Gregg K

For Welding, I would add +1 for calling George at EGW. www.egw-guns.com

Any chance of getting a mount before they drill the holes? If you could get another mount you could drill the holes to match the gun and not mess with the frame. Might be easier to weld the holes in the mount and move them.

My chambers run .477-.478, hard to get a real good measurement with calipers. An inside micrometer for measuring holes would be better. I bought the brass pilot and turned it down a little since it was tight, I was afraid that I would twist off the small brass shaft. I have had no issues with brass in this gun, I use a Lee factory crimp die in the last station.

LOL, I have no eye dominance so the tape is on the front of the left lense. I was thinking about getting a letter. Thanks all. Once you get the letter, scan it into a .pdf document and post it for the folks to print it out and carry in the range bags for the SO's that get crazy on you.

It was explained to me that the Match primers have tighter specifications to ensure they are more uniform in charge weights. They are aimed at the benchrest/precision market that matches everything from individual bullets to brass to calibrated tumbler media . The increased precision is lost on most of us, but availability probably trumps the premium you have to pay. That was the story I was told when I bought my first large pistol match primers since they didn't have anything else. I found a brass colored primer in one of the packs, I guess it didn't make it through the plating process. I have never seen this in the regular grade. So much for tighter specifications. Looks like a way to squeeze out a few extra bucks from our pocket. I'll buy more if I find them just to have something for my revolver.

There is part of the problem, since we the competitors that shoot the snot out of our guns only make up 2% of the buying public, companies aren't likely to change. If the other 98% buy their guns and let them set in a drawer, the company has at least a 98% satisfaction rate. Like you said Doug, it's not all bad because I have been buying my own tools and learning a lot too.

I talked to a shooter in Corpus that bought a 625JM as a backup gun and had to send it back for out of spec cylinders, he couldn't get his loads in either. My 625JM is on its third trip back home right now so I'm not shocked to hear these things.

I have bought a couple hundred from the same guy and they have run fine. It's kind of nice to moon up 1000 rounds and go to the range. Out of all of them I had one that was a little strange but for .30 cents I pretended it was a Chinese throwing star and sent it over the berm. They are just cheap stamped out clips but they have been good so far. I did just order some of the plated ones from Ranch Products to give them a try plus compare the two.

The 5/8" cutter will tear into the ratchets with the pilot attached. I started out without the pilot attached and just leaned the cutter away from the ratchets to break the edge off the star. It cuts into the cylinder a little when you lean the cutter but after I broke the edge on the star, I removed the ratchet and attached the pilot. With the pilot attached I cleaned up the cylinder and started cutting deeper. I guess I could have went a little deeper but don't think that I would have gotten any benefit from it and since this was my first one, I wanted to be a little conservative. The loads suck right in even when I get a bit sloppy so I'm OK with the way it is. I have seen a job that had the the star down to little points and the chamfer all the way out to the edge of the cylinder but didn't think it was necessary or the right thing to do. I wonder if a 1/2" cutter might work for a starter cut and to chamfer the star but I don't have one available.

After seeing some of the work of some of the smiths local to me, I decided to chamfer my own cylinder. I bought the tool from Brownell's for about the same cost as they charge to have it done and now I have the tool. Plus I just like to tinker. I just broke the edge on the extractor star and went heavier on the cylinder itself. Here is the cylinder Here is the tool. 5/8 X 45 degree.

5gr Clays? You sure? I'm loading 4.0 Clays with a Precision 230 gr to make major from a 4" model 625. I don't think that I would want to hold it with 5.0.

Your new plunger tube could very well be your problem so look at that. Wilson has changed their spring designs several times looking for the best spring design. There is a limited amount of space to work with, they have went down on the wire size to add an extra coil and then back up on the wire size but had to reduce the number of coils. I don't know where they are at now. Wolff makes the Wilson springs for them. I have fought lock back problems with Wilson mags many times and have settled on using ISMI springs in my Wilson mags, I have had much better luck using the ISMI springs. The part number for the 8 round Wilson mags are the ones marked "SSCS2 1911 Spring" at Brownell's.

I don't want to see the TR/RWR taken out. Clubs in this area still do them on the clock. It's a gun handling and manipulation skills test. Those that practice and know their weapons will just naturally do better. Maybe it's just because I'm a big gamer and there is usually a place in every match that a RWR will shave some time off a stage.

On string one of stage 3 do a reload with retention. On string two of stage 3 do a tactical reload, you can stow the mag while running to the barrel. You can make it into master with 12 sec. runs on string one and two so long as it's pretty much zero down and you did the first two stages well.

