Tuesday, March 18, 2014

The Project: first try

Overall, very successful.

Only about 55 rounds through, 40 of handloads and 15 Federal 230-grain Hydra-Shock(yes, I've still got some).  In the first two mags had a couple of failures to feed, but I'm calling it ammo-caused; take that round out the mag and the rest fed without fail.  On the first, the slide felt like it was binding, but after ejecting that round and cycling the slide a couple of times, that went away, quite smooth after that.  And the Federals fed, fired and ejected perfectly.  Next time I'll take a box of factory ball and run it through; I'm expecting it'll perform as should.

Accuracy was very good(longest range tried ~15 yards).

The modified GI grip safety worked just fine: no pinching or biting.  I'll clean it up nicely and keep it in.

I will pick up a extended thumb safety, or else find someone to do some welding and add a piece on and shape it; I'd forgotten how nice an extended is compared to the standard.

I'll detail strip it later and examine EVERYTHING again.  I'll look the feed ramp over, if looks like it could use it I'll polish it a bit*, but unless I see something that really calls for it I'll leave it alone.

I can't speak highly enough of the Caspian frame.  Everything appears to be exactly to spec, and the finish is excellent.  There's one or two places that I'll dress down to match to the slide better, but that's not in any way a criticism of the frame; they're making it for people to build a pistol on, and not knowing what slide and so forth will be used, some fitting or matching is to be expected.  And this is purely for aesthetics; the frame WORKS, and that's the important thing.

And now, it being late and I'm tired, I'll wish you all a good night.



*Stop screaming.  I actually have a half-assed idea what I'm doing here, and I know the difference between 'polish' and 'reshape into uselessness'.  And I'm not going to touch it until it's had at least another box of ammo through it; I doubt it'll need it.

If you're wondering why some people would be screaming, go over to The High Road and look at this sticky; yes, 'polishing' the ramp when you don't know what you're doing can ruin a frame.  Especially aluminum: aluminum frames have a hard anodized finish.  Polish that off the ramp, and you expose the soft aluminum, and it'll ding and wear FAST.  As in "OhmyGodwhat'veIdone!" fast.

1 comment:

SordidPanda said...

A few years back when I bought my Springfield GI milspec model the ramp was clearly unpolished. I had some feeding problems with Winchester white box 230 gr ball ammo, but ran a few boxes through it until I got a good set of wear and copper marks on the ramp.

Them I took some metal polish and cotton T-shirt material, and used my finger to polish where the wear marks were, careful not to cut deeper than the machining marks. The end result was a slicker ramp for ball ammo without changing the ramp profile.

Whether what I did helped, or whether just shooting it to break it in was what really fixed the feeding issue is always up for debate, but the pistol has performed beautifully since.