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Kind of funny you mention Incerlik and the whole feeling of uneasiness there. In the late 80's I was stationed at US Army Field Station Sinop, on the coast of Turkey. The small town of Sinop made us feel welcome beyond belief and yet the two times I traveled to Incerlik and went off the Airbase there I felt like I wasn't welcome. Turkey is a interested country with a lot of history and my year there was probably the best job I had during my career in the Army.

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And this eternal resting place Is known as Fiddlers' Green.

While in Vegas--

We also went to the Mob Museum, that was interesting. My favorite thing? Two little .45 slugs in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre display that had nothing to do with the murders, directly. Dr. Calvin C. Goddard had just recently invented the science of ballistic matching. He tested every Chicago PD Thompson since-- if you recall-- the killers dressed up as cops. None of the CPD Tommy guns matched the slugs dug out of the victims and picked up off the floor after passing through them and hitting the brick wall (they have what they say is that wall at the museum).

I checked the serial numbers related to the different groups of slugs. Certain serial numbers I guess I have a good memory for. Took a pic just to be sure. One box said "Chicago #2 Thompson gun # T 4173". Hmm.

Here's me shooting that gun at CPD in, I think, 2007. Picture by Patrick Sweeney. He, Jeff C. and I "had occasion" to be there that day (thanks to Jeff).



The Thompsons that were used on Clark Street that day? Oh, here they are. 2006 or so. Dr. Goddard pronounced these to be the ones:

ALWAYS love shooting Thompson’s!!!

_________________
CT Brian Custom
'Blending Art With Firepower'

That is so cool. Talk about a real classic 45acp Thompson.

_________________
Be safe and keep the brass flying

Terry Peters

Do your research but you get what you pay for front end or back end
http://www.pt-partners.com
@ptpartners_tx

Speaking of the Mob Museum.

I was just looking for a link to the story of these two St. Valentine's Day guns so I wouldn't have to type it myself and ran across this. The guns will be at the Mob Museum this SVD! Somebody at that museum knows how to reach out to people and generate interest!

https://themobmuseum.org/events-posts/t ... -firearms/

We have not done politics and world events here much but I note that even Switzerland is not remaining silent, so here is a little something I sent my friend in Ukraine:

"I hope you are still well. I have not written in a few days but you and all of Ukraine are at the top of my mind every minute of every day.

I can't believe how fast the time is passing and that this is not over yet. This is the most frustrating time I can remember-- and I am home, safe and warm, I don't forget that whatever it is for me, it is something different for Ukrainians. But I would like to note that where I would expect American outrage to be "wearing out" by now, it is not. Whether or not our government's response is adequate, average Americans continue to be very aware of the situation and supportive of Ukraine.

I and those like me can't help but see the war through the lens of our Constitutional guarantees. Our Second Amendment: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed". Written of course in the language of the day, but as true today as it ever was! Whatever one might say about Ukraine's gun laws prior to the invasion, I think Ukraine has done a marvelous job of recognizing a need and turning that recognition into action by arming those citizens who wish to be armed.

I will be interested to eventually, hopefully, see a compilation of accounts of armed citizens outside the regular Ukrainian Armed forces defending themselves and their country with weapons handed them by the government. Having them constantly armed and trained and ready would be even better than arming them in a desperate hurry, and I hope that in the post-war era the government will not forget the value of having armed citizens. That value need not be gauged by statistics such as "each citizen so armed accounted for an average of 4.5 invaders". The greatest value is that it helps engage and encourage the citizenry and put worry into the minds of the invaders! Something written into the Ukrainian Constitution and the inception of a national training and safety education program would be marvelous and I'm sure there would be no shortage of Americans willing to help with that.

My best wishes to you and all of Ukraine."

Well said and excellent thought process.

Back to Gold Cups. I said early on in this thread that with the wide trigger cut in the frame, you wind up with a three-axis meeting of surfaces that, I am surprised, never leads to cracks.

Then a guy-- Bobby Cee-- brings over this GC I did in about 2005. Guess I had the same concerns back then, seventeen or so years ago (I think that was the "last GC I'll work on" prior to this stainless one, this is the last GC and this time I mean it ). I looked at this and said that's certainly a possible and partial solution, and, "wish I'da thought of that.... again."



