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Posted on 09/25/2008 6:43:34 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog
Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!
Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
That washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is anoble thing!
O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain.
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
but better than rain or rippling streams
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.
O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty throat and be glad indeed;
but better is Beer, if drink we lack,
and Water Hot poured down the back.
O! Water is fair that leaps on high
in a fountain white beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!
I’m waiting for them to invent a cold-fusion nuclear generator for home use....just park it beside the AC unit.
Heh, SirKit and Joseph are thinking about that right now!
First, however, let me show a couple of special tools in action on the revolvers. The one thing that let me disassemble my .45 New Blackhawk was this special vise, which compressed that weird spring that performed five functions, as well as locking the trigger in place.
Even with the vise, it took a hammer and drift punch to get the trigger pin out on the .45. That's because the holes for the hammer and trigger pins did not align perfectly as they went through the various internal walls of the frame. Fortunately, my dad left me a good enough assortment of hand reamers that I could correct this.
The .357 didn't have that problem, but I ran the reamers through just to make sure. You get some idea of the caverns, channels, and cubbyholes all cast in one piece in the frame. There's a part that spins, slides, or reciprocates in each hollow, and they're all tied together by pivot pins. It's an amazing (and frustrating) piece of engineering for so few parts to do so many things, including interlocking each other for safety purposes.
Now the trigger and hammer pins could go back in, but they still took a moderate amount of force, and seemed to work best if they were rotated into a certain position. That told me that 30+ years of being trapped in those microscopically-misaligned holes had bent them in microscopic amounts. That and the fact that most of the blue had been worn off the pins and the weapons never had been fired said life was rough on them. Here they are, with new pins on the left. The new pins dropped clear through the holes just by gravity, which the old ones wouldn't.
So, I buttoned up both Blackhawks, and took a box of GI .45 and 9mm ball for testing. I wanted to see if the 16-pound mainspring would give reliable ignition with the hard GI primers.
The .45 worked flawlessly, although the 5-pound trigger pull made me wish for a lighter trigger pull (I still have the low-power trigger spring). As a "field" weapon, it would be fine as is. I forgot how much kick .45 revolvers had compared to autoloaders. My Glock 21 is a pussycat compared to the Blackhawk. Still, the job gave me exactly what I was hoping for.
The .357 Blackhawk, OTOH, showed several quirks which weren't apparent while it was being a model "patient" in my gunsmithing surgery. I easily correct the 12-pound trigger pull that reappeared out of nowhere. The trigger spring pivot pin was slightly undersized for the hole in the brass frame. Usually the whole thing would fall on the floor, but this time one end came loose and dropped to the bottom of the frame, leaving the spring attached, but with highly asymmetric spring forces on the trigger.
I'll work on a permanent fix for that later, after I undo some "unauthorized" tuning that left the .357 with a four pound trigger pull rather than the 5-pound from earlier. I'm not sure the problems are related, but I found out that two chambers out of the six would not fire the round. Even after multiple visible strikes on the primer from these two chambers, the round would not fire, although it would if placed in any of the four "good" ones. I have to "clean up" some variables by ordering some replacement parts from Brownells and then test some more. If that doesn't work, I'll go up in mainspring strength (nice to have a complete set of springs to experiment with). But the .45 blasted away at the .45ACP ball ammo without a complaint, even with the wimpy 16-pound spring. To be safe, I should test with some .45LC in the other cylinder, too.
The really big test was the "coming out party" for the Mini14. Removing that buffer pad cured all the bolt overriding the round, and closing on an empty chamber. I guess the fraction of an inch of extra rear travel was what was needed. I also noticed that it had a pretty good kick now, something you don't usually associate with a 5.56mm round.
The magazines were another story. I tweaked a couple, and brought some new ones along, too. There were several malfunctions with the "new magazines", and that was just loading ten rounds into each one.
I came to the conclusion that I would have to "debug" each magazine, and put at least 100 rounds trough each one before I could deem it trustworthy.
Even then, I would have to be honest, and rate this old Mini14 at about 90% reliable, which is totally unacceptable for defensive use. And while I only fired 80 rounds over about half an hour, that skinny barrel was red hot by then, and the stock, even with aluminum heat shields, was barely keeping my hand safe. Touching the barrel itself would have been an instant burn.
So with all that Min14 experience under my belt, I went back into the showroom, and asked to see a mid-range M-faux carbine. I found what I wanted, and bought it on the spot. The Mini14 will be left as a "blaster" to take to the range to burn ammo. I have to admit though, accuracy wasn't too bad. It's not just anything I'd trust a life on.
So Michael will get this instead: a Smith&Wesson M&P-15.
I put the Leupold CQT from my Sig on it for looks, because that will come with his rifle. Scope costs almost as much as the rifle, but EBRs are coming down in price. The baseline Smith has GI-type furniture, but this model had the Magpul goodies I would have put on anyway, so it saves me time and money in the long run. Two essential mods will be the Smith Enterprise vortex flash hider (never fire your weapon without one), one-piece piston rings, and a titanium firing pin. Minor tweaks will involve changes to sling swivels, and an Urban/ERT sling. NO floating handguard, and NO fold-down front sight, even though you see a lot of it through the scope. If it's good enough for our troops, it's good enough for him.
Now he'll have something that can last several lifetimes, and is something I would not hesitate to use myself to save my own hide.
I started the tuning already, using some Nanolube to break in those wear points all M-16 types have. The rifle is brand new, but the design is already an old friend. Why not, I've been puttering with them for almost 40 years now.
