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Did you know they made arched grips for 3rd gen S&W autos?
I do now!
Model 915 before:
Model 915 after:
I have long thought that the 59, x59 and 59xx series of guns needed an arched grip, and I was blissfully unaware that you could fix the 59xx guns!
Allegedly, there's a replacement, arched, backstrap for the 59 and x59 guns, but I have only seen a couple pictures, never the part for sale.
Willard's M1956A2 in modern furniture with a more minimalist rear sight:
It tips the scales at 10.7 lb. loaded.
With retro furniture.
Same weight with the PMAG. A bit heavier with steel.
Turns out that handguard I thought I had laying around here was never actually purchased.
There was once a plan to use it on what became the M16A4 clone when I moved from having two 6.8 guns to one.
I got the KAS M5 handguard instead and did USGI A2 stock and grip instead of the Magpul rifle stuff in OD.
Well, Brownell's has the handguard on sale, so...
Should be here Friday.
I've said before that idle hands and spare parts are the devils gunsmithy.
So is leaving a rifle here unmentioned for years.
I got Willard's modern AR-10 running again and we promptly forgot it in my closet.
My parts bin is full of modern AR furniture.
Since the BRN-10 has supplanted the retro goal of this AR, and since changing the furniture is 100% reversible; I'm dropping an OD green Magpul bomb on his AR-10!
Just for photos.
Just need to find that rifle length handguard I've misplaced.
Took Willard's Astra 600/43 to the range to find out if he'd wasted his money on KKK Triple K magazines.
He hasn't.
Each magazine handled a full load of 7-rounds of 115gr Tulammo steel case with aplomb.
Fed no problem, locked to the rear on empty, the whole deal.
I still shoot the thing way low, but that's not a magazine issue.
It's still an unpleasant gun to shoot. 9mm isn't meant to be a blow-back round.
Got two Triple-K magazines for Willard's Astra 600/43.
Well, Willard got them and had Marv drop them off.
I don't know if they feed yet, but... Both will hand cycle snap caps.
Magazine 1 will not insert on a closed slide when empty.
Magazine 2 will, but will not engage the slide lock.
I also checked and the M7/M9 holster is still the king of universal fit!
First, you put the gun in the back after getting done shooting it.
Second, the car has a complete electrical failure that keeps you from opening any but the driver's door.
Third, you have it towed to a shop to figure out the electrical failure.
Fourth, you fall and break your leg.
Fifth, the world panics around a flu-like disease that nearly everyone survives but we still keep the panic going for... reasons.
Sixth, just as you're starting to recover from the broken leg, you erase all progress you've made so far by slipping and falling again... No new breaks, but lots of pulled muscles.
So, when you finally get to the point where you can face the mechanic, whom has not just had the thing towed to the scrap yard...
It's been three years.
Rule 1 of old guns: don't forget/lose them in the back of your car for three years.
Rule 2 of old guns: rust never sleeps.
Got Mr Fleetwood's, lost-but-now-is-found Astra 600/43 functioning again.
In typical German fashion, the Spanish designers made the collar that locks the spring to the slide a nice RC4 fit to the barrel.
A drop of water, a leather holster to hold that moisture in, hot car interior...
No slide on the slide.
Since the slide was loose on the frame, it had to be the collar and barrel locked up.
A careful tap on the collar got it freed up and some Iosso paste took out the rust and returned the RC4 fit.
Huzzah!
She's now cleaned and oiled!
In a sad note, verdigris has consumed the ammo which was with the gun when Willard brought it over.
I think I'll work some mink-oil into the holster too. It's rarer than the gun!
Willard has relocated the missing Astra 600/43!
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| File Photo |
We endeavored to persevere and tried the range in the evening.
No line, no waiting for the rifle range.
Marv's $40 airsoft EOTech fraud nearly got us kicked out because it was so off center he shot the right side wall of the range.
I wasn't even there! I was in the restroom!
After our lecture from the range officer Marv aimed downrange and I could see his barrel was still to the right after he put a bunch of turns on the knob.
More turns and the point of aim at least vaguely resembled the barrel's direction and he shot a wide group from the center to far left edge of the target.
Moving back right worked twice, but then went left again.
Something was clearly wrong, so we quit the EOFake. Once he got home, Marv found that the screw for the quick-release mount had come loose and the scope was free to move about. He's probably going to try zeroing it again. I think he should relax and let the hooks do their work and get a Vortex Srikefire or SparcAR.
I confirmed the post-fall-from-the-bed zero to terrazzo floor on Brenda. I did this because after the fall, the irons and the red-dot no longer agreed.
Cranking the dot back onto the irons proved to be correct and she's zeroed out to 100 yards again now.
Hoping the range was going to be as vacant as it was, I took Willard's Marlin Camp Carbine for a function check.
Shoots low and centered for me and low and centered for Marv.
The sights are basic and hard for my blind eyes to lock onto.
But a very neat carbine, lots of fun I think.
If it were my gun I'd get a Picatinny rail section for the drilled and tapped top-deck and plant a red-dot there.
But, even so, getting old has a price and red-dots are growing ever less distinct for me as the astigmatism gets worse.
We started off with the Kahr CT45 then changed to a Colt Mk.IV Series 80.
My shots are on the left, Marv's on the right. Ammo selection was random brand 230gr FMJ. I was trying to shoot about as fast as I could get the sights on, Marv reports he was being very careful with the first two or three, but then speeding up as he went through the magazine.
I am so rusty. It's clear that I am not fully recovered from my injuries and am also out of practice. The only cure is to get to the range more often.
