AusPPC

I got sick of sending my competition revolver off to get bead blasted. I converted it to a 'brushed finish', makes it look like an old stainless steel kitchen sink. Go over the revolver with some very fine grit paper, then finish off with a Scotchbrite pad or steel wool. Makes it easy to maintain and touch up, especially with how much I have to scrub it given I shoot cast bullets.

I shoot PPC match and at 50 yards and to a lesser extent 25 yards a trigger stop is a definite aid if you want to shoot 10s. At closer range shooting faster? Doesn't matter.

After my 3rd Power Custom extended pin broke I went back to the factory pin. Ignition reliability remained at 100%. Better yet, I can now dry fire a stage before starting, which helps my scores.

To eliminate the problem of occassional primers not getting picked up by the slide, I used a large drill bit to gently chamfer the hole in the slide where each primer falls in (i.e. make it slightly funneled or beveled). Then ensure the cam wire is set such that the slider gets pushed all the way rearwards to allow primers to drop in from the vertical stack. Works utterly flawless now.

I had the same problem in the LNL-AP loading .38 Special through a Lee sizing die. I changed the sizing die to a Dillon (it has a more rounded chamfer) and it has run perfectly for years. The Lee dies have a narrower and sharper funnel that doesn't tolerate the inherent tilt and wobble of a progressive machine as well.

I had this problem in 9mm. I fixed it by adding brass shims between the case feeder post and the bracket that holds the feed tube. This allowed me to better align the feed tube with the pivot block such that only one case drops at a time.

For PPC speed loaders are preferable, the timing isn't so fast to require lighting reloads, and most tend to run lighter actions (than you would say IPSC) which work better without the headspacing irregularities some times caused by moonclips.

2.0 grains of Trailboss with the bullet seated below the case mouth by 3mm. Very soft shooting (about 70 power factor), and holds x-ring at 50 yards.

The 686 is quite popular for PPC in Australia, I had good results from mine even in almost stock form. The 148g HBWC isn't used much, the 100g SWC is far more popular.

The factory S&W rears are made from stamped sheet metal, rounding off the corners. Anything else is an improvement.

Below is the lever I was referring to in point #2. The side that needs to be stoned smooth is the left-hand side of the rounded leg on the far right - that is the edge that rubs and pivots on the alloy bushing.

I had a factory STI sear give way in the middle of a match, allowing the hammer to follow. Turns out wear caused it to lose the correct angle in relation to the hammer hooks. A replacement sear fixed the problem.

I've performed 3 mods. 1) I attached a custom electric vibrator to the base of the measure that actuates each cycle, makes running very light charges safe and consistent. 2) Over time the alloy bushing will wear (the steel actuator lever will dig a groove into the soft alloy bushing), and this will cause the disc to not fully extend, leading to erratic charges. To address this I removed the lever and stoned / polished it smooth so that the wear is reduced (the original lever is a pressed part and is quite sharp and jagged on the edges). 3) As per #2 above, I removed the very heavy coil spring that Lee provides, and replaced it with a much softer spring from the hardware store. This reduces the pressure between the lever and the bushing, creating less wear and a longer life. You need to experiment to find the right spring, too light and the measure will not reset. I like the Pro Auto-Disc, I have 2 of them (modified as above) on my LNL-AP's.

Well I finished the action job on the 686-6 and I learned a few things. Toolguy, you were right Grinding a custom pin to fit inside the rebound spring (to act as a defacto trigger stop) will defeat the single action, BUT, the clearance is so close, and there is still enough flex in the action, such that pushing the hammer back extra firmly will get it to cock in single action. Then you have to dismantle the gun to decock it. As the gun will see a lot of regional tournaments, at some point one of the scrutineers will cock it back hard and inadvertently lock it up, so I had to abandon this idea. Instead, I ground and polished off the single action notch on the hammer, so that single action is now totally deactivated. To return it in the future all I'd need to do is buy a replacement hammer, which being MIM, means the existing fitted DA lever can be swapped right across. So I kind of achieved my goal of making the DA conversion semi-permanent. The wife is very happy with the action, very smooth, good reset and came in at 7.5 pounds. I'll let her shoot it a while before I tune it a bit further. Thanks for the guidance and I hope the above helps someone else.

