CHA-LEE's Tale

[Vanniek71]

I'll make it out one of these days, maybe I'll just quit work so there are no scheduling obstacles [emoji23]

[CrashDodson]

How does the hammer spring effect the way the gun handles in recoil/return?

[CHA-LEE]

How does the hammer spring effect the way the gun handles in recoil/return?

The hammer spring affects two different aspects of the recoil process. The first thing that it affects is the slide velocity coming back. The heaver the spring the more velocity is taken out of the slides rearward movement. This part works in conjunction with the recoil spring to determine how hard the slide slams into the frame in the rear most position. The harder the slide slams into the frame the more dramatic the overall muzzle flip will be. The second thing that the hammer spring weight affects is the resistance to the initial unlocking of the gun. I don't know the exact scientific term for this but I like to call it muzzle "Tip Up" right as the shot is fired and before the slide starts to move back. The heaver the hammer spring the more effort it takes to cock the hammer back and the more muzzle "Tip Up" happens.

The changing the angle of the firing pin stop also produces the same affect as changing hammer spring weights but to me it has a more pronounced affect to the "Tip Up" event. The angle of the firing pin stop determines the leverage the slide has against the lever arm of the hammer. The more leverage the firing pin block has against the hammer the easier it is to cock it back, so it acts like the hammer is a lighter spring.

Since you can create a bunch of different types of firing pin block angles along with using different hammer spring weight combinations the tuning options between these two parts is pretty extensive.

[CHA-LEE]

Last night I attended the Whistling Pines indoor USPSA match down in Colorado Springs. They had the normal four stages setup with some box to box type of movement and copious amounts of up close and personal blasting. I shot the #3 Limited blaster (Bull Barrel) and focused on gripping the gun hard. Doing that worked out pretty good and allowed me to shoot and transition aggressively the whole night.

From a match performance perspective I had one miss on a head shot only target that I engaged a little too aggressively but no other shooting penalties. The classifier stage was a train wreck for me though. It was a turn draw, six rounds, reload then six more rounds. I turned and shot the first six rounds good then when I slapped down to do my reload I bounced my magazine out of the pouch and had to grab it like an ice cream cone to keep it from falling on the floor. I finished the fumbled reload then continued shooting the final six shots and had a nose dive jam half way through the string. I paused to observe the jam before clearing it and it was a text book nose dive jam with the round pinned up against the very bottom of the barrel feed ramp. I am not sure if this fluke nose dive jam was due to a funky round, mag issue, or extra dirty blaster. The last time I cleaned and relubed this blaster was about 2000 rounds ago so I figured that the feed ramp was too dry. After the stage run I went to the safe area and lubed up the feed ramp with some slide glide and shot the last stage without any jams or even clunky feeling feeding. I am not sure what caused that jam, but I should probably be a little more diligent in at least keeping the feed ramp lubed up between matches or practice sessions.

As for the magazine bouncing out while slapping down for it problem, this seems to be happening more often lately. It does not take much effort to move the magazine in and out of the pouch so I probably need to tighten up the pinching force of that mag pouch a little bit. I am planning on tweaking on that mag pouch this week and doing some dry fire to see if the problem is resolved. These Safariland 771 mag pouches work great and are generally maintenance free but I guess everything wears and needs to be readjusted once in a while.

Overall it was a fun match and the way I see it, an opportunity to shoot is better than not shooting so I will take whatever I can get this time of year. I have some gun and gear fiddling to do this week so hopefully I can get that stuff done before the weekend. My goal is to get my Open Gun back together and sighted in. Then get my #1 Limited gun back together as well if the slide gets coated this week. There might be a match this weekend if the weather does not cripple us again. We will have to wait and see what happens.

[drewbeck]

How does the hammer spring effect the way the gun handles in recoil/return?

The hammer spring affects two different aspects of the recoil process. The first thing that it affects is the slide velocity coming back. The heaver the spring the more velocity is taken out of the slides rearward movement. This part works in conjunction with the recoil spring to determine how hard the slide slams into the frame in the rear most position. The harder the slide slams into the frame the more dramatic the overall muzzle flip will be. The second thing that the hammer spring weight affects is the resistance to the initial unlocking of the gun. I don't know the exact scientific term for this but I like to call it muzzle "Tip Up" right as the shot is fired and before the slide starts to move back. The heaver the hammer spring the more effort it takes to cock the hammer back and the more muzzle "Tip Up" happens.

