Designing a flat open

[shooterbenedetto]

If I exagerated and say my compensator,barrel, and frame 50 lbs!

and I have a 10oz..slide, dont you think that the gun wont move

and would be flat shooting?

Thinkin of making a heavy comp and lightened my slide to 10.oz..

[Ross Carter]

Yes it wouldn't move, from the holster or from target to target. Hard to invision the holster and belt you'll need to carry a 50 pound pistol.

[Hi-Power Jack]

If I exagerated and say my compensator,barrel, and frame 50 lbs!

and I have a 10oz..slide, dont you think that the gun wont move

and would be flat shooting?

Thinkin of making a heavy comp and lightened my slide to 10.oz..

There was a Bianchi Cup shooter many years ago (John Pride?)

who had a 6 pound .38 revolver. Worked for him for years.

[G-ManBart]

I know a couple of gunsmiths who said they've built Open guns that were totally flat...the dot just sort of wiggled. They both told me nobody could shoot them well. It seems the lack of dot rise prevented people from calling their shots for some reason. That may just be that there wasn't enough difference in the normal movement you get when you put the dot on target, and what it did when the shot broke, so there wasn't enough for it to register, distinctly, as a shot you could call...just a thought. R,

[Powder Finger]

I know a couple of gunsmiths who said they've built Open guns that were totally flat...the dot just sort of wiggled. They both told me nobody could shoot them well. It seems the lack of dot rise prevented people from calling their shots for some reason. That may just be that there wasn't enough difference in the normal movement you get when you put the dot on target, and what it did when the shot broke, so there wasn't enough for it to register, distinctly, as a shot you could call...just a thought. R,

Did this before and they are hard to shoot.

I think it's more because the "energy" of the load is still in the gun some where. so when pressures of the hold, stance, ETC....

are not perfect the gun then wants to go some where but now you don't know where. The gun won't tract predictably.

So then you end up using a heavier bullet, open the comp up, or get rid of ports, or use a faster powder.

It's also hard to call a shot when the gun flips left, right or somewhere weird.

[Powder Finger]

On the heavy-light gun deal some times the COF's will consistantly favor one or the other.

Bill Wilson had a Super @ the 86 Nats that had some big piece of metal attached to the dust cover.

It looked like a 42OZ gun with 3 pounds stuck on the bottom.

I think he did O.K. with it but the COF's then generally didn't have a lot of swing to them.

Plus a field course was like 18 rounds, not 40.

[CocoBolo]

I thought this post would reveal the secrets of the darks side. No sorry there just isn't any magic. Just find an old Dawson Signature Series open gun with that 4 port comp and you have your answer. Its flat soft and heavy, just what your thinking. As XRE says flat don't mean fast. And I agree that a totally flat gun is hard to shoot you can't follow the dot.

[Flyin40]

I thought this post would reveal the secrets of the darks side. No sorry there just isn't any magic. Just find an old Dawson Signature Series open gun with that 4 port comp and you have your answer. Its flat soft and heavy, just what your thinking. As XRE says flat don't mean fast. And I agree that a totally flat gun is hard to shoot you can't follow the dot.

What does everyone consider flat shooting?? Dot doesn't move or the dot doesn't leave the lense??

Flyin

[Aircooled6racer]

Hello: I think a flatter shooting pistol shoots better than one that does a weird dot dance. Also if the frame is heavy then the weight is in your hand. If the weight is very low you will get a pendulum effect from that. I have tried light and heavy magwells to try to move weight around. The light magwell works better for me. I also feel a difference when I use a loaded 170mm magazine compared to a loaded 140mm one. I think your powder choice and comp design will do more for the dot rise than you think. I have had titanium comps and a steel comp and they both work well when you find the right powder and charge. I have learned that the dot moving in a straight pattern is easier to shoot even if the pressure in the hand is more. Lastly I think as they say if you practice you will get better Thanks, Eric

[Jman]

Sounds like theirs to much dot focus going on here.

[XRe]

The most important thing is a gun that tracks consistently. You can time a gun that moves consistently. A gun that moves consistently straight up and down is better than one that moves consistently in some other fashion (realize that some of the "consistent but not straight up and down" is influenced by the shooter). If the gun somehow literally didn't move at all, you'd have a very hard time shooting the gun accurately quickly, as there's no feedback on where the shot went or when the gun will be ready to shoot again. It'd be quite disconcerting. Luckily, with current pistol designs, it's impossible to build one that doesn't move in some fashion, and still be holdable and reasonably portable (it'd stop being a handgun at some point).

Here's the deal - as long as the barrel and operating mechanism of the gun sit higher than your hand, the gun will not shoot absolutely flat. When the slide bottoms out against the guide rod head and frame, that impulse will have leverage against your hands, and will push the muzzle upward as a consequence. The only questions are "to what degree" and "how consistently".