Photos courtesy of Bobby Cee, thanks Bobby!
The problem area-- well, anyway, the "theoretical" problem area. Probably said it before but GC's tend to shot with milder loads and perhaps in general, less than some other 1911's. That one in 100 and shoot 10,000 full-on loads with it, then it might crack here:

I've never seen the point of a Gold Cup from the S70s till now as they all seemed to be a bout show and not go. Based on the ones I've handled the prior guns were built pretty well, but I still don't care for the look with the fat trigger. The standard Gov't and the mixmasters built with the NM angled serration (aka "Drake") slides do get my blood racing.

Ned you’re the man!! Glad You were able to look through it!! The pistol is pure class!

I would not really call this "pistolsmithing"..... it is just machining. But a little bit on the artsy-phartsy side maybe-- when I do something like this I sketch it up but that sketch is not the hard plan..... it's the "general direction". Details, I make them up as I go. The real smithing on this gun has already been done, and some time ago-- by Vic Tibbets, and no doubt, some more by its very capable owner, my Danish cousin Jess. Jess is a very-top-ranked revolver shooter and just in the last six months has done very well at the IDPA Nationals in CO and a few weeks ago at the World Speed Shooting Championship in AL.

This 6-shot, .45 ACP Model 625 is the gun he uses at The Pin Shoot in the 8-Pin event. 6 shots, 8 pins, yup-- the reload is kinda important.

Will a wild comp like this make all the difference? Will it give him the advantage he needs to get the "walk" in this event (walking to the prize table)? Well for other people it might help...... this particular guy it is almost impossible that this comp will be of any help, because-- he has never placed lower than 2nd in the event anyway! But in pin shooting, as long as it is not prohibited, it is allowed, and pin shooters have a long history of going to great lengths to get "the walk". How about two Rem 1100's, one left and one righty, fused into a single gun? Wild compensators, very specialized loads, guns that are for one purpose, for one week a year: Pin Guns!

No mods to the gun here other than the ramp leading up to the front sight base has been milled square to make it a locking abutment for the steel top cover the fit over. This top cover (prehard 4130) is held to the comp with two 10-32 cap screws but more importantly it has four 3/16" steel dowel pins to postively and accurately locate it to the comp body (7075 T6 aluminum). I was going to cross-pin this one on but getting the hole in the back for the barrel to fit into was going to be a really tough shape to machine into the solid so I did what we did in moldmaking-- you make the cavity shape in two (or more) pieces; into separate pieces you can machine all the shapes you need (sometimes) without resorting to EDM. You get all the inserts pieces together and voila, you have the cavity shape you need.




A chunk of prehard 4130. This is "DME #2 steel" from my moldmaking days, part of a larger piece that was cut from the center of a large plate, 1 7/8 X (something like) 18 X 24. Need a rectangular void in the middle of that large plate? Drill four holes, one in each corner. Take it to the vertical band saw. Lace a blade through one of the holes, weld its ends to gether, grind the weld flat, start sawin'.

When you don't have a bandsaw in the shop, you do this:

Freakin awesome!!

Caution! Mad scientist at work!

Some, not all, of the chips from the revolver comp. I keep the shop pretty clean and normally would be sweeping this daily but I wanted to see how it all looked in a pile. I have the pre- and post-weights, will post them. But—aluminum is .101 pounds per cuic inch, how about a couple guesses?

And…. someone is getting a stainless magwell. Eventually.

A delicate subject perhaps. Politics are not the meat and potatoes of LTW, in fact I would go so far as to say that politics are, perhaps, avoided at some subconscious level so as not to dilute the conversations about our shared passion. There are plenty of places to argue politics, we just have never done it here.

But when people are trying to take our guns as punishment for something someone else did, when they demand that a whole country agrees to be helpless, agrees to accept guilt, and agrees to be disarmed to ensure that only bad guys are armed, it is time to be political. Go forth and be political. Tell them-- we already know, it has been proven, that the ridiculous ideas they are proposing won't work, and we aren't gonna go along.

Another thing that is not really part of LTW's DNA is uber-tacitcoolness and tough-guy chest-beating. But I don't think encouraging, reminding people to be ready, is that.

