BarryinIN

I was so excited over your new Colt that I missed this before: How many words? To paraphrase Mel Brooks: It's good to be excited over a new gun.

This doesn't completely apply to Pablo's question, but maybe this is as good a time as any for me to go off on my 1911 magazine rant. Here we go. Most of the big gun forums on the web have this question regularly: What is the most reliable/dependable magazine for 1911s? The forum will light up with responses, most of them saying "Wilson" (which only narrows it down to four basic models and several more sub-models), with some McCormick Power Mag fans, the occasional Tripp Cobra Mag connoisseur, and always some guy saying that nothing but gen-yoo-ine GI will do, even though odds are they have never seen an actual USGI magazine since they practically dried up 50 years ago. Besides the fact it's hard to say anything is "best" without having tried everything available, there is another problem with answering this question: You can't tell the guy what mag is best for his gun without trying them in his gun. You see, what works well in one gun might not work well in another. There have been dozens of 1911 manufacturers. There have been dozens of 1911 magazine manufacturers. They have made millions of guns and magazines. Not every combination will be a perfect match, even if most might. The Wilsons are wonderful. Specifically, the 47 series is the type everyone is familiar with and has been made by the barge load. They have worked great in almost every 1911 I've had. But not in all. I've had two Springfields that wouldn't lock open on the 8-rd version. They fed fine, but wouldn't lock open when empty. The 7-rd ones did. I've seen some other SAs that did the very same thing. Still, they were the exception. Every other 1911 I've owned, and most I've seen used with them ran fine. Most guns like them, but some do not. Chip McCormick Power Mags came out a few years ago and I think they are way better than their old Shooting Star and "Match" models. The Springfields I had that didn't lock open on the Wilsons lock open on the Power Mags. I have had no trouble with them in any of my guns, and I use them for carry. But some people I shoot IDPA and IPSC with say they have had trouble in their guns. Most guns like them, but some do not. Colt factory mags can come from various sources, but usually seem to be Metalform from what I've seen. Most of these have been OK with me, but not always. It depends on the gun. Most guns like them, but some do not. Ed Brown sells a magazine or two. I don't know if he makes it or buys it and remarks it. I have one and it works fine in all my guns, but I have heard others rank it below the Wilsons. There you go. Most guns like them, but some do not. ACT is an Italian company that made the first S&W 1911 mags, and maybe they still do. I have two, and while they feed fine, they are just a little wider than normal and stick in the magwell of some guns when released. Most guns like them, but some do not. And on it goes. My point is, if someone buys a new 1911, try a brand of magazine before buying a bunch of them. Don't go online and ask what is "the best" and buy two dozen of them. You may hear Magazine A is the best in the world, but don't order a bucketful before trying any of them or you may be stuck with a bucketful of expensive magazines that "mostly work". You yourself might have had great luck with that mag in another gun 10 years ago, but that doesn't mean it will go well now. It is slower, and may cost a bit at first, but I'd suggest buying one each of as many good brands as one can, trying them, then getting more of what the gun tells you to get. If it likes them all, you have eliminated the most important factor and can move down the list. Get the one that's five cents cheaper or has a more rounded base pad that doesn't gouge your side as bad when in the belt pouch. If nothing else, it might keep someone from being another who curses 1911s as clunkers "even after buying the best magazine money could buy". Try before you buy, or at least before you buy in quantity. What's the best 1911 magazine? The one that works in your gun.

They may have sold some Colt-marked ones, but I am pretty sure Colt has not made a magazine in-house for a long time. A long time, perhaps decades. There is often a letter in the corner of the floorplate that corresponds to a manufacturer. I have seen a code chart somewhere, but don't recall when and where it was. They have used Metalform, Checkmate, McCormick and no doubt others.

Awww, why'd you go and do that? You just...just...ripped out it's soul! The first AR-15 I bought (1984) had a distinctive smell to it. It faded, but when I shot it, even as little as a round or two, there it was again. It finally went away after several years, and I actually missed it.

Great! Yeah, they do have a smell. It sticks around too. It will get faint, but still recognizable.

I've never used any, bought any, or seen any in use. I heard BVAC stands for Bitteroot Valley Ammunition Company, which is part of HSM (Hunting Shack) that a few online/catalog places sell.