My chopped hammer is somewhere in between Carmoney's and 41Mag's. It weighs in at 290 grains. I haven't tried to see how low it will go but it's 100 % at 5.5 lbs.

The SO should notice since it's his job to be watching the gun. If the shooter reloads the gun with the slide down I watch to see if he has to rack it to fire. If the shooter racks the slide the SO should watch to see if a round is ejected. If the SO is watching what he should be, he will see that your gun just didn't lock back. I would do what it takes to get it to lock back when it should, it's going to cost you way too much time racking the slide and counting rounds trying to keep up with where your at and risking the SO not paying attention and giving you a procedural for a speed load. Actually, s/he'd better notice. It's the SO's job to watch the gun. The SO will notice that the slide didn't lock back, and also that when the shooter racked the slide, the shooter didn't eject a round, showing that the shooter didn't do a speedload. I got interupted typing the same remark as you were posting. Too may SO's watch the targets and the hits rather than the gun, sometimes your position will allow you to see both but the gun comes first.

If you get behind, I can help test about 20K for you.

I have found that there are 4 things that cause a mag not to drop free. 1. Mag catch pushes in too far and traps the mag on the button side of the mag catch. I cure this by relieving the catch (Dremmel Jockey) so that it can not trap the mag any more. Some folks drop something like a piece of lead shot down the hole that the mag catch lock and spring go in to limit it's travel. I prefer to grind away the offending material. 2. Next most common are grip screws that are too long or over tightened. Easy cure for this is to use the right length screws or put and O ring under the head of the screws. You can make O rings by cutting off tiny pieces of clear aquarium type hose. 3. Trigger bow may be bent in and dragging on the magazine body. You will have to remove the trigger and flex the bow out but not so much as to cause the trigger to drag in the frame. There is a bit of a fine balance here. 4. The magazine body it self may be spread at the feed lips. You can remove the grips, mag catch and trigger and check that the mags fall free from the frame. Add the parts back one at a time to find the culprit.

Here is what the new ones look like. I haven't got my hands on any to evaluate their sensitivity compared to Federals.

I would like to get rid of the MIM and add back some quality control. Here is the yoke that came in the gun. The end of the barrel on the yoke had a flat spot due to a bad casting and a crack running through it the last 1/2 ".

I'm looking for some guidance from one of our revolver smiths. I have a 625JM that needs the firing pin bushing replaced. The current bushing is slightly below flush with the recoil shield and on rare occasions a primer will hang a little when rotating to the next round. I have searched many forums and found that the advice ranges from no big deal to do to only let S&W perform this delicate operation. The job doesn't look like a big one and I see no specialty tools at Brownell's for the job. I saw a post from Randy that said that the new bushing needs to be staked in place. I don't see where the original bushing is staked so my question is how big of a deal is replacement and how and where should it be staked? This revolver has almost no original parts left except the frame and cylinder. It has been back to S&W twice and they have sent repair parts. It has had a new barrel, sights, hammer trigger, sear, stocks and a yoke replaced. I'm sick of sending this pig back to S&W and just want to fix this last item myself. It's running good now except for a rare hang on the primer so the new bushing should make it right. Thanks in advance. I know that with the amount of talent on this forum that someone has done this before.

Here is the chrono procedure from the rule book. Chronograph three (3) rounds at a distance of ten (10) feet using a gun of MAXIMUM barrel length for the DIVISION of the same gun type. If two (2) of the three (3) rounds exceed the power floor, the competitor is in compliance. Prior to each shot, the muzzle of the gun should be elevated to move the powder charge to the rear of the case, thus giving the competitor every chance to achieve maximum velocity. Should the competitor’s ammunition fail to meet the power floor, the competitor will have the option to chronograph three (3) additional rounds through his gun.

You have the quick change sight so order the DX. I just changed the one on my 625JM to the SDM brand .250 blade. You just push the sight to the rear enough to get the front of the sight out from under the roll pin in the front and rock it up and out from the front. There is a spring loaded detent in the rear, that's why you have a hole in the front of your sight ramp, that's where they drilled the hole for the spring loaded detent. You may have to push back on the front sight the first time by pushing it back against a block of wood or your workbench, mine was a little stiff the first time and needed to be broke loose.

DNF for switching guns and then a DQ for running his mouth. If his attitude never changes and he doesn't come back, that's OK, he isn't the kind we want in the sport anyway.

You might want to check with Vincent on that, it happened to him at the Nationals. It's been a few years so he can probably talk about it now without his blood pressure pegging.