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This year's The Pin Shoot is over and it was another great one. We had a lot of new shooters this year-- well, not novice shooters, just first-time-at-Pin Shoot shooters. Nice bunch of people! I made a point of watching for them and welcoming them, and made some new friends. At least two or three of them "got the walk" at the awards ceremony, meaning they did well and won something, and got called to the price table.

I'll be posting some pictures but first a few comments. As in recent years, this was another "year of the kid" where young shooters shot extremely well. A 15-year-old girl posted some really fast times in the PCC event. Three or four young guys in the 19-23 range got the walk or multiple walks to the prize table. one of them won the JP Rifles PCC Shootoff and walked away with a new JP carbine! Young eyes, fast reflexes and taking it seriously definitely help. And yet...... most of the old dogs with decades of experience also do well, simply because they've done it so much! Watching Patrick Sweeney shoot the shotgun event with a nearly-stock Rem 1100 in 3.9 seconds always amazes-- and he did not win the event with that time, I believe it was won with a 3.6! That event is you and your shotgun, eight rounds of (usually) double-ought buck, and eight pins that have to be cleared off the table at 25'. The time stops when the last pin hits the ground, not at your last shot. The preferred load is the excellent S&B 12-pellet, non-magnum load.... "non magnum" perhaps, but not "low recoil". "How can you miss at 25' with a shotgun," some may ask. All I can say is, try doing it .1 second faster than the next guy and you will see, it is entirely possible. And also possible to knock one over and not off. That means a quick reload for a ninth round, all the while knowing you can't win with a miss and a reload, but also that your second-fastest time will be your tie breaker. And also knowing that a tie breaker with a reload in it is not a good tie breaker!

Sounds like fun! Lookng forward to the photos.

Yes. Looking forward to the pictures. Great seeing young folks take up shooting sports.

_________________
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

I posted some new videos on YT, unfortunately the slo-mo of the Rem 11 does not translate. It's cool watching that long-recoil action.

https://www.youtube.com/@nedchristiansen3105

We are high rollers at The Pin Shoot…… actually that’s “Davis Dough” (DD) from a few years ago, so no value. DD is what you use to buy optionals.


“Simo” after some previously mentioned maintenance, after a hard day of pin shooting..50 GI does well at The Pin Shoot.


“Pingelder” after probably 450 rounds fired. I brought 918 rounds up,came back with maybe 400. The GI is perfect in function, absolutely perfect. BTW 918 rounds of .50 GI weights exactly 50 pounds!


And…. Jess Christensen shoots the “223 X 39”, a two-man rifle event. I didn’t get video of it but Jess once again won the “Big Push” event, that’s three pins that need to be pushed 14’ back off the table, so it’s a job for mostly the .500 and .460 magnums. 3.1 seconds.... that's blazing fast with these super magnums. Expect to hear more about Jess.... after decades of being a top shooter and 1911 gunsmith for a few very highly regarded 1911 outfits, he has hung out a shingle.

Ned,

My top time this year ended up being 3.5 seconds, good for 3rd overall, behind Dan Koch at 3.2 and Dan Hauserman at 3.2. I was looking at the demographics, and the curve isn't a bell curve, it is a two-headed bell curve. There's a whole cohort in-between us old-timers and the new kids, who never got into pin shooting.

I'll post some pics once my computer cools down from the download.

OK, here is Valo from last year, with his Remington 11, and you can see the barrel is back, but starting forward to initiate ejection.

So cool, thank you. It's remarkable to watch in slo-mo, like a WWII deck gun chugging away. I ran that gun one year at the old shoot; he has been using it now for 3-4 years to good effect. We reckon since he started using it, he has 7-800 rounds through it. He also used the Winchester '97 this year in the slug event and had a faster time than me and my Bowning BPS. I think Darth Vader said it best.... the apprentice has become the master.

Concerning "high mileage comes to town" the 63,500 rounds, in five years, is 12,700 per year. sounds like he's slowing down. I know when I was serious about competition, 35,000 rounds a year was a slow year. but back then, we joked "You spend the first 100,000 rounds learning to shoot, and the second 100,000 rounds un-learning the mistakes you learned in the first."

