Pre-27 came home tonight and got some added grip treatment installed:
It's not an original Tyler-T (got outbid on a couple of those) but rather the currently available BK Grips polymer version. NO WAY am I taking off the original numbered Magnas. Trying to track down an original Pachmayr version - same concept but without the finger groove, but that's proving a difficult hunt. This'll do for now.
The fitted front, cylinder retaining sideplate screw had in fact been swapped with the next one to the rear, which was the reason for the tight opening. Locations reversed and all now right with the world.
YE GADS did they do a nice job fitting this one. ZERO endshake on the cylinder and the cylinder stop locks it up early and with plenty of both DA and SA travel to spare. The DA sear appears to still be polishing itself in (I can fix that with a good dose of lube and a long run of wadcutters). The SA trigger is somewhere in the 3-4 pound range and is PERFECT. Chambers look to be mirrors. Chamber THROATS look to be mirrors, which makes this bullet caster VERY happy. Will probably scrub it out good and get it pin-gauged while it's still super clean, but I'll get you guys a range report by week's end.
Here's my 28-2. I bought it because a Model 28 was the first revolver I qualified on back in 78 or so. I've got the magna grips, somewhere, but put these on the gun because I like the way they look.
Concealed carry is for protection, open carry is for attention.
Well, not really a shock, but it's probably quite capable of shooting better than I can shoot it - at least with crappy indoor range light dilating the pupils in my fossilized eyeballs. Best effort was this one:
4 out of 6 inside of 2" at 25 yards - that'll do for starters.
Here's a good study in old eyes right here:
I seem to be able to center up the middle blur consistently between the two side blurs for windage, but figuring out where the top edge of the middle blur is makes elevation a bit more problematic without the aid of real daylight.
The grip adapter crowded the knuckle of the middle finger - it's gone.
Shot some 130 grain standard velocity .38's through it in addition to the .357 / 175gr / 2400 workups. The big N-frame is a complete pussycat with those. Time to chrono and figure out where I really want to be.
I REALLY like this one! Too darn pretty and hard to replace for EDC - hopefully the stainless GP-100 doesn't find out I'm cheating on her.
"Just take those old records off the shelf. I'll sit and listen to 'em by myself" - Bob Seeger
Yep. She's got soul - and some of the quirks that go with one. True to form on the Pre-Model number revolvers, the RHT extractor rod worked loose when I started shooting. Reassembled that with some low strength Loctite, so hopefully that won't be an issue again. Got the sideplate off to check clean/lube status. . .and just to look around. Not QUITE the level of polish you see on the stuff from 20 years and more prior, but yeah. . .I like this stuff. Eager to get the K-22 from 7 years before home just to kinda get a feel for what changed and when.
That's where I'm wracking my brain, and the versatility of the .357 is kinda kicking my butt. The gun is SWEET with standard .38's and I can produce wadcutters from a 10-cavity HG#50 mold- - - -BUT, not really what this gun is about. Full-blown fireballers aren't necessary, and I'm starting to see the onset of the arthritis issues in my own hands that have been plaguing my Pop, so there's definitely an interest in keeping what I have. Probably going to end up with that 175 grainer around 1000 to 1100 fps, which will outdistance and outpenetrate anything in the duty-auto category. Gonna have to chrono the workup experiment, but that's on hold until after deer season.
I like a diamond shaped bullseye if Im having vision issues.
It's weird. In actual daylight when my pupils pinch down, I can function pistol irons about as well as I always have with my distance prescription - it's the light on the indoor range at work that's murder. It may also be a case where added distance may help visually. Also not a fan of shooting handguns from a rest and have to add material to the not-revolver-ready ones I have to prevent cylinder gap blast from shredding them. All combined, not conducive to really show what she is capable of.
I run my 686 with magmas minus an adapter, but its a round butt. Everyone's hands are different.
The perfect grip for me on this thing would extend off the bottom of the frame like S&W targets, leave both the frontstrap and backstrap exposed like Magnas, and fill most of the gap behind the triggerguard - which would be a WEIRD set of stocks...
Do you have a leather belt case for those speed loaders?
