Carmoney

My slot arrived in Friday's mail. I'm actually thinking about jumping on the waiting list for the Prod/Open Nats and shooting both matches back-to-back. Has this crazy-ass thought occurred to anybody else?

Common problem, and yet another reason to use plenty of crimp (a roll crimp is best, but a good tight taper crimp is fine, too) on revolver ammo. In my opinion, most shooters don't crimp their revolver ammo enough.

I don't know. I don't have my 646 in front of me, and I don't feel like opening up my safe again tonight, but I was thinking the walls were really thin between the cylinder stop notches and the chambers. Gotta remember, full-house .40 S&W loads run at relatively high pressures, I have to think the reason they would put the more more expensive Ti cylinder in a steel frame gun is because it's needed for strength. The L-frame cylinder was never intended to house six rounds of .40 ammo. I don't think I would advise converting a 686 to .40 caliber for safety reasons--how would you ever proof it? Also, I can't imagine it would be cost-effective with all the machine involved. If the goal is to have a longer-barreled 646, wouldn't it be less expensive to to locate a 646 (I realize they're not cheap anymore) and make a custom barrel from a Shilen or Douglas blank??

So who the hell won this thing???

And I maintain that many well-intentioned but over-zealous folks take their revolvers apart and dick around inside them far more frequently than necessary. I'm serious when I say there's no reason to disassemble your wheelgun for a deep cleaning more than about once a year. If that. My very first competition revolver, which was already well-used when I purchased it 22 years ago, is still in active service--it's my son's main competition revolver. I can't remember the last time I had the sideplate off.

Other than the main events and the shoot-offs, I always liked 8-pin, Subway, and BCBC. Of course, some of the most popular events at Second Chance had nothing to do with guns......

Just campaign your statistician to run the "overall match results" feature so you can figure out exactly where you stand heads-up with everybody, regardless of division. It's right there on EZ Winscore, takes no effort whatsoever to print off. Guess why some clubs don't want to do this? I'll tell you why--it's because some people who shoot Limited and Open don't want everybody to see that they've just had their asses handed to them by somebody shooting a 6-shot revolver. Toward the end of last year I finally had the sweet victory of finishing high overall at one of our local club matches shooting my 625. Now granted, our top gun Master-class Limited shooter wasn't there that day, and he would have surely finished ahead of me. But nevertheless, I managed to beat everybody else that day on tough USPSA field courses, despite the fact that I had to reload every six rounds and they had their big sticks, magwells, C-Mores, etc. It was a frickin' beautiful thing!

I think RGS is right. Nobody ever made a true speedloader for the 8-shooters other than the sucky rubber Maxfire product.

Plenty of lawyers attended that match, Itchy! I can think of lawyers and judges and doctors and people of every other profession and occupation that I met up there during the years I attended Second Chance. Talk about memories.....

Shawn, I agree 100% with Toolguy's advice in the above post, although I think the cylinder will only need to be removed once in a great while. (Be sure to use a little blue loc-tite on the yoke screw when you put it back together, to make sure it doesn't back out and allow your cylinder to fall out inadvertently.) I recommend fairly frequent cleaning of competition revolvers. I always start any major match with a clean gun. If I start with a clean gun, I should not have to ever clean or brush between stages. On my revolvers I use a stainless steel "toothbrush" to get the gunk off the front of the cylinder face, from around the rear of the barrel, and around the area of the frame where the firing pin comes through. I also use a plastic toothbrush to clean the extractor ratchet and under the star, and an oversize stainless bore brush to clean the chambers. I use Shooter's Choice solvent for these tasks. I clean the bore with Shooter's Choice as well, but I don't believe that tons of bore-scrubbing is necessary or desirable. If you get lead build-up in the bore, a cylinder-full of jacketed ammo will strip it right out. I generally do not intentionally spray anything down inside the action of the gun during routine cleaning, although a little solvent or oil getting in there won't hurt anything. While you don't need (or want) a bunch of lube inside the action, I usually apply a little synthetic motor oil (Mobil 1, for example) to the internals when I reassemble a gun after doing the action work. If you spray brake cleaner or Gunscrubber down inside the action, you will strip out that lube and leave it completely dry--conversely, a spray oil will leave everything soaked with oil down inside there--neither of these conditions is ideal. The only place I intentially lube as a matter of routine is the yoke barrel. You don't even need to take out the cylinder, just add a drop of Mobil 1 at the junction, hold the gun muzzle up and spin the cylinder, which will let the oil work itself down in there. Then once a year, in my "off-season," I will take off the sideplate and give my match gun a thorough cleaning, using a plastic toothbrush and Shooter's Choice. Then I dry everything off and reassemble with a little Mobil 1, loctiting all the screws afterward. That's it. You may have noticed I do not recommend using any sort of grease anywhere on a revolver. Trust me, grease will only serve to attract dirt and gunk up the works.

