posted by Caleb on Jul 24
I have leveled up in the gunnie world today. In addition to the extra hit points, I now have a bunch of skill points allotted to “Craft Ammo”. That’s right, i have finally joined the ranks of the reloaders.
Which of course is the purpose of this post, i need suggestions for good loads for .45 Colt that roughly approximate the ballistics of the original loads. A 250 grain bullet at about 800 fps would be great for a lot of applications, with the added benefit of not blowing up any of my cartridge conversion revolvers. I decided to just start with .45 Colt for a couple of reasons, foremost of those being that I have a ton of brass sitting around that I’ve collected in that caliber. The 2nd reason is that even though I don’t shoot a lot of .45 Colt, the 100 or so rounds a month that I go through in that caliber easily makes it one of the most expensive things that I shoot, since a box of 50 goes for about $30-$35, which means that I can spend upwards of 70 bucks on ammo for just 100 rounds. Even if I get the cost down to $15 a box, it’s still going to cut my cost of shooting in half, which means more shooting for me.
I also need/want advice on powder - I know next to nothing about selecting a powder for reloads. I had heard that Trail Boss was good, but honestly I don’t really know all that much about powders and reloading.
Any and all advice is helpful. Oh yeah, and I need a mallet.
posted by Caleb on Jul 1
Trollphylactic, as in “This is a trollphylactic for anyone who wants to show up and say No way I’ve giving X because they pissed me off that one time when they did that one thing.”
Taken from the above linked post; but I don’t want you to focus on the funny Unclism, rather I want you to donate to one of the listed causes. These are good people, who are fighting for our right to keep and bear arms. As powerful a tool as blogging and activism is, we can’t get around the fact that money talks, and these people who are actively engaged with preserving our shooting heritage often need dough to do so.
posted by Caleb on Jun 25
After about 30 seconds of discussion with my esteemed co-host, we have agreed that if you go to this link and vote for her or I to go to Blackwater, and then have a friend go to the same link and vote for whichever one of us you didn’t vote for, then we will do live podcasts from Blackwater.
But the thing is, we have to win, so vote and drag a friend with you! Remember, by voting you can make yourself eligible to win a trip to Blackwater yourself to join 10 bloggers and Todd Jarrett as we shoot a bunch of guns at stuff.
posted by Caleb on Jun 19
Just a friendly reminder, even though I’m on Vacation to go to ParaUSA and vote for Call me Ahab to go to Blackwater and train with Todd Jarrett.
if you vote, you can enter yourself to win the coveted 11th spot on the range!
posted by Caleb on Jun 13
Okay, I promise this is the last one.
Vote here to send Call me Ahab to Blackwater, so I can train with Todd Jarrett - and by voting, you could win the 11th spot on the range and shoot with us!
10 bonus points to the first person to get the reference in the poster.
posted by Caleb on Jun 11
Clearly, I should be your number one choice for Blackwater training, as I’m prepared to fully fight off the zombie menace.
Fight the Zombie Menace - send me to Blackwater to shoot with Todd Jarrett! By voting, you also enter yourself to win the 11th slot, so you to can become a soldier for zombie eradication!
posted by Caleb on Jun 9
The auction for my Brazilian Contract S&W closes in 27 hours! Bid now, or use the Buy it Now button to get the gun before some crazy person bids it up past the Buy Now price.
Auction HERE.
posted by Caleb on Jan 14
So, it turns out there is a chance that I may be in Las Vegas for my company during the 2008 Shot Show, which runs from Feb 2nd to the 5th.
I don’t suppose anyone out there who is connected could score me a pass to this? I’ve always wanted to go to Shot, it’s one of those goals of mine that I’ve had for quite some time. Plus, I would definitely live blog whatever parts of the show I’d be attending, so you guys would get to see an outsider’s perspective on the inside of the gun industry.
I really hope that my company sends me to Vegas first week of Feb now.
posted by Caleb on Aug 6
So, my “new” (if you can call a 70 year old gun new) ‘37 Brazilian Contract S&W shoots like there is no tomorrow. Target picture here, 18 shots at 25 feet.
However, there’s a small hitch in her giddyup. After about 40-45 rounds, the cylinder became very difficult to open and close. It turns that this is because the ejection rod (for some weird reason) is now stick out further than it did before I started firing the gun. Now, instead of sliding neatly into place and locking up, the knob on the end of the ejection rod is making contact with the lug on the underside of the barrel, preventing the revolver from going into battery.
Countertop suggested that this is likely the result of crud inside the cylinder set up that has “frozen” the revolver, and that a good bath in mineral spirits followed with a thorough cleaning should solve the problem. At the very least, I’m going to try that before I ship this off to a gunsmith and actually pay for work to be done.
However, the title of the blog today is “help”. Since I am no expert on S&W revolvers by far, I have two requests for assistance. 1) How do I get the cylinder off this thing (it’s a 1937 Brazilian Contract, which is just an M1917, which I believe is just a big M&P), and 2) can someone get the attention of Tam on this? Since she’s sort of the guru of old S&W revolvers, I’d love to have her input on this, if she’s encountered this sort of problem before and if there’s anything I can do to fix it short of sending it off to the gunsmith.
While asking for help on a gun related issue is sort of a blow to my pride, I’d rather be humbled and have a working gun than keep my pride and have a broken gun. I mean, come on. Look at that target. This gun can flat SHOOT.
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Update: Thanks to Tam and my dad who both correctly pointed out thta my ejection rod was backing out under recoil, and a few turns fix everything right up. I can’t wait to shoot this in this month’s e-postal.
