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Everything posted by enfield
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I'll bet they'll both be in the Nervous Hospital for a loooong time. :D
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I got this on the S&W forum a few years ago: ******************************************************* Revolver checkout: how to tell if a particular specimen is any good So you're buying a revolver. New, used, doesn't matter, you want a good one, right? How do check one over without firing it, right at the dealer's counter or gun show table? This is how. All of this works with DA or SA wheelguns..."close the action" on most DAs means swing the cylinder in, on SA types, close the loading gate, on breakopens, close 'em. UNLOADED. WARNING: most of these tests require violation of the "finger off trigger" rule. Therefore, be extremely careful about safe muzzle direction and making sure the gun is unloaded ahead of time, PERSONALLY, as you begin handling it. Note: bring a small flashlight, something small and concentrated. A Photon or similar high-powered LED light is perfect. You also want feeler gauges if you're not used to eyeballing cylinder gaps; at a minimum, bring a .002", .004" and .006". Note2: no dry firing is required or desired at any point. It just pisses off the gun's current owner. Cylinder play. 1) With the gun UNLOADED (check for yourself!), close the action. 2) Thumb the hammer back, and while pulling the trigger, gently lower the hammer all the way down while keeping the trigger back - and KEEP holding the trigger once the hammer is down. (You've now put the gun in "full lockup" - keep it there for this and most other tests.) 3) With the trigger still back all the way, check for cylinder wiggle. Front/back is particularly undesirable; a bit of side to side is OK but it's a bad thing if you can wiggle it one way, let go, and then spin it the other way a fraction of an inch and it stays there too. At the very least, it should "want" to stop in just one place (later, we'll see if that place is any good). The ultimate is a "welded to the frame" feeling. Cylinder gap 4) Still holding the trigger at full lockup, look sideways through the barrel/cylinder gap. If you can get a credit card in there, that ain't good...velocity drops rapidly as the gap increases. Too tight isn't good either, because burnt powder crud will "fill the gap" and start making the cylinder spin funky. My personal .38snubbie is set at .002, usually considered the minimum...after about 40 shots at the range, I have to give the front of the cylinder a quick wipe so it spins free again. I consider that a reasonable tradeoff for the increased velocity because in a real fight, I ain't gonna crank 40 rounds out of a 5-shot snub . If you're eyeballing it, you'll have to hold it up sideways against an overhead light source. SAFETY WARNING: This step in particular is where you MUST watch your muzzle direction. Look, part of what's happening here is that you're convincing the seller you know your poop . It helps the haggling process. If you do anything unsafe, that impression comes completely unglued. Timing 5) You really, REALLY want an unloaded gun for this one. This is where the light comes in. With the gun STILL held in full lockup, trigger back after lowering the hammer by thumb, you want to shine a light right into the area at the rear of the cylinder near the firing pin. You then look down the barrel . You're looking to make sure the cylinder bore lines up with the barrel. Check every cylinder - that means putting the gun in full lockup for each cylinder before lighting it up. You're looking for the cylinder and barrel holes to line up perfectly, it's easy to eyeball if there's even a faint light source at the very rear of both bores. And with no rounds present, it's generally easy to get some light in past where the rims would be. Bore (We're finally done with that "full lockup" crap, so rest your trigger finger. ) 6) Swing the cylinder open, or with most SAs pull the cylinder. Use the small flashlight to scope the bore out. This part's easy - you want to avoid pitting, worn-out rifling, bulges of any sort. You want more light on the subject than just what creeps in from the rear of the cylinder on the timing check. You also want to check each cylinder bore, in this case with the light coming in from the FRONT of each hole, you looking in from the back where the primers would be. You're looking for wear at the "restrictions" at the front of each cylinder bore. That's the "forcing cone" area and it can wear rapidly with some Magnum loads. (Special thanks to Salvo below for this bit!) Trigger 7) To test a trigger without dry-firing it, use a plastic pen in front of the hammer to "catch" it with the off hand, especially if it's a "firing pin on the hammer" type. Or see if the seller has any snap-caps, that's the best solution. Flat-faced hammers as found in transfer-bar guns (Ruger, etc) can be caught with the off-hand without too much pain . SA triggers (or of course a DA with the hammer cocked) should feel "like a glass rod breaking". A tiny amount of take-up slack is tolerable, and is common on anything with a transfer bar or hammerblock safety. DA triggers are subjective. Some people like a dead-smooth feel from beginning of stroke to the end, with no "warning" that it's about to fire. Others (myself included) actually prefer a slight "hitch" right at the end, so we know when it's about to go. With that sort of trigger, you can actually "hold it" right at the "about to fire" point and do a short light stroke from there that rivals an SA shot for accuracy. Takes a lot of practice though. Either way, you don't want "grinding" through the length of the stroke, and the final stack-up at the end (if any) shouldn't be overly pronounced. Detecting Bad Gunsmithing: 8) OK, so it's got a rock-solid cylinder, a .002" or .003" gap, and the trigger feels great. Odds are vastly in favor of it being tuned after leaving the factory. So was the gunsmith any good? First, cock it, then grab the hammer and "wiggle it around" a bit. Not too hard, don't bang on it, but give it a bit of up/down, left/right and circular action with finger off trigger and WATCH your muzzle direction. You don't want that hammer slipping off an overly polished sear. You REALLY don't want that . It can be fixed by installing factory parts but that'll take modest money (more for installation