The changing the angle of the firing pin stop also produces the same affect as changing hammer spring weights but to me it has a more pronounced affect to the "Tip Up" event. The angle of the firing pin stop determines the leverage the slide has against the lever arm of the hammer. The more leverage the firing pin block has against the hammer the easier it is to cock it back, so it acts like the hammer is a lighter spring.

Since you can create a bunch of different types of firing pin block angles along with using different hammer spring weight combinations the tuning options between these two parts is pretty extensive.

The engineering terms for forces applied during the "tip up" are shear and moment.

From an engineering standpoint the mainspring is responsible for the allowable moment force of the hammer and when it reaches "failure" which moves it back and cocks the gun. On recoil, the Firing pin stop is applying and increasing level of shear force on the hammer up until the amount of this force becomes greater than the amount of moment load the spring is able to support with the mechanical design (approximately 18lbs in this case).

By adjusting the radius of the firing pin stop you effectively change the fulcrum of the slide/hammer interface which gives the slide more mechanical advantage to overcome the spring force of the hammer/mainspring. This reduces the felt weight of the 18lb spring.

If you think of the slide like a skateboard rolling down the sidewalk. With tiny wheels (small radius), a 2 inch curb (18lb spring) is going to be really jarring when you hit it, the nose will want to dig into it and the back wheels will want to come off the ground and throw you forward off of the skateboard, this will also slow you down dramatically. Likewise with big wheels (bigger radius) you hit a 3 inch curb (19lb spring) even though its higher you would roll right up and over this without noticing it very much, but your speed would also not be reduced hardly at all which would be nice and smooth.

Now if there is a wall several feet past this curb, the small wheels would have slowed you down substantially and you wouldn’t hit it very hard at all. With the bigger wheels, you’re going to hit the wall with a full head of steam as it’s going to stop you abruptly.

Playing with the FPS and springs weights is like trying different wheels sizes and curb heights to balance the relationship of how much you initially get jarred hard hitting the curb, how much it slows you down, to balance how hard you ultimately hit the wall.

(BTW this is simplified explanation, so no need for any engineer types to get all engineery on me and correct it!)

[thermobollocks]

I was trying to make things a little less up close than normal for stage 1

[CrashDodson]

How does the hammer spring effect the way the gun handles in recoil/return?

The hammer spring affects two different aspects of the recoil process. The first thing that it affects is the slide velocity coming back. The heaver the spring the more velocity is taken out of the slides rearward movement. This part works in conjunction with the recoil spring to determine how hard the slide slams into the frame in the rear most position. The harder the slide slams into the frame the more dramatic the overall muzzle flip will be. The second thing that the hammer spring weight affects is the resistance to the initial unlocking of the gun. I don't know the exact scientific term for this but I like to call it muzzle "Tip Up" right as the shot is fired and before the slide starts to move back. The heaver the hammer spring the more effort it takes to cock the hammer back and the more muzzle "Tip Up" happens.

The changing the angle of the firing pin stop also produces the same affect as changing hammer spring weights but to me it has a more pronounced affect to the "Tip Up" event. The angle of the firing pin stop determines the leverage the slide has against the lever arm of the hammer. The more leverage the firing pin block has against the hammer the easier it is to cock it back, so it acts like the hammer is a lighter spring.

Since you can create a bunch of different types of firing pin block angles along with using different hammer spring weight combinations the tuning options between these two parts is pretty extensive.

The engineering terms for forces applied during the "tip up" are shear and moment.

From an engineering standpoint the mainspring is responsible for the allowable moment force of the hammer and when it reaches "failure" which moves it back and cocks the gun. On recoil, the Firing pin stop is applying and increasing level of shear force on the hammer up until the amount of this force becomes greater than the amount of moment load the spring is able to support with the mechanical design (approximately 18lbs in this case).

By adjusting the radius of the firing pin stop you effectively change the fulcrum of the slide/hammer interface which gives the slide more mechanical advantage to overcome the spring force of the hammer/mainspring. This reduces the felt weight of the 18lb spring.

