Been busy the past couple of days. My shotgun returned from the gunsmith this weekend. In returned I dropped a revolver off with him. In the mean time I am attempting to make some additional brass for the revolver, using some surplus .38 special I have stocked piled. By shortening them to the .38 colt length. I have some 125 grain cast bullets I will top these off with. I am using a Lyman case trimmer. After a few cases with it. I remembered the last time I used it. So this morning I will makes some changes in how I use it. I also realize again that if you have any large amounts (more than 5 pieces) of brass to prepare you should bite the bullet and either buy a powered trimmer or the conversion kit. I have a limited amount of brass for this gun. Now I am hoping to have a bit more. I love these old hand guns and enjoy loading and shooting them also. Researching them sometimes is even a bigger endeavor than the actual loading them. I have also found that in some cases the what appears to be an extremely costly box of ammo is not bad compared to tooling up for some. A box of .41 colt ammo is a round $80 here locally. Yes for a box of 50. The cost on .38 colt is considerably cheaper, but by no means cheap. I have more invested in producing the first round in my old Colt Shop Keeper than the pistol it self cost. Is it worth it? To me it was. Anytime you can shoot a 100 year old plus gun, it's worth it. I am sure some of my followers may think it's a waste of time. If it's not black and made of composites it's not worthy of owning. They maybe right. Knowing certainly I won't be a round to re-create a .40 cal round for a Glock a hundred years from now. I'll continue playing with the ones that paved the way.
Short of hunting I don't use a pump shotgun much. I decided I would like to try some Wild Bunch style shooting. So I put together some dummies rounds for the Shotty so I can work on some muscle memory drills. I have used some twice shot hulls that are in still re-usable condition. Mostly the Red Win AA's some of the Remington gray hulls also. Using a AA wad in the empty case I fill them with Grits and re-crimp. Then a drop of Duco cement on the center of the crimp. The Grits doesn't give the real weight of a loaded round. Yet you don't feel like you are loading air. No sense wasting shot trying to create a dummy round. I fill the primer pocket with a silicon, giving the firing pin a place to softly hit. Then finally I give all of them a generous coating of furniture polish. This will enable them to slip in and out of my shot shell belt and holders. It will also help with loading and ejecting your doubles if that's what you are using. I see more Cowboy shooters polishing their hulls prior to the match. I see the box stores still offer the Federal and other brand bulk packs of a 100 rounds. For competition they are just not worthy. The ribbed casing tends to stick in the chamber after firing. Along with the pot metal bases that swell and become hard to extract. They are a worthy product for other uses and I am not trying to totally discredit them. I am not sure what three gun competitors do to prepare I imagine some of this may cross over.
1878 Colt "Shop Keeper" .41colt
Colt Army/Navy Civilian .38 colt
Short of hunting I don't use a pump shotgun much. I decided I would like to try some Wild Bunch style shooting. So I put together some dummies rounds for the Shotty so I can work on some muscle memory drills. I have used some twice shot hulls that are in still re-usable condition. Mostly the Red Win AA's some of the Remington gray hulls also. Using a AA wad in the empty case I fill them with Grits and re-crimp. Then a drop of Duco cement on the center of the crimp. The Grits doesn't give the real weight of a loaded round. Yet you don't feel like you are loading air. No sense wasting shot trying to create a dummy round. I fill the primer pocket with a silicon, giving the firing pin a place to softly hit. Then finally I give all of them a generous coating of furniture polish. This will enable them to slip in and out of my shot shell belt and holders. It will also help with loading and ejecting your doubles if that's what you are using. I see more Cowboy shooters polishing their hulls prior to the match. I see the box stores still offer the Federal and other brand bulk packs of a 100 rounds. For competition they are just not worthy. The ribbed casing tends to stick in the chamber after firing. Along with the pot metal bases that swell and become hard to extract. They are a worthy product for other uses and I am not trying to totally discredit them. I am not sure what three gun competitors do to prepare I imagine some of this may cross over.
Dummies
