Carmoney

Walt, all you have to do is look back through the major match scores over the past few years and you will quickly see that C-class Limited shooters do not beat the better Revolver shooters. Take a look at the hit factors on the classifiers at the Summer Blast over the past few years, just to take one example that comes to mind. Cliff's score on 06-03 Can You Count beat 28 of the 30 C-class Limited shooters on that stage at last year's match, and we all know that stage is a total hose-fest which you would think would favor the Limited blasters. In 2007, Cliff and I both shot 99-11 El Prez scores that beat all the C Limited guys. In 2006, I shot a score on 03-18 High Standards that beat all the C Limited shooters, and that stage involves shooting half the shots one-handed and making two reloads on the clock. Next challenge?

Bingo!

Yeah, I meant the dealer's retail price. I think there will be better deals available, although I was surprised and a little disappointed to see the cheapest wholesale price was much higher than it was the last go-around on these. But the prices on all the Performance Center crap have gone frickin' out of sight over the past year or two. I picked up a stone mint V-Comp maybe a year ago off Gunbroker for $700. No way a deal like that is going to hold up today. It's hard to locate a 625 for that kind of money anymore.

Are you sure the barrels aren't actually .357"? Everybody has an opinion on the equipment rules for USPSA Revolver Division, but when this exact topic was discussed right here, the overwhelming majority of us agreed that we preferred Revolver Division to be limited to 6-shot iron-sighted guns without porting or compensators. Newcomers may not realize that the latest version of the USPSA Revolver equipment rules (which is somewhat more expansive than the previous version) was drafted word-for-word right here on this forum, based on a clear consensus of those who participated in that very active discussion, and it was proposed and passed by the Board of Directors. Fortunately, we are blessed with two perfect venues for those who want to run their 8-shooters in competition--Steel Challenge and ICORE!

A couple things, guys: The new batch of 627-4s is not yet available. There is only one distributor selling these (Bangers USA), so there is only one wholesale source. Any dealer who has an open account with Bangers can order them, and there is a modest quantity discount for those who order a specified minimum. I have already staked claim to several for my customers, but frankly I do not expect these guns to sell out immediately. Given the state of the national economy, and the price point of these rather specialized revolvers, I do not think they will be snapped up immediately. So relax, and think twice before you pay a deposit to a dealer--particularly if he tells you the retail price is $1,290! When they become available, we will know it here right away, and everybody who wants one should have plenty of opportunity to get one at a more reasonable cost.

In the 22 years I've been running revolvers in competition, I've never broken a single hammer or trigger stud. (Knock on wood.)

My primary game is USPSA Revolver Division, and I can run along just fine against everybody except Jerry. But I need to switch platforms now and then to avoid burning out, and I tend to do it on a seasonal basis. Unlike those nice warm climates where you can shoot year-round, there are times here when the ranges are essentially unreachable due to snow and ice. So I usually start out the calendar year on break from shooting. When the weather gets decent enough to hit the range again, I run a Single-Stack until the Single Stack Classic at the end of April. Then I switch back to Revolver and shoot it all summer and fall until all the major matches, including USPSA Nationals, are over. Then I treat myself to a break from Revo by switching to something else (usually a Production gun) until it gets too crappy outside to shoot. Then I hibernate again until spring. I like the seasonal approach, and I haven't found it to be detrimental to my Revolver game at all. In fact, I think it helps me by keeping my interest level up. Tomorrow will be my first match with the wheelgun this year, and it will feel like shaking hands with an old friend!