If you think of the slide like a skateboard rolling down the sidewalk. With tiny wheels (small radius), a 2 inch curb (18lb spring) is going to be really jarring when you hit it, the nose will want to dig into it and the back wheels will want to come off the ground and throw you forward off of the skateboard, this will also slow you down dramatically. Likewise with big wheels (bigger radius) you hit a 3 inch curb (19lb spring) even though its higher you would roll right up and over this without noticing it very much, but your speed would also not be reduced hardly at all which would be nice and smooth.

Now if there is a wall several feet past this curb, the small wheels would have slowed you down substantially and you wouldn’t hit it very hard at all. With the bigger wheels, you’re going to hit the wall with a full head of steam as it’s going to stop you abruptly.

Playing with the FPS and springs weights is like trying different wheels sizes and curb heights to balance the relationship of how much you initially get jarred hard hitting the curb, how much it slows you down, to balance how hard you ultimately hit the wall.

(BTW this is simplified explanation, so no need for any engineer types to get all engineery on me and correct it!)

Thanks! Very cool to have access to so many intelligent people from different backgrounds on this forum. Sorry for hijacking your Diary Cha-Lee.

[rhebert]

Different hammers also have major effects to the actual unlocking process.

Not all hammers have the same geometry as far as the force when closed and when cocked.

Ed Brown, EGW etc all have different locations for the strut pin. This changes the fulcrum, add the FPS and hammer spring weight and there are many different results.

[drewbeck]

Endless opportunities to try

[CHA-LEE]

Here is the video footage from the Monday Night match. My buddy Dom took the video and shared it with me after the match. I used the Apple iMovie app on my phone to compile all of the runs into a single video. Its not too fancy but they are at least all together in one video. One thing I really like about this footage is that it shows my increased focus on gripping the gun hard since there is virtually zero muzzle flip while shooting.

[Ssanders224]

Powder puff loads for sure.

[CHA-LEE]

Powder puff loads for sure.

That's it......... 170+ PF powder puffs

Its funny you mention that because on several occasions I have been "questioned" on my Major Power Factor ammo before from RO's at Major Matches thinking I am shooting sub-Major loads. A few times I have been sent back to Chrono for a double check and other times I simply tell the RO to pick any mag or box of ammo out of my range bag and them shoot my blaster to see how powder puff it really is. Then proceed to watch them shoot it and the gun is muzzle flipping like crazy. That usually produces a smile for everyone and we both go on with the match.

Edited January 6, 2016 by CHA-LEE

[Vanniek71]

Powder puff loads for sure.

That's it......... 170+ PF powder puffs

Its funny you mention that because on several occasions I have been "questioned" on my Major Power Factor ammo before from RO's at Major Matches thinking I am shooting sub-Major loads. A few times I have been sent back to Chrono for a double check and other times I simply tell the RO to pick any mag or box of ammo out of my range bag and them shoot my blaster to see how powder puff it really is. Then proceed to watch them shoot it and the gun is muzzle flipping like crazy. That usually produces a smile for everyone and we both go on with the match.

Just shake the RO's hand next time - once he finds his hand in those bear paws you call hands he won't question you anymore ??

[drewbeck]

From that angle and with the sound muted at work, it kind of looks like you're shooting an airsoft gun.....Ya, it's gotta be the ammo

[Ssanders224]

Powder puff loads for sure.

That's it......... 170+ PF powder puffs

Its funny you mention that because on several occasions I have been "questioned" on my Major Power Factor ammo before from RO's at Major Matches thinking I am shooting sub-Major loads. A few times I have been sent back to Chrono for a double check and other times I simply tell the RO to pick any mag or box of ammo out of my range bag and them shoot my blaster to see how powder puff it really is. Then proceed to watch them shoot it and the gun is muzzle flipping like crazy. That usually produces a smile for everyone and we both go on with the match.

I've been through the same thing.

#bigguyproblems

[Hammer]

That reminded me of a conversation some shooters were having at the American Handgunner match years ago. They couldn't figure out how Jerry Miculek could shoot so fast. My father in law (a farmer with a pretty good grip himself) had spent some time during the match chatting with Jerry and simply stated " Go shake the man's hand and then you'll know!"

