Carmoney

Pat, I load my .45 moons by hand also, because I don't use the tight Hearthcos in that caliber. With the Hearthco moonclips for my 8-shots, I use one of those yellow-handled Prudhome moonsetters. I turned the mandrel down so it would work with all my moonclips, including the .38 Super moons that I no longer own. Anyway, I have it because it came with a gun I acquired awhile back--the simple pliers method may work just fine too. Not sure I can help you on the question regarding reloading dies--I'm still using my Square Deal B which uses its own proprietary dies. I just know for that machine I use a 9mm set with a .38 Spl. sizing die screwed into the first station.

My advice?--forget shooting USPSA with it, unless you want to play around in Production just for shits and giggles. You already have a good USPSA gun. Nothing chambered for a caliber beginning with a .3 is a good USPSA gun. Nobody can seriously argue with me on that, Pat, not even the nutty professor. Get plenty of Hearthco moonclips set up for Starline brass, and buy a couple thousand pieces of .38 Short Colt brass. Load it with 9mm dies (with a .38 Spl. sizing die) to minor P.F. and use it for ICORE and steel matches. You will need a mooning and remooning tool, as the brass will fit the moons tightly. Your North Mountain holder will work fine.

Also, you have to be very careful around the extractor so you don't affect carry-up. Keep in mind the newer S&Ws don't have the little locating pins like the older guns do.

I have a chamfering kit, but I always wind up using the dremel tool with a conical stone instead. I leave the extractor assembly in place, but I tilt the tool to the outside in order to avoid taking much material off the extractor. With a gentle swinging motion of the dremel stone, followed up by a cratex polishing tip, it's pretty quick and easy to get a nice chamfer. It does take a fairly steady hand, though......

I'm really pretty surprised at how harshly many forum members are reacting to this story. I suspect it has much more to do with Plaxico personally than the actual crime itself. What if instead of a rich controversial sports celebrity, he was an off-duty cop from the midwest visiting NYC with his family who decided that his need for personal protection outweighed compliance with the draconian handgun possession laws in that city, and somehow wound up having a stupid AD that didn't hurt anyone but the off-duty officer himself? I'll bet your attitudes would be completely different. I don't think someone should receive jail time and lose a huge amount of money simply for possessing a handgun in a place where he's not supposed to, with no criminal intent whatsoever. And that's really all that happened. (On the other hand, I am disappointed that a guy named after Mike Plaxco would have such poor gun-handling skills.)

No reason for using a snap cap in a centerfire pistol anyway. But the real answer to the question: Calmly go back to your car and take the stupid snap cap out of the gun. Problem solved, and nobody has to pull out the rulebook.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCHIW8qsnXk...feature=related

My advice: Stay away from cryopractors. And other practitioners of witchcraft.

No Tom, that's not true. The Pro Series 4" 627 is cut for moonclips. It's the "plain barrel" 627 that is not.

This is going to be the most ridiculous example of media-driven "punishment completely out of proportion to the crime" that we've seen yet. Even more so than the Michael Vick deal. You watch, they'll stick stupid Plaxico in jail for a year or two, and it will wind up costing him his career. All for an act of stupidity that was committed with no intent to cause harm to anybody. Meanwhile, true criminal behavior is ignored by various authorities all over the place.

With the correct combination--.38 Super or (better yet) .38 Short Colt brass, correctly-sized Hearthco moonclips, and a good chamfer--reloading an 8-shooter is only a tiny bit slower and trickier than reloading a 625. I shot my regular 5" 625 at my first and only IRC--I finished 5th place in Limited, and I would've finished even higher without an overtime shot on the standards. Still, ICORE really is a game designed for the 8-shooters, so next time I'll shoot one of my 627s. Or maybe my 27-7 that is pictured in my avatar to the left. When in Rome, as they say....

Very well put, and upon reflection, I agree. First things first.

Plaques and trophies are fine, but I shoot better when there's cash on the line. Always have. Guess I started out shooting with a bunch of mercenaries, and it stuck. On the other hand, I don't have a problem shooting for plaques (or nothing other than the pride of winning the division, for that matter), as long as the entry fee stays cheap!

Well, nobody is beating Jerry anytime soon. He continues to dominate the division against all comers. Kids from Arizona, top guns from South America, and spooks from Holland have all tried to take him down, and all have failed. (Not to mention all the rest of us regular punks.) Still, even with the match winner pre-ordained, it would be really fun to see a true stand-alone Revo nationals with all the big names present and participating. If they had the balls to actually strap up and do it!

Now that's exactly what I'm talking about. Given a few weeks of practice time, do any of us seriously doubt that a shooter as talented and motivated as Jake D. would not show up and kick some serious butt??? I'm telling you, this is the way to show the entire membership of USPSA, and the shooting community at large, how fun it can be to shoot USPSA matches with the wheel!