Post Pin Shoot, getting the lead out of a shotgun barrel. Somebody please make a OOB load where the shot is in a cup! 12 gage Nylon brush from Iosso, Chore Boy pan scrubber, some Kroil (could be anything really) a cordless drill, rubber gloves (to keep all the lead-bearing mung out of my system). When shopping for pan scrubber, bring a magnet. Some of it is steel, copper-plated. Probably OK actually but I'd rather have only copper.


Something I see pretty regularly; this is in a factory Colt Commander barrel. The freebore and throat of the chamber are way eccentric to the bore. It's like they use reamers without pilots or very undersized pilots. On this side, lots of freebore and throat…..


On this side, almost none at all. Bullets were wedging in; they would chamber but you could literally not eject a loaded round, the wedging was so extreme. Dear Colt: you've been making these things for how long, now?


And, another pictorial comment on how I start when fitting a ramped barrel:

Re: colt barrels

Some things are so foundational, and so easy to get right, you have to wonder how it can happen that it isn't right. I mean, how much do you have to fiddle-fart around with chambering a broached barrel blank, to get those results?

I know. I see parts made wrong sometimes that make me wonder "how did they even do that?"

We scored some bowling pins the other day. This is what 800 of them looks like.... 800 X 3.5 = 2800 pounds.

Now that is gonna be a lot of fun in the bed of that pick up Keep the brass flying

_________________
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

The Guncrafter Industries HOSS 1911:




Yep-- both of these barrels are .45 caliber.


https://www.guncrafterindustries.com/th ... stom-1911/

I tell ya. Not only in the firearms biz, but certainly to great extent in the firearms biz, puffery and exaggeration make up the majority of the market. Fakery, even. Downright BS sometimes. As I have said before, much of what's out there doesn't have to be what they say it is, it only has to seem like it is or look like it is. That's why when I see something that really IS what it purports to be, I love talking about it.

I have never made a secret of it, the guys at Guncrafter are my friends. I've known Alex since 1991 and I knew in the first hour of our acquaintance that he had a lot going on. Real innovation is not completely absent in the firearms industry but it is the exception. And everything from Guncrafter that I have seen has been exceptional.

I get so disappointed in many 1911 offerings-- OK, I'm a 1911 snob, sorta, but really..... all I ask for, all it takes to make me happy is a 1911 that comes from the factory and works right out of the box, no 1000 round break-in, nor a 500 round or 200 round one-- that should not be too much to ask. Soooo many guns out there, when you buy it probably 10% of the price is you paying for their copious advertising that virtually guarantees that they will sell lots of guns and make a profit, on a gun that doesn't work, isn't finished, and.... by the way, please put another $900 into it for us and break it in as opposed to us doing it right and giving you a gun that works. "Expect" malfunctions until you have put "X" rounds through it.

Balderdash! 100 rounds, or 1000 rounds, or 5000 rounds, ain't gonna fix a chamber that's too tight. Nor an extractor with no tension, nor feedramp geometry that won't feed hardball for crapsake.

A couple years ago another brand come out with their own 1911. I wanted them to succeed, real bad. I was in contact with them and told them I'd like to help, and I outlined what "everybody else" (almost) gets wrong and how easy it would be for them to not get these things wrong. Getting these things right would not require bringing back the kindly white-haired craftsman with wire-rimmed glasses and a white apron-- and decades of experience-- to spend an hour and a half fine-tuning each gun with needle files and other hand tools. Nope. It might take a few employees with an hour's training to spend another twelve minutes per gun.... twenty even.... and get these areas right. The savings in warranty returns would surely pay for that, but-- the cost of fixing guns that don't work, well, that's rolled into the price everyone pays, too. "They're not going to lose money just because their product doesn't work"! I got a copy of their new product and it was a disappointment.... they missed the same things so many others get wrong. When it would be so easy to get them right. I was hoping they would be a stand-out, but they were not.

Every Guncrafter I've seen has been exemplary. See, all you have to do to stand out is do what everyone else does but do it right! Guncrafter is not the only one of course-- there are several others, but Guncrafter is the one I know best. Something like the HOSS takes it several steps further, with real innovations with actual advantages, the kind of thinking that many legacy manufacturers seem incapable of. Note the heavy-walled barrel, the oversized slide stop shaft, the heavy duty plunger tube (yes, that is my product). 15 LPI checkering? You have to try it to appreciate it.