Yeah, and to confuse matters even more, there appears to be yet another generation of S&W factory pins. I received some of these in a recent Brownells order. They appear to be a little shorter than the older pins I like (which is not necessarily a problem), and have a rounded tip. I haven't tried these yet. I have not seen any of the "good" .495" Ti stock pins in quite some time. With my supply starting to run low, I'm going to need to figure something out. I like the QC of the Randy pins, but I have found I have to increase the mainspring tension a little with those, compared to the "good" stock pins I like. If the new C&S pins are not breaking like the old ones did, and we continue to get good reports from the field, I may have to give them a second look.

See post #13 above.

John, congratulations and welcome back--we were wondering where you went!

Cliff, I had a similar situation recently on a customer's gun, tried a couple firing pins, cleaned the channel, sprayed it out with brake cleaner, etc., etc., and the (factory) pin kept sticking forward. Finally I tried a different firing pin spring and then everything was instantly fine. The old spring looked OK, but it was obviously causing some sort of problem in there. So.....have you tried using a different firing pin spring?

Having tested every firing pin available, I have concluded that the round-nosed Ti factory pins that measure about .495" work the best. In my testing with both the C&S pin and the Randy pin, I have not been able to reduce mainspring tension any lower than I can with the .495" Ti stock pin. Those of you who are experiencing improvement in ignition after installing the aftermarket pins are undoubtedly making a comparison to the later "California drop test" generation of factory pins, which measure about .485", have a conical tip, and suck big-time. When my small supply of the "good" Ti pins runs out, I will have to switch over to one of the aftermarket options.

You must not remember me because I am so mild-mannered and shy.

Jon, very sorry to hear about this. Sounds like you did him some real good, though, and that's something to be proud of.

The only think "wrong" with the 625-8 is that they all have chambers that are too tight--some just a little tight, some so tight they bind up the gun. I think the factory's reaming equipment is getting worn out or something. Anyway, the fix is to simply ream the chambers back to SAAMI spec with a Clymer finishing reamer. (This is exactly what we did with the original run of 625-2s back in 1988, by the way). When I do an action job on a 625-8 I just go ahead and automatically ream the chambers, and so far I haven't found a cylinder on a 625-8 where my reamer hasn't removed at least some metal. Otherwise, the 625-8s are perfectly fine.

Yeah, that's the combination I use and recommend on most stuff. I just wasn't sure if it would translate to a 686 or not.

Yeah you have, we were at the Arkansas ICORE match together last spring, remember? I drove down with Dean.

I've handled, worked on, and shot plenty of the 5.25" PC 625s, but have never seen any reason to switch from my trusty "regular" full-lug 5" 625s, MIM parts and all. In my view, there is no huge practical advantage to either option, although if forced to pick, I think the bit of extra weight you get with the full lug and "heavy" cylinder in the stock 5" guns is a little better for keeping major power ammo under control.

Dave, I cheated on you by watching another sax player tonight.......I feel so dirty.......

You are such a little whore.

Guys.....thank you! I really appreciate it. I smiled all the way through those posts, and even got a little teary-eyed when I read Doug's. Nice reminder of what this is really all about.

I received an interesting email yesterday from a guy (apparently not a BE forum member) who was interested in having me work on a couple of his competition revolvers. Here's the interesting part--he asked for references! He said, "Please don't be offended, I've just never sent my guns to anybody before." I thought back to the first time I sent a gun off for some work, and I do remember having some real anxiety about shipping off my gun to somebody I didn't know, and letting them tear into my treasure! So......for those of you who have allowed me to work on your revolvers, I need a big favor from you--I need you to swing over to my new "Carmonize!" dealer forum and give me your feedback and comments, OK? Then the next time somebody requests references, I can simply refer him to that thread. Here's the link: http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showforum=192 Click on the "Customer feedback & comments" thread pinned at the top. Thanks!