Carmoney

Ronnie: Excellent--I'll be there for sure, and hope to bring Sammy along as well, if I can negotiate it around all his various school/sports/music/scouts activities! Thanks for the reduced junior fee--it definitely makes it a little easier on those of us who are "sponsoring" the junior. Jim: OK, OK, so your kid's bigger than my kid.....

You talking about the hammer, or my desk-jockey fat ass??

Very glad you figured out the problem, and it's great that John and Randy were able to help with the solution. I'm going to take a wild guess here that you had one of those C&S extended-length firing pins installed in your gun. Am I right???? I know a few here will disagree, but I am completely convinced this product SUCKS ASS in a big, big, big, big way. I've tried four or five of them in various guns, with nothing but widely varying problems. They rarely (if ever) fit correctly without polishing and adjustment. Several have stuck too far through the firing pin channel without filing further relief into the retaining pin notch. The heat-treatment and hardnesss on these little turds seems to be grossly inconsistent from one specimen to the next--I had one I'm convinced was way too soft (it peened very easily, to the point of getting sticky in the channel, which I suspect is exactly what happened to yours, Shoepop), to another I'm convinced was too hard (the tip just broke right off). I've never experienced ANY of these problems with the factory firing pins. NEVER. For six months I fooled and fooled with the C&S extended pins, convinced that they would somehow help me lighten up the action--then it finally dawned on me why it wasn't working: A long firing pin does not--cannot--hit the primer any harder than a shorter factory one, as long as the shorter factory one is long enough to transfer all its energy before bottoming out on its stop! In other words, as long as it's long enough, the shorter one will slap the primer every bit as hard. The shape of the tip may make some difference, but only if the action is lightened up right to the razor's edge of reliability, frankly. What you want is a smooth, consistent, well-polished, hard (but not too hard) firing pin that will not distort and will not break under heavy-duty usage. Shoepop, if we're talking about a factory firing pin getting stuck in the channel, please forgive my lengthy diatribe here (although I'll stand on my opinions). I'd bet money, though, that you're referring to the C&S product. Mike

An alternative to the Randy hammer (shown on a 25-2):

Will there be a reduced match fee for junior shooters? Thanks, Mike

Aerosigns-- Make sure you watch out for Barrettone at A-5, he likes to tell the wheelgunners that the stage he's working is a "lost moonclip" stage! Should be a good revolver match this year--some pretty strong round gun talent within a few hours drive of the venue. Mike

I see glock phan eavesdropping on us.....I happen to know he's a skilled wheelgunner too.....wonder if he could be talked into shooting the revolver with us at Nats this year???

It's really too bad that the 99% of gunsmiths who are rotten bastards tend to give the entire profession a bad name......

C'mon, Dave, it's only three days!! It's your solemn duty to attend this match, now that you are a bona fide master of the game!

As a USPSA wheelgunner, I feel obligated to make a partial correction here, Chris...... In 2005 we had Area matches with up to 18 revolver shooters. Not a big number, true, but much more than 2 to 5, and certainly enough to make it a meaningful match. Hell, we even had 20 revolver shooters at the Ohio Sectional. And nobody's really sure how many revolver shooters would have shown up at Nationals if the demand for getting on the waiting list hadn't been so heavy.....(plus, you gotta keep in mind many avid revolver shooters are functionally illiterate and have no credit cards!) Yeah, we're still the smallest division, probably always will be, but we are growing and people are starting to pay attention. (Take another flip through the latest issue of Front Sight and you'll see what I mean!) Part of the reason is that in the long run, real shooters like steel and smoke, not plastic and popple-holes.

Yeah, Sam's been in F.S. several times now.....he enjoys being more famous (if not more notorious) than his dad. Sam has sorta stopped worrying about shooting against other juniors, since he's always the only kid with a wheelgun there. He's now focused on beating the adults, which he is doing with increasing frequency. Mike

OK, Luke: I wouldn't exactly call it a good luck piece, but it always gives me a good feeling to see the Master Blaster patch that my wife sewed on the outside of my range bag. Pin-shooting is where it all began for me, and many fond memories are invoked when I think about the day Richard Davis threw that patch at me (along with a couple thousand dollars in cash) from his roost.

RGS: You're not old for a wheelman! They'll be half a dozen revolver guys at Nat'ls calling you "sonny"! Even Jerry is now officially a senior. Keith: Yes, they're calling on earned slots.