No. Getting a period duty rig for this thing crossed my mind, but I'm not QUITE that into the archaeology ofit. I use DA revolvers quite a lot to correct the brains of folks who yank their triggers on seeing a good sight alignment/picture and old school combat reload technique to those who carry a wheelie as a backup, but that all gets done with the stainless guns I can set down and forget for weeks if I get distracted. Nylon serves for all of that.
Yesterday was the first proper range day in real daylight (SIGHTS! I see them now!) Dad needed to zero a deer rifle and I needed a chill-out day. I was able to chronograph my 175 grain WFN / 2400 test loads:
I'm really starting to get a deeper grasp of what has been said for decades - if you're only going to have one handgun, a middle barrel length .357 is pretty hard to top. While my comfort for volume shooting starts to wane as that bullet passes 1100 fps, I know from my 9mm experiments that heavy WFN's in this diameter at these speeds are plenty of medicine. Creeping up on 1150fps with my top load of 12.1gr / 2400, they're getting brisk, but would still be a fine hunting load - or an all day load for someone with springier wrist joints than me. Since it looks like I probably won't need the .357's case capacity for where I want to be, I'm currently thinking to revisit the project with Elmer Keith's .38 Heavy Duty concept and maybe a little faster powder like Unique. Killed one jug at 100 yards with an extra round of this stuff, but mainly wiped out the accumulated bottle stash with random .38 ammo - the hard science comes after deer season.
I got the K22 out of Purgatory earlier in the week. I figured out pretty quick why (probably) it was on consignment - cylinder endshake allowing the cylinder to move forward under the spring pressure from the extractor rod, causing its face to bind against the rear of the barrel and create a bit of excessive headspace at the rear. Bound up significantly from round #1. Fortunately, my office has service manuals and a yoke-stretcher that I'm not afraid to use. All better now.
While I have my 4" M63 and Pre-18, I'm really liking the extra sight radius on this one - especially as a training tool. The post/notch combo is very well proportioned on this thing - it gives you really good feedback
My Dad's got an old coworker who's husband drinks A LOT of bottled water, and we get the bottles to refill. Experience has taught me that .22 solids are not very satisfying on these, so I dug into my stash of hollowpoints. These cause them to pop spectacularly, making for a nice giggle-fest.
Came to the range feeling a little strung out from a mostly sleepless night and left feeling recharged. Ahh, the restorative effects of gunfire! Looks like I'll be keeping them both.
Very cool you corrected the headspace by stretching the yoke, I had no idea such a thing could be done, learned something today.
I haven't pulled the sideplate off that gun yet - when I pull it down again, I'll try to snap a pic to outline the process.
But basically the tool started life as one of those copper pipe cutters that use a screw thread to gradually press two roller wheels toward a cutting wheel with the pipe in between. On this tool, the cutting wheel has been replaced with a hardened steel roller that's maybe 1/10th of an inch wide. You support the yoke with the provided mandrel insert and squeeze around its circumference about 1/8th inch forward of it's rear face. Proceed carefully/gradually until your front-to-rear cylinder play goes away.
The old-school, more nail-bitey way to do it is to similarly support the inside of the yoke, and then **** around the circumference. They make cutting tools to reface the yoke afterwards. All of this too ballsy for me - at least I ain't about to learn it on these guns. Maybe on a rusted out Model 10...
Bill Ruger made such a strong gun I can't resist making some full power for it. But its not what I typically reach for.
The Devil On My Shoulder is whispering softly about .357 Redhawks. With Ruger's typical construction and the lack of S&W's sexy - but lighter - tapered barrel, the weight of that gun should nicely tame the more ferocious .357 loads.
The other avenue of appeal is that the big frame guns are so mild with standard .38's that I'll be able to shoot them well into advanced decrepitude.
OK. . .the auto censor has a problem with p e e n, as in "ball-p e e n hammer"
Moderators, you might want to look into correcting that one. Common in use of discussing gunsmithing. You remember the problems we had with half-cock, full-cock, etc...
I stretched the yoke on a Model 28 with a tool I made myself. A big improvement and about a $5 repair. I dulled the wheel on a cheap tube cutter with a round file and it worked fine. It's the way S&W repairs an end shake.
Concealed carry is for protection, open carry is for attention.
OK. . .the auto censor has a problem with p e e n, as in "ball-p e e n hammer"
Moderators, you might want to look into correcting that one. Common in use of discussing gunsmithing. You remember the problems we had with half-cock, full-cock, etc...
