Evolution of my lifter gate

[Kyle O]

Little history - strait from the factory I opened up my port some with a dremel (was my first time at garage gunsmithing)

During my first session at weakhand reloading, I sunk the lifter forks into my thumb. This caused many cuss words to be thrown into the world, I think I even invented a few.

So, During the last 2 years I've been ever fiddling with it removing more and more until I got just as much as I dare taken off, any more and the geometry of the shells motion would have started changing, and most likely I would have started having feeding problems. During the entire process the gun has been 100%. But, I still would get a pinch from time to time during loading. Not like a quarter inch of steel poking thru my thumbnail (like the first time), but just a tiny scratch.

So, I found a local guy who is a welder professionally. I figured worse case I'd have to buy a new lifter, and send it to c-rums. So, I took the lifter off, and let him have it for a day. Picked it up tonight, and after a slight bit of removal from the length, and some grinding of a couple of his welds. It works great!

I'm sure there are others like me, who don't have welding stuff, but do own a dremel tool, and have a "I can fix it myself" mentality.

To those people, I guess the moral of my story is just have it welded to begin with.

Here are some before and after photos.