Double Action, welcome aboard. You have some pretty distinguished wheelgunners in your state! Look forward to running into you at a match sometime in '06! Always great to hear about new revolver guys getting in the game--the great revo renaissance continues to take hold!

Gary--you're going to have a great time! For those who are tuned in here who may not have earned a slot from last year and who cannot obtain one from their local club or section, the waiting list process is not that big a deal--that's how Sam and I got to the Nationals last year. But, even though there may be a few more slots available in 2006, you still need to get yourself on the waiting list right away when they open it up at 12:00:01 AM on May 1. Put that date on your calendars and in your palm pilots now! More information will be available as we get closer. We have the opportunity to at least double our number of wheelgunners at USPSA Nationals this year, let's spread the word! Mike

Chuck, that's no problem, just retire after this school year! (Happy Birthday!)

Here's what I do...... enormous.mp3

Me too. I said put me down as a YES!!

Great idea! I'll lobby the club for a multi-match discount.

The general concept of the Iowa Revolver-Only Championship match has been approved. It will be shot on the Sunday of our Single-Stack match weekend, with the stages adjusted somewhat, at the OOPS range near Osceola, Iowa. For those who would like to shoot both matches, this will be a neat opportunity to test your "old school" handgun skills--shooting ten stages with your single-stack 1911 on Fri. or Sat., then shooting ten simlilar stages with the revo on Sunday! Entry fees will be $50 or less per match. The dates have not been finalized, but will be in the Fall of 2006, sometime well after the USPSA R/L/L10 Nationals. I have spoken with Hopalong about the possibility of this conflicting with his Southern Revolver Championship concept, and he tells me his match will probably be run in the Spring of 2007, and so he has given me his blessings on this. Dates, additional details, and (eventually) entry forms will be posted here sometime in January, so stay tuned. Mike

In USPSA's Revolver division, there are now 14 earned Masters, as of today. I'm very pleased to announce that our own Dave Williams (pskys2) is now one of those elite few! Looks like Dave's 90%er on Ironsides was enough to put him over. This is excellent news, because he's not just a really strong shooter, he's a great guy to shoot with. Congratulations, Dave! Mike

Hey AzShooter, do you use your left hand or right hand to toss in the moonclip? If left, then Spook and D.Carden are the two guys you should definitely be listening to. If you switch hands and handle the moonclip with your right hand, then Hopalong's smooth = fast style is a good one to emulate! Last I knew Cliff's reloading style was in transition, not sure what he's settled on..... Mike (P.S. Send me a PM with your email address and I'll try to send you the video of Spook doing the El Prez...might take me awhile to upload it off my hard drive with this ol' dial-up connection we have out here on the farm.)

I've been loading the "new" Federal primers with absolutely no problems, in fact I've been pretty much convinced it was purely a packaging change. (Sure hope that's the case!) Our local Sportsman's Warehouse stocks them, so I usually just buy a couple or three thousand at a time, so I'm fairly sure I've been using "new" inventory for awhile (I'd say I've loaded at least five thousand of the blue box stuff). My first thought was that you've been riding the raw edge of reliability for awhile, and now something's loosened up just enough to give you misfires. That's the one problem with the super-light actions--they can start doing this to you with little or no notice, if even the slightest change occurs in the formula. (I could drop several very familiar names of Revolver shooters who have experienced clicks in my presence at major matches.....all have those radically lightened actions.....and this is the reason why I decided to stay at 5+ pounds.) Hopefully it's just a few bad primers....

Some good info here: http://blindhogg.com/gunsmithing.html

The Para system uses a different type of sear engagement, and I was unable to get my trigger pull down to where I wanted it (2 pounds and crisp) without the hammer following occasionally using the stock parts. Bad stuff. I wanted to keep the cost on my P14-45 Limited project as low as possible, so I decided to try the Wilson "value line" hammer and sear (I kept the stock disconnector and sear spring). After a little work with my Ed Brown sear jig and my white ceramic stone, and adjustment of the sear spring tension, the trigger on this gun is now excellent! It will be interesting to see if my trigger job on these MIM parts will hold up long term, but after a year and a half it's doing great! My favorite combination is the Koenig hammer and EGW sear....but it's also a quite a bit more expensive proposition. Good luck, Mike