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Duane Thomas

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Posts posted by Duane Thomas

    First Range Session for 7 Year Old Girl

    in Miscellaneous Topics That Do Not Fit in Any Other Forum

    Posted

    A female friend's 7 year old daughter, who has never shown an interest in guns before, has asked to be taken shooting and taught how to shoot "just like mom". Sadly my friend lives in another state so I can't be there to help first person :( but she did ask me via email what sort of gun I would recommend for her daughter's first shooting experience. My friend does have, and was thinking of starting her out on, a Glock 17 Airsoft but I think the grip would be way too big for a 7 year old girl. She does have very small hands. Actually of all the real guns my friend has on hand, the one that suggests itself to me as far as having a possibly child appropriate grip would be her Colt Woodsman. The problem there, of course, is that, being a rimfire, she can't dry fire it.

    Any thoughts and suggestions? Anyone out there ever been in a similar situation, and if so, how did you solve it?

    Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to provide.

    Shooting without sights?

    in Handgun Techniques

    Posted · Edited by Duane Thomas

    It's an interesting demo, for sure.

    Jim Cirillo had a concept he called "the silhouette point". This means you don't use the sights to aim, rather you use the overall shape of the slide as, in effect, one very large sight. I'm sure that's what DRM is doing. Obviously he's put in a lot of practice at it, and he's quite good at it. There's a big leap between that and "not using your sights" as a general technique, though.

    New to Glocks, bought a newer 34, have some mechanical questions

    in Glock

    Posted

    Hey, Matt! Welcome to Glockville. A few answers to your questions:

    1. I shot 2 different rental 34's before this purchase and both triggers were smooth as silk. This newer 34 trigger feels like it's stiff compared to the rental ones. Will it be smoother once it wears-in more or is the trigger a different weight?

    Trigger pulls do tend to smooth out a bit as you use the gun.

    I read the 34 comes with a 3.5lb trigger but my label states that I have a 4.5lb trigger. (ADJ 4.5LB)

    A few years ago Glock changed the terminology on their "3.5 pound connector" to "4.5 pound connector" because they realized that was more realistically what you'd get if your changed the connector (most Glocks feature a 5.5 pound connector, only the competition models have the 4.5) and nothing else. It's the exact same part, just a different name.

    Should I do a little internal finishing or do I just have a heavier trigger?

    Polishing out what's there will not make that much difference weight-wise, maybe a quarter pound, however it will get rid of the grit.

    2. The gun's inside and out condition shows it's had light use. Everything looks almost new inside but the trigger bar has some bad wear in one spot and it's deforming and causing a burr. (please see pic 1) Is this normal wear for 500 rounds? (my other guns have shot 1000's without metal wear like this)

    That doesn't really look to me like bad wear, rather a factory part that wasn't quite as well finished as maybe it should have been. In any event, hitting the relevant portion with an Arkansas stone, then completing the polishing with a felt wheel and polishing compound on a Dremel tool should deal with all that just fine.

    3. It came with 3 clips and they all have the same 2 wear marks in them. One is the release ledge that is smashed down bad and not a good 90 deg step any more. (pic 2) The other is the very top of the clip, it looks like the slide is gouging into them. (pic 3) I thought it could have been poor mfg when cleaning up the plastic but they all have the same wear marks in them. With the step gouged downward and the top of the clip worn, could the clip be inserting too far?

    What you are seeing there is normal on any Glock magazine that actually gets used. The mag catch cutout and the top of the mag are not what regulate insertion depth on a Glock mag. Take the slide off the frame and then run your finger inside the top of the mag well. At the left rear (as the gun faces away from you) you'll feel a little rectangular "block" (for lack of a better term) protruding from the side of the mag well. It's on the top of the mag well right under the ejector. Now look at your magazine. On the top left of the mag body you'll see a little step in the tube. When you insert the magazine into the gun the step butts up against the block and absolutely prevents overinsertion of the magazine.

    Hope that helped. :)

    G-24 Recoil spring

    in Glock

    Posted

    The late George Nonte had what I've always felt was an excellent rule on when to replace your recoil spring. Have a brand new spring set aside for use - and when I say "new" I mean it's never even been in the gun. Every time you clean the piece, compare the length of the new spring to the old. When the old spring's become so compressed it's three coils shorter than the brand-new spring, toss the old one and replace with the new. Therefore you don't have to worry about counting rounds between spring changes. And some gun/spring combos get worn out a lot faster than others. Simply comparing the length of old to new will stop you from continuing to run a worn-out spring, even though it's been so compressed the gun is battering itself on every shot, until you reach the magic number. It also stops you from throwing away a spring that might still be perfectly good.

    ambi safety

    in 1911-style Pistols

    Posted

    The best ambi safety I have found is the unit from Kimber. And yes indeed, they do sell this as an aftermarket part, not just put it on their factory guns.