I'm not really in favor of boycotting anything, Sam, but if somebody could ever convince USPSA to have a stand-alone Revolver Nationals, I'd be all in favor of that concept. If it didn't compete with the other divisions, and it was presented as a true national-level championship, I'll bet all kinds of shooters (guys like Leatham, Jarrett, Butler, Smith, etc.) would come out of the woodwork to shoot it. From my perspective, that's always been the whole problem with the USPSA Revolver Nationals participation levels--they schedule it right on top of the USPSA Limited Nationals, for chrissakes! So how about an 18+ stage USPSA Revolver Nationals hosted by the place you mentioned? We already know this concept works, based on the long-term success of the Single Stack Classic in Illinois. That match was attracting hundreds of shooters before USPSA even recognized the division, and it's only gotten bigger since SS became a bona fide division. And I don't think USPSA HQ would have any objection in the slightest if somebody was actually willing to step up and run it for them the same way that Dick Heinie and Russell Cluver continue to run the SSC/SS Nationals for them. It would be a win-win situation all the way around. (None of that patty-cake 6-round-neutral BS either, by the way.....if it's going to be a true USPSA Nationals, I would want lots of tough field courses with high round count and plenty of attack options, the same kind of courses they traditionally have at the USPSA Nationals.)

I experimented with an 8-3/8" barrel on a 25-2 for awhile. I found it to be OK for bowling pin shooting, and too long for anything else. It was not ideal for draws, transitions, or going in/out of ports and doors......for me, anyway. Those long-barreled N-frames sure look cool, though!

I've done several. The key is to clamp the slide very firmly in a good vise with leather or lead pads, then knock the sights out with a steel drift punch and a real hammer (not the little aluminum thingy they send with the Dawson sights--save that for installing the new sight after it's been properly fit to the dovetail).

I guess I have a different perspective from those who recommend the "semi-custom" guns like the Baer, Wilson, Nighthawk, etc., for sombody who is looking for the best value. If you have plenty of money to burn, OK fine, they're all very nice. I'm in a position to afford several nice high-end 1911 custom pistols myself. But from a practical perspective, I defy anyone to tell me what's wrong with my lightly-modified Springfield Loaded (which I have shot at several Single Stack Classics as well as a whole bunch of smaller SS matches), or my lightly-modified Kimber .38 Super (which I shot at the Single Stack Classic this year as well as a bunch of smaller SS matches). These guns have trigger jobs that are a little light for street carry, but otherwise they have proven themselves to be extraordinarily reliable and functional 1911s. Bottom line: I think a nice production 1911 would be the next logical step for you.

Actually, the gun in my avatar is my 6.5" 27-7 8-shot, which is my primary Limited ICORE gun. It's actually sort of a rare bird, only 100 were manufactured and sold through Bangers USA. But mine had already been shot when I acquired it, so I didn't hesitate to put it into competition service. As for 25-2s, I bought my first 6.5" 25-2 in 1987 shortly after I started shooting competitively. My son still shoots that gun in USPSA Revolver Division, and has done very well with it. I usually shoot 5" 625s for USPSA, but this year I acquired a really nice 25-2 that was retrofitted with a Ti cylinder, and I might just switch to it next season. (I'm in my off-season now, and have been shooting Production the past couple months, and will switch to Single Stack in the spring to get ready for the Single Stack Classic). I'm still not sold on the concept of the Ti cylinder, but figured it might improve accuracy (25-2s are well known for having oversized throats that are not real conducive to accuracy, particularly at longer range). We'll see.

just sounds Soooo wrong..... Particularly when you're talking about somebody who lives in a town called Rammer, Tennessee.

Newhart, absolutely. Perhaps the best moment in the history of television comedy. I still think they should have had The Sopranos series end with the screen going black as Tony and the family are eating at the diner.....stays black for a few seconds.....then have Bob Newhart waking up in bed: "Honey? You'll never believe the dream I had this time." Suzanne Pleshette rolls over: "Oh, go back to sleep, Bob."

625-6 is USUALLY a frame mounted firing pin, MIM, gun with no internal lock. To me anyway, the most desireable version. Nice way to start. There are several permutations of 625-6 (different barrel lengths and different chamberings), but when you're talking about a 5" .45 ACP 625-6, all of them I have seen are exactly as Tom E describes--frame mounted firing pin, MIM, no IL. And although you can make a world-class USPSA revolver out of any 5" 625, both of my personal 625s are -6s, if that tells you anything!

First time I've heard the floating hand called desireable. It was the original 625-2 that had the floating hand. That was one of the design changes in the 625-3, but some early 625-3s do have the floating hands as the factory used up its old parts. (S&W never liked to throw anything away.)

That's what I mean.....what did I do to deserve such a high honor???