Guns – Page 22 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

Art’s 1911 Art

You probably remember good buddy Arthur Benjamins’ guest post on the Smith and Wesson Model 29. Arthur is an artist who recently created a beautiful painting highlighting the iconic 1911 .45 auto (a frequent topic here on ExNotes). He volunteered to do a guest column for the blog and we were quick to say yes. Enjoy, my friends.

Looks That Could Kill

The lady’s expression was thoughtful and disapproving. She stood arms crossed with a stance that parents would adopt with their young child who hadn’t properly screwed back the top on the peanut butter jar. If my junior school teacher had given me that same glare, I would have been guilty of shouting out the correct answer before raising my hand.

The subject of the lady’s gaze was my latest painting on show at the Arizona Fine Art Expo – my image graphically depicted of one of the USA’s legendary man made objects. 2.5 lbs of steel which could fit inside a coat pocket – The famous Colt .45 Automatic Pistol.

When Colt started production in 1911, no one would have guessed the impact it would have on the USA and the industrial world. It would be further immortalized in films, songs, books – and like the AR15, it would find its way into history and folklore. This was no ephemeral object. From an engineering point of view, the venerable Colt .45 pistol is a true work of art, and of the 2.7 million produced from 1911 onwards, all wartime specimens now command premium prices.

A Legend Comes to Life Again

One of the other artists offered to bring in his own for reference details, and the following morning he thrust a mint condition 1911 in a small cardboard box into my thirsty hands.

Thanking the good Lord for the USA’s freedom and Second Amendment, the mere possession of this object would have automatically produced a 5-year custodial sentence in the UK – a once-proud country in which I had lived for four decades and where I had sadly experienced firsthand the contrived and rapid deterioration of the firearms law and the victimization of the British shooting sports members.

However, I wanted to depict this highly developed, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle and convey its iconic status. The voice of action imagery contributes highly towards a visual impact, but that was not what I was looking for. I chose a harmonious and nestling triumvirate in red, white and blue along with similarly hued starred and swirling banners on a field of noble silver.

The great Andy Warhol would have smiled enigmatically at my painting, and have said something cryptic to me. He would have used three individual images himself and have colored them similarly but my own selective abstraction had steered me away from his own repetitious trademark productions.

However, I gladly accepted his spiritual input which he would have welcomed as it was not widely known that as his own portfolio grew, he was forever running out of ideas, turning to others for renewed inspiration.

Beautiful Memories

At the Expo, it was amazing just how many viewers lamented having gotten rid of their beloved Colt .45 many years ago or wished they had owned one in a time when were considered as surplus and you could barely give them away. I encountered several moist eyes and stories of proud ownership. I was one of those myself years ago, but the UK handgun legislation in 1997 ended all that.

One of the Vietnam vets at the Expo’s American Healing Arts Foundation openly carried a customized 1911 on his hip. It remains one of the ‘carry’ favorites for a great many Americans who refuse to accept anything else.

Feeling I really needed to give the lady more input, I gently approached and said that the last ten years had seen a great upswing of women who had taken up the shooting sport to become proud and responsible gun owners.

“Mm-mm,” she mused, giving me a difficult look. Her brow had furrowed when she returned to the painting. She looked back at me, “We have friends,” she spat, “And THEY have a gun!” With that, she turned on her heels and disappeared from view.

“Only ONE?” I smiled, and with that I straightened Nineteen Eleven on my easel, adjusted the label and awaited further memories from discerning visitors.

You just can’t win ‘m all.

Title: “NINETEEN ELEVEN”
Size: 29” x 32” x 2”
Medium: Acrylic paint on wood.
Value: $5950

For all inquiries, please contact Arthur directly.

The Star Powder Dispenser

I’m going at the Star resurrection slowly, methodically, and piecemeal. I suppose I could completely disassemble the thing, clean, degrease, and polish all the bits and pieces, and then reassemble it all. But I’m a little bit scared I might not remember how it all goes back together, and I don’t want to spread everything out and make my workbench unusable during this resurrection. Nope, slow and easy is the path forward for me. I’m doing it one bite at a time and I am enjoying the meal.

The Star Powder Dispenser

The first bite is the powder dispenser. It’s the deal that automatically dispenses the right amount of propellant each time the Star’s lever is pulled. It consists of a powder hopper subassembly (the upper arrow) and the dispensing mechanism (the lower arrow), as you see in the photo below.

