Don't cry for me, Smith and Wesson...

A friend that I invited to the range brought his gun. Not much of a shooter, he got ther gun for home defense from someone who owed him money. I saw it and thought I was going to be sick.

It's a Smith and Wesson 686 "pre-lock" that some Bubba decided had too many sharp edges, so he ground down the hammer...

He also removed the front sight with a grinder, then took it to the top strap after removing the adjustable sight base. Even filled in the notch where the old sight base used to set.

And this is how you turn a $1200 factory snub nose .357 Magnum revolver into a parts kit.

He also lightened the trigger, probably by cutting coils off the hammer spring, so that if misfires about 50% of the time. But hey--it's easy to draw from a pocket now, right?

Sigh...

27 new Thompsons in circulation

St. Louis Police Department is sensibly bringing in some hard cash to upgrade their officers' defensive weapons.

St. Louis police sell surplus weapons, including Tommy guns, for $1.2 million

So twenty seven of these historic shooters are now going out to collectors and the city's making some serious bank.

This is so much better than the time back in the early 90's that the City of Detroit held a press conference and smashed ten of these collectible guns with a roller as an anti-crime publicity stunt, saying that they were committed to keeping dangerous weapons off the streets. (They then turned around and sold all of their .38 Special revolvers to a nationally-known distributor for $15 each and they popped up in about every wholesaler's catalog within weeks.)

(Here's the one I bought shortly thereafter, complete with DPD markings.)

I think that in celebration of St. Louis wise decision, I shall take my Thompson out to shoot this week.

Let the sound of freedom be heard!

New rifle score!

I've been looking for one of these for years. Found one every now and again, but they always shot out of my hands price-wise. Not this one though. I finally nailed one.

A Marlin 1894 FG. In the most awesome caliber.

.41 Magnum. Or ".41 Remington Magnum" if you want to be precise.

A great caliber, created by great men and great American companies. Alas, it fell victim to the concurrent rise of the .44 Magnum, which got a major boost from a movie cop named "Dirty Harry", who blew bad guys and audiences away with his Smith and Wesson Model 629. There were other problems too, like Remington trying to boost it's velocity to the point where it became impractical for law enforcement and self-defense, but the result was that the .41 withered on the vine despite being a ballistic work of art, and today it's carried and admired by a small cult following, and I'm a proud member.

My favorite N-Frame Smith, the Model 58.

Took me forever to find that one too.

The problem with these guns is that not many were made. Marlin has not made this rifle in .41 Magnum in 15 years and they draw a premium when sold, and many of these are being hoarded as collectors' pieces and not shot. But what's the point of a gun that you aren't going to shoot? My Model 58 is beat to tar, but it shoots well and I shoot it a lot. This rifle has a few small handling dings but is still 98% or so. Still, the seller told me that at least two people passed on it because he'd drilled the stock to mount a sling. They thought it ruined the collectibility. To the contrary, I thought it saved me the trouble. I plan to shoot this rifle and carry it afield in company with the Model .58.

There are advantages to a rifle and pistol using the same cartridge. It's easier logistically to just carry one round that works on both, and the rifle's longer barrel gives greater range and velocity over the handgun. Plus it's just plain "Cowboy Cool".


I already have one carbine/pistol combo consisting of a Marlin 1894 and a Smith and Wesson Model 66, both in .357 Magnum. I love that set-up for hiking and camping. And now I have a big-bore option for those trips. Or for my wanderings down Bourbon Street.

Lucas McCain, eat yer heart out.

Long overdue range day

Got out to the range today for some long overdue practice.

I took a pair of pistols--a Smith and Wesson Model 57 in .41 Magnum, and a Ruger LCP in .380.