YES, you can get a 1911 for 1/10 the price and some of them work pretty well from what I see. They won't be as accurate, they won't last nearly as long, but they will work, sometimes better than the "big names". There are a few budget 1911's that honestly ought to bring shame to some of the other brands. There should be staff meetings and come-to-John-Moses-Browning meetings. Well I think the years have shown us that probably won't happen. The old saying,"we sell every one we make" carries a lot of weight. I wish it was "every one we make is as good as it can be and it will work!"

Agreed. While I don't particularly care for the Guncrafter aesthetics (I don't care for the bushing profile on this particular gun), their reputation for excellence is well earned. And aesthitics are easily changed to suit.
I like the heavy barrel, plunger tube, and especially the15LPI checkering. What is that slide stop pin diameter? Looks like .220"-ish.

It's a full .250. So, .050 larger, as is the barrel diameter-- so the bushing is larger, which necessitated the weird sculpts in the bushing's side-- so you can get the recoil spring plunger out.

Built like the old Freedom Arms .454 Casull revolvers-- everything is solid and smooth, no wobble but totally free movement. When you hand cycle it, it makes a sound kinda like a Luger, which I like to describe as, "craftsmanship you can hear."

Not the best pic.

Early 1980's pin gun.



Perhaps not the most efficient comp. I probably overthought it.... but it does work. The front sight is long to also act as a reinforcement bridge across the top. The comp is made from a steel called NAK55 which was getting popular in mold shops at the time. The comp and gooseneck are all one piece-- like all my comps this started out as a 2" bar of steel and got machined to match the slide profile. The gooseneck right behind the comp has a spherical ring machined into it for a lockup that allows universal motion. It's chromed for wear-- both unnecessary as I would come to know later.

The comp is locked to the barrel by being sliver brazed at the rear. The barrel is a Clark, I think it was the second barrel I fitted for contact with all three locking lugs-- which takes a lot of fine measuring and delicate machining, but I feel it increases safety and for sure increases the life of the lockup.

Rear sight-- I liked Witchitas back then, it is installed in my "no base' style. The base is discarded and the sight mounted directly to the slide. Not sure what the grip safety is, it's "whatever was available back then". The tapped hole in the slide stop shaft was for a little knob for use in an experimental holster. The trigger guard is welded up and serrated on the front by EDM.... way, way too much trouble but I was experimenting. The pattern is what I would call very early Conamyds-- a pattern of pointed cones rather than square pyramids.

This is from a year and a half ago—or more. But it had to sit for a while…. then it went to Bert Edmonston to re-chase the slide roll marks. The gun had already been re-blued once and the roll marks were weak enough to be 80% washed out in a re-re-blue. This was my first dealing with the guy and he treated me very, very well and the work is, simply, unbelievable. Then, it was ready. Sat another long period, ready to go but not going, and finally—it was off to the one place I trust for bluing, Glenrock Blue. I usually prefer to do all the prep work but there just wasn’t time for it, and over the years I have learned—Glenrock can be trusted with it. They did a beautiful job, the only word for it is “perfect.”

Contrast that to a new chrome source I found. Hard chrome is getting really hard to find, most places that I / we smiths have used in the past are no longer doing it. I was directed to this outfit and communications seemed good, a critical part of the relationship. I carefully prepped sixteen parts as per our discussion-- "plate as-is, I will have the parts shiny where I want them shiny and matted where I want them matted." They buffed or flap-wheeled everything. Some parts I had to flat-out replace, including the bushing on this gun-- it had been made undersized (even with the plating added which was two layers) and the plating was spotty. So where I'd have preferred a chromed bushing as has kinda been my style on a blued gun, this bushing is blued. Spent good money and a lot of time on those sixteen parts, big disappointment.

I nice old “C-block” Colt. The war was over and the late ‘40’s were good years for Colt and for Bogart. A few stops were not pulled out on this one but it turned out great and I’m pretty sure it will never be seen again.

That is a great looking and Classic build on a classic piece. Thank you for sharing. You are so right about finding someone who still hard chromes.

