Learning More About S&w Qc...

[bountyhunter]

Well, the real point I was trying to make is that even Jerry, who is undisputably the greatest wheelgunner of all time, past and present, would not be able to beat anybody with a revolver that had its firing pin stuck forward, hopelessly misshapen in its channel, preventing the cylinder from opening and closing correctly. (This was only one of my several bad experiences with the C&S extended pins before I finally swore them off.)

I bought C+S pins when they first became available and they were crap. They were either cast or MIM, they had "mold line flash" on the sides and two of the three would bind in the FP channel. Two also sat so far forward (hammer in rest position) that the cylinder would not close and I had to fix that.

I agree the C+S pin restores the forwrd extension to match the old hammer mounted pin. My gripe was two fold:

1) The quality was so crappy I thought the parts were junk.

2) There was aboslutely no change in ignition energy delivered on my two model 66's or 14. No advantage, just a new part that was junky and had to be fitted.

Maybe the new ones are better quality? Doesn't sound like it based on the above post.

I don't think the firing pin is hitting the frame on any of the 625's I own, however, the hammer definately does stop on the frame with the shorter firing pins. I am trying to duplicate the situation you describe by going to the longer FP.

I believe you'll find that when firing an actual round with a new primer, the end of the FP contacting the primer face will occur well before the hammer gets to the frame. If you do an empty chamber pull, you will see how far the head of the FP protrudes. Although it is a shade less than the old hammer-mounted pins, it is still well into the area which will be occupied by the primer face. Ergo, when shooting real ammo, the primer stops the hammer/pin assembly, not the frame.

If you have a firing pin so short that the hammer is on the frame and the pin is NOT that far forward, it's a defective part.

YMMV.

if S&W has been trying to move stealthly towards an inertia type FP system

Don't think so. The SW system has the head of the FP sticking out when the hammer is in the forward most position, well into where it will bo compressing the primer face. In an inertia system (like a Glock) the head of the FP does not stick through the breech face due to pressure from the hammer, it "flies" through by inertia from being hit and promptly goes back into the FP channel. I don't think SW is trying for that here.

Edited April 19, 2006 by bountyhunter

[slflr]

I bought a ransom rest to see what kind of group my 625s would shoot, with me out of the picture. I went down to the range yesterday and fired 50 rounds thru the back up gun in the ransom rest and 50 rounds from a bench rest. The results are disappointing. Not much improvement in the ransom rest. The gun will not group better than 5" at 25 yds. I gauged the forcing cone with a gauge from Brownells and the gauge sits inside the forcing cone about 40 thou. My other 625 will go to the range tomorrow for a session in the rest. It's forcing cone gauges as it should. The back up gun has only about 1000 rounds thru it. I was hoping to make it my primary gun.

I guess it needs the barrell set back. Next time I will check this before I put the cash down.

[Carmoney]

You didn't by chance save the results that year? By how much did you whip up on him?

Dave, it was not a "whip up" situation, that's for sure! I've got the '93 Second Chance results buried in a big envelope full of old shooting results and photos at home. Sometime I should go through and organize all that stuff into a scrapbook or something, lots of fond memories!

Anyway, I do remember that Jerry and I both shot the match early, and we tied on the main event (they used stopwatches, timed to the nearest 1/10-second), and I got him on the tie-breaker. This put me in first place overall, and Jerry in second. All week long, my time held up, I finally left and came home, thinking I might just have won the whole shootin' match. Then word filtered back that Ken Tapp had lurked around all week, not talking to anybody and not shooting until he "felt right", then on the last day he finally shot the match and smoked Jerry and me both, beating us by a margin of about 20%.

Tapp shot a compensated .45 pin gun, don't remember who built it for him, probably Les Baer because both of them worked for Springfield Armory at the time. Jerry was with Team Smith & Wesson, back when they wore the full race uniforms, complete with Smith & Wesson logo tennis shoes (he always acted a little embarrassed to wear that get-up). Jerry and I were both shooting Model 27s with 8-3/8" barrels, basically stock, with heavy cast bullets.