[CrashDodson]

Here is the video footage from the Monday Night match. My buddy Dom took the video and shared it with me after the match. I used the Apple iMovie app on my phone to compile all of the runs into a single video. Its not too fancy but they are at least all together in one video. One thing I really like about this footage is that it shows my increased focus on gripping the gun hard since there is virtually zero muzzle flip while shooting.

Man that thing is shooting as flat as an open gun

[thermobollocks]

How do you make the call on whether to break your grip moving from position to position?

[CHA-LEE]

The basic rule of thumb for me is 3+ hard strides of movement will trigger a break of my grip to pump my arms and really get after it. Less distance than that and it's better to keep the grip intact.

[CHA-LEE]

With the snow late last week it turned all of the outdoor ranges into a winter wonderland so all of the outdoor matches were canceled over the weekend. The only match that was happening was the indoor boulder match that consisted of 3 stages. They have two flights of squads to accommodate for more shooters so I chose to shoot both flights and get twice the shooting in. Since I still don’t have the ammo ironed out for the Open gun I decided to shoot Limited at this match. I shot the #3 Limited blaster on the first flight and the reworked #1 Bushing Barrel Limited blaster on the second flight. Both guns ran flawlessly through the match and its nice to have them both “Done”. The Bushing Barrel gun still has a more harsh felt recoil but its not horrible. One shooter asked me what the felt recoil difference was and the most general answer I could come up with was that it felt like it had ammo that was 10 power factor hotter than the Bull Barrel gun.

Since I shot the Bull Barrel gun first I forgot to focus on gripping the gun hard and I just gripped it with my normal firm pressure. After the first couple of shots out of the Bushing Barrel gun I was immediately reminded that I need to grip the gun harder to manage the recoil the same. I wish I would have shot the Bushing Barrel gun first as it would have reminded me to grip the Bull Barrel gun harder while shooting it. This is one of those things that is going to take some time to burn in. When I grip the Bull Barrel gun harder I can shoot faster with better hits so there is no reason why I shouldn’t be doing it. Old habits are just hard to break I guess.

As always seeing iron sights in this range is a significant challenge. The lighting isn’t very good and all you really get to see is black & blurry sights when shooting because there is no chance of the fiber lighting up in the front sight. Lucky for me the stages were setup with fairly easy shots and the few hard shots could be taken at closer distances. No 15 yard headshots this match which was a welcomed change. Either way I got a chance to do some shooting this weekend and it was much appreciated. Hopefully the weather will give us a break this week so we can do some outdoor shooting next weekend.

Edited January 11, 2016 by CHA-LEE

[CHA-LEE]

This Saturday I did my duty as Match Director to host the HPPS club match. We have had so many canceled outdoor matches lately that I was determined to host a match regardless of the cold range conditions. Its winter time people, its suppose to be cold. Shooting in cold weather is just the “Practical” part of this practical shooting game.

While driving to the range in the morning about half way there the thermometer on the car said it was 7 degrees outside. By the time I got to the range the temp had doubled to 14 degrees and was slowly climbing. Lucky for us it wasn’t windy in the early morning so it was bearable while setting up stages. By the time we started the match it was about 30 degrees but the wind stared to pick up making it feel a lot colder than it really was. But everyone sucked it up and pushed through the cold and windy conditions.

Its been a while since I shot with frozen fingers and it really showed on the first stage of the match which had 9 small plates. I kept mashing the crap out of the trigger missing the plates like crazy. I probably had 6 – 7 make up shots on the plates and they were not even that far away. Note to self, even if you can’t feel your fingers you can still mash the trigger WAY too hard. The other odd situation was the sluggish cycling of the gun on the first 3 – 4 shots. I had Standard Slide Glide on the gun used today and that was probably not the best idea. The first few shots on most of the stages felt like I had to wait forever for the slide to cycle due to the thick slide glide. After the first few shots it seemed to speed up the cycling so it was off to the races after that. I finally got smart and vigorously racked the slide 10 – 15 times before loading it up during the make ready process and that worked a lot better.