This was noted some time ago, and has yet to be fixed. I don't even pretend to understand the why of it...
-Zorba, "The Veiled Male"
"If you get it and didn't work for it, someone else worked for it and didn't get it..."
If you guys ever saw the list of “prohibited” words your head would explode. I once spent 4 hours cleaning it and barely made a dent. Someone took a severe short cut and just cobbled together multiple lists they must have gotten from different places so the same word and a ridiculous amount of variations for EACH word including misspellings will show up in a bunch of different places and it’s like impossible to keep track of what you’ve cleaned up. Basically a lazy attempt at meeting a requirement…. I never saw so many creative ways to spell bitch.
Oh, and mods don’t have access to it. It has to be done by admins and IT (which are basically ghosts here) so I only got access ONCE working with Concho kid and I cleaned it the best I could for words that had already been requested. So they bear no responsibility on that one.
Replies
It's not an original Tyler-T (got outbid on a couple of those) but rather the currently available BK Grips polymer version. NO WAY am I taking off the original numbered Magnas. Trying to track down an original Pachmayr version - same concept but without the finger groove, but that's proving a difficult hunt. This'll do for now.
The fitted front, cylinder retaining sideplate screw had in fact been swapped with the next one to the rear, which was the reason for the tight opening. Locations reversed and all now right with the world.
YE GADS did they do a nice job fitting this one. ZERO endshake on the cylinder and the cylinder stop locks it up early and with plenty of both DA and SA travel to spare. The DA sear appears to still be polishing itself in (I can fix that with a good dose of lube and a long run of wadcutters). The SA trigger is somewhere in the 3-4 pound range and is PERFECT. Chambers look to be mirrors. Chamber THROATS look to be mirrors, which makes this bullet caster VERY happy. Will probably scrub it out good and get it pin-gauged while it's still super clean, but I'll get you guys a range report by week's end.
(Insert school-girl like squeal here.
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
4 out of 6 inside of 2" at 25 yards - that'll do for starters.
Here's a good study in old eyes right here:
I seem to be able to center up the middle blur consistently between the two side blurs for windage, but figuring out where the top edge of the middle blur is makes elevation a bit more problematic without the aid of real daylight.
The grip adapter crowded the knuckle of the middle finger - it's gone.
Shot some 130 grain standard velocity .38's through it in addition to the .357 / 175gr / 2400 workups. The big N-frame is a complete pussycat with those. Time to chrono and figure out where I really want to be.
I REALLY like this one! Too darn pretty and hard to replace for EDC - hopefully the stainless GP-100 doesn't find out I'm cheating on her.
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
I like a diamond shaped bullseye if Im having vision issues.
I run my 686 with magmas minus an adapter, but its a round butt. Everyone's hands are different.
Yep. She's got soul - and some of the quirks that go with one. True to form on the Pre-Model number revolvers, the RHT extractor rod worked loose when I started shooting. Reassembled that with some low strength Loctite, so hopefully that won't be an issue again. Got the sideplate off to check clean/lube status. . .and just to look around. Not QUITE the level of polish you see on the stuff from 20 years and more prior, but yeah. . .I like this stuff.
That's where I'm wracking my brain, and the versatility of the .357 is kinda kicking my butt. The gun is SWEET with standard .38's and I can produce wadcutters from a 10-cavity HG#50 mold- - - -BUT, not really what this gun is about. Full-blown fireballers aren't necessary, and I'm starting to see the onset of the arthritis issues in my own hands that have been plaguing my Pop, so there's definitely an interest in keeping what I have. Probably going to end up with that 175 grainer around 1000 to 1100 fps, which will outdistance and outpenetrate anything in the duty-auto category. Gonna have to chrono the workup experiment, but that's on hold until after deer season.
It's weird. In actual daylight when my pupils pinch down, I can function pistol irons about as well as I always have with my distance prescription - it's the light on the indoor range at work that's murder. It may also be a case where added distance may help visually. Also not a fan of shooting handguns from a rest and have to add material to the not-revolver-ready ones I have to prevent cylinder gap blast from shredding them. All combined, not conducive to really show what she is capable of.