_________________
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

Ned- great looking pony! Bert is solid as well... glad you two have run into each other:)

I was shocked to learn he does it by hand....!

I just had the great pleasure of deleting several hundred spambot attempts to "join" LTW. That is waaaayy fewer than a year ago, they were in the thousands.

So, good time to remind anyone wanting to sign up here. Use a user name that is two parts with a space between them, that will make you stand out when my eyes glaze over trying to determine "real or scammer". Better yet, send me an Email that you are trying to sign up and tell me something like what JMB stands for or what year our favorite pistol caused the Army to say, "We'll take it!"

"The Colonel" load testing the .50 GI the other day, through "Simo", the pin gun with the Delrin comp shown in previous posts. He's trying a few different powders; Bullseye and Unique have been the standards. He's looking for, well, all the things that matter when winning or losing might be decided by 5/100 of a second: less smoke, expected velocity and a little economy doesn't hurt either.

I didn't ask what camera this was, but this still from the vid shows the .50 caliber, 270grain coated SWC doing about 875 FPS. That's a 236 power factor-- more than enough for moving a bowling pin 3' and off the back of a steel-topped table. Also note the empty off to the left and the chronograph[h body in front.

I've been running my "Pingelder" .50 GI pin gun for eight years now. TC, a few years less but he shoots his a lot more than I do mine and must have at least double my round count.

In the "S6 shop" of the 2nd Ranger Battalion there is an area where tributes to fallen Rangers and certain war trophies are on display. I'm happy to say that this little study of mine is on display in the same area. I figured it was good info for guys going downrange:

Now that is something to consider with vest mounted magazines. I am not being critical but something to think about. WOW. Thanks for posting that picture.

_________________
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

Wore my mags on my chest, but I had plates under the mags.

I see the benefits of getting stuff off the waistline but have never been a big supporter of magazines carried on the front of a outer vest. During my time on a federal task force we were issued throw over outer vest and I was always concerned with the things mounted on the front of the vest becoming shrapnel if hit by rounds. I mostly mounted my stuff left and right of the centerline on mine, maybe my concerns were unmerited.

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

I had Spoonful out the other day. I'm really enamored of that design-- patent dates going back to, I think, 1899.

The crack in the top tang is not getting any smaller. Some day I will get it welded. Jeez the gun is only 95 years old and this already?

I had bought some #4 buck by mistake and patterned Spoonful..... the trend in shotguns in the last decade or two has been toward tighter patterns but there is also something to be said for wide-open. This is #4 buck, 27 pellets (.24 diameter), at 15 yards. Cylinder bore of course. It will put slugs into a Red Delicious at 28 yards, that'll do for a lot of applications-- those silver paint lines on the back of the receiver hump? That's the rear sight.

I would say that the choice is mission and environment specific.

I have my uncle's once pristine Browning Auto. His grandson boorrowed it and left it outside under a shed in coastal Florida. My uncle then gave it to my dad and I took it to a local shop in P'cola where I was then stationed and had it cleaned up and Parkerized since it was so pitted. Dad passed, so now I have it. Shoot great and I have considered doing something similar to yours. I have a bunch of 870s (one in 20g), an 1100, an 11-87, and a BPS. Several different configurations, so need is not an issue. Thinking about it...

Well they are awfully cool when awfully short. Possibly of interest: Sarco has, or had, a large quantity of Auto 5 receivers that had never been manufactured as shotguns-- like, new old stock. One presumes something's wrong with them, but.... key words here are, "never been manufactured as shotguns". That's what make the Shockwave style firearm, a "firearm". You can't take a shotgun and cut it down to this config, that would be, oh no, a short-barreled shotgun. But if it comes that way from the factory, it's not a shotgun, it's a firearm and therefor perfectly legal and free from NFA silliness. As I understand it a person could take one of those (new old stock receivers), fill it with parts from a donor gun, cut the barrel to, oh, say 15", and be on his way to a non-NFA "whippet". The only thing is that it cannot have a stock. It must be over 26" and have a bird's head grip on it.... I'm not sure how (or IF) that is defined.... and as I'm sure you're aware, the Auto 5 design has a tube running partway into the stock for the bolt's action spring. Not sure how to leave enough stock to contain the spring it without it being counted as a stock and without violating the desired form of the gun.