Waves from Arkansas!

Quote from: Coffinmaker on Yesterday at 08:32:07 PM Abilene

Nice.  VERY nice indeed.  Jay did really super work.

Added: Ah, Eable??  Did you really mean Edible??  Or, ah um ah . 

Ha!  Eagle grips.  Probably can't blame otto for that one.     But hmm, edible grips...might have something there.  You know, for the bad hunter.

  Abilene

Nice.  VERY nice indeed.  Jay did really super work.

Added: Ah, Eable??  Did you really mean Edible??  Or, ah um ah . 

  Well 

Here it is at long last.  I finally got my El Malo IIs out to a match.  Unfired until today.  Not only unfired, but also still sporting that Uber Tall OEM front sight blade.  That tall front sight is not conducive to lots of KLANG when yer shooting 130Gr Barnstormer bullets out of 3.5 inch barrels.  Sprayed a lot of bullets.

Functionally, however, we're talking Supercalafragalistic to be sure.  Smooth.  Tight. Trigger a little heavy (I like that). Ran like CCH Swiss Watches.  Super fun.  I still have to commune with my trusted agent to get some Tin Types per past requests.  Stay Tuna.

  Niederlander

Um, well.  Taylor Throating is basically cutting a 10° forcing cone into the breach of the barrel.  The more common cut is for an 11° forcing cone.  Isn't much of a difference.  In most revolvers, there isn't much of a forcing cone cut and usually only about 5° so I understand your wish. 

My "Set" for cutting forcing cones came from Brownells.  It included the Cutter, rod, guide and T handle.  You may also wish to reach out to "Manson Reamers" although any competent gunsmith should be able to do the job.  It's pretty simple.

  PLUS ONE for Abilene 

Couldn't agree more!!  Hi Ho Sliver Away 

I just realized it has been 3 years since I shot my Kirst-Konverted '61.  That's too long!  I posted about this gun when I first bought it in 2019.  Shot it in 5 matches at 4 clubs with no misses despite the unlined bore, but hey, it was SASS targets, so...

To re-cap, bought this from Jay Strite (Raven) when he retired.  He was a 'smith for Kirst for many years.  This was his personal '61 that wasn't shot much, mostly carried to shows as a demo.  It is totally defarbed of all markings and stamped with only the tiny Raven and Kirst-Strite stamps, plus s/n 1 on all assemblies.  He color case hardened it and charcoal blued the frame.  For every different model he built, '49, '51, '60 etc. he started with s/n 1 but this was the first of them all.  Mike Brackett thinned down the shoulder stock screws.

After the 1st four matches the hand spring broke.  Took me a long time, but I finally repaired that and shot it once more in 2021.  I've been wanting to get the barrel relined to .357 but have not found anyone to do it (Kirst doesn't any more).  I got the 2-position hand from Kirst a week ago and installed it - dropped right in, action feels smoother.  It still has 4 clicks (percussion guns and conversions should have 3) and hammer over-travel after that 4th click, but maybe that is the nature of a Kirst on a Colt?  Don't know, but couldn't tell the difference today between this gun and the Richards-Mason I teamed it up with when actually shooting.  And the timing is still right for loading/unloading through the gate.

A local is getting out of shooting and I bought a box of Bear Creek 148gr HBWC from him.  I loaded these, leaving .09" of bullet exposed at the mouth, with 2.3gr of Clays.  Again, no misses for today's match.  But I wanted to know the accuracy of this load a little better, so afterwards I put 5 rounds into around 2.5" group at approximately 7 yards, then reloaded and hit the 50-yard Cody Dixon target 4 out of 5 times.  So I'm happy! 

Now, reloading that round was a PITA with my setup.  My Lee measure won't reliably throw a charge of Clays that small, so I was dipping it, and the smallest (.3cc) dipper was a smidgen low, so I had to hand trickle onto the scale for each round.  I know Bear Creek now makes a hollow base bullet that would be more suitable (130gr I think?) but for now I have these.  My plan for now is to load these on the 550 next time I do .38's, and I will just load this bullet long so I can use the same charge of N320 that I use for my regular 125gr loads.  I will just have to turn in the seating stem a hair since these are max of 1.42" to fit in the Kirst (my 125gr are 1.44").  They will look funny with that big flat bullet sticking out, but I don't care.  For shooting BP, I will just load the same bullet, which has no lube grooves, and squirt butter-flavored Crisco into the front of the cylinder over the first two rounds, same as I've always done with my other BP pistol rounds.

It's not going to get shot a lot because of all the others in rotation (a nice problem) but way more than before!

The grip is new to the gun, it occurred to me that this being a steel frame pistola, the grip is actually a Model P grip, not Navy.  And I had a nice one available that came off another Model P that is currently sporting hard rubber eagle grips.  Anyway, I like them as is but will most likely strip them to an oil finish.

Oh yeah, the pics: far right, grandparent's wedding, far left, great grandparents, little girl on the right is my mom with two brothers. 

And the sweet music will play on long after the dance is over.

Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?  Who will guard the guards themselves?

Illigitimae non carborundum! 

Howdy Mako, I was close to sending you a PM.  As we've all been lamenting, this shooting forum as well as some others have been in doldrums, partially from us getting old and dying off, and probably other things.  But however dead it seems, it is much less dead when you are here.