Pin shooting was big stuff back then. There were big matches all over the country..... Garden City, Texarkana, Kansas City, Waterloo, you name it...... Second Chance in its heyday drew well over 500 shooters, and the prize tables and cash pay-outs were incredible compared to anything being done today (although Steel Challenge is doing a pretty good job at it....) I'll always remember the fun I had, traveling around the country and shooting those pin matches with my friends.....wonderful stuff. Then again, I'm having every bit as much fun now, even though I'm still sort of a "new guy" in the world of USPSA competition!

The gun will not group better than 5" at 25 yds.

Yikes!! Something's definitely wrong. With decent ammo, a 625 should easily do 5" at 25 yards fired offhand!

Edited April 19, 2006 by Carmoney

[revchuck]

The gun will not group better than 5" at 25 yds.

Bob - I've never used a Ransom Rest, but I've read that there's a definite learning curve in their application. Basically, it needs to be fastened firmly to something extremely immobile, and you need to run a cylinderful (at least) just to seat the gun in the adapter. There has to be someone on the forum who knows more about them than me...shoot, it wouldn't take much!

An S&W revolver - even a 625 - should shoot at least twice as well as that. I've got five 4" K frames (the most expensive of which was $200) that are 2" guns at most at 25 yards off a bench.

[slflr]

The gun will not group better than 5" at 25 yds.

Bob - I've never used a Ransom Rest, but I've read that there's a definite learning curve in their application. Basically, it needs to be fastened firmly to something extremely immobile, and you need to run a cylinderful (at least) just to seat the gun in the adapter. There has to be someone on the forum who knows more about them than me...shoot, it wouldn't take much!

Tomorrow I will be back at the range to give it another try with a couple of 625s and some factory ammo. The bench at the range is concrete and the ransom rest is mounted to some heavy plywood and then clamped to the bench with heavy "C" clamps per the instructions. This is my first experience with this.

[Waltermitty]

The gun will not group better than 5" at 25 yds.

Bob - I've never used a Ransom Rest, but I've read that there's a definite learning curve in their application. Basically, it needs to be fastened firmly to something extremely immobile, and you need to run a cylinderful (at least) just to seat the gun in the adapter. There has to be someone on the forum who knows more about them than me...shoot, it wouldn't take much!

Tomorrow I will be back at the range to give it another try with a couple of 625s and some factory ammo. The bench at the range is concrete and the ransom rest is mounted to some heavy plywood and then clamped to the bench with heavy "C" clamps per the instructions. This is my first experience with this.

There are definately some accuracy issues with 625's. There are some improvements you can make, but I haven't seen many I would call tack-drivers.

What is the ammo like you are shooting? My guns don't like a hard jacketed bullet (like Montana Gold) at all. They do much better with the old lead round nose. I also have been satisfied with the Berry's plated 185gr HBRN. Rudy Waldinger told me about them. He said he thought that at Major velocities that the base was expanding (a la the old Mini Ball) and engaging the rifling better.

I understand some guns are too tight in the forcing cone and first part of rifling and need to have a taylor thoating to keep from squeezing the bullets to an undersized dimension. That makes sense to me.

I also bought one of those lead remover tools to remove buildup in the forcing cone, but that doesn't sound like your problem.

I have read reports where the cylinders were actually too small to start with.

Keep us posted. I have trouble with 50 yard Standards and up, and I don't think I'm the whole problem.

[pskys2]

If you're trying to use C clamps to hold the ransom rest down, you may have trouble with it walking back. If there is nothing to keep the assembly from sliding back try another pair of C clamps clamped directly to the bench if possible.

Also try just shooting from the bench over sandbags.

I had accuracy issues with my PC 625. I had to replace the hand & ratchet. It also helped quite a bit to use the Clymer Taylor Throating Reamer sold by Brownells. There is a real good article on Revolver Accuracy on the Alpha Precision website. http://www.alphaprecisioninc.com/

My 625 really likes the Gold, my wife calls it Jolene, and says it's so expensive it might be cheaper to have a mistress! Course then "She'd" use Jolene and I'd be a tenor!

[R112mercer]

Just to weigh in on the whole accuracy discussion:

My plain Jane 5" 625 shoots 1-2" groups at 25 yards with Montana's 185 gr. JHP over 4.0 gr. of Clays (velocity is about 620 fps, less than Minor!). With my Match load for Major (Montana 230 gr. CMJ over 4.3 gr. of Clays, made 173 PF at the Nationals) it shoots right around 2" groups at 25 yards.

