Carmoney

Nope, afraid I don't know the serial number range....if you want to play it safe, stick with 625-4 on up.

Justin, I didn't take any still pics, but here's a video clip of Sam shooting his new L-10 gun: Sam -- Great Plains Sectional (Texas Star stage)

Yeah, well.........let's just say he has a new secret weapon. (Stay tuned to the forum for more details.) Congratulations to Sherwyn for putting all the rest of us in our place!

Guys, don't forget that it's entirely possible that it could be a civil trial. Straightshooter's general criteria are offered from his perspective as a prosecutor. I can think of many instances when I would love to have an engineer, a schoolteacher, or maybe even someone who was convicted of a crime in the past, as a juror in one of my civil trials, depending on the type of case and which party I am representing. In any event, the system needs capable, competent human beings who understand that jury service is a duty of citizenship and are willing to serve, even if it happens to be an inconvenience. Cases that proceed to trial are usually important cases--litigants deserve the kind of justice that can only be delivered when their "peers" are willing to step up, listen to the evidence, and follow the law.

and they're so retro I'm sure Dean Martin would shoot a wheelgun if he were still around....

The floating hand is one of the problems with the 625-2, although it's a pretty easy fix. The glitchy double action trigger pull that is often caused by the floating hand can be readily fixed by pulling the hand pin from the trigger and simply installing and properly fitting a "regular" hand to the ratchet. The bigger issue with the 625-2 Model of 1988 is that the chambers have different (significantly tighter) dimensions, and have a tendency to not allow loaded full-moon clips to drop into place smoothly, particularly as the gun starts to get dirty. This was changed for the 625-3 series (although a few of the old cylinders were used up in guns marked 625-3) and they have been fine ever since, in this regard. The casual range shooter may not find this a problem, but it was a major issue for competition shooters who expected the 625-2 to reload just as quickly and easily as the 25-2. This issue was well-documented at the time, and there were several articles in the mainstream gun press about it. S&W obviously didn't change the suffix to 625-3 just because of the switch from the ramp to the patridge front sight blade--that has never been their protocol. In fact, it was the change to the standard hand and correcting the chamber problems that caused S&W to change the nomenclature. Any gunsmith catering to action shooters in the late '80s will be quite familiar with the problem. The fix was to simply re-ream the chambers to 25-2 dimensions. Not that big a deal, but it required finding a gunsmith with the reamer and pay him to do it. You still see quite a few 625-2s floating around these days. Again, for the collector or casual shooter, they may be just fine as is. The competition shooter, however, is best off avoiding the 625-2 altogether, or finding one that has already had the repair work done.

Twice in local matches I have had the stud break off the hand (on two different guns, both 25-2s), leaving me with a revolver that would not revolve. I now carry a couple extra hands of varying thicknesses and a small file and stone. It wouldn't save me on a stage, but I could take the gun to a safe area and have it functional again in 10 minutes or so. I also carry a few other odds 'n' ends, including an extra MIM cylinder stop and cylinder stop spring, an extra firing pin and spring, a yoke screw, and so forth. I use blue loctite on all screws and religiously check every screw before every match. Tightened down correctly with blue loctite, the screws never loosen. I always carry an extra 625 in my bag, even to local matches. I have not needed it yet, but it's comforting knowing I have another great gun along if anything happens. It is set up to be virtually identical to my "main" gun and I'm not sure I would notice much difference if I ever switched it in (other than the green fiber optic rod instead of red). Lots of redundancy in my planning, I suppose. I guess all that "Be Prepared" stuff has stuck with me to this day.

Just got back home a little while ago.....great match again this year! I thought the stages were just excellent. As tired as I am, I would love to shoot them all again right now, just for fun! Front Man personally sponsored prizes for the junior shooters in attendance, which was a classy touch. Nice job, everybody.

Some of this info, even though it's straight from the book, is not quite correct. For example, there never was a 625 made with a square butt. And although some 625-6s have a "firing pin" on the hammer, my 625-6 most definitely has a frame-mounted firing pin. Stay away from the 625-2s for competition, unless the cylinder has already been reamed and the floating hand replaced--or you can get the gun so cheap you can afford the gunsmithing to make it right. Everything from the middle of the 625-3 series and up should be just fine.

