Six weeks agoe I cudnt evin spell gunsmith

...Undoubtedly more than you want to know about that First Series Colt Woodsman Match Target that moved in a few weeks ago, the one who didn't bring a magazine along.  So sue me.

I mentioned in the second post down that I found an old High Standard HD mag for it, along with a similar empty body. I  claimed I could make the follower and find some sort of workable spring.

















Half done in less than 45 minutes.


The left follower is the new one. It looked correct and measured correct. Just to make sure, I installed it in the mag with the spring. Works fine.

Two complications remain. A spring could turn up in one of my "miscellaneous" boxes during my next paw-through. If not, almost any from a gun-show-junk  .22LR magazine should be adaptable.

The retaining pin will give me more trouble.  JMB designed it as slip-in. The groove under the head holds things together by engaging the body tin. There's no lathe here, so I'm leaning toward tapping the hole for a 6-32 machine screw. Might work. Might get a better idea.

The new follower began life as a steering arm from a junked-out Dixon ZTR42 mower. Most of it went to Ken's iron pile, but I squirreled away a few likely looking bits of steel for just such an emergency gun repair. Because I live a pure and virtuous life, the handle happened to be the exact thickness of the factory follower, saving me some tedious surface grinding.

Tools involved: Makita angle grinder. Baldor bench grinder. One-inch vertical belt sander obviously built by a Mattell subsidiary. Twelve-inch muslin polishing wheel on  big old 3450 rpm Craftsman table saw motor. Chinese drill press. (Twenty minutes after you drill a hole you want to make another one.) Couple of mill bastards.

Technique: Use the factory part for a pattern. Cut your new one a few thousandths oversize. Trim to fit. (That's what the bastards are for.) Shine her up a little.

About that foreign weenie...

Every time truth requires me to admit to using a 9mm Eurowimp as my bread and butter piece, I feel compelled to get all defensive about it.

I loopholed the 59 cheap, as it should have been. It was intended to be trading stock, but my vestigial conscience denied permission to foist it off until it could be used as intended. So I disassembled, deburred, throated, and polished the internals. Most significantly I ground enough metal from the frame to permit the trigger to go back far enough to trip the sear every time. This is the truth, and I can still display the tool marks to doubters.

About the time I finished making the damned thing work right,  I got sucked into the high-capacity vortex which was just gathering speed in those days.

"Look,"  I thought,  "with 13 rounds in one magazine, I am  reasonably well covered for any threat I can imagine, even if I can't immediately put my hands on the spare."  


It remains a valid point, even after a guy becomes totally disenchanted with the 9mm as a defense round. (You can hedge your bet with zippy hand loads, and I do.) Besides, I really like shooting the thing.

But the controlling point is that my life has become almost as threat-free as a modern American life can be.  On the rare, all but nonexistent, occasions when I don't t think that Pollyanna-ish view is justified, the pipsqueak goes into the safe, and out comes one of Mr. Browning's (PBUH) 1911s in the decisive .45 ACP.

I do not urge this solution on others.

Trigger-happy

To a guy brought up on the elegance of Mausers and 1903s, the Stevens folks got carried away with moving parts on their 110e trigger. Five-count-em-five adjusting screws in the trigger group, enough to make it imprudent to wing it based on experience.* 

So you go to the internet and discover what the Stevens design fellows had in mind. Ten minutes later you're smiling.  The letoff isn't crisp, but it's better than pretty good, and I won't have that venerable "crappy trigger" excuse for missing. 

You also learn the sear and associated  parts are made of sintered metal, and the hardening is no deeper than Obamian economic understanding. So put the hones away.  Right now.

I think I'm going to like this one enough to float the barrel and pretty it up a bit, maybe try a new magic formula I thought up for making birch look something  like walnut. Stay tuned.

---

*"Experience"  -- that accumulation of knowledge permitting me to credibly explain how I screwed up this time.   

But It's Ugly

Twenty-mumble years of use have taken their toll of what little beauty that Smith 59 had in the first place, and I catch myself wondering if it's a good candidate for a bake-on.  

I used the Brownell  brand last summer to titivate  a 1911 built years ago  on an Essex frame, GI top and internals. It looks pretty good, not really like Parkerizing, but close. 

A sorta-Parkerized 59? Why not? I can't imagine the gene pool ever polluted enough to create beings who consider these things collectible. 

  

BubbaSmithing

.

The SW59 came my way in the latter days of the Carter Administration. It was a police turn-in. Smart police.

The SW factory munchkins somehow missed the concept that a trigger should release the sear prior to making solid contact with the frame.  I relieved the frame and made it go click in the shop -- every time. Yowza.  A bench strip  and the hard felt wheels took care of the trigger-mech burrs and silenced the symphony of screeches and whines prior to the click. (I'm not sure this was wise. Maybe Smith and Wesson decided there should be an audible warning that this gun was going to go off any second now.) 

All was well until sometime during the recent  Christmas trip. Getting ready to put it away last evening I noticed a full magazine would not drop without a substantial assist. Nor would either clip go back in without a big hand-bruising  whack. Look real close.  See the clip scratches. See the mysterious bump on the forward edge of the well. No, it wasn't dropped nor transported in the tool box with the pipe wrenches. I suspect SW used an alloy seeded with a secret enzyme which grows burrs. 

While the files and emery cloth  were handy  I beveled  the rest of the magazine well. Very smooth now, and I feel just like P.O. Ackley.