I've come to the conclusion that the AR-15/M-16 is the '57 Chevy of EBRs. Seen all over the world, familiar to everybody, but with so much available for customization that there are thousands of things, good, bad, or indifferent that you can swap out, or add on.
So it got a bit pricey with the scope (about what a mid-grade Sig would cost without a scope), but this setup would give anyone the confidence needed to get the job done, every time.
And I shudder thinking about what I was trying to make the Mini14 can do, but I'm grateful that I only wasted a lot of time, and a little bit of money, in the experiment.
AR 15 platform is best deal going for a utility rifle in all arena’s be they urban or rural.......with only minimum amount of tools and a couple of affordable armorers tools from brownells for the AR series they can be as you stated for a life time of individual use. I keep a number of spares I know that break and having a few AR’s I can cannibalize em in extreme situations as well if spares locker is empty and sources for more unavailable.
Only other ebr rifle I can rely on for self defense are my M1A series supermatch, national match , a trw custom build and a few socom 16’s.......that is my heavy ebr rifle.
Sad that the ruger Mini 14’s were such failures in a way. Yeah they go bang and will feed etc for general utility ranch / farm gun but their reliability and accuracy has always been an issue for ME.... The 2 that I own are fed with factory mags and still fail to feed with many different types of commercial and reloaded ammunition. From a bench, sandbags, scoped and open sights the accuracy is poor.
BTW I noted you used a number of new tools from brownells for yer blackhawk tune up. If you have time can you list them ...... I saw the trigger spring vise etc but the hand reamers etc ......
Very educational and informative post Sir ! I am grateful for the lessons learned.
Stay safe !
It (cornbread) was pretty good...in an oniony-cheesy sort of way. Texture came out more like a cake than a traditional cornbread. I could have chopped the onion smaller.
The hand reamer came from my dad's tool boxes, although I used a cheapie handle from Brownells to hold it. It's just a conventional straight-flute reamer, from any industrial supply source, although Brownells may carry them too. The obviously carry the "exotic" reamers for chambering, etc.
Before using the reamer, I triple-checked the pin diameters with a micrometer. It showed that they conformed to standard non-metric sizes, so I was in luck when I found the reamers that matched the hole size. I spend enough with Brownells already that I'm always pleasantly surprised when I have something on hand that I did not have to buy from them.
The tools I did buy, and recommend for Ruger SA owners, are the ones in this picture:
The base-pin removal tool is good if the pin is rusted or battered into place. I needed it for the .45, but not the .357. The "split" screwdriver is needed to hold one side of the base-pin latch while using a regular screwdriver on the other. It prevents boogering things up.
And the vise is a must-have. Even if your revolver is "well-behaved", it provides the extra hand, and control, to make removal of the pin a job requiring only two hands. In the case of my .45, it was the only possible way to get the pin out the first time, since I had to drive it out with a hammer and drift punch after I had clamped the spring out of the way.
That reminds me, I need to order a locking base-pin for the .45. I noticed it was creeping forward a bit, but still latched, when I was shooting the GI ball ammo. A visible external modification would disqualify it from cowboy and SASS shooting, but since I don't have a horse or a costume, that doesn't worry me too much.
Evening Winmag - That is quite a set of gunsmithing tools you employed to get that recalciterant revolver back together. Very impressive indeed.
The MVACA show is history, 800 or so tables. EBRs while coming down in price I did not see a corresponding increase in demand, judging by the stock on the table on Saturday afternoon. Sunday, according to my sources, was sparsely attended.
What are they? Can they go outside in Michigan?
Thanks :)
Think they’re Asiatic Lilies
http://www.ehow.com/how_5113156_care-asiatic-lilies.html
They grow best in zones 3 - 8 (so the literature says.) Michigan is what...4, 5?
I wouldn't have gotten it apart without those tools. They were handy, but not quite so vital, to put it back together.
Speaking of gadgets, I ran into a "why didn't I think of looking for this before" gadget. It's a Betalight® Kit Marker for marking your kit with a little tritium glow-in-the dark thingie. It sounds British because it is British. If you don't have "kit", it's also useful for tagging "stuff" to find in the dark. The light is quite bright, and the tritium sealed inside the phial has a half-life of ten years.
I bought the $9 small size, and now have them on my key ring, the first aid kits in the cars, and my bailout bag with the handgun in it.
They come in three sizes, and a bunch of colors, including infrared. The only tricky part is they must be imported from Hong Kong. I bought six small ones the first time, so the $12 airmail postage wasn't too bad, and they took less than a week to arrive.
I'm busy looking around for those things I must be able to find in total darkness, so here's the Betalight page from scopeandlaser.com
.It's mostly an airsoft site, but these betalights are the real deal. Thank you for participating in this gadget alert.
I'm over the moon!
There is a possibility that Peter Jackosn could cast my favorite Scottish actor, David Tennant, as Bilbo Baggins in "The Hobbit" movie! brilliant!
How pretty!
Hi JenB!
It ain't gonna happen per David Tennant himself as noone has spoken to him about the role or the movie.
It was an internet rumor. bleh!
I'd like to get a hold of the guy who started that rumor and grrrrr!
Hope they pick Robbie Coltrane for Beorn...
Interwebz, tv and phone are out at Castle Stormhands. Picked a fine week to be off from Fangorn.
Service call in the a.m.
Not that anybody cared whilst I was gone, but Verizon showed up about 45 minutes after I posted that and fixed it. Apparently the outside box got a direct hit. Ouch.
But, more to the point, they came early.
Comcast NEVER would have done this...
The only feedback on the Carlson's 12-Gauge Tactical Breacher Choke was from someone who said the threads were in the wrong spot for it to work on his Benelli M2.
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