Recent events, we as armed citizens need to squeeze out a lesson, an inspiration maybe, to do what we can to be ready for any...G'damned.... thing. I'm not a tactical ninja guru by any stretch, and I think collecting fine guns is a great endeavor, but do that as a separate thing apart from being ready. Be armed, be safe and proficient. Most of all, be ready in your mind. Everywhere you go, make a game out of "what if". Don't worry about scratches on your gun. Don't worry about what grips look best. Don't let trends and tactical bad-assery marketing dictate your choices. Don't fret holster wear on the finish-- it gives your gun character and is part of your credential package: "shooter!" Don't subject yourself to analysis paralysis with regard to caliber, magazine capacity, "latest and greatest". Don't have a "carry rotation" where you switch guns and gun types every week-- that's mental masturbation. Get a decent gun, decent mags, decent carry setup: comfortable, discreet, some extra ammo. Buy ammo and shoot it, instead of buying more guns. Don't delay, don't hold out for "perfect", perfect being the enemy of good enough. You can get perfect later if you want. Have something and let it be something you become confident in, extremely familiar and proficient with. "Fear the man with only one gun, for he knows how to use it"-- there is a ton of weight to that old bromide.

You post is spot on, we need to become active in our communities and everything going on around us. The judicial system is broken and needs to be fixed terribly, get out and vote research those District Attorney's and Judges then pick the best one. I also agree that in order to be prepared you don't have to be tacticool but we should be prepared to take action if needed. I would also emphasize having first aid resources available and get training on stop the bleed. Great post Ned.

_________________
And this eternal resting place Is known as Fiddlers' Green.

Absolutely. I was fortunate to sit for a presentation by some officers that were responders to one of the high-profile events of the last few years and then attend a conference focused on mass shootings. Emergency medical training is paramount and tourniquets are the number one thing. You don't need a ton of training to use one to save a life. Good point!

I might as well confess, I am on a short pause from strictly 1911 work, waiting for some special barrels. I may wind up giving up on the wait but for now I’m filling these few weeks with some other things (to include, still, some 1911 work).

Sights for a Remington 1100. As you can see, the gun has been named….. for its previous owner. You can see remnants of some of the duct-tape and cardstock prototypes on the top—getting an idea of what sight forms work with the front sight and approximately how high they need to be; also, the piece of flat stock the rear sight it to be made from. This is a piece taken from an old police 870 that had that awful folding stock on it. If you’ve ever handled and shot one of those you know that I mean. I reworked several of these years ago for a Chicago-area department and they didn’t want the folders back (can’t blame them). I sold them except for one that was somehow broken; it went into my steel rack.

Starting on it in the Bridgeport….

The leaf gets folded up. As can be seen I milled a notch to get a sharper bend and make sure it occurred right where I wanted it. It got heated up and bent. The wedged tubular piece will become a strut. It is made from a piece of tubing I’ve had in my toolbox for years as a “cheater” for tightening socket head cap screws. It was the only thing in the shop I could scrounge that was about the right size. Dang thing was always too long anyway

Fluxed, clamped and ready to silver-braze! Without the strut it would work—for a while. I would expect it to crack off in short order, or get bumped and bent out of location. But the question: can I get the silver to go into the fold….? OK if it doesn’t, better if it does.

Flowing silver, a thing of beauty! Most times it’s like it “knows” where you want tt to go. Still dull red.

Hole popped in to pass the head of the rear mounting screw, and…. yippee, the silver filled the fold. Silver everywhere I wanted it and in only a few places where I didn’t want it.

First mounting. I used 10-32X 7/16 Low Head Cap Screws.


The front sight is just a big chunk of Delrin. Big sights, easy / fast pickup, at least that’s the theory:

And, a little freestyle sculpting of the front of the front sight. It’s so big, I had to do something with it!