Here’s another photo of the dispensing mechanism. It mounts to the Star’s upper plate (Star calls this upper plate the tool head).

Powder Dispenser Disassembly

Here’s the bottom of the powder hopper. It’s brass and it mounts by threading into the powder dispensing subassembly. The silo that holds the powder is plastic, and I think when it was new the plastic was probably clear. It’s occluded with age. That’s okay. So have I.

This is the powder dispensing mechanism with the powder hopper removed.

Looking inside the powder dispensing mechanism, there were still a few grains of powder left inside from the last time this reloading equipment was used. I’m guessing that was quite a while ago. My Nikon camera and Sigma macro lens do a wonderful job for this kind of photography.

Incidentally, speaking of the last time this device was used…several of our readers suggested that the number etched onto the Star reloader’s base was a social security number. Before identity theft became the problem it is today, it was common for folks to etch their social security number on things to prevent theft. One of our blog readers located the man whose social security number was located on this Star reloader. That owner was born in 1926 and died in 2009. To my surprise, there’s a social security death index where you can find this information. Who knew?

Back to the job at hand: The powder dispensing mechanism is secured to the tool head with two slotted screws. I had applied a bit of Kroil to these screws a day earlier and they unscrewed easily. Kroil is good stuff.

With the two screws removed, the photo below shows what the powder dispenser mechanism looked like. There’s a lower housing, an upper cover, a spring, the two attach screws, and the powder slide. It was all pretty funky when I disassembled it, but I took care of that.

The powder slide is what actually meters (determines the amount) of powder dropped into each cartridge. When the tool head is up (before you actuate the lever), powder drops into a cavity in the slide. When the tool head is lowered (when you actuate the lever), the powder slide is pushed to the left, the cavity containing the powder moves over the powder spout, and the powder drops through the spout into the cartridge case.

Cleaning Things Up

The tube sticking up through the tool head in the photo below is the powder spout. It’s what the left arrow points to. The right arrow points to the bullet seating and crimping die. There was a lot of crud on the die.

The spout was funky, so I ran a patch through it with a cleaning rod.

The bullet seating and crimping die is the last of the three reloading dies. It was super funky. It’s the die that seat the bullet and crimps the cartridge case.

Here’s the “after” photo. I went to work on the die with WD 40 and a toothbrush.

This is the powder dispenser lower housing. It’s funky, too, but just wait.

The photo below shows the powder slide, and it says exactly what I hoped it would say. Note the “BE” on the upper tine, and the “2.7 GR” on the lower tine. That means this powder slide is designed to throw 2.7 grains of Bullseye powder, and that’s a good thing. That powder and that charge, along with a 148-grain lead wadcutter bullet, is the accuracy load in .38 Special. I got lucky; this is exactly what I wanted to see. Note the two rollers between the tines. I’ll explain what they do a little further along in this blog. And yeah, I know, this is another funky piece. But wait; you’ll see.

More funkiness…the powder dispensing mechanism cover.

Here’s another shot of the powder slide and its spring. This is the “before” picture. And that hole in the center? It’s the feature that determines how much powder goes into each cartridge. If you want a different charge on a Star reloader, you need to buy a different power slide. Like I said, I got lucky. This one was set up for 2.7 grains of Bullseye. It’s just what I wanted.

I wiped the powder slide off and, being that it was brass, I wanted to get rid of all the oxidation and then polish it. I was thinking it would be cool if I had some Brasso, but since I’m no longer in the Army I don’t have any. Then I remembered: I have Dillon Rapid Polish brass polish that I use with my Franklin Arsenal brass tumbler, and it does the same thing. I put a little on a rag and used it to polish the powder slide.

Here’s another shot (the “after” photo) of the powder slide.

Note the rollers on the left end of the powder slide. This thing is like a Ducati: It has desmodromic valve actuation. I’ll explain that a little bit further down.

Next up would be the powder dispenser mounting screws. I went to work on them with a Scotchbrite pad and they cleaned up nicely.

Here’s the powder dispenser base and the powder on the tool head.

And here’s the powder dispenser cover, the spring, and the mounting screws reassembled. I used a Scotchbrite pad to clean up the powder dispenser housing and powder dispenser cover, too. They look good.

And finally, here’s the powder hopper reinstalled on the powder dispenser.