I decided to shoot the #2 Limited blaster this match because I made a small change to the barrel feed ramp at the bottom and wanted to make sure that it was still going to feed reliably. I also put the 18lb hammer spring in this gun to match the other two blasters. Other than the slow cycling at the start it ran like a champ.

I shot fairly decent given the cold weather conditions. I didn’t feel very aggressive in my movements due to all the extra layers of clothes and generally being cold and stiff. But it worked out and I had a decent match. I finished the match on the classifier, which was called “Down the Middle”. This is a simply row of four zebra targets at increasing distances and you draw and engage each with two rounds each. I shot this classifier like a BOSS. Shooting within my bounds and simply letting each shot happen when it wanted to. I ended up with a 112% national result on this classifier, which is cool to be able to knock it out of the park in these crappy shooting conditions. This is proof once again that if I simply let the shooting happen its good enough to get the job done.

After the match I had a chance to sight in the Open gun and chrono some ammo. I think I finally got the ammo figured out for this bad boy. This latest batch of ammo is really accurate and right where the velocity needs to be. I was thinking about shooting it at the indoor Bristol Cone match this coming Wednesday. I am planning on giving it another go on Monday in practice since I have the day off. If all goes well there is no reason why I shouldn’t shoot it at the indoor match.

I was also able to do some back to back shooting between all three of my Limited guns as well. #1 is the rebuilt upper with the Bushing Barrel. #2 is the Bull Barrel with about an once more weight taken out of the front of the slide and #3 is the “Normal” Bull Barrel setup that I have come to like. I tried my best to replicate the same grip pressure while shooting each gun and my buddy Robert helped me capture some slow motion video while I shot the same drill to keep things consistent. The #1 gun still “feels” harsh but it also feels like the whole firing and cycling event is over with faster. It’s hard to tell if this feeling of it being over with faster I in fact real or just mental trickery because it feels different. The #2 gun feels slightly more snappy than the #3 but not too much different. The #3 gun feels “normal” to me but I am not sure if that is because its better or simply because I have more rounds down range with that same setup. #1 use to be setup exactly the same as #3 and I shot a crap ton of ammo through #1 before I had the top end changed up. Watching the slow motion video I can see how the #1 gun displaces move overall. The muzzle flip is also a little more dramatic. The #2 & #3 guns seem to have the same overall gun displacement but the #2 has a little more muzzle dip & wiggle after the slide closes. Its all splitting hairs at this point because I can shoot all three of them effectively. But to me it seems like the #3 config is just a little bit better than the other two. I think I will get a bull barrel for the #1 blaster to see if I can replicate the #3 blasters performance. At least that way I will have three limited guns that are nearly identical instead of two that are really close and one that is the odd man out. I am not giving up on the Bushing Barrel setup. I just feel a little leery about not having it serve as a true like for like backup when needed. Below is the slow motion video of the Limited blasters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUYPsioNKmg

The match on Sunday has been canceled and I am actually glad because I am pretty worn out from the match today. Hosting a club match is a lot of work as it is then doing it in the cold makes it twice as hard. It will be nice to sleep in tomorrow and get some gun wrenching done in the afternoon. I have Monday off and the weather is suppose to be almost 50 degrees so I am planning on going back out to practice. I will beat up on the Open gun and give the Limited guns a go as well. It should be fun times and someone has to fill the berms up with lead

Edited January 17, 2016 by CHA-LEE

[thermobollocks]

Video's private.

Also, thanks for the high end blaster comparisons at the range, and the pro tip on not bashing my disconnector into AD-land.

[CHA-LEE]

Video is fixed. Thanks for the heads up. I am not sure why it got set to Private.

[pkm]

Powder puff loads for sure.

That's it......... 170+ PF powder puffs

Its funny you mention that because on several occasions I have been "questioned" on my Major Power Factor ammo before from RO's at Major Matches thinking I am shooting sub-Major loads. A few times I have been sent back to Chrono for a double check and other times I simply tell the RO to pick any mag or box of ammo out of my range bag and them shoot my blaster to see how powder puff it really is. Then proceed to watch them shoot it and the gun is muzzle flipping like crazy. That usually produces a smile for everyone and we both go on with the match.

I've been through the same thing.

#bigguyproblems

Except you went minor

[CHA-LEE]

Who went minor?