Yeah, a bit of a size difference. And the cartridges are a bit different as well:

The LCP was shooting factory .380 rounds consisting of 95gr. bullets traveling at about 960fps. The .41 rounds were a bit heavier at 215 grains, and they were running about 1250fps per my chronygraph. They grouped well and hit just a couple of inches below point of aim from 20 yards, but I'm still experimenting and I'd like to get the velocity up just a bit more and raise the point of impact a bit to boot.

Bruce, a newer shooter, came out with me to work with his M&P Shield. He's definitely getting better with practice as he becomes more comfortable with it.

He also had this nifty CMP Service Grade Special M-1:

Nice gun. It's one of the ones that the CMP built on a refinished receiver with a new barrel, in this case, a Springfield Armory WW2 serial number and an SA 3/65 barrel.

It has new wood on it that's been causing problems because it is binding on the operating rod and causing the rifle to short-stroke and fail to pick up subsequent rounds from the magazine. I already sanded the rod channel once, but apparently I didn't quite sand enough, and I missed another spot on the left where the rod is still rubbing the wood.

I'm hearing from other CMP shooters that this isn't uncommon, and while I'm glad to see Boyds Gunstocks making these for the CMP, I do wish that they'd make them right. But now Bruce knows where to sand, and hopefully the next time out the rifle will be functioning as flawlessly as a new M1 should.

Meanwhile, Bruce, a brand new shooter, is already putting every round on target at 100 yards.

I had my Spanish 1895 Mauser (cal. 7mm) out to pay with when not spotting for Bruce.

Nothing special here--just a long rifle made at the Ovideo arsenal in 1931.

It wasn't expensive and it looks and shoots nice, so I have no complaints.

At the end of the session, all rounds fired were accounted for on the target. Grouping cound have been a bit better, but I blame myself today, not the rifle.

And as we all know, any day at the range beats any day at work any time.


And back in Alaska:

It's currently Dallas Seavey back in the lead, with Aaron Burmiester in second place just three minutes behind him and Aliy Zirle third. All three have reached Koyuk, as has Jessie Royer, who holds fourth.
Mitch Seavey is in fifth, Martin Buser is back in 20th, the Berington twins are 32nd (Anna) and 33rd (Kristy), Alan Moore is in 47th place and presently in the Kaltag checkpoint--shocking for the guy who just barely took second place in last month's Yukon Quest--and Lisbet Norris has dropped was back to 62nd.

Every musher has dropped at least one dog by now and three mushers are down to 9 dogs each: Nathan Schroeder in 15th, Katherine Kieth in 40th, and Marcelle Fressineau in 57s, still at the Nulato checkpoint. Gotta have 8 dogs to finish.

The four leaders are less than 200 miles from Nome, so we're likely to see a finish sometime tomorrow night or early Wednesday.

Update: As of 2199hrs EST, Dallas Seavey is the first musher out of the Koyuk checkpoint. He rested there for 4hrs, 14 minutes and dropped one dog, leaving him 11 to finish.

One Of These Guns Is Not Like The Others.

One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?

Clockwise from upper left: Smith and Wesson Model 66, Smith and Wesson Model 13, Smith and Wesson Model 19, Smith and Wesson Model 10

Bonus points to anyone who gets it before Tam comes along and solves it.


Edited: No, it's NOT color. We don't discriminate here at Lagniappe's Lair.

Back to business as usual.

Aaron left this morning, the last of the blogshooters to head home. He stayed a couple of extra days to drink whiskey and binge-watch Breaking Bad with me and the dogs. Keads left yesterday after stopping by the visit the hounds, who, upon figuring out that he had some peanut-butter dog cookies in his pocket that Nancy made for them, promptly bum-rushed him, which Belle actually going into his pocket and taking them as he worked to fend Murphy off from the front.

They did eventually remember their manners and play nice though...after the cookies had been seized. Nancy--you'll need to send them more. They really, really like them.

Yesterday, Aaron and I got a bit more range time in, and then we went to see the movie Fury dwn at the Alamo drafthouse, a place where while you watch the movie, they bring you dinner and drinks to your seat.