The flip you see in the gun is made of up of two components - the "equal and opposite reaction" to the bullet leaving the muzzle (and the initial compression of the recoil spring), and the slide banging to a stop against the frame. The compensator only affects one of those components appreciably, and that is the first - the flip caused by the bullet exiting the barrel. If you watch high speed video of an open gun (for instance:

) you'll see that first impulse and the work the comp is doing. The gas is gone long before the slide comes to a stop, and has done all it's work before the 2nd impulse. Other than total system energy (resulting in more or less energy being imparted to the slide), load choices have very little to do with the 2nd impulse - they work on the first impulse. Tuning a load to your comp allows you to keep the gun stable where it counts - in the immediate period when the bullet is leaving the muzzle. A stable gun (ie, moving as little as possible) in that period of time gives you the best chance of accurately calling the shot. They have a lot less to do with how the gun moves overall - they will definitely affect it, especially how much rise you note in the first part of the cycle, but downforce here does not stop flip later in the cycle. Note - stable here also includes directions other than straight up and down (side ports in the comp can play a big part in counteracting the torque induced by the rifling, etc). There are also indications that there can be too much of a good thing (see below).

The 2nd component - the flip caused by the slide banging into the frame at the end of the stroke - is more of function of the rest of the gun setup and build. The weight of the slide and the recoil spring rate affect this part of flip quite a bit. It's been discussed on the forum quite a bit already - but basically, a lighter slide and lighter recoil spring setup will tend to result in a gun that flips less, but possibly hits the hand harder. It is demonstrable that changing the recoil spring weight will have a more immediate effect on the shooter's perception of flip than pretty much anything else. Quality of the gun build comes into play here, as well - a well built gun will unlock and move the same from shot to shot, resulting in consistent dot tracking. A very poorly built gun will tend to cycle differently on every shot.

Yes, it is possible to build a gun and match a load to it that will have so much downforce that the gun will actually dip downward in the early part of the recoil cycle. I haven't seen it happen with any of the currently common calibers at current power factor - but with 9x25 at old major, you could definitely make it happen. The guns would still have the 2nd part of the recoil cycle, of course, but because of the initial downward impulse, the slide banging into the frame would pull them back up online or perhaps a tad higher. Due to how fast the gun moves, this could give the shooter the impression that the gun stayed absolutely flat (it didn't). On top of that, the loads tended to induce a lot of turbulence in the comp (at least, that's the best theory I've heard), and that would cause them to move very inconsistently, making the guns essentially impossible to time.

It would be good to understand how your eyes actually work to understand how all this translates into the dot movement your brain tells you you're seeing - you're not actually seeing everything you think you are... I wrote a post on this a while back, but can't seem to find it, now. Dot size and intensity play a huge part in your ability to call shots (not because of how big the dot is, but because of the impact it makes upon your retina), as does how stable the gun is in the early part of the recoil cycle. I can go into that again if someone can't dig up the post - it's fascinating stuff, actually...

[XRe]

Hello: I think a flatter shooting pistol shoots better than one that does a weird dot dance.

Realize that you're kind of talking apples and oranges, here - "weird dot dance" implies inconsistent. Just about anything is better than that! To a point, flatter is better than flippier - until you hit that 9x25 type thing I talked about in my first post...

I have learned that the dot moving in a straight pattern is easier to shoot even if the pressure in the hand is more. Lastly I think as they say if you practice you will get better Thanks, Eric

True and true

[Powder Finger]

Yes, it is possible to build a gun and match a load to it that will have so much downforce that the gun will actually dip downward in the early part of the recoil cycle. I haven't seen it happen with any of the currently common calibers at current power factor - but with 9x25 at old major, you could definitely make it happen. The guns would still have the 2nd part of the recoil cycle, of course, but because of the initial downward impulse, the slide banging into the frame would pull them back up online or perhaps a tad higher. Due to how fast the gun moves, this could give the shooter the impression that the gun stayed absolutely flat (it didn't). On top of that, the loads tended to induce a lot of turbulence in the comp (at least, that's the best theory I've heard), and that would cause them to move very inconsistently, making the guns essentially impossible to time.

good point on the "old major".

The stuff i worked on was at the same time as the 9X25. I went the 9X23 route with ultra slow powders.

Under certain conditions it would dip down like the 25 did most of the time.

Problem is there seemed to be a dip down then a quick rise @ slide stop. That's very hard to track.

Another thing I think happens is with that much powder you kind of overload, spase, flipout your brain. like I assume a flash/bang would do.

In other words I think you loose a millisecond of your attention.