I don't know if any of the nylon (or similar material) brushes will stand up to bore solvents. The ammonia in most bore solvents will eat away the bronze/brass ones, but not as fast as most solvents eat the plastic ones in my experience. The brush might start out .45 caliber, but end up a .40 quickly! I would look here though: http://www.champchoice.com/cat-Brushes-293.aspx I get my bronze brushes from them (their in house brand) and like them a lot, and I think they might have nylon if you look around there. I know they used to, but don't know now. BTW, That place (Champion's Choice) isn't a bad place to have bookmarked anyway. They are target shooting oriented, so don't have everything for general shooting, but are good about what they have. I started using them when I was shooting Highpower, and at the time, they couldn't be beat on a lot of things we used. They were higher on some things, but often beat everyone else by a good margin on lots of others, so were pretty good overall. Here's another that is very similar: http://www.championshooters.com/

At the time I had mine, .40 ammo was cheaper and more available. For reloading, .40 brass was almost giveaway cheap (the State Police academy is about eight miles away) and is a lot easier to reload than 357 Sig anyway. The result of this was that while I chose to carry it in .357, the .40 barrel got used as my practice barrel and paid for itself quick in both dollars and convenience. Things change and one caliber can be easier to find than another seemingly overnight, so doubling your options with two barrels can be useful.

I used to be there some. The following is all I know of as a migration site, where the cast bullet shooters went, but it's probably what you already know about: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/forumdisplay.php?f=7

Thanks. I'll see about digging one or more out. I started a three-part series on the Garand and only got two parts done, so I need to work on that sometime.

It is a bit slow at times. I had been thinking about posting another of my old "articles" from that now-defunct forum just to have something new to look at. Pablo buying guns all the time gives us something to talk about. Not that that is a bad thing.

Get a 357 barrel and you can play Secret Service Agent! I think the P228/P229 is a good size for a carry gun. I had two 228 9mms, and a 229 with 357 and 40 barrels. Not at the same time. I had high hopes for the 228, which is why I have had two. I got the first one but never could shoot it well and traded it off. I tried another 228 a couple of years later, with the same result. In between, I got the 229 and could shoot it better, so apparently it wasn't because the size and shape didn't agree with me. Fwiw, I had the 239 in 357 while I owned the 229, and could always shoot the smaller 239 better. The grip fit my hand a lot better, which is what I attributed that too. I traded off all the Sigs except my 220 .45 and 226 9mm when I realized I rarely shot DA autos anymore. However, if I had to carry a DA now, I'd use the P220 but would try another P229 soon.

Just so you know- At one time, Sig said the P239 needed different magazines for .357 Sig and .40 S&W. Why, I don't know, but they did. They didn't say that for their other models- just the P239. I had a .357 P239, but never had a .40 barrel for it so never got to try that out. I do have one very tiny bit of info on that. There was an IDPA match last year where the match director was bringing a new shooter who was using a P239 in .40. He only had two mags, so the m.d. sent out an email asking if anyone had a spare to loan them. I took one of my old .357 P239 mags and they used it. I didn't remember the .357/.40 thing specific to the P239 until the match was underway, so when I got my mag back after the match I asked if it worked. He said yes, it worked, but they only used it once. So it worked in one gun for a handful of shots. fwiw.

I just think people need to be forewarned about modifying HiPowers. Some of the "common knowledge" fixes don't fix things for everyone, and often make them worse. I often see and hear cases where people buy a HiPower, then everyone tells them they what they "have to fix" before ever shooting it. That's how it happens. "Fixing" hammer bite without knowing if their hammer bites them is the classic example. They often end up creating hammer bite. Then they are stuck. They have a gun they already spent extra time and money on, and still have problems. Now what? Whether they caused the problems or not it doesn't matter. They still have to decide whether to invest more time and money, accept it like it is, or move on to something else. It could have been avoided by shooting the gun a while to determine what they actually needed.