The CT45 is just; strange. It's like a double action but still a single... The LONG trigger pull means extra focus on the sights while you're pulling, and the gun wants to nose down while you're doing it. Marv was better at correcting this tendency than I was.
Next we shot the Star Model PD and my Ithaca/Remington-Rand M1911A1.
The shooting low thing appears to be my glasses tricking me about getting the front sight in line with the rear.
Next is a S&W M&P 45C and a SIG-Sauer P220.
I can see the rust is starting to fall off a bit now. I'm definitely liking the SIG better as time goes on. After the harshness of the PD and Kahr, it was very soft shooting.
Now we get a 2nd Gen Glock 21 and a CZ Cz97B.
The Glock was remembering an old friend. I've put a ton of rounds through that pipe. Surprising was the CZ. Soft shooting, well mannered and accurate.
Finally, not even a pistol, the mighty S&W 625-3 Model of 1989!
If ever there was a revolver that didn't fit me as it is, it's this one. With practice, I bet I could greatly improve this group. This gun breaks funny. I can't really put my finger on it, even Marv commented that it wasn't breaking where he expected.
What did we learn?
We learned that even average shooters, such our ourselves, can get minute of bad-guy at 7 yards with virtually any .45 ACP gun we can readily lay our hands on.
We shoot the bigger guns better than the smaller ones.
Neither of us is very good double action.
Why do I have a replica Colt 1851 in .44 here?
Because Willard wondered if the holster we'd originally ordered for the Colt New Service would work with it.
It did.
I'm still confused as to why the gun came here instead of the holster going there.
I appreciate the chance to play with it, though.
Marv disagrees, but I prefer the looks of the later 1860 and its blended barrel to the slab sided 1851.
And looking is pretty much all I'd ever do. Black powder's popularity and accessibility appears to have waned dramatically compared to even just a few years ago.
Everyone forgets the M1917 when talking about US Mauser clones.
It's got a similar genesis as the M1903, "Wow, that 7x57mm Mauser sure was keen! Let's copy it to replace our current rifle. But let's change the cartridge... And the... And the..."
The Brits made a lot more changes than we did when copying the Mauser action, but that's what they were doing when making the Pattern 1913. That became the Pattern 1914 when they decided it wasn't prudent to switch calibers in mid-war (ask Italy and Japan about this and they would agree), but did want more rifles please. NOW, please.
Once their emergency needs were met, we realized that we didn't have near enough of our primary rifle to be in a war as well. So the Pattern 14 gets made in .30-06 and viola! M1917.
It's got controlled feeding:
And it takes stripper clips.
Fun fact: Because the magazine well on the P.14 was made to accept five rounds of rimmed .303 British ammo, it can accept six rounds of .30-06, plus one in the chamber.
Like most pistols that stay in production long enough the P220 has changed a bit over the years.
So, I took some pictures! Thanks once again to The Chomps Collection for the loan of the newer gun.
The newer gun appears to have abandoned the heavy-gauge sheet metal construction for the slide.
The Lovely Harvey finds the plastic stocks more comfortable and less "slippy". She continued to think so even after I mansplained the existence of textures on the 2010 model that she was already aware of.
She prefers the looks of the wood. It's hard to argue with that!
Though, maybe not an actual, real Mauser...
It shows all the earmarks of originally being an FN made Venezuelan contract gun it's a Golden State Arms Santa Fe Deluxe Mauser.
At any rate, it does show the similarity to the M1903A3.
Controlled round feeding.
Because it's converted from a military rifle, there's a stripper clip guide, assuming you want to remove the scope to use it.
The bolts are very similar:
The Santa Fe gun has an aftermarket safety so that you can mount a scope.
We're continuing the comparison from this post by adding a Winchester pre-64 Model 70 and a definitely post-64 Model 670.
All three guns came with iron sights. Of note, though, is while the Model 70 comes ready for scope mounting from the factory, that stock is dropped for the irons. The 670 has a raised comb that makes you really have to scrunch your cheeks to get down on the irons.
I've compared the 54 to the 70 before.
The pre-64 Model 70's bolt is so very similar to the 54 that they nearly interchange. As such, it's a controlled round feed design.
Neither gun can be fed from stripper clips.
The 670 is an even more de-contented version of the post-64 Model 70. As such, it is a push-feed.
What does that mean?
Controlled feed means that the round pops up into the bolt face with the extractor already in the groove. It is held, and controlled by the bolt and the extractor all the way into the chamber. You can chamber a round with the gun upside down.
Push-feed doesn't control the round until the cartridge case's shoulder hits the chamber and the extractor clicks over the rim as the bolt is closed. If you try to chamber a round upside down, the round will fall out of the action.
But you can see how many fewer parts and machine operations are needed to make a push-feed bolt here:
Fewer parts and operations make a gun less costly to make and thus make it more affordable.
Gun writers hated this change to make the Model 70 more competitive with the Remington Model 700, which is also a push-feed design. I've compared the pre-64 70 to the 670 before too.
The Winchester Model 54 and Remington M1903A3 have a lot in common and many differences.
Both have controlled round feeding.
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| L: M190A3 R: Model 54 |
Model 54:
M1903A3:
Both have 5+1 capacities and can be loaded from stripper clips.
Model 54:
M1903A3:
Both guns are clearly influenced by Mauser. The M1903 to the point of having to pay for patent infringement to the losers of a war.
The bolts are different. The ejector locations are not the same and there's no safety lug on the Winchester. The safeties work the same, but the Winchester has a shorter throw thanks to an aftermarket upgrade to clear a third-party scope that's no longer present.