At the range, we shot pistols a bit, including two that I'd brought to the shoot but not fired.
I started out with the S&W Model 1917 .45acp revolver that I had fired at the blogshoot, although this time I had decent ammo for it and no squib loads interrupted my pin-shooting.

I do love this pistol the more that I shoot it--it hits point-of-aim perfectly on the 25-yard line.

At the shoot, I'd also been carrying a back-up to that .45 in the form of a Glock 21, a slightly more modern .45 pistol. It didn't get shot at the blogshoot but it sure got shot yesterday.

It shoots a bit high, so I need to shoot with a six o'clock hold to bust clays at 25M with it, but it wasn't designed or bought by me to be a precision clay-buster; it was meant to hit goblin-sized targets with 14 rounds of .45 defensive loads, and it'll definitely do that just fine, which is why it usually resides on my nightstand next to my bed.

Then there was the black-powder underhammer, a .44 caliber single-shot percussion pistol that was made for Numerich Arms back in the 1960's. And yes, that's the hammer on the bottom. I'd brought it to the shoot to show Nancy but mistakenly brought .50 lead balls instead of .44 ones, so it didn't get shot.

It got shot this time though, as both of us put it through it's paces. I was able to hit the steel plates with it and knock them down when I did my part.
Here's Aaron with it.

Cool, eh?

Now everyone's gone, and it's just me and the dogs again. So I'm spending the rest of this morning drinking the few beers that we had left and cleaning a ton of guns...while watching Tim McCoy in good old American westerns. Ask your grandparents who he was, kids...or ask Old NFO. (I heard that they roomed together in college before the war.)

A shooty good day

Because I was out of the powder that I normally use for .38 Special, I decided to try my luck with Hodgdon Titegroup because a local shop had a pound handy. I already have a couple thousand 158gr. cast lead semi-wadcutter hollowpoints just sitting around waiting to be loaded, and since the Hodgdon manuals suggest 3.8gr. of Titegroup under that bullet for 920fps, it seemed like a good load to try.

I took my two .38 revolvers out, the 4" Model 10 and the 1&7/8" Model 642, to see how they like the load.

The first six rounds fired from the Model ten felt good, and the cases looked good--no primer flattening or excess soot--and the target at 15 yards, standing two-handed...

We have a winner! I like this load.

It's a bit peppier in the light little 642, but not unpleasant. And while the 642 didn't shoot quite such a nice group, it still kept them all on the plate at 15 yards, so I'm happy. And now once the Dillon 550 is set up for this load, given a week or two, I'll have a .50 cal. ammo can chock full of new practice rounds.

Life, as they say, is good.

It's a dot!

A red dot.

Courtesy of a Crimson Trace LG-405 laser, newly mounted to my trusty Smith and Wesson Model 642.

Those of you who know me know that I'm a proud Luddite, slow to adopt new technology, so this is a quantum leap for me. But honestly. I can't wait to see how it works on the range.

And those of you who got on the laser bandwagon before I did, I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions.

Thanks, Keads.

Shooting!

My streak of no-shooting days ended today.

I had reason to head down to my range/FFL dealer (picking up the subject of tomorrow's post) so since I was going there, I decided to bring along a couple of handguns to shoot. Yeah, I'm not really walking or even standing good yet, but screw it--I wanted to shoot more than I wanted to not be sore later.

I brought these two out.

The top one is my Smith and Wesson US Model 1917 .45ACP revolver. I got it a few months ago but due to leg issues, hadn't shot it yet.
I remedied that today with ten moon clips full of .45 rounds.
The trigger was muddy and the cylinder dragged during double-action cocking (probably more due to the moon clips than the pistol itself) but it went "bang" every time and the rounds went where I wanted them to; it hits "point of aim" or close enough thereabouts. I have to say that the ergonomics of that old cavalry-style butt are pretty crummy compared to more modern pistols, but that aside, she still does the job that she was meant to do when she left the Smith and Wesson factory back in 1918, no doubt headed for US Army service in France. It shoots nice for what it is, and even though it's going to be a display piece and safe queen now, I'd still have no problem carrying it or relying on it as a primary defensive arm if it was all I could lay my mitts on. It does reload fast with those moon clips, let me tell ya.