HiPower triggers can vary. I had read how awful their triggers were for 20 years before buying my first one. That one had a great trigger, and made me wonder what everyone had been talking about. The next one I bought had a terrible trigger. I've had six more since, and they all fell somewhere between those first two. The best advice I can give someone trigger-wise when shopping for HiPowers is to try as many as they can. If buying from a place that has several guns to choose from, try every single one of them. Or, if you have one gun to choose from and the trigger is unsatisfactory to you, get a trigger job. You can spend $75 or hundreds, depending on what you want there. My custom HiPower's trigger breaks clean at under four pounds and has a shortened reset so it feels really good, but the work cost more than my first HiPower. The shortened reset took a lot of work and cost accordingly, but if you don't want or need that, Don Williams (The Action Works) is one of the best HiPower smiths in the country and his regular BHP trigger job is $95. It's well worth it if needed at all. http://theactionworks.com/browning.htm Incidentally, the trigger mechanism is the downside to what is best part of HiPowers in my opinion and that of many others. The HiPower feels better to me than any other gun, both in shooting and carrying. The grip shape and for that matter, and slim overall shape, is why. It got that way by the trigger linkage. Trigger movement has to get transferred to the sear. The 1911 and others run a trigger bow around the magazine well, and others have a single heavier trigger bar running alongside the frame. Eliminating either one could give a slimmer frame in the grip area. They got rid of it in the HiPower by transferring the trigger movement up into the slide and back down. The trigger moves a bar upward, which contacts a rocking, seesaw-like trigger lever in the slide, and lifts it upward. It pivots downward at the rear to press on the sear, releasing it from the hammer. It's only one additional part, not the "complicated maze of linkages and levers" most gun magazine articles say, but that one part adds a couple more movements and contact points which don't help the pull. But it allows a nice trim gun. My view on it is that while trigger pull is important, so is having a gun that fits the hand. I can get a decent trigger on a Browning for $100 or less, but the grip or overall feel on some guns can't be helped for any amount of money. Few, if any, feel as good as the HiPower to me. Also- Like triggers varying from gun to gun, there are a lot of things about BHPs that vary from owner to owner. When someone buys a BHP, people start offering advice on what it "needs". Watch that, because these "improvements" might not be. A good example is hammer bite. It almost always gets mentioned, but some people get bit and some don't. Among those who get bit, some hammer styles do it and some don't. I very seldom got bit with the regular spur-type, but the round one eats me alive. Meanwhile, a lot of people like the round hammer (I refuse to call it a Commander hammer because BHPs had them first), and swear it's the greatest thing ever. And different people get bit different ways (by the tip of the hammer or by the shank part below the thumbpiece). Grips are another. Most hate the current plastic thumbrest grips, but some like them. Some want slim grips and others want to widen it. If you buy one, shoot it a while, then see what it might need. It might not need a thing. That's true with any gun, but seems more evident with HiPowers. I have a gee-whiz custom one that I carry almost every day. I also have one that is just like it was in 1972 when it was made. It has the small sights everyone says they can't see, small safety lever everybody says they miss with their thumb, and stock trigger everybody says they can't use- but I shoot that one as well as the custom one. It's just that it's easier to do with the custom one.

I suppose it's an example of supply and demand and "whatever the market will bear". It must be worth it to somebody. For all I know, it was the bargain of the century. If I were spending that much on a S&W it would have been something else.

The CMP doesn't sell M1A/M14s; only Garands, M1 Carbines, and older. About once every year or two, someone starts a campaign to push the gov't into allowing the sale of M14s through the CMP. Orest Michaels, who heads up the CMP says not to bother. It won't happen due to the ATF's "once a machinegun always a machinegun" view, and it sounds like it would be more trouble than the worth for the CMP if it did.

So, how's that Trooper working out?

Oh now that is nice! It's my favorite of anything you've got lately. I've been wanting another Colt DA revolver myself, and was scouring GB pretty hard about a month ago.

Sounds nice no matter how much you have to clean it. My feeling is cleaning I can deal with; dinged crowns or scratched bores I can't. I know everybody has an opinion on cleaning products (and if you want to see a real fight, go to some forums and ask what lube to use) so I usually keep quiet about this stuff. You sound like you have a special case here, though. I keep hearing how wonderful Kroil is as a bore cleaner. I've heard about using it to clean guns for 20 years or more but never used it myself. At first, it was benchresters, then gradually other shooters. I keep hearing how it "gets under" stuff better than anything. The cast bullet guys are almost religious about the stuff.