The perfect grip for me on this thing would extend off the bottom of the frame like S&W targets, leave both the frontstrap and backstrap exposed like Magnas, and fill most of the gap behind the triggerguard - which would be a WEIRD set of stocks...
No. Getting a period duty rig for this thing crossed my mind, but I'm not QUITE that into the archaeology ofit. I use DA revolvers quite a lot to correct the brains of folks who yank their triggers on seeing a good sight alignment/picture and old school combat reload technique to those who carry a wheelie as a backup, but that all gets done with the stainless guns I can set down and forget for weeks if I get distracted. Nylon serves for all of that.
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
A scribe named Mike Venturino wrote a piece once about the old guns sometimes preffering a RNFP shape to the SWC.
Could be a softer alloy might help too.
Science and trial....
Yesterday was the first proper range day in real daylight (SIGHTS! I see them now!) Dad needed to zero a deer rifle and I needed a chill-out day. I was able to chronograph my 175 grain WFN / 2400 test loads:
I'm really starting to get a deeper grasp of what has been said for decades - if you're only going to have one handgun, a middle barrel length .357 is pretty hard to top. While my comfort for volume shooting starts to wane as that bullet passes 1100 fps, I know from my 9mm experiments that heavy WFN's in this diameter at these speeds are plenty of medicine. Creeping up on 1150fps with my top load of 12.1gr / 2400, they're getting brisk, but would still be a fine hunting load - or an all day load for someone with springier wrist joints than me. Since it looks like I probably won't need the .357's case capacity for where I want to be, I'm currently thinking to revisit the project with Elmer Keith's .38 Heavy Duty concept and maybe a little faster powder like Unique. Killed one jug at 100 yards with an extra round of this stuff, but mainly wiped out the accumulated bottle stash with random .38 ammo - the hard science comes after deer season.
I got the K22 out of Purgatory earlier in the week. I figured out pretty quick why (probably) it was on consignment - cylinder endshake allowing the cylinder to move forward under the spring pressure from the extractor rod, causing its face to bind against the rear of the barrel and create a bit of excessive headspace at the rear. Bound up significantly from round #1. Fortunately, my office has service manuals and a yoke-stretcher that I'm not afraid to use. All better now.
While I have my 4" M63 and Pre-18, I'm really liking the extra sight radius on this one - especially as a training tool. The post/notch combo is very well proportioned on this thing - it gives you really good feedback
My Dad's got an old coworker who's husband drinks A LOT of bottled water, and we get the bottles to refill. Experience has taught me that .22 solids are not very satisfying on these, so I dug into my stash of hollowpoints. These cause them to pop spectacularly, making for a nice giggle-fest.
Came to the range feeling a little strung out from a mostly sleepless night and left feeling recharged. Ahh, the restorative effects of gunfire! Looks like I'll be keeping them both.
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
Say the word I can help you there.
Birthday present
I doubt my every day load of a 158gr lead swc runs more than 1200fps. Likely closer to 1100..
Bill Ruger made such a strong gun I can't resist making some full power for it. But its not what I typically reach for.
Hornady just started marketing a monoflex 130gr load. Super cool looking bullets. Rated just over 1200fps. Should be mild recoil and flash.
That don't even count all the 38+p stuff.
But basically the tool started life as one of those copper pipe cutters that use a screw thread to gradually press two roller wheels toward a cutting wheel with the pipe in between. On this tool, the cutting wheel has been replaced with a hardened steel roller that's maybe 1/10th of an inch wide. You support the yoke with the provided mandrel insert and squeeze around its circumference about 1/8th inch forward of it's rear face. Proceed carefully/gradually until your front-to-rear cylinder play goes away.
The old-school, more nail-bitey way to do it is to similarly support the inside of the yoke, and then **** around the circumference. They make cutting tools to reface the yoke afterwards. All of this too ballsy for me - at least I ain't about to learn it on these guns. Maybe on a rusted out Model 10...
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
The other avenue of appeal is that the big frame guns are so mild with standard .38's that I'll be able to shoot them well into advanced decrepitude.
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
Moderators, you might want to look into correcting that one. Common in use of discussing gunsmithing. You remember the problems we had with half-cock, full-cock, etc...
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
It’s a °IIIII° thing 😎
It’s a °IIIII° thing 😎