Depending on how light you were intending on tuning your 686's DA pull, you could run into reliability issues if you didn't bob the hammer anyway. The 686 is my wife's for PPC 1500 competition, but as it's only a transitional gun (she will eventually have a custom revolver built) I wanted to make the investment and modifications minimal. Otherwise a bobbed or Apex hammer is definitely preferable. Actually here in Australia there is some debate among the Masters and High-Masters regarding factory spur hammer versus the Apex. There are some smooth DA only setups, some with the spur and some without. I personally like the Apex which I have in my own PPC gun.

I've always been intrigued by the rubber trigger stop, which as you say was popular with PPC setups and used as a 2nd stage. John Pride did this very thing!

Thanks everyone, I don't have access to a drill press to correctly make a trigger stop, so will have to experiment. If I have to sacrifice a hammer to make the DA conversion then so be it

I have a 686-6 I am about to start work on in terms of smoothing and lightening the double action for competition. The problem I have is that once I do this the single action will be illegal (i.e.it will fail trigger weight checks at scrutineering). I know the normal process is to bob the hammer to permanently remove the single action capability, but I want to be able to return the gun to normal factory operation in the future, so any kind of cutting or drilling is out. So I'm really looking for a reversable way to de-activate the single action. Here's my question - can I insert a rod inside the rebound spring, that when cut to the correct length, will allow DA operation, but prevent SA operation due to stopping the rebound slide just short of its normal stroke? I imagine the effect would be the same as when a set screw is installed in the trigger guard, stopping the trigger just before it's able to engage the SA notch. Thanks in advance

Oddly, I have large hands but ordered the large version which feels quite nice. I don't need to shift my grip to open the cylinder which makes the large version quite comfortable to use. Note that the Hogue part will expose part of the frame that was rubbed and abraded by the factory part, so some refinishing my be required.

I recently bought a matched pair of SASS Vaquero's, and they did not come with the internal lock. My understanding is that they have now deleted them from the Vaquero line, though earlier ones did have them. The instruction manuals were updated at a particular version number to reflect this.

You know, you are right - they aren't machine screws, they are socket head cap screws. The proof strength sounds right, after multiple removals they have not mushroomed, the cold blueing I applied is even still intact. They are a pain to hand grind to length and shape using a Dremel.

Hence the reason I don't shave the tips of strain screws to "tune" trigger pulls. You get it just right and later after the tip wears slightly, you have misfires and need a new strain screw. The factory strain screws are a bit soft and can wear as you described. The machine screws I used seem very hard, and given that I've recorded the exact length I will be able to monitor over time to check for any wear. This is all based on the strain screw being bottomed out and torqued down to enable repeatability

I thought I'd share a tuning observation with the group that might help somebody out. I've recently been tuning my new PPC revolver to get rid of the dreaded light-strike while also minimising trigger weight (i.e. finding that happy medium). Ultimately, it appears shimming the hammer was the key to solving the light strike issues (trial and error is involved in determining the shim number and left/right order), but once the hammer was free of binding, I needed to find the optimal strain screw setting. I did this by making up several different strain screws (using 8-32 hex head machine screws) in 0.010" increments, and then experimenting with them at the range to find the shortest one that gave 100% reliability. OBSERVATION: For every 10 thousands of an inch (0.010") you add to a strain screws length, you add about 1 pound of weight. After repeated tests (with all other variables remaining unchanged) and using a Lyman trigger gauge I was surprised to find this relationship to be quite consistent. It also highlights that very small changes in a strain screws length (almost imperceptible to the naked eye) can have a significant reduction in strike power. As reference, this was with a K-frame, Bang-Inc mainspring, Apex Evo hammer, clipped rebound spring, hand cut & tapered 8-32 strain screws, and fully smoothed action. Hope this helps someone

The cases in the chambers keep the ratchet (which is part of the extractor star) in alignment. Timing should only be evaluated in this condition, as you would fire it. With cases removed, the ratchet can have enough play to present the appearance of late-timing.

Hopefully after it's fired and reloaded it still feeds smoothly for you.