I know Browning has used some sort of spray-on finish, but don't know if that camo is. One would think so. When I had my HiPower customized a few years ago, it was a two-tone chrome and blue gun (Practical model) and the hard chrome had to be stripped off the frame. That was $35 I think, and I would guess it would be close to do what you want.

I assume you are talking about one that has to be shipped, and not buying one while on a trip? In that case, whether rifle, shotgun, or handgun, it has to be shipped to an FFL holder. This might help you, or at least provide links: http://www.gunbroker.com/User/HowToBuy.aspx

Just yesterday I was reading a piece on .357/9mm Blackhawks that got me thinking. It was written by Skeeter Skelton over 40 years ago, but the points are still valid. http://www.darkcanyon.net/handguns_by_skeeter_skelton_nov_1968.htm The third or fourth entry down. Skeeter Skelton was my favorite gunwriter when I was a kid. Other kids wanted to be like Ken Stabler or Kareem Abdul Jabbar, but I wanted to be Skeeter Skelton. He is the reason I like the .44 Special today, the first thing I thought of when I bought a Lyman 358156 mould for the .357, why I still want a S&W 27 with 5" barrel, and why I took Spanish in high school (to help if I joined the Border Patrol like he did).

Yes and no. But mostly. A book came out about three or four years ago called "Bren Ten: The Heir Apparent" by Ronald A. Carrillo, and it details the entire Bren Ten story and the events before and after. Great book, and worth reading even if one is not interested in Bren Tens in particular, just to see how hard it is to start manufacturing guns from nothing. Now when people say someone should start up a company to make _____ gun, I have to laugh. I didn't think it was easy before reading that book, and now think it would be easier to do just about anything. I have no great respect for Dornhaus & Dixon, but I now wonder how they got any guns made at all. Anyway, the book tells all about the design. It was based on the CZ-75, but I couldn't say it was a scaled-up CZ-75 or a CZ-75 with an alteration or two. It was a little more involved than that, but yes, it was definitely patterned after the CZ. The trigger system might be a good example. It worked the same basic way in both guns, but was changed/altered/beefed up in the Bren so it would be a stretch to call it the same thing. Likewise, the grip shape is similar but a little different. The locking system is about the same, but the recoil spring arrangement was altered some. And so it went all through the gun. One change was the safety location. When they showed a prototype to Jeff Cooper (who seems to have had less direct involvement in the design than legend allows) he wanted the safety moved. The prototype had it where it would be on a slightly scaled up CZ, but that put it where it felt just a little odd to a 1911 user. I can't remember now if it was slightly higher or slightly lower. Col Cooper wanted it to feel like a 1911 safety, so they agreed to move it, which turned out to be a much bigger challenge than they thought and caused them to practically start over on the entire lock work. Then there were lesser changes like the slide top contours, auxiliary crossbolt safety, ability to turn a screw to prevent the mag from dropping completely out, etc. One thing to keep in mind is that the Bren Ten actually had to be designed around the 45 ACP. This is something that isn't usually thought about, if widely known at all. That isn't a factor because of strength, but in dimensions- particularly height. The Bren Ten, as originally planned, would have been a slightly smaller gun and perhaps better overall. This would later be a point of contention between Thomas Dornaus and Mike Dixon because one wanted to match it to the new 10mm cartridge, and the other wanted to have the ability to accept a .45 ACP conversion. Had it been designed solely around the 10mm, it would have been closer to CZ-75 size, in production sooner, and maybe have had a better chance at success. Or not. Mine was a 45 ACP by the way. They made some on special order for a Chicago-area gunshop called "The Marksman Shop" in 45 ACP only, called the "Marksman Special". The serial numbers had an "MSM" prefix (I had serial number MSM217). The Bren Ten was a really neat gun from a design standpoint, but could have been built better. Dornhaus & Dixon used some unconventional (at the time) firearm manufacturing methods. Investment castings were used for the frame and slide, and although Ruger used it a lot, few others did at the time. They made a lot of small parts using the "Mould Forge" process...which is now known as Metal Injection Moulding- MIM. They subcontracted a lot of this work, and a lot of it wasn't very good. Everybody knows how the magazine subcontracting worked out. There were a couple of slide failures in the Marksman Specials, and the gunshop that ordered and sold them had to track down the sold guns and have them Magnafluxed. They sent a bunch of guns back to D&D for bad slides, and there was a lot of suspicion that D&D put them on other guns and sold them. Which was all too bad, because I think it was a good design. The gun felt great, with the CZ-like grip. It was no bigger than a 1911, and a couple of ounces lighter. I liked the sights a lot. The sights were easy to see, the rear was protected by being sunk into the slide, and it was adjustable for elevation but rugged because you locked it in place. Every single edge was slightly rounded for carry, before I saw "dehorning" done on anything else. It had clever little touches like a recoil spring guide that had a screwdriver tip that fit every screw on the gun, and the magazine floorplate shaped so it's "toe" fit the castellated barrel bushing. They also had the best owners manual I've ever seen. I actually enjoyed reading it. The best part was the trigger. I've heard they vary, but the trigger was wonderful on mine. The SA pull was good, but the DA was beautiful. I don't like DA autos, but I could have lived with this one just fine. The DA pull was like a PPC revolver. No kidding. I've never tried a DA auto trigger that was in the same universe, let alone ballpark. I got mine in 1995, ten years after D&D evaporated. By dumb luck, I soon saw an ad for .45 ACP Bren Ten magazines in GunList, called, and it was the former owner of the Marksman Shop. He told me about the slide cracking/failures and that scared me away from shooting it. I wish now I had, just to say I did. I dried fired it to death because I couldn't resist that trigger. If someone were to make them again, and make them well, I'd buy one in a second. Vltor has been working on it, or so they say. http://www.vltor.com/pistol.htm http://vltor.wordpress.com/ http://www.sportingproducts.com/bren-ten.aspx When they announced it, I had finished reading the Bren Ten book not long before and laughed at their time estimates. There are people on the Bren Ten forum who are coming unglued over the delay, but my view is: What did you expect? It's just now been three years. Besides never having built a gun before, Vltor is part of a military contractor who has all the work they can handle at the moment. An all-steel, single digit mag capacity 10mm is not the most popular handgun at the moment, and they aren't going to drop everything to make them because their General Manager thinks they are nifty. Besides, from the time Colt announced the Delta Elite was returning until I found one in the gun shop was 2.5 years. All they had to do was to take their most popular gun, put in 10mm barrels and recoil springs, and mark the slides accordingly. That's a lot less work than going into the gun making business from scratch, and doing it by raising a dead gun design from the grave. I want another, but what I want more is a new one, made right. I'm just not going to hold my breath waiting. If I ever see new-made Bren Tens are out, that's when I will worry about getting one.

