on the list. A special kudos goes out to John Bagakis, who once again managed to place very high on the list using a limited gun. Nice job, John! I was really hoping to shoot the IRC again this year. Unfortunately, I had a civil jury trial set to begin on Monday, and knew I would need this whole past week to prepare. Of course, guess what happened around noon on Friday? Frickin' case settles--I could have made it after all!

Commercial videos? Not much out there Lee. Jerry made one, but he does so many things differently that the usefulness is somewhat limited for mere mortals like us.

Thanks LeRoy--that is a great testimonial! For the record, I generally retain the factory springs when doing my action work. In most cases, I shorten the strain screw somewhat--this allows it to be fully tightened down rather than used as an "adjustment" screw--then re-arch the mainspring to achieve the proper final tension. The goal is to make it as light as possible (and this directly depends on what ammo/primers the owner will be using), with a small cushion built in to ensure 100% ignition reliability. The trickier part is balancing the rebound spring tension to the lighter mainspring tension. I do this by cutting and polishing the rebound spring. The goal here is to keep it as light as possible, while still retaining a nice snappy rebound. A rebound spring that is slightly too light (or too heavy) will really mess up the feel of the DA cycle. This whole process is not particularly difficult, but it can be time-consuming and it's definitely more art than science. Every revolver is an individual specimen unto itself, and that's why nobody has ever been able to successfully package a drop-in spring kit that will work optimally in everybody's gun. I figure there's not much use in paying for aftermarket springs that will probably need to be adjusted anyway.