    The reason it works so well is that, compared to the typical Swenson-pattern ambi (Wilson, Ed Brown, etc.) where the offside lever is retained through having a tab off the front of the lever hook into a slot cut into a modified grip panel, the Kimber unit does it by having a slot in the back face of the lever body hook over an elongated sear pin. This snugs the lever nice and tight and secure to the side of the gun. I have seen several Swenson-pattern ambis over the years that had become so loose the offside lever fell out of the gun when going from a table start. That can't happen with the Kimber because in this design the offside lever is actually held to the side of the gun with metal-in-metal. Also you don't need a modified grip panel, you can just run standard grips.

    King's has been using a very similar system for years, but on the King's the lever slot is open on the top, thus thumb pressure on the offside lever, unless it happens to bottom out on the grip panel (and this is very much a function of how the safety is fit to that particular gun), can twist and tweak the male/female connection of the two pieces of the unit where they mate inside the gun. It also means that disassembling the gun now requires removing the right grip panel since you can't rotate the safety lever downward far enough to remove it from the sear pin with the grip panel in place.

    I had thought for years the King's was the best ambi safety design out there, but could be considerably improved if they'd just reverse the configuration of the slot so it was closed at top, open at bottom instead of the other way around. That way the safety in the off-Safe position would bottom out on the sear pin instead of overtravelling when held down by thumb pressure, so you wouldn't twist the connection point inside the gun. Also you could disassemble the gun without needing to remove the grip panel because the safety lever would twist up to remove, not down.

    That's what they've done with the Kimber ambi design. It's like a product improved King's ambi and thus the best thing of its type IMHO.

    Dave Sevigny's Glock 35

    in Glock

    Posted

    If so, they were right. I wouldn't have a service-type auto pistol that doesn't have an external slide stop, as anything but a toy (say, CZ-52). If you ever have a double feed - not that Glocks every malfunction, natch - part of the drill for clearing it out includes locking the slide to rear. At that point you're going to be REALLY sorry your gun doesn't have an external slide stop lever.

    Bad Mag Body?

    in Glock

    Posted

    Also I wouldn't bother dropping the load then building back up, given (1) the strength of the 9mm Parabellum case, (2) the wimpy pressures at which we run our "standard pressure" 9mm ammo in the U.S., both factory and handloads. Really, compared to what that casing was designed to handle we should call our stuff "minus-P" 9mm. Just keep the powder charge the same, crank the seating die down until you're getting 1.120" and start turning out ammo. BTW, and I say this as someone who has done this in the past, I'd be amazed if you see much if any difference over the chrono.

    Bad Mag Body?

    in Glock

    Posted

    I should have time tomorrow to pop it open again and really get a good look inside. If I find anything, I'll be sure to re-post. I know my curiosity has rubbed off by now, right?

    Anyone? Bueller?

    It's hard to be curious when the solution to the problem is so obvious. ;)

    For what it's worth, I had the exact same problem you did. Yeah, I wondered what had suddenly gone wrong when the gun had worked with that ammo, with that mag, for many rounds. But the truth is it doesn't really matter. Solve the problem and move on. I shortened the OAL and returned that mag to Glock when I returned the article sample gun with which it had come. :lol: (Yes, I was using those mags in my gun, as well.) Now my gun works perfectly again. Really, that's all I care about.

    Gen 4 G34, what to do .......

    in Glock

    Posted

    There are plenty of 130 PF loads, many identical to his, that cycle G34's just fine-- for men, women and children alike. There are just as many putt-putt loads that do the same. So why is it different for this particular gun?

    I would hazard a guess it's not the gun or ammo per se, it's the way both your bodies absorb recoil.

    Dave Sevigny's Glock 35

    in Glock

    Posted

    Don't expect much if you do. Dave described the cut-down slide stop as being, "Something I wanted to experiment with, then found out it didn't make a difference once I did it," or words to that effect. I get the feeling that instead of simply installing a non-extended G17 slide stop he cut the extended, i.e. bulbous portion off the slide stop already on the gun - and when he was done, found out he just had, y'know, a non-extended Glock slide stop. :lol:

    Dave Sevigny's Glock 35

    in Glock

    Posted

    One nice thing about that gun, and this is something Dave said himself when I interviewed him, there's nothing on it that you couldn't replicate for less than $1,000 including the base gun. The stippling job is really nice, but Dave did that himself, so it didn't really add anything to the cost for him. Other than that, sights, the Speedway, he trimmed the slide stop, a conservative but no-big-deal trigger job. It does have a THE tungsten guide rod and aftermarket 15-pound recoil spring. Arredondo floorplates on the mags. If memory serves, that's it. The extra mags, and belt/holster/mag pouches setup would add a bit to the price, maybe another $300 I would guesstimate. Other than that, it just comes down to how much you're willing to pay to have "Dave Sevigny's Glock 35".

    Bad Mag Body?

    in Glock

    Posted

    Having said all that, I did recently get in a mag with one of my article sample guns, a 17-round 9mm, that, even at the length I was loading my ammo - 1.150" - would also perform the exact same trick you describe. And that was with solids, not hollowpoints so it was obviously the length, not having a hollowpoint that was the issue. It may well be possible that certain recent production Glock mags are shorter front-to-rear of the interior steel tube than they should be. However, I'd still look at shortening your OAL as the obvious first response. There's really no reason not to.

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