Desmo Dispenser Actuation

You might be wondering how the powder dispenser works. It’s really quite clever. When the Star reloader lever is actuated, the tool head moves up and down on the main shaft, bringing the powder dispenser with it. As that occurs, the powder slide translates back and forth as it moves along the curved cam you see in the photo below.

Remember those two rollers in the powder slide?

They follow the vertical cam path shown two photos up. The inner roller rolls along the cam as the tool head moves down, and the outer roller rolls along the cam as the tool head is returned to the up position. This is desmodromic actuation, just like Ducati uses on the their motorcycle intake and exhaust valves. They’re driven open by a cam, and they’re driven closed by a cam. Star could have just used pins instead of rollers, but they went with rollers (a more expensive and more reliable approach, I think). When the tool head moves down, the powder slide takes 2.7 grains of Bullseye powder, shifts it over the powder spout, and gravity does the rest. Take a look.

This is all very cool stuff, and if you get the feeling I’m having a good time bringing the Star back to life, you’re a very perceptive person. If you’re just tuning in to this adventure and you want to see our earlier blogs on the Star reloader resurrection, you can find them here.

Next up? That’s going to be the primer feed mechanism. Stay tuned!

Cleaning the Star: A First Pass

As a first step in bringing the Star progressive reloader back to life, I washed it down with WD 40 and squirted some Kroil penetrating oil on it, but before I did that, I shot a few photos with my Nikon and its macro Sigma lens. These are better photos than the ones in the previous blog shot with my cell phone. With apologies in advance for this bit of redundancy, I’ll start with the “before” photos.

The Star Reloading Machine

Here’s the Star label. They were originally manufactured in San Diego. I didn’t know that.

Star Reloader Parts and Subassemblies

This is a side view of the Star showing the powder container and the powder dispensing mechanism. There’s a lot of dust and dirt on the Star. No rat poop like Gresh’s MGB GT, thankfully.

This is the base plate. It still has several cartridge cases in the baseplate shell holder.

Here’s another “before” photo of the base plate. The doodad on the left is the case feed mechanism. The mechanism on the right is the primer feed.

This is the decapping and resizing die. It’s a bit rusty. I’m thinking it’s probably a carbide die, which means the cases don’t have to be lubed for the resizing operation.

The photo above is a macro “before” shot of the powder dispensing mechanism.

The photo below is a “before” shot of the head of the reloader. It’s the piece that reciprocates up and down with each manual lever stroke.

A shot from the top of the reloader, showing the top of one of the reloading dies.

Cleaning the Star Reloader

Moving on to the cleaning operation, these are the things I’m using initially: WD 40, Kroil (a penetrating oil), a toothbrush, and an oily rag. This is the initial cleaning just to see what’s going on. A deeper scrub of each subassembly will follow in subsequent blogs.

I gave the entire press a spritz with WD 40.

Here’s a better photo of the original Star decal. I’m not going to do a full-blown concours style restoration of the Star and I don’t want to bring the reloader back to as new condition. I like the patina and my intent is to get it working again, displaying the aging that has naturally occurred on an old piece of equipment like this. It’s a resurrection, not a restoration.

The bottom of the press is starting to look better already.

The powder container unscrews from the powder dispensing mechanism.

Here’s a photo of the powder container’s aluminum lid.

Here’s one of the lid’s underside. Note the breather hole. There won’t be any vapor lock on this puppy.

This is the powder dispensing mechanism after the powder container has been removed.

I have a new good buddy named Bruce Williams who restores and sells parts for these vintage Star reloading machines, and I asked him if he could tell me the date this Star reloader was manufactured based on the serial number I found etched into the machine’s base (see the photo below).

Bruce explained that Star never put a serial number on their reloaders, but many police departments, schools, commercial reloaders, clubs, and other organizations who owned Star reloaders applied a property tag number. I wonder who this machine belonged to. It has a history and I’d sure love to know it.

The .38 Special

As I was cleaning the Star, I found I could rotate the shell plate into position so that I could remove one of the several cartridge cases it held. The shell plate rotation is sticky, but I’ll clear that up when I do a detailed cleaning of the shell plate area (a topic for another blog, to be sure). The case was a .38 Special, which told me that’s what this machine had been set up to reload. That’s good. I shoot .38 Special ammo in a couple of guns.