These sights, I would describe as "specialized for shooting bowling pins", but I won't be surprised if they work for "other stuff". I mean, fast shooting at close range is something of a shotgun specialty. Getting on the sights quickly is good in any shooting endeavor. Slugs at distance? Not so sure but for sure I will try it. There remains the task of zero-ing the new sights for OOB at 25', which will be done by milling the rear sight to suit. Can you really "zero" sights for buckshot...? You darned sure can, and it matters. There is definitely such a thing as being off 2" at 25' and losing half the payload off target. The good news is that even 5 out of 9 or 12 pellets of OOB ought to give a power factor that will do the job. The pattern will be, depending on choke, 2 1/2" to 4 1/2". Buckshot patterns and chokes is a whole science unto itself and sometimes, at some point, as the chokes get tighter and tighter, patterns op[en back up and become erratic. I don't have a ton of experience at that but those are my impressions.

That's out of the box! Cool!

In your experience which is the better gun, 100 or 11-87?

I have maybe 200 through this 1100 and none through an 1187..... I really don't even know the difference. I've seen a lot of both used to a punishing degree with slugs and buck but never owned one before this. It always seemed like they were finicky and frail..... guess I'll find out. I never really wanted one but happened into this one and figured I'll give it a try..... I already feel guilty / unfaithful to my cherished pump . Everyone said the 1100 shoots softer and I guess it does but dammit a 12 gage is supposed to kick, it ought to be a pump or at least a Rem 11

I have an old 1100 that was well used when I got it and a very slightly used demilled 11-87 (everything but the receiver). From what I've read, the receivers are identical except for the roll mark. I'm going to find out. Hold my beer...

Gladly. Don't expect it to be full when I hand it back......

I suggested the narrowed Gold Cup trigger to George at EGW and he is now offering it with credit to me-- thanks George. https://www.egwguns.com/the-ned-christi ... up-trigger

Last week at The Pin Shoot I was in the midst of what must have been a solid 200,000 rounds being fired--.22. 9mm, 10mm, .45, 5.56, plenty of 12 gage. My pin gun went through at least 850 rounds of .50 GI. Note to self, next year calculate the ammo needed, bring 1.5X that amount. Besides shooting it's a week of lots of exercise, hauling this and that gun/ammo here then there. Evenings back at the cabins on the lake cooking, eating, hanging with wife, kid, old friends-- priceless. Checking out the most excellent local microbrewery (Short's) is a must as well as the local distillery. I don't know how widely Short's is distributed but I can get it here in my home town and it's a favorite.

I'm calling this the "year of the kid". My son and the sons and daughters of several friends did well esp. when you consider than for some it was their first, or nearly so, taste of competition. I was never so intrepid a their age, I clearly remember my first pin shoot back when it was Second Chance, and how my knees and arms shook as I attempted to shoot well! Also "year of the kid" because there were so many very young people there, some of the timers are quite young and the "brass rats" are the hardest workin' little 8-12 year-olds you ever did see. One family of shooters, long time attendees, brought the 9-year-old grand daughter who was a real social butterfly that melted the hearts of all there, especially when she helped pass out Freeze Pops to sun-soaked shooters.

.50 GI figured prominently in the winners' circle but by no means does it guarantee victory. When you miss, the power factor doesn't mean much! I also shot many tables with my old .45 pin gun and it did the job just fine. Shooters came from CA and VT and many places in between. There were at least two international shooters that I knew of, maybe more. That part of MI is prime territory for touring, micro-brewery-ing, and the Leelanau Peninsula is wine country. Real nice people up that way, they are halfway between Trolls (those who live below the Mackinaw Bridge) and Yoopers (those who live in the Upper Peninsula, the UP).

More as I can and hopefully some pics.

Nice update Ned… sounds like TPS was a success! I had no doubt given the history and the attendance of it!

It’s a nice change of pace to hear some younger people were out…

Can’t wait to hear more and see some pictures!

I did this .38 Super for myself in 1988 and shot the Steel Challenge with it. I literally burned midnight oil on this, I can remember working all day and all night several times and there being some marital stress over it— and rightly so! I believe it was my first .38S compensated gun and I remember having trouble getting it to run at first, due to the comp weight and the fact that Steel Challenge loads are super wimpy. In the end, due to the rush, I said screw it and went with factory .38 Super 130 FMJ loads. This startled RO’s every time I shot a stage because they had come to expect pop-pop-pop and this thing was, well, way louder.