than hardware costs) and it'll be bigtime unsafe until you do. The other thing that commonly goes wrong is somebody will trim the spring, especially coil springs. You can spot that if you pull the grip panels, see if the spring was trimmed with wire cutters. If they get too wild with it, you'll get ignition failures on harder primers. But the good news is, replacement factory or Wolf springs are cheap both to buy and have installed. There's also the legal problems Ayoob frequently describes regarding light triggers. If that's a concern, you can either swap back to stock springs, or since you bought it used there's no way to prove you knew it was modified at all . In perspective: Timing (test #5) is very critical...if that's off, the gun may not even be safe to test-fire. And naturally, a crappy barrel means a relatively pricey fix. Cylinder gap is particularly critical on short-barreled and/or marginal caliber guns. If you need every possible ounce of energy, a tight gap helps. Some factory gaps will run as high as .006"; Taurus considers .007" "still in spec" (sigh). You'll be hard-pressed to find any new pieces under .004" - probably because the makers realize some people don't clean 'em often (or very well) and might complain about the cylinder binding up if they sell 'em at .002". The guns in a dealer's "used pile" are often of unknown origin, from estate sales or whatever. Dealers don't have time to check every piece, and often don't know their history. These tests, especially cyliner gap and play, can spot a gun that's been sent off for professional tuning...like my snubbie, the best $180 I ever spent . As long as the gun is otherwise sound (no cracks, etc) a gunsmith can fix any of this. So these tests can help you pick a particularly good new specimen, or find a good used gun, or help haggle the price down on something that'll need a bit of work. Hope this helps. Jim [Edited by Jim March on 02-18-2001 at 02:58 PM]
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And - - - - You can move HDD's from one box to another. I keep my stable of aged computers running with parts from Ebay, running Windows XP and Linux. I'm cheap.
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and a Glock and don't leave the magazines loaded. Springs, ya know. :D
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Do we allow people from Michigan? Sheeez!! Welcome!
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Kill Bill is my guilty pleasure. I should be ashamed of myself, but I ain't.
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I replaced my Goodyears with Michelin M&S road tires and bought them at the Ford Dealer. They had a special on tires and it was a better deal than Tire Rack. I'd check with your local Ford dealer before jumping on a deal. Edit - better mileage warranty than Goodyear too.
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An $80 pair of New Balance walking shoes, and a $400 set of orthotic inserts from a podiatrist to correct your ankle misalignment and fallen arches. Heck - it works for me! Still hurts a little but I get around. I went to an orthopaedic surgeon who couldn't even diagnose my fallen arches - it takes a podiatrist.
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".38 Military & Police (Postwar) -- "Pre-Model 10" Caliber: .38 S&W Special. Double-action revolver built on the square butt K frame with five screws. A continuation of the previous model without the "V" serial prefix or the lanyard ring. A contemporary source indicates the "S" prefix poswar guns began as early as Dec. 27, 1944 at around serial number S769000. Others report Sept. 1945 beginning at S811120. It's reported that at S990184, Apr. 7, 1948, the new short throw hammer action was introduced, becoming the now familiar Model 10 in 1957" -- Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson, 3rd Edition, 2006
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thompson center 50 caliber left loaded from last year
enfield replied to Peevee's topic in Curio, Relics and Black Powder
Personally, since I didn't load the rifle I don't know how it's loaded or with what. I'd pull the load. -
It looks like a model 10 to me. If you open the cylinder, there should be a model # stamped on the frame. CTG stands for 'cartridge'. Model 10's are very common.
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AR sounds like a box of springs.....
enfield replied to Handsome Rob's topic in Gunsmithing & Troubleshooting
That's what I remember most about the M16 - the sound of the spring. -
NO! My wife tells 'em "Obama took all my money".
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Where do you sell it?
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This must be the new math taught in school
enfield replied to mav's topic in 2A Legislation and Politics
Borrowing money every month to pay your bills only works when you have a large supply of stupid 'lenders' and you have no intention of ever repaying the debt. -
In the end it always comes down to politics - who likes ya.
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Guidelines Regarding Law Enforcement Threads on TGO
enfield replied to MacGyver's topic in General Chat
We'll all do it David's way. Simple, huh? If we all think twice before posting and act like adults - maybe it'll become a habit. -
Guidelines Regarding Law Enforcement Threads on TGO
enfield replied to MacGyver's topic in General Chat
On the contrary, it won't be difficult at all, and it won't be arbitrary. -
I liked the fruit cake -- used to trade for it.
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Smaller gauge shotguns don't cost less than 12 gauge. The ammo can be cheaper, especially if you reload. IMO, 28 gauge is too expensive/hard to find and .410 is too small. That leaves 20 gauge, since 16 gauge is practically obsolete. I've killed hundreds of pheasants with my 12 gauge Ithaca pump, but I don't hunt any more. For quail/dove I would start with a 20 gauge pump - Remington/Winchester/Ithaca/Mossberg/Whathaveyou and see if it met my needs. YMMV.
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Petition against funding obamacare
enfield replied to kieefer's topic in 2A Legislation and Politics
Signed it. Over 1.3 million now. It won't do any good. Take care of the problem (Congress) at the next election, and all succeeding elections. NEVER RE-ELECT ANYONE! Fight organized crime! -
My mom used to can pork sausage - man it was good!