MWNN Road Test
Tore both pistols down earlier this week. Gun #1 was fairly smooth out of the box and teardown didnt reveal anything out of the ordinary. The frame was remarkably clean, no grit or big burrs. There was a seam on the hand channel that needed to be filed and stoned off, and there were a couple sharp edges in the hammer channel that were scratching the hammer. Again,a little filing and stoning took care of it. I stoned/polished the hand and bolt as well as some crocus cloth and file to the hand channel - I really need to buy some hand channel stones to do it right though. Cleaned the gun thoroughly - which was a real chore. Thought I'd never get the rust out of the barrel . I must of scrubbed it for 30 min before it was even close to clean. Reassembled the pistol and cycled the action. It was improved; but some Wolfe springs would have really made it nice.
Gun # 2 is a wholly different story. It really needed some work on the frame as well as the hand (as it turned out, I didn't do enough). Like gun#1, I filed and polished the hand channel and hammer channel, and polished the bolt. THe hand, now, was a different animal. It looked like someone took a piece of slag & tried to make a hand out of it. One side was fairly smooth, but the other had a rough gouge taken out of it between the pivot & tooth. The front face was almost straight with some rough rasp tracks across it. I did some work to it, trying to smooth out the rasp tracks & contour it like the other one, polished the sides and hoped it would take the hitch out of the action. The bore on this one was just as rusty as gun #1 and took 30 min or so to clean. Then, as with #1, I reassembled it an cycled the action. The hitch was still there; but not as bad. Again, Wolfe spring should improve it like gun #1
Loaded up a variety of BP loads; 105gr Desperado rnfp w/20 gr Goex Cartridge; 125 Desperado rnfp w/20 gr Goex Cartridge; 158 gr Desperado rnfp w/18 gr Goex Cartridge; and a few 158 gr Desperado rnfp w/18 gr Kik fffg. Also picked up a box of Magtech 158 gr rnfb smokeless loads and a couple boxes of Great Basin Cart Co. 125 gr rnfp smokeless loads.
Took the guns out Thursday for a test firing. Set up some targets at about 12 yards & proceeded to test fire off of a pistol rest. Now, I've never been able to shoot worth a darn off of a rest - everything wants to go high. Starting with the 158 gr Magtech rounds, the first five rounds out of pistol #1 were in the center of the target l to r; but were about 8 inches above the bullseye. Group was about 1.5 to 2". next five did about the same thing. Then moved to the 125gr Great Basin rounds. The groups came down some; but were still high, centered & about 2".
Moving on to the BP rounds, I started with the 105gr Desperados. Was not happy with these at all. They were all over the paper and some keyholed. The 125 gr Desperados and 158 grain Desperados performed about like the smokeless loads.
Did the same testing with gun #2 using same loads and having about the same results. Although it keyholed the 105s and 125 gr BP loads. This pistol also locked up a few times. This is the one that had the hitch in it when dry firing. Only now, with cases in it, it deided to lock up every few rounds.
All together, I put 70 rounds through each gun - 50 BP rounds and 20 smokeless rounds - without doing any cleaning . Neither gun showed any signs of binding up.
Brought the guns home and pumpd some bore cleaning foam down the barrels & in the chambers. When I took them down, I realized that I had not oiled or used any bore butter on the arbors when I reassembled them after the initial teardown & cleaning. Amazing that there was no binding from fouling. The bushing that extends from the cylinder face to the barrel sure does it's job keeping the fouling out.
Tore pistol #2 down again to determine what was causing the lock-up and hitch. Turns out that the hitch was the bolt not retracting all the way before the hand started to turn the cylinder. A little more filing/polishing on the hand (ok, a lot - about 30 min more or so) solved the problem. Gun #2 is now about as smooth as #1. Gonna still have to replace the springs.
Oh, yeah. All of the groups from each gun off the pistol rest were high. With the height of the front sight, ther is no way this should have been - As I said, whenever I use a rest, I tend to shoot high. So,.......... I ran a couple cylinders full through each gun off hand. While the groups were larger than 2", they were all in the POA vicinity. Some more practice, once I settle on a BP loading, should make them more than adequate for SASS competitions
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