Later I used it in USPSA for 2-3 years with a handload featuring a bullet of my design at about 160 grains, loaded to Major which at the time was 175000, so about 1100 FPS using AA#7 as I recall. This thing was always totally reliable and a pleasure to shoot. With a lighter recoil spring I used factory .38 ACP’S to shoot the 9-pin event at the old Second Chance Police Combat Shoot aka the pin shoot, which is now—The Pin Shoot. In this event the pins were placed just a foot from the back of the steel-topped table so 9 and .38S could do it, but I later shot the event with mild .45’s, too. I won the event the last year of Second Chance with either a 3.6 or 3.8, but I never reached the range record which as I recall was held by Blake Gann at 3.2 or 3.4.

Magwell made from a piece of Crucible CrMo steel. At the time, Colt owned Crucible so I kept it “all Colt”.


A stud is pocketed into and silvered to the frame, for the big mag release paddle to pivot on.


Magwell detail. It is sliver-brazed on and it looks like I got this a little hotter than it needed to be but thirty-four years later it is holding well.


The front is funneled out so far that no existing floor plate could act as a stop, so all mags got extended plates made from aluminum and bolted on from the inside. They stop the mag from over -insertion at the rear, not the front. Why did I leave the lanyard loop on, you ask? What a coincidence…. I’ve been asking myself that! All I can say is, I did this thing in such a hurry that I just didn’t take the time. With those thick floor plates it never got in the way. I wish it wasn’t there.


The comp. It started out as a piece of 2” round, 6” long Crucible steel-- prehard 4130 or 4140. It’s all once piece, threaded and then silvered to the barrel—I never liked betting it all on thread locker. The bar across the top? To prevent empties from landing in there and causing a disaster as happened to TC with his giant Delrin-comped .50 GI recently. The first blast face on this and others of that time period, is a piece of 3/32 ground stock slid down into a slot that I EDM’d into the comp, then it is silvered into place— you can see the outline of the silver joint in this pic. The front sight is machined from the comp, it is not dovetailed or pinned or soldered in place.


Threaded-in front blast face and the spanner for same. The larger holes are just for getting a little weight back out of it.


Like I say, “had trouble getting it to cycle” and this was part of the cure. That was something new to me; I might do it differently today but it sure worked.


Rear of the slide; I liked Witchita sights in those days, I felt they were more robust than a Bomar. This might be the first time I did the forward, “protected” installation. I had never seen that done, it just seemed like a good idea, and I did several guns that way. I still do it once in a while.


Rear sight installed “no base” style, I have done a bunch of these but none in the last…. long time. The base is discarded and the sight mounted directly to the slide, by bending and welding the front of the tang downward and cross-pinning. You can see that the weld does not match. Getting TIG done at that time was a little sketchy.


This thing had not had a deep cleaning for a while when I photographed it! I have turned up my nose to ultrasonic cleaning for a long time but then I got a small Lyman unit and WOW. For something like this it is very effective.


The slide was cut short a bit, not much though. The stem of the comp rides in the slide bore. I filled the locking cut for the bushing with a piece of steel, silvered it in, and rebored the slide to for the comp stem for a good fit.


Close-up of the mag release paddle and what I would call an early version of Conamyds, maybe the second or third time I used this pattern. "Frustal cones" is what the patent lawyer called them

TPS (The Pin Shoot) 2022.

I am not a fan nor frequenter of Facebook but some pics and vids of TPS are up:https://www.facebook.com/thepinshoot/

Also, scores can be seen on Practicscore: https://practiscore.com/results?query=Pin%20shoot

How about some pics:
Valo C. and his uncle Jess C. rocking Guncrafter .50's in the Two-Man team event. They didn't win it but nonetheless they got "the walk"-- to the prize table. Jess is well known in the upper echelons of just about any kind of action handgun shooting-- pins, Steel Challenge, IDPA, USPSA. He's been at it a long time and has been good at it a long time! I'm proud to call him "cuz". In our little group of friends and family that stay together for TPS, he is "The Dane". Valo was officially branded this year as "The Kid" and he is really growing into all the things that cowboy movie moniker evokes. At 18 he is shooting way beyond what I would expect given that we don't practice and train "that much".


