Saturday, November 17, 2007

Range day, project pistol tryout


Did indeed make it out today, and put about 65 rounds through it. The polishing on the feed ramp worked, it digested 185-grain Gold Dots, both factory and handload, without a burp. The only problem in shooting was one failure to go into battery, and that was with a 200-grain flatnose load. I don't blame the pistol, I blame the magazine: this was the original, which is rather, ah, 'well-used' would be a polite term. Somehow the body has spread out a touch, you have to push harder to seat it and pull it all the way out of the mag well. Using a couple of Metalform 7-round mags for all the other shooting, no malfunctions at all.

I did notice one thing: if you didn't have the grip safety depressed ALL the way, you could feel the trigger bow dragging on it a touch at times. Why I didn't notice it before, I don't know. Did a small amount of file work and polishing on it, and that seems to be gone.

Overall, it worked as well as I could have hoped for. I am going to flare the bottom of the mag well a bit, and do a full trigger job. This being the first time I'd worked on the fire control group of one of these, when I followed the 'Poor Man's Trigger Job' instructions I went very lightly; it did indeed smooth things out and lighten them a bit, but now I need to hit it again and all the way, should make a big difference.

I just realized I forgot to take a picture of it before breaking it down, and right now it's on the table in pieces. I promise I'll remember in the near future.

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