Next pistol out was my Smith and Wesson Model 58 .41 Magnum. This pistol I truly love, especially with the new Pachmayr grips. I brought it out to empty some brass as I'd purchased a box of .41 mag ammo from an old fellow at the airport last fall only to get home and look at the rounds closer and discover that they were reloads. This wasn't a big deal as I got the ammo cheap and bought it mainly for the brass anyway, but it would have been nice to have some full-power factory loads to compare my handloads to. And the reloads shot pretty poorly, making me think that my skills (such as they are) had really atrophied since my last range date in December, but when they were gone, I shot some of my loads and actually started hitting where I was aiming again. This made me feel better and that's good, because I'm fixing to load up a few hundred rounds of .41 as soon as I get this brass prepped and my shoddy performance with those reloads was starting to make me think that I shouldn't bother. But my pet loads mirror those that Elmer Keith used to make and my Model 58 shines with those. Time to make some more!

And while the Model 1917 is a safe queen, this Model 58 gets carried a lot. In fact, it might even come along on a planned road trip in a couple of months. We'll see.

Now I'm home with two more pistols to clean. and I'm sore. But I'm happy in a way that only shooters can truly identify with. Happy.

Overdue Gun Pr0n--the S&W Model 1917

OK, I really can't get out to shoot them as I'd like to be able to, at least until I'm off the crutches, but I can still blog about them. And since we've seen more than a few revolver posts around the blogs as of late, posts which have displayed both Colt and Smith and Wesson products, the time has come for me to join in and share a gem that recently came my way--a Smith and Wesson Model 1917 revolver in .45 ACP.

Come the American entry into the First World War, we were short on pretty much everything that we could possibly have needed, in particular, the US Model 1911 .45 ACP semi-automatic pistol. Colt and Remington were making these pistols as fast as they could but production wasn't up to demand so the government went to both Colt and Smith and Wesson and ordered heavy-frame revolvers that both companies were already making for the civilian market and/or export, and had those revolvers chambered in the .45 ACP cartridge. A lanyard loop was added to the butt and the US Model of 1917 was born. I don't as of yet have a Colt version, but I lucked onto this Smith & Wesson not too long ago.

As you can see, this one still retains it's World War One blued finish, which is either original to this pistol or else it's a very old and very well-done re-blue. I honestly can't tell but I'm leaning towards the former. Many of these pistols were maintained in US inventory after the First World War and handed out again in World War Two, and most of those were refurbished at various US arsenals and given a parkerized finish, so finding a decent original blued model's a bit challenging these days.

This one also sports it's original military markings in the form of it's US Army designation on the butt:

A "United States Property" stamp on the bottom of it's 5.5" barrel".

and a "flaming ordnance bomb" inspector's stamp on the left side of the frame, just ahead of the hammer.

The cylinder is also serial-numbered to the revolver as is one of the two walnut grips, the other having been replaced by a proper grip with a non-matching number.

As these revolvers were originally designed for rimmed pistol cartridges--the Colt for the .45 Long Colt cartridge and the Smith for the .455 Webley--a way had to be created for the ejection of the new rimless .45 ACP cartridge. Smith and Wesson came up with the half-moon clip, and although they'd patented it, they graciously allowed Colt to use it in their pistols too, there being a war on and all. The half moon clip holds three rounds of the rimless cartridge and acts like a rim, giving the ejector star something to grab onto when it's time to eject the empties from the cylinder.

I haven't obtained any half-moon clips yet, but I do have these new full-moon clips, which hold six rounds instead of three.