Valo readies to shoot a daily Shotgun Shootoff with a Savage Renegauge borrowed from Patrick Sweeney (thanks again Patrick!). He did very, very well in these, taking, I believe, a first and a second. The Rem 1100 mentioned in a previous post? Where I mentioned never really wanting one because I thought they were frail and unreliable, at least for pounding OOB and slugs to the tune of at least a couple cases in a week's time? It choked from the gitt, as did many others. Many..... others. I stuck with my Browning BPS which has never, ever failed me in, now, a couple of decades-plus. It's pretty much a pinshoot-only gun but at this point it must have 7000 rounds of slugs and OOB through it-- it is still solid and smooth.


Me in a shootoff. A few seconds later, it was over and I had lost to the guy next to me who absolutely cheated by being a better shooter


"Don't shoot the Ukrainians!" Those are no-shoots. Valo works his way through his first set of tables in Pin Gun, with the .50 we call Pin-gelder. So this year as mentioned he was officially dubbed "The Kid" but after last year I started thinking of him as "The Deadwood Kid" because he's pretty darned good at cleaning up knocked-over pins. He's not sure if it's a compliment because being good at cleaning up "deadwood" means you have knocked pins over instead of driving them off. But--- it happens to everyone and once a pin is down it can be hard to clean off the table. Some might call it "planning for failure" but I think the wise pin shooter tries to get good at it.


This guy, we call "TC", for "The Colonel". His .50 with the Delrin comp is "Simo"...... part of the agreement on these comps is, you have to name it. Sofar we have Pin-gelder, Pinwhacker, Pinrender, Simo, and Pinsmoker. TC is a serious competitor and as I expected, he did very well this year in the shootoffs and the several events he shot. At the awards there was a surprise award for the longest-serving service member and it was-- TC. 29 1/2 years in the Marine Corps!

Between the four or five .50's in use at TPS in use by six or seven people, I think together we fired ~2500 rounds. The utter reliability of these Guncrafters is a confidence-booster on the line. I had zero issues with mine and I didn't hear of any with the others. In fact the one malfunction I had was with my '91 pin gun in .45 -- it didn't go into battery and when I remedied this, a loose spent primer fell out. No idea how it got there and I'm 99% sure it did not come from a round I had just fired. When I was done I inspected all the brass I could find and none were missing a primer. I have never lost a primer an any pistol round (not uncommon in 5.56 though). It remains a mystery. The cracks in this .45's frame grew a bit as they do every year-- pin loads can be hard on a gun, depending on many things..... we typically say that a Power Factor of 200 minimum is optimal-- in .45 I was at 206 and in .50 GI, about 219. BUT..... in the Concealed Carry event, using my Officers ACP, I used factory 230 hardball at about 180 PF. This should be very sub-optimal as a pin load but with carefully placed shots, it was very effective.

TC and Simo:


Everyone, at least in my circle, is already planning for next year. Discussions are taking place about where there is room for improvement and how to attract more shooters. Although there are already events specifically tailored for 9mm, making the match overall even more 9mm friendly will be a priority. Two brave souls shot a Main Event with 9's, and let me tell you that moving a bowling pin 3' back so it falls off the back is practically impossible with 9mm. They both did it; extra shots were necessary but their times were still pretty good!

At TPS at least one main event must be shot before a competitor can move on to optionals. There is talk about having a "Main" especially for 9mm so shooters that don't have a .45 or 10mm or .357 etc. can be competitive in a main and then do optionals.

I always love you post guns like that Ned... it is super inspiring to me!

_________________
Heirloom Precision
http://www.heirloomprecision.com

Jason, I agree... For me, its jaw dropping to see the level of thought and detail that went/go into some of these 1911's (and other) Ned does... They are all so damn cool!!

Epilogue to the May 13th post about the compensator for the Model 25. As expected, Jess won that event. As previously stated, he didn't need a comp to do it. The proof? Well, he didn't get the comp until the day before the match. During a quick test and tune, he saw that the revolver was shooting some inches low with the comp. He thought that until he could install a lower front sight back home, he would run it that way and just aim for the neck of the pin-- which I always thought would be a good strategy anyway, as it would tend to enforce good center hits.

Didn't work out. He took it off and went on to win the event. That's my cuz!

This final touch on the comp, I finished up literally minutes before he showed up on his way to the match. The paint job is basically Sharpies; we'll get around to doing it right some other time. As he has dual American / Danish citizenship: