Carmoney

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I lent my nearly-new XD9 Tactical to a buddy so his kid could shoot the Big Dawg Steel match last summer, and in the middle of the match the extractor broke. (We switched the kid over to a S&W revolver so he could finish the match). My friend decided to buy the XD from me after the match, but SA would not sell him the part and made him sent it back to be fixed. On the bright side, they fixed it quickly at no charge. Still, it's a big PITA to have to send a gun back to the factory every time some little thing happens, particularly involving something so minor as an extractor. That said, I really like the XD platform, and if I were to shoot Production division, that gun would definitely be my choice. They shot a lot of rounds through the guns SA brought along to the "XD Challenge" side match at last year's Single Stack Classic in Barry, and they seemed to work quite well (not perfectly, there were a few malfs, but still very well). Very shootable gun, much more so than a Glock, for folks who are already acclimated to the 1911's grip angle and trigger pull. Mike

Ah, I don't know where I'm staying. I have people who take care of all that stuff.

I agree--I didn't mind being corrected by GS one bit! I'd always really had good luck with feeding in my various guns with ramped barrels, but thinking about it later, I realized that not one of these was a single-stack .45! (Sometimes I forget that most of the guys on the 1911 forum always assume you're talking .45...) All of my SS .45s (maybe half a dozen) have traditional non-ramped barrels, and I try my very best to never keep unreliable guns around here. I have a Para 45-14 with an Ed Brown barrel which of course has the C/P ramp, and it works really great--but here again, it's definitely not a single-stack .45.

I've worked on several guns and then hard-chromed them. On either a revo or auto, I would definitely advise doing the action/trigger job first, then sent it off to be plated, understanding that you may need to do a little minor touch-up after it gets back. My hard-chromed guns have some of the best actions I own. Good luck!

OK, other than the issues I've raised above, my suggestion is that the Point Series no longer pay out cash. Make the registration really inexpensive (like maybe $25 per year with no additional match fees), and just make it a recognition thing with nice plaques or trophies. Or better yet, assign someone to gather some sponsor support, guaranteeing the sponsors big play on the USPSA home page, in Front Sight, etc. for their investment. Make it easy on the shooters (no outlay of $100 at the beginning of the year), make it easy on the match directors and stats people (we're going a pretty good of that now, all they have to do is upload the scores), and really hype the thing and make people want to play.

Haven't heard anything yet, Dan. I think last year it took awhile for them to get the awards out, I'm not in any big hurry on that. But I will be very interested to hear what's being done for '06. Thanks Gary, hope you guys can get something figured out, I'd sure like to see a viable Point Series in '06 that would motivate a lot of shooters to participate.

This reminds me of the old junky 5" M-27 I bought years ago for $125 because it had a bulged barrel. Obviously somebody had lit one off with something stuck in the barrel. Turns out my bulged barrel shot just fine, I carried the gun in my bag as a back-up to my long-tom M-27 Baumannizer, but I never really needed a back-up..... Randy, the more I think about it, the more I just think DougC might be right when he suggests that S&W simply does not properly heat-treat their cylinders these days. S&W has been making stainless guns for decades. Competitive shooters have used them all along. And the cylinder peening problems all seem to involve newer-production guns......

George Smith from EGW posted recently on the Gunsmithing and Troubleshooting section of the 1911 forum, describing why a ramped barrel in a single-stack .45 is a bad idea. It's an interesting read.

At this time last year, the new 2005 Point Series policies were in place, and people were signing up. This year we've heard nothing so far. Wonder if the whole thing is just dead in the water after last year's disappointingly low level of participation. I hope not.

Funny you should mention that. A couple days before I had the problems described here, that old "how fast can you pull the trigger?" thread of yours surfaced here on the forum. So naturally I went down and got out my 625 and the timer and sat there dry-cranking it as fast as I possibly could to see how fast I could go. [....I'm deliberately leaving this perfect set-up for Cliff's punch line....] Gotta wonder if the gun was just on the edge, and that little bit of abuse was enough to send it over into the abyss. Very interesting thought. We're seeing the peening at the edges of the stop notches, and damage at the edge of the cylinder stop. Would our problems be solved if we simply allowed the cylinder stop a head-start on full engagement by deepening the lead-in groove?? Hmmmmm........

Kevin, it's on the calendar and we're hoping to make it out this year. My spring work calendar right now is really heavy, so that might be a problem. If we make the trip, I promise we won't ditch you on the way to the restaurant again. I still feel guilty about that. I never should've listened to DougC when he kept saying, "F(*& him, I'm hungry, keep driving!"

KOOL! Glad they didn't make you wait too long!

Phil, I noticed the exact same thing on my cylinder, although it was minor. I used a round ceramic stone and knocked off the edge before I put the gun back together. I guess I don't mind if the notch widens (as long as it's only slightly), as long as it engages properly every time. Anyway, with the edges gone and the new (MIM) CS in place, I cannot get it to skip now. Normally I wouldn't mind being the experiment boy on how long you can keep a stock cylinder working with a little "maintenance," but most of my shooting is at matches, and I don't want the damn thing screwing up during a match. Obviously, I should have at least heeded the warning blip the gun sent me at Area 5. Hopalong will remember how confused I was when the gun clicked with no noticeable primer indent. Ken, I appreciate your thoughts on the chrome issues. I'm still hopeful that my cylinder isn't too far gone. God, now I feel like one of those fussy little worried old hens on the S&W Forum!