Absolutely. There is a big difference between what you get from his action package, or my own competition action package, and the standard "action job" offered by many generalist gunsmiths. Anybody can do a basic action job by simply polishing the obvious bearing surfaces inside the action and reducing the spring tensions in some manner. Getting those spring tensions reduced with the correct balance is another thing altogether. Getting the cylinder running ultra-smoothly on its axis is a huge part of creating a world-class revolver action, and most gunsmiths and hobbyists don't know anything about that. Knowing how to set up a rebound slide is important. Knowing what to do with the bolt and the front lock are important, too. Those are just a couple of examples that most people don't even consider. Likewise, knowing where not to stone or polish can be just as critical. The basic "action job" takes maybe a half-hour to perform, while a full competition action job requires even a highly-experienced and skilled revolversmith to invest about 4 hours of time to complete--and that's when everything goes together well with no major problems. (Every time I think about that I am reminded that I really need to raise my prices!) There is no real reference source for this stuff, either. The Kuhnhausen book and the factory armorer's materials have some decent info on performing basic repairs, but that's about all. The Jerry DVD shows most of what you need to do the basic "action job" but that's about all. Decades ago, Lin Alexiou self-published a little booklet that had some great stuff on doing action work on a variety of handguns, but I lost my copy somehow and I haven't seen it available for sale for many years. The best revolver guys are largely self-taught. And so although it may sound self-serving, I think you would be wise to have your action set up by somebody who (1) has first-hand experience in performing hundreds of S&W competition action jobs over a long period of time, and (2) is an active and successful competition revolver shooter in his own right. It's always interesting to check out action work done by other 'smiths. One of the things you commonly see is an action that is pretty smooth and light but which has slightly sluggish trigger rebound. The 'smith and the beginning revolver shooter both think it feels great, but the experienced hand knows it will create a greater likelihood of double-stroking when the shooter runs into a fast bank of close targets. That's just one exampe that comes to mind. Roughly one-third of the revolvers I receive in have already had some effort at action work done on them already--sometimes the DA trigger pull feels pretty good, and sometimes not so much. In either case, the owner has obviously reached the point where he is no longer satisfied with the basic (Rhesus monkey?) action job and is ready to step up to a fully-tuned competition action package. There really is a difference.

I had mine when I was 30. (Come to think of it, that might be a bad sign.....)

Yes, Randy is a truly great revolversmith. And more than anybody else out there working today, Randy Lee deserves credit for truly revolutionizing the fully-tuned super-light competition revolver action. Looking back over the course of modern handgun competition, it seems pretty clear that most of what we do to revolvers today was actually discovered back in the '70s--what you might call the golden age of PPC shooting. But then those secrets were gradually lost over the generation which followed, as the 1911-platform autoloader became so crushingly dominant in practical handgun competition throughout the '80s and '90s. Most of what passed for a revolver action job during that time-frame was more of an afterthought performed on what was seen as a "side event gun"--a little stoning here, a little buffing there, and call it good. When the post-millenium resurgence of interest in competitive revolver shooting got underway, Randy Lee was the one who did the most to re-introduce us to many of those semi-forgotten concepts. We have all benefitted from Randy's efforts. He really did raise the bar.

You got it, Bro!!

I gotta start playing the mercenary game a little better.

Whatever you do, don't cut off the barrel. They're not making 5" 625s anymore, and they're getting tough to find. Besides, a 5" barrel is a better choice for most competitive disciplines anyway.

For chrissakes Rob, he's 40 years old, how many more matches do you think he's going to make? I'm not sure the life expectancy of white males in Minnesota is a whole lot more than that. Keith should look at every day as a gift from here on out.

I agree as well. Jerry's reload technique involves a lot of "slippage" of his hands over the gun. Sometimes he has even powdered or dusted his hands to enhance the slipperiness. He wants the grip to stay slippery. (Like so many other things, what works so well for Jerry does not seem to translate very well to the rest of us.) If you keep the gun in your right hand and reload with your left hand, as many of us now do, you will probably prefer a softer, stickier, rubber grip. You won't want, or need, the "slippage" that Jerry is going for. One thing Jerry does that we should all try to emulate--and this relates directly back to the issue of muzzle flip--is to hang onto the handle of the gun good and hard, and use the musculature of the hands and arms to keep the muzzle from jumping way up on each shot. Most people do not hold onto the gun hard enough. Even good shooters tend to get tired as they progress through the stage, allowing the muzzle to flip more and more with each array of targets they engage--I know I catch myself doing this sometimes. Holding on hard is even more important with revolvers because of the double-action pull we're cranking all the time. A very firm grip not only helps the shooter control recoil and speed up the splits and transitions, it also helps the revolver shooter get better hits by not allowing the sight picture to dislodge quite so easily under the stress of the DA trigger pull.