Looks like Steelshooter has at least 13 moonclips rigged up--how cool is that?!?

I use assorted brass and moonclips of various and dubious vintage--but there's just no need to be prissy about that stuff with a .45 wheelgun. I'm fairly certain I'm still rotating through some of the original brass and moonclips that I started out with back around '87-'88, and most of it was used then! Shoot the brass 'til it splits, shoot the clips 'til they bend.

Sam and I were fortunate enough to both win guns at Area 3. I was annoyed when the dealer charged me $40 just to write my FFL number in his bound book. I went from annoyed to pissed when he hit me up for another $40 for the second gun on the same FFL. You would think almost every host club could find somebody with an FFL who would be willing to handle it for $5 or $10 per transfer, or maybe even for free. It requires minimal effort for the dealer. (Area 3 was still a great match!)

Excellent--this is just exactly the kind of subtlety we were seeing from Dan back before the Sunflower Classic! Remember when he was going to feed us all "shit sandwiches"??

Guys, these are all FFL to FFL transfers. They can go insured USPS parcel post for about $15.

I got a hat...........The prize table was a random draw. A good hat or a Ted Knight, Caddy Shack hat? I liked it much better back when Dan wore that pith helmet to matches. The world made so much more sense back then......

That place was fantastic! Definitely an old-school classic man's bar, just like they had back in the Rat Pack era, circa 1960 or so...... (Probably not the best if you happen to fly in from the San Francisco Bay Area.....)

I almost feel guilty taking that really cool bi-tone .45 ACP XD pistol off the prize table, since I got it purely through dumb luck in the random drawing, after being beaten quite clearly by Dan in the actual match. Almost. I think maybe the spirit of Dean Martin put in a quick word for me.

Dan shot a 94+% today on 03-03 "Take 'em Down!" It should be noted this is NOT a revolver-neutral classifier, as it requires an awkward reload right in the middle of a 4-target array. Dan also accomplished this in the heat of battle at a major match (Area 5).

Look at what most other parts of the world call a "justice system" and it suddenly dawns on you that serving on a jury in the USA, while a responsibility, is also a real privilege of citizenship.

Congratulations to the Danbagger--he really shot great, winning 8 of the 10 stages--I am sure the Vegas bookmakers are adjusting the odds on Nationals as we speak. (Tell you what, I think all that pressure from Bagakis has inspired Dan to step up his whole game a notch!) Tom Mainus also shot extremely well--coming fresh off his 1500-round Emanuel Bragg class, Tom is truly shooting better than ever. Keith was right up there too, still not sure how the rankings will look when it's all tallied up, everybody was commenting on Keith's super-fast splits. Sam won C class Revo, and on the way home told me that one of his goals is to hit Master by age 16. It was fun shooting with Normal Bob, and not-so-Normal Norm, as always. It was great to see Jim C. (who planned to shoot the match from "Mexican Carry" until Tom lent him a holster), Jim W., Darren, and everybody else. Fun match, very well organized, free beer during the awards--we'll be back in '07 for sure! P.S. Jerry never showed up. P.P.S. Sam was not served any adult beverages.

Forgive me for being skeptical, but the new updated squad lists are out--I see 36 wheels (including Jeff) listed, but I do not see Nils listed anywhere. What gives??

I think it would maybe sting for a minute or two to get shot with this thing, but only if it were pressed up against your eyeball.

How much do you think I could get for the "two screwdrivers"? One scredriver handle to bend the spring around, the other to press against the top of the spring to apply pressure? It all depends on what you call them!!

For a hotel bar, that's actually a pretty good bar! Lots of lounge lizards. We'll have to get a fake mustache for Sam.

Jerry just recently showed up on the list. I think he probably waited to see who was going to be shooting the match, and when he saw that none of the other Revolver GMs were on the list, he figured it was safe.