The opinion of the masses is the opposite. They want as much USGI as possible. My opinion is that it's hard to judge new parts without more information. They could be anything from far better to far worse than GI. The general feeling, however, is that USGI parts are preferred because they were made in a strictly controlled, heavily inspected environment, where profit was not a concern. My M1A is around 25 years old, and the only one I have to go on, so I don't know how they are now. My only recent reference is somewhat loosely connected- I got a new-made SA M1 Garand a couple of years ago when they made them again for a brief time. I didn't think it was made nearly as well as my M1A or my GI Garands, and traded it off after about a year (the only Garand I've ever parted with). In addition to the receiver, barrel, and stock, quite a few (roughly half, maybe more) of the small parts were non-original. Some of them had contours that were a little different from GI parts, and while it may seem silly, that always gave me a funny feeling. If they don't look like what you are used to seeing, I guess it's natural to have a dubious feeling. I also suppose it was reinforced by the gas cylinder and gas cylinder plug that didn't match up or screw together well. Being right at the muzzle, and the first thing I saw as it sat in the rack, it was hard to not think about. Others fit or looked "funny" too, but if I had not owned a few GI Garands, I might not have known it was odd. But unlike the Garand, where they started making them again one day and needed a bunch of parts right then, they have been making M1As without interruption for a long time and could have been easing new parts and components into them gradually. Whether they did or not, I don't know, but the parts quality would have been easier to control than starting Garand production after a 20 year layoff and having to scare up parts.