Because of the type of shooting that I'm used to all of my guns have to be capable of 2" at 25 yards. The owner of one of the local ranges I shoot at is fond of placing very small steel plates at very long distances (ever try to hit a 6" steel plate cut into a 5 point star at 25 yards? It's really amazing how your bullet will always find a way to pass right between the arms of that star!).

Every gun is different, experimentation will show what load a particular gun likes. So long as the gun has no mechanical issues and you use good reloading technique you should find a good handload.

I have never used a Ransom rest, so I have no backround to make any comments.

I have given up on factory ammo. I'm sure some of it works great, and I use it when I am required to. For everything else I make my own.

[pskys2]

In the early '80's I was all set to go to Second Chance. Finances kind of broke in and stopped it. Never made it, always regretted it. It looked like a week long blast.

Man, Pins could eat you up real quick if you got sloppy. Making Master Blaster there was pretty high on the "COOL" factor.

I'd heard of a couple of guys doing the "waiting game" there. Sometimes it worked.

Why the M27 and not a 25 or 29? You must have had a gamey, tactical reason for it. Everytime I saw Tapp he was wearing blue jeans, never did see him talk to anyone (I yakked at him one day at the Nationals til he mumbled something, though). There were several guys in KC that were big into Pins. Funny the guys big into Pins always seemed to like NRA Action Pistol not IPSC. The guys big into IPSC didn't get serious into Pins.

Yea, I've got a big load of memories from the '80's to early 90's.

[Carmoney]

Why the M27 and not a 25 or 29? You must have had a gamey, tactical reason for it. Everytime I saw Tapp he was wearing blue jeans, never did see him talk to anyone (I yakked at him one day at the Nationals til he mumbled something, though). There were several guys in KC that were big into Pins. Funny the guys big into Pins always seemed to like NRA Action Pistol not IPSC. The guys big into IPSC didn't get serious into Pins.

My first several Second Chance matches were shot with my 25-2s, but then a bunch of us started shooting those big flat-fronted 230-gr. .357s that some people call "Lincoln Logs." Not only did those things really do a number on pins, but you could stick seven of 'em in the gun if you had the original "hi-cap" revo, the Baumannize custom M-27. Baumann lent me one to shoot the old Kansas City Pin-Blasters match, and I wrote it up in an article for one of the gun mags, I forget which one. Then I had a chance to buy BE's Baumannizer the next year at Second Chance during one of his "gun purges," and shot that gun on through the remainder of my pin-shooting career. There are still a few die-hard Iowa pinmen who get together once a year and put on our own "invitation-only" match, and I still shoot that gun. I have a couple big ammo cans full of loaded pin ammo, which I suspect is more than a lifetime supply.....

[Carmoney]

Everytime I saw Tapp he was wearing blue jeans, never did see him talk to anyone (I yakked at him one day at the Nationals til he mumbled something, though).

I always heard Tapp spent a bunch of his earlier years trapping up in Alaska, going for months without ever talking to anyone....which sorta explains his brevity for words.

Man could he ever shoot, though--Judas Priest could that guy shoot. Well into his mid-60s he was a serious force at any sort of stand-and-shoot handgun match. He would also put more prep time into shooting a match than anyone else even considered, often arriving at the range several days early and shooting thousands of practice rounds getting ready. His wife (bless her heart) would spend most of her time in the camper loading bucket after bucket of ammo for him.

I shot pin matches against Tapp many times over those years, and had to settle for second place so many times I was starting to feel like the perpetual bridesmaid. Then finally I managed to knock him off on the main event at one of the later NAPSA Nationals, another one of those "brief but glorious moments" for the memory banks....

[pskys2]

How could I have forgotten the Baumenizing of the M27.

[10mmdave]

I'll bet he can beat you with anything he picks up to shoot, with or without a C&S pin.

Here's a fun trivia question for the gang....which other shooter has beaten Jerry Miculek at a major national match while both were shooting revolvers?? Anyone??

(Walt, please try not to use the word "spanked," it only gets Cliff all excited....)

Hey Mike ! ! ! I beat him once too

Well it was only one stage of the handgunner, and he did go on to win the whole thing, but

.... I can say I did beat him once

So has this thread drifted waaaaaay off course or what