Crap, Tom, I wish I knew. I don't really keep track. I'd guess 4 or 5 thousand, with very little dry-firing. As everybody here knows, I sorta sneered at the whole "peening" thing, but I have to admit I think it's happening to my gun. Looking back I think I had one isolated incident of cylinder "roll-past" at Area 5. At the time, I thought I must've short-stroked it. But there was no primer indent even though I thought it went click (heat of battle, not really sure). Right now it's just a cylinder stop issue on my gun--but I'm becoming increasingly concerned the cylinder might be gradually getting worse, the same way it happened to Walt and Lefty. I hate gun problems. That's half the reason I shoot revo. I have two high-mileage, heavy-use S&W older blue N-frames (the 27 I bought from BE and my 25-2 that Sam currently shoots) that NEVER exhibited this sort of problem. Inexcusable for the factory to have their metallugy so piss-poor, if in fact that is what's going on here. I'm thinking chrome. And buying another nice 25-2 next time I see one. What's Jerry say about this, anyway? He shoots 'em harder than anyone.

What?? Why?? None of the Big Dawg stages begin with the gun buried in mud or being squashed under the tire of a dump-truck.

I'm thinking about hard-chroming my gun now while the cylinder is still probably OK, to see if that slows down the peening problem. I'm not completely sold yet on the Ti cylinder concept although I am very interested to see how things work out with your gun long-term. It also makes me think maybe the question "625 or 25-2?" has a more specific and definite answer than I had previously thought.....

Cool, I'm really looking forward to the WI match, should be a great time! Keith, I shot about 400 rounds at the Big Dawg match last year, and man was it fun! The round count is a minimum of 360 per gun, many people went through 500+ rounds. This year I am signed up for two guns (Sat. and Sun.) and plan to shoot my 627 for Limited and a single-stack compensated .38 Super for the Unlimited. For those who like shooting steel, I can't recommend this match enough. We had some top-notch wheelgunners present last year, including 10mmdave who traveled in from New England, and the great Bud Bond (pictured below), who made the trip from Colorado. We also had some highly accomplished auto shooters in attendance, including Emanuel Bragg and Dwight Stearns, the winners of the respective events. Those who are interested need to sign up fast--the match will sell out again.

I'm afraid I'm probably not going to make it down. My work schedule this year is going to be crazy this year, particularly in the first half of '06, so I won't be able to travel as widely to shoot. I'm fortunate to have a number of big matches close to home this year. Just for kicks I pulled my 646 (the only revo I own with a Ti cylinder) out of the safe last night and checked out the MIM cylinder stop. The shape of the stop seemed OK, but there was a very definite shiny flat spot on the face of the stop where it was obviously being worn by the harder (and not terribly smooth) Ti cylinder as it rotates around. Not enough to be a problem yet, but something to keep an eye on if I ever put that gun back into regular service. The cylinder itself showed very minimal peening.

Dave, trust me, it looks much better in person! I suppose if I were into fancy aesthetics I'd polish that ugly MIM sprue off, huh?

OK, then setting aside the torque issue for a moment, would the best answer be to replace the cylinder stop with an older forged part, and hard-chrome both the cylinder stop and cylinder (or for that matter, the whole gun)?

Just to clarify my post above, Spook, I do not have a Ti cylinder in my 625, mine is the standard stainless stock part. You make a good point though, maybe this issue wouldn't be as likely with a Ti cylinder because the stop wouldn't get slammed so hard when the wheel comes around. I guess my initial thought was that the stop might wear faster with a Ti cylinder because the cylinder was quite a bit harder. Hmmmmm......wonder if both could be true......making it a wash? Randy? Waltermitty? The newer MIM cylinder stops are pretty much drop-in, from what I've seen. The older ones usually can stand a little fitting work to make them function properly and smoothly.

Sam and I shot a USPSA match today with all the great guys at the Black Hawk Pistol Club, plus a couple friends from down this way, and you'll never guess who happened to show up..... Skip Chambers. (I hadn't seen Skip in a long, long, while.....although I heard through the grapevine last year he had been spending quite a bit of time in Ohio hanging around with Lefty45....) Second stage, pulled my 625, BANG BANG BANG CLICK CLICK CLICK. Looked at the moonclip and no primer dents on three of them. Thought at first I had broken a hand or firing pin or something, then I saw little telltale firing pin marks at various places on the cartridge rims (not the primers, obviously). What the @*&^$?? Unloaded and went to the safe area, lo and behold the dang cylinder would sail right on past the stop if I cranked it at all fast. Got home and looked things over, the cylinder definitely has some peening but nothing really dramatic. But man oh man, you shoulda seen the cylinder stop. The working edge was really worn, very peened, literally pushed down and bent over. And I'm pretty gentle with my revos. This gun was almost new when I bought it almost exactly a year ago. I've shot it in quite a few matches since then, but I don't practice very much and almost never dryfire. And I never do the spin-and-kathunk ritual at LAMR 'cause my hammer spur is all over my basement floor in the form of very fine steel dremel dust. This should not be happening. Replaced the cylinder stop, gun went right back to 100% with no free-wheeling of any sort. Shot 150+ rounds out back just to make sure it's working OK. So I'm starting to think in order to maintain reliability, I need to (1) locate some old-style non-MIM cylinder stops, like the ones that have always worked so well in my old high-round-count blue guns, or (2) start treating the cylinder stop like a consumable part that needs to be replaced every 1000 rounds or whatever. Anybody have any thoughts on this? Now, if this is not just a fluke deal, it seems like these soft cylinder stops could potentially become a problem even quicker for those running Titanium cylinders......am I right? Mike

Chris, it's cool. Sorry if my response sounded a little less friendly than our usual banter here, I didn't really mean it to come across that way, I was mostly just looking for a chance to use the little blinky smiley-face.

Dude, four separate people here, including the best working revolversmith on the planet, advised you to apply heat to break the loctite. And so you decided to drill it instead??