Yes, although I think Jerry falls under the "freak of nature" category mentioned above. He is clearly the most accomplished revolver shooter of all time, eclipsing the legendary Ed McGivern in pretty much every way, he is phenomenal with long guns, and can shoot at a very high level with autoloading handguns as well. Jerry is also very versatile, and can shoot pins and steel even better than he shoots paper targets. It would be interesting to see what Jerry would have accomplished over the past 20 years if he had signed up with Springfield or Colt at the beginning of his professional career instead of S&W. All that said, for Leatham to continue his reign of dominance with the 1911-platform pistol, and particularly those of the single-stack variety, for 25 years now--well, it's pretty frickin' amazing. Just about everybody else who has been in the game that long has declined significantly in terms of performance, or quit shooting competitively altogether.

I remember the original stainless guns autos came with instructions to use some sort of vegetable-based lube! I have owned several stainless 1911s from different manufacturers (including Colt, Kimber, and Springfield) that have never galled, and I really thought the galling issue with stainless 1911s was a thing of the past. That was right up until I recently traded for a NIB Springfield 9mm Loaded Target, which almost immediately galled up so bad you could barely get the slide to move. But Springfield was great about handling the repair, they emailed me a Fedex label to print off for the return, and promptly fixed and returned the gun with a note that said the rails needed refitting. Whatever they did to it, it felt fine, and now I've shot the pistol in 4 or 5 five steel matches with no problems whatsoever. The more I shoot it, the slicker it gets.

How does Keith manage to possess the quiet wisdom of age, and yet retain such youthful vigor? Nobody knows for sure, but I'm betting it's those "psycho spiderman" shooting glasses he wears. Happy Birthday, Keith!

Scott, it's actually the other way around. The cylinder on a S&W turns counterclockwise, so it naturally tightens the reverse-threaded rod (the way the factory currently produces them) upon cycling the action. In fact, that was the exact reason the factory made that design change several decades ago--the old ones were known for coming loose.

No spring kit will be completely satisfactory without some amount of tuning to that particular gun. Not Vic's, not Jerry's, not Wolff, not anybody's. If you're serious about tuning the pull right down to the reliable side of the "edge," there is no kit that drops in, at any price. Every revolver is an individual.

Couple quick points: (1) A bunch of old discussions are being dredged up recently, including this one. This particular thread had been dormant for nearly three years. I like Vic. But I still don't think there's any reason to pay that much money for a spring kit. (2) Many shooters enjoy working on their own revolvers. This is something I have encouraged from day one, and I have always been willing to help those folks out with tips and advice, both here on the Revolver forum and through emails and PMs. (3) For those who may be curious about the quality or value of the revolver work I perform, customer feedback is posted here: http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?...amp;hl=Carmoney

"You can tell that one was made in England--see here? it says .22 HMR right on the barrel--that stands for Her Majesty's Rifle."

I just made plane and hotel reservations yesterday! Nine nights in Vegas. I'm shooting both Nats back to back. Frickin' sweet. Now I’m gonna ask you a simple question and I want you to listen to me: Who’s the big winner? Huh? Mikey, that’s who. Mikey’s the big winner. Mikey wins.

The answer is fairly obvious. The 6" gun would exhibit less muzzle flip and perceived recoil, all other things being equal.

Sounds like you better contact Starline directly. They sell direct. Or if they don't have inventory, maybe they can refer you to a dealer or distributor who may have it in stock. For any of the .38/.357 8-shot S&W revos, I use and strongly recommend running Starline .38 Short Colt brass in Hearthco moonclips. Anything else is compromising performance for a cheaper price. I don't use Hearthco moons in .45 ACP, but for the 8-shot .38s, I consider them a mandatory part of the equipment package.