Thursday, March 29, 2007
Night sights
We're back from Texas and I have a buttload of pictures to post of the re-enactment. I'll get around to it this weekend.
What I wanted to comment on was night sights. The night before last I took a Commander (painted sights), a Colt Gummint (rip-off Novak's), and the S&W 1911 (real Novak's) and tried flash sight shit in a dark room. The results were surprising.
Best in show was the Commander with, what I thought, was a Hillbilly-Bob paint job on the sights. Lights out and they were clear as day. I contrasted by putting yellow-green on the rear dots and orange on the front. Both showed up wonderfully.
The other two basically sucked. I could see the Colt, but in a bad situation it would be a hindrance not a help. The Smith (with real Novak's) I couldn't see at all.
Of course, I'm over-zealous and felt like repainting every handgun sight in the house. I held off to see if there some advantages to unpainted sights that I am yet unaware of.
UPDATE: I forgot to link to the original post and the Brownell's page that I scored the shit off of. Apologies.
What I wanted to comment on was night sights. The night before last I took a Commander (painted sights), a Colt Gummint (rip-off Novak's), and the S&W 1911 (real Novak's) and tried flash sight shit in a dark room. The results were surprising.
Best in show was the Commander with, what I thought, was a Hillbilly-Bob paint job on the sights. Lights out and they were clear as day. I contrasted by putting yellow-green on the rear dots and orange on the front. Both showed up wonderfully.
The other two basically sucked. I could see the Colt, but in a bad situation it would be a hindrance not a help. The Smith (with real Novak's) I couldn't see at all.
Of course, I'm over-zealous and felt like repainting every handgun sight in the house. I held off to see if there some advantages to unpainted sights that I am yet unaware of.
UPDATE: I forgot to link to the original post and the Brownell's page that I scored the shit off of. Apologies.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Range Report and Weeklong signoff
Made it out to the range last Thursday. Overall I was very pleased with the S&W 1911. I had several failure to extracts, which is what I was afraid of. On the other hand, the gun is the tightest I've seen as far as an out of the box 1911. I think further shooting should vindicate the gun, but I still have my hesitations about a pinned extractor.
As to the Taurus Thunderbolt, that was a resounding success. The first time we took it out, the Old Man's .45 Colt reloads were taking as many as 3 hits to fire. That lot was loaded with the Large Pistol/Magnum Winchester primers. Loaded a batch with CCI's in the mean time and there didn't seem to be a problem.
Other than that, we are shipping out in the morning for a weekend hiatus in a small town in Texas. There's a WWII memorabilia swap meet, a full fucking re-enactment of a battle (3 hr.s), and there is a national gun show in a neighboring town.
We'll be back on Tuesday and post pics and links.
As to the Taurus Thunderbolt, that was a resounding success. The first time we took it out, the Old Man's .45 Colt reloads were taking as many as 3 hits to fire. That lot was loaded with the Large Pistol/Magnum Winchester primers. Loaded a batch with CCI's in the mean time and there didn't seem to be a problem.
Other than that, we are shipping out in the morning for a weekend hiatus in a small town in Texas. There's a WWII memorabilia swap meet, a full fucking re-enactment of a battle (3 hr.s), and there is a national gun show in a neighboring town.
We'll be back on Tuesday and post pics and links.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Took the leap...
And bought a S&W 1911. I've been warned off the new designs because they have not undergone sufficient market scrutiny.
I've had a SIG obsession for a couple of years, but after Christmas, my brother bought one. It's a nice gun but differs not at all from other Euro-de-cocking pistols. I've never strayed from Colt and Springfield as far as 1911s go, but I was looking pretty hard at the SIG or a Kimber.
Picked the Smith up from the FFL today.
It's a full frame, with ambidextrous thumb safeties and a memory bumb grip safety. Grips are rubber and it's a pretty comprehensive beaver-tail scoop. The trigger has a bit of over-travel, but feels good outside of that.
The extractor is what weirded me out.
It's an exterior extractor. It doesn't even show up on the back of the slide.
The only thing that really worries me about this is that the extractor is not held at the back of the slide. Instead, it appears to be pinned halfway up to the ejection port. In my experience, pins in this area have a tendency to loosen or just plain abandon ship.
Obviously, the mounting rail made a difference in my choice. On the other end, I was pleased to find it fits a standard holster, even with the rail.
Range day should be Wednesday or Thursday and a full review will be up after that.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Extractor fitting
The 1911 build actually had its first bit of progress this weekend. The extractor I've been trying to fit for 3 months finally went in. As I quickly dispatched it to the Old Man, I have no pictures. However, I have learned some lessons.
Needless to say, this took a lot longer than it should have. It's a fucking extractor for crying out loud. I sanded away at it, weekend after weekend, to no avail. This is what I learned.
-Use a Sharpie and darken all of the contact points on the part. Ram that motherfucker in until you have positive points of friction. Rub there and nowhere else. Rinse, repeat.
-Emory cloth gets tired quick. If you are rubbing a part with worn out paper, you are wasting your time. The shit's cheap so use it while you are actually taking metal off and then discard it. I found myself using month-old cloth for hours on end. It doesn't do any good.
I screwed around with this part for months and finally watched a video. Within 48 hours I had it done.
Next up, I'm fitting the trigger and the Old Man is dinking the slide parts to fit. To the best of my knowledge, I should be done with slide work.
Hopefully, I'll be able to post on actual progress with this project on a more regular basis.
Needless to say, this took a lot longer than it should have. It's a fucking extractor for crying out loud. I sanded away at it, weekend after weekend, to no avail. This is what I learned.
-Use a Sharpie and darken all of the contact points on the part. Ram that motherfucker in until you have positive points of friction. Rub there and nowhere else. Rinse, repeat.
-Emory cloth gets tired quick. If you are rubbing a part with worn out paper, you are wasting your time. The shit's cheap so use it while you are actually taking metal off and then discard it. I found myself using month-old cloth for hours on end. It doesn't do any good.
I screwed around with this part for months and finally watched a video. Within 48 hours I had it done.
Next up, I'm fitting the trigger and the Old Man is dinking the slide parts to fit. To the best of my knowledge, I should be done with slide work.
Hopefully, I'll be able to post on actual progress with this project on a more regular basis.
