Carmoney

While there may have been an unfortunate oversight in this particular instance, women and junior shooters have always received far more "play" in Front Sight than their proportionate numbers in our sport would ordinarily dictate. I'm not saying that's a bad thing--just making an observation.

Thanks Howard. To borrow a phrase from the ultimate wheelgunner, Inspector Harry Callahan, "A man's got to know his limitations."

Yeah. Porting, particularly for standard handgun cartridges that don't generate large amounts of gas pressure, has very little impact on anything, other than lightening up your wallet.

Hi Steven, Welcome aboard here--lots of good info available for the taking here! I'd recommend the CR Speed holster (long version) for your rig. Mike

If you want to hunt deer with your 625, just load up some heavy "pin loads" and choose your shots carefully. A .460 Rowland conversion? Nah, it won't do anything to make the gun stronger, it's just a chamber ream. Whatever your gun can handle with Rowland brass it can handle in ACP brass. You should be able to safely drive a 255-gr. hard cast SWC or a jacketed 250-gr. XTP at about 1000 fps out of a modern .45 revolver. Start with 6.0 grains of Unique and work up carefully, checking for pressure signs, to around 7.0 or so. I'd forget about comping or porting the gun--even with those more potent loads, it's still not generating enough gas to really drive a comp, and porting is pretty much horseshit, as others above have noted.

Isaac, if achieving the utmost accuracy from a revolver is your goal, you might want to consider contacting Warren Moore (Toolguy) here on the forum. He builds Bianchi Cup revolvers and has the experience and equipment to properly fit and install cylinders and aftermarket barrels, and do the associated machine work necessary to set up a gun for NRA Action competition and that kind of thing. You can PM Warren here or contact him through his dealer forum Protocall Design. He's a straight shooter and will treat you right. I work on competition S&W revolvers myself, but I am not a machinist and pretty much limit the scope of my work to a competition action package that transforms a stock S&W revolver into a USPSA/IDPA/ICORE-worthy competition gun in a cost-effective and time-efficient manner. This will always be a sideline hobby for me, but I'm pleased to say there are now quite a few of my guns being used out there at the matches by some serious top-level wheelgunners. As a side note--I recently initiated the process of setting up a dealer forum here on BE to serve as an information and contact source for my work. The "Carmonize!" sub-forum should be up and running very shortly.

Although it looks just like what we expect an L-frame to look like, the 617 is actually built on the K-frame. Every serious revolver shooter should have at least one!

I mostly use the SDM product, although the EGW is good also. I use the .300" pinned front sight with the (now apparently discontinued) Millett .360" rear sight. If you're staying with the factory rear sight, you will probably need a .250" front sight. There are no pre-drilled sights, each sight has to be individually fit and drilled for the cross-pin. If you do a search on this sub-forum, there is plenty of information about how to correctly install front sights.

You should see the groupies that follow Ayoob around wherever he goes.

Snagged it. Thanks for the heads-up, 'Pop!

I agree.

I say if you're going to scope it for Open ICORE/steel, might as well save the bucks and get the 4" Pro. For a Limited rig, the extra sight radius of the 5" PC gun is nice. The only meaningful differences are barrel length and price.

Quite often I do shoot local steel matches with major p.f. loads out of my 625, but that's mainly when I'm in the middle of my USPSA Revo season and forcing myself to get more trigger time with the same gun and loads I will be using at the big matches. Most of the time, shooting those local matches is the only type of practice I can manage to fit in. If I'm trying to seriously compete at a steel match with a revolver, I will bring my 627 or 27-7 and some nice light-loaded steel ammo!

Sounds to me like that would be a good match to avoid.

Don't have to say it, it's just fun to think about. .....especially when you're grinding one off, right?

On my personal USPSA guns I am using the Hogue release--used them all through 2008. Initially I had the same problem you describe but I have contoured that outside sharp edge nice and smooth and round with the ol' Dremel. Now it feels great! I can't say the Hogue release is actually faster, but for me it's definitely more consistent.

Hey 'Pop, have you thought about grinding or sanding the finger grooves off a set of rubber Hogues? That's what I would do if the grooves didn't feel right to me.

In all fairness, the smooth Jerry grips do offer some potential advantage to those who shift the gun over to their weak-hand before the reload and back to the strong hand afterward--they permit the "slippage" that makes the gun transfer from hand to hand more readily. However, more and more of us these days are keeping the gun in the strong hand all the way through the loading process, and with that technique, rubber finger grooves work well. There's no question that rubber grips--even those that expose the backstrap like the Hoque-- are easier on the hands.

Some shooters are bothered by the recoil of shooting major loads in Revolver. Although some would not admit it, this is one of the major reasons some people gravitate to ICORE more than USPSA. I started out as a pin shooter, so pretty much everything feels mild by comparison to the stuff we used to shoot! Shawn, if the 144 p.f. stuff feels good, you shouldn't have trouble with 170 p.f. On the other hand, this is one of the reasons why the 5" 625s and 6.5" 25-2s continue to dominate USPSA--they do absorb recoil a little better than the 4" guns. The weight difference is also a factor to seriously consider when you're tempted to switch to a Ti cylinder. But seriously, if you're using a steel N-frame, you should be able to shoot major loads all day with no pain whatsoever. If you're "feeling it by the time you get done" after just shooting 100 rounds, something is wrong. As I said on the other post, start by taking off the Jerry grips. Put on the rubber Hogues, or whatever feels good. Second--and this is really important--when you shoot a revolver with major ammo, hang on hard!! All that stuff you read on here about "hold the gun about as hard as you would to shake someone's hand" and "let the front sight rise, it's fine as long as it returns to the same spot" and "you can't fight the recoil so don't don't try"--all that stuff is complete bullshit when it comes to shooting revolvers. Grip that thing hard. If you can't grip it hard enough to keep the muzzle down, work on your grip strength until you can. If it's painful to shoot, that may be a sign you are letting the gun roll around in your hand. Have somebody watch you shoot--if you keep shifting or re-gripping the gun as you shoot, that's a problem sign. If you're doing everything right, and you've tried different grips, and it still hurts, then just shoot minor and enjoy it--it won't change your scores all that much.

Sometimes the sight dovetails are too big and the sights don't want to come out that way, at least not easily. And the SDM aftermarket sights are always too big to install that way, I always wind up having to file on the friggin' things--I'll never understand why he doesn't make them the right size from the beginning.

I agree with you, John. Things like grips and sights are very much a matter of personal taste. On the other hand, it's amazing how some people will put up with the pain "because if Jerry uses them they must be good." I've seen people wearing gloves and padding their hands up with band-aids just to keep running Jerry grips--craziness, I tell ya!

If shooting a .45 revolver makes your hands hurt, the first thing to do is to take off the Jerry grips and sell them to somebody that doesn't know any better.

Nice job Hollywood!

Dave, just quit looking down the barrel of your gun and everything will be fine!

Who the hell has time for dry-fire practice??