Without such a clip, rounds may still be chambered and fired but they'll have to be driven out of the chambers individually with a stick, which is not exactly tactically optimum.

After World War One was over, Smith kept their new .45 revolver in production, selling them to civilians and police departments and exporting not a few to countries like Brazil. Smith and Wesson even brought it back a few years ago as the Model 22, Model of 1917, but it didn't sell too well, probably because they put that stupid safety lock keyhole on the side of it like they're doing with everything else that they make these days. (Boo!)

Still, there's plenty of old ones around, from original military versions to civilian models and returns from Brazil. They're popular with collectors and shooters and many revolver competitors use it's stepkid, the Model 625, in matches today.

These aren't small revolvers. With a 5.5" barrel, they're 10.8" long overall and they weigh 2.25lbs. unloaded. As such, it wouldn't be my first choice for a concealed-carry pistol, but I confess that on those rare occasions that I choose to open-carry, nothing says "cool" like a large-frame revolver and this one just might get such an outing or two, just for the hell of it.

These are great pistols and I look forward to getting out to the range to try this one out.

Heck, if it was good enough for Indiana Jones back when he was still cool...

Range Day!

Proud Hillbilly's Daughter and Son-in-Law D. are in town with their newish baby. PH decided to get D. out of the house today so she dropped him off at my place this morning and demanded that I take him shooting.

Gee. Twist my arm.

We started out wish some South African action, courtesy of my Uzi.

Then something a bit more sedate: pistols. D. had a sweet 1911A1 custom job that he uses for PPC matches. Just put the sights on the target and think the word "pull" and it sends rounds downrange quite consistently. Shame on me, but I didn't get a picture of that fine, fine pistol.

I just brought out these old Smith and Wessons.

Top: Model 19, .357 Magnum. Bottom: Model 10 heavy barrel .38 Special.
They shot flawlessly. Me, not so much. I put pretty much every round on my paper plates at 25 yards, but the grouping was nothing to brag about. More practice needed!

Then it was rifle time. The 100-yard line was occupied so we went down to the 400 yard line and set up. I let D. run the targets down while I watched the rifles.

The top rifle is a World War Two-dated Springfield Armory M1 Garand with a new 11-64-dated barrel.

This rifle was rebuilt in the 1960's and appears to have been put right into storage. It probably didn't see the light of day again until I got it from the CMP in the late 1990s.
Little to no wear at all in here:

Nice Dept. of Defense cartouche on the stock:

The bottom one is another WW2 vet--this one a British #4Mk1 Enfield made by Savage Arms Co. in Mass., USA. Since at the time, we were barred by our own silly laws and Isolationist policies from arming any country fighting a war, the fiction of "Lend Lease" was created. Under this scheme, we could "loan" surplus American equipment to other countries, so these British-pattern rifles were stamped "US Property" and "loaned" to Britain for the duration.

The "S" denotes Savage manufacture.

MOst of these rifles had really nice adjustable aperture rear sights, but this one just has a rather crude flip sight, with peeps for 300 and 600 yards meters.

We shot the Garand at 400 yards first. Both of us did fairly well, hitting high but on with the first clips, then after a target check and sight adjustment, we both were on target. Neither of us really distinguished ourselves, but had the targets been actual bad guys, they'd have at east been stopped.

Then we shot the Enfield. The sights and trigger were a bit cruder than the Garand's was, and as it turned out, we both put our rounds low but right on windage-wise. We were using the 300M aperture, and I suspect that the 600M peep would have put the rounds right on. I'll take it out again next time to see.

Rounds dispensed with, we adjourned to PH's house for lunch and beer.

Yep. That's our Proud Hillbilly.

And don't forget, shooters--Charity blogshoot here on Saturday, Sept. 14th. Lots of regulars will be there, including Proud Hillbilly, Keads, Aaron of The Shekel, and many others. Bring your favorite firearms, because we'll have a range all to ourselves this time out to 100 yards.