tzahoy

Okay, I've been a long time revolver tinkerer and have considered going the 38 short colt route with moon clips for some time. I mostly shoot a very informal match with no power factor concerns and have been running a k-frame 38 with speedloaders. It dawned on me that I have a ton of 9mm brass and rather than buying 38 short colt brass and having more different brass to keep in my inventory, I could resize 9mm brass with a 38 special die, use standard 38 special bullets and buy k-frame 9mm moon clips from Hearthco. I measured a few different brands of 38 special brass and 9mm brass and found there didn't seem to be a heck of a lot of difference in wall thickness. On average the 9mm wall thickness was probably .0005" thicker but I found plenty of 9mm and 38 special brass with the same thickness of about .013". Does anybody have any thoughts or comments here? My typical load is a 158 round nose hauling out of a 6" barrel at ~700 fps, so I think this could be duplicated in a 9mm case without any crazy pressures. I'd even consider dropping down to a 125 grain round nose for experimentation. The goal would really be a super soft shooting and accurate load that was easier to reload than the 38s with speedloaders, i definitely have no interest in anything near major. Feel free to tear my idea to shreds, I'll probably try it anyway unless someone can convince me I'm going to blow the revolver to shreds. (Not likely)

I've had great luck with PB as well. It seems to have a very progressive curve, it works well with 38 wadcutters as low as 2.9gr, light 9mm loads with 124 gr zeros at 4.4 gr with a light recoil spring in my Glock 17 are super accurate and very clean. In the big old 45 ACP using 230gr LRN I get a lot of unburned powder in my revolvers until I get close to major loads. In this application it doesn't seem suited to low velocity loads. Otherwise it's been very clean, even in my light wadcutter loads and some light 38 special loads. I think the 45 case just has too much air space for clean burning light loads. One issue I did have with it in my Hornady LNL measure was powder bridging giving inconsistent charges. The LnL pistol metering inserts have a pretty small diameter, and the PB was sometimes throwing half charges the bridging was so bad. I had already bought 8 lbs. Of it so I was determined to fix the problem. I tried the rifle metering insert which is much bigger diameter, but it was too big to adjust precisely and I coldn't get the lighter loads to meter well either. I ended up boring the pistol metering insert out to 7/16" and welding up the adjusting plug and turning it down to fit the oversized 7/16" bore perfectly. It works like a charm now, and meters every powder I use much better now.

Well, I'm pretty much a newb to action related pistol sports, but have been shooting bullseye and informal PPC for over 20 years. I wanted a timer, but was put off by the price but knew it would be a valuable tool. Well, I stumbled across a program called gun timer for the pocket PC. I installed it on my phone and was testing it out during the free trial period and it works like a charm! I was using it for drills with my air pistol, when I thought wait a minute, I wonder if it works for dry fire? I had to turn the sensitivity up a bit, but no problem! I then tried some reloading drills and it works for that too, but says I fired 14 shots. Turns out it picked up the full moonclip hitting the cylinder, and the cylinder shutting. Hmm, could be another data point for judging reload speed. Anyway, I paid for the full version and for $15 I'm stoked! If you've got a phone that runs windows mobile, try it out! In my searching I noticed Surefire just released a similar app for the iPhone. Probably the only shortcoming I've noticed is the beep is limited by the volume of the speaker in the phone, but it seems most people have electronic muffs these days. Besides 95% of my use will be dry fire and air pistol practice.

To do this I had to push a slug completely through the barrel, then I measured the slug with a micrometer. I've been using micrometers for the last fifteen years, so I've got a pretty good handle on how they work, and how to perform precision measurements ;-) If I measure the groove diameter with calipers I get pretty close to the same number, but of course I cannot get exactly 180 degrees between measuring points across the bore because of the offset in the caliper jaws, and interference between the lands, so it's not a very accurate way to measure. Thanks for the clarification on bore and groove diameter :-) FWIW, the groove diameter would be .460, and the bore would be .444. The groove is the deeper part. Dumb question - did you slug the barrel by pushing the lead all the way through the barrel, or just check the muzzle with a caliper? While stranger things have happened, I would be really surprised if S&W let their computers get that far out of spec. If it really does have a .460 grove diameter, call S&W and tell them about it. They owe you another barrel, plus shipping both ways, and they're really good about fixing their screw-ups. Before you go all medieval on S&W's hiney, I'd get someone else to check your work and see if they come up with the same measurements.

Yes, it is a newer one and the rifling is pretty funky looking. Since the bullet doesn't actually touch the bore, just the rifling I gess it probably shouldn't lead much! I'll give it a try, but it sure seems like a lot of clearance between the bullet and bore.

I couldn't believe it, my bore measures .460"! There's plenty of rifling though, the grooves measure .444" The gun shoots great, but I've only shot jacketed bullets out of it so far. Has anyone else measured one like this? I slugged it because I was planning on shooting some lead bullets out of it, but know I'm wondering if it's just going to be a leading disaster. Any comments fellas?

Okay, in particular I'm interested to hear from you North Mountain users, but this is probably of equal interest to anyone who uses moon clips. I see Jerry runs his moon clip holders in front of his belly, and that's what I've been practicing with as well. What do you do if you've got a stage with a prone shot? I can't lie down on top of my moon clip holders with any kind of comfort or stability. Do you move them to the side for that stage? Any other ideas? maybe I need more padding ;-)

Thanks, I knew I could count on you guys for some good advice. What's everyone's preference for a belt to go with this rig? Thanks again!

I'm sure someone here has an answer for me, and I haven't found it by searching. Does anyone know whether the regular 002 is compatible with a full lug N frame? I noticed there's a special one listed for 10 oz. underlugs. I'd really like to be able to use one of these with my 6" full lug 29, and my 5" 625. If it worked with my K38 that would be a further bonus. Any thoughts? Any recommendations on which would be best? Thanks!

Thanks for everyones help. I'm not going to change anything yet, just keep practicing. Maybe one day I'll learn not to look at the rear sight, but after too much bullseye shooting it's hard to learn to go fast!

Hi Folks, I'm new around here and a new owner of a 625. My background is bullseye, and I miss the nice big flat rear sight silhouette that I'm used to from my target autos. I've seen the Millets and they are nice and I know they are highly recommended around here. Today I saw the Weigand rear sight for the first time, and it seems pretty nice too. Has anyone tried one? It looks very nice, but I'm always concerned about durability on adjustable sights as I've had my share of broken adjustment screws and other little things. The Weigand doesn't look particularly beefy, which has me a little concerned, but it's hard to tell from a photo. Thanks for your input and sharing so much great info here!