Before 9mm handguns became the rage in the 1980s, the .38 Special revolver was used by most police agencies and pistol competitors. As you can imagine, a lot of departments, schools, and clubs went through a bunch of .38 Special ammo back in the day. In those days, the .38 Special was probably second only to the .22 Long Rifle cartridge in terms of quantity sold, and the .38 Special used to be the most commonly reloaded cartridge in the world. It’s been eclipsed by the 9mm, but it’s still a great cartridge and there are still a lot of folks shooting .38 Special. I’m one of them.

The Model 60 Smith and Wesson

As I explained in our first blog on the Star, a friend of mine gave it to me when I started the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia transfer process for a snubnosed .38 Special revolver I recently scored (I got a killer deal). It’s a stainless steel Model 60 Smith and Wesson Chief’s Special, and it’s a honey. We’ll have a blog on the Model 60 sometime in the near future, and if all goes well, I’ll use reloaded .38 Special ammunition crafted on the resurrected Star.

The Powder Dispenser

The Star’s powder dispenser looked pretty funky, and I could see it still held a few grains of powder when I peeked into the cavity that throws the charge. I applied a few drops of Kroil to the screw heads so it could soak in overnight. The powder dispenser will be one of the first subassemblies I disassemble and clean. Kroil is a penetrating oil; it will creep into the threads so that the screws can be removed without burring the slots. The powder dispenser will be the topic for our next Star blog.

I didn’t recognize what this was (in the photo below) when I first saw it, and it was thoroughly coated in crud. Then I realized…it’s the bullet seating and crimping die. I’ll explain more about this in a subsequent blog, too.

Here’s a close look at the brass slider in the powder dispenser. It’s marked “2.7 GR.” I’m hoping that’s for 2.7 brains of Bullseye propellant, which is the go to accuracy load (along with a 148 grain wadcutter bullet) in the .38 Special cartridge. I’ll learn more when I disassemble the powder dispenser. I’m itching to get into it.

Here’s one last look at the powder dispenser, with the powder chamber mounted above it. In the next blog, I’ll explain how this subassembly works to dispense powder.

That’s it for now, my friends. More to follow, so stay tuned.

You can follow the entire Star progressive reloader story on our Resurrections page.

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Twinkle, twinkle, little Star…

Sometimes you just get lucky. That’s what happened to me. I’m buying a used snubnosed .38 Special (there will be a blog on it in a few weeks), and I used a different federal firearms license dealer for the transfer (I always buy through an FFL dealer to keep things legal). The seller had an FFL dealer he wanted to use, and much to my surprise it happened to be one of the rangemasters at the West End Gun Club (a guy I already knew). We all had a nice visit, and while I was there, I was looking around the shop and my eye turned to an old progressive reloader. I love old stuff, and if you’re reading this, you probably do, too.

Now when I say progressive, I don’t mean the reloader leans left or votes democrat. Nope, progressive in the reloading world means each pull of the lever results in a finished round coming off the machine. With each stroke, a cartridge case is resized and deprimed, another is flared, another is charged with powder, another has a bullet seated in the brass case and crimped, and a new one is spit out. Then, on the lever upstroke, the base plate rotates (it progresses, hence the name), and the sequence continues. The output on a progressive is impressive. You can reload north of 500 rounds an hour on these things.

This particular progressive is one of the first ones and it was made by a company called the Star Machine Works. They first came out in the 1930s. I don’t know exactly when mine was made, but it had my attention this morning and I guess that was obvious. My rangemaster buddy told I could take it home with me if I wanted.

“How much?” I asked. I think he could see that the hook was already set. I wanted it. And I guess it showed.

“You could take it home with you.”

“I think I will,” I said, “but tell me how much.”

“No,” he said, “you can take it home. It’s yours.”

You can’t beat a deal like that. The pictures you see here are of my new-to-me (but probably older than me) Star progressive reloader on my reloading bench. It’s going to go through a Joe Gresh-style resurrection, and we’ll tell the story here on ExNotes. There won’t be any cosmetics (I love the patina on this thing), and I want to keep the look as you see it here. The Star will only undergo the stuff that’s needed to make it functional. And you’ll be able to follow the Star’s resurrection here on the blog.

This Star is set up for .38 Special and .357 Magnum (both cartridges take the same dies), and there are still a few cases in the machine from who knows when. You can see how they index into the plate, and it’s that plate that advances with each stroke of the lever.

The photo above shows the case feeding mechanism. I haven’t attempted to clean it up or actuate the press yet. What you see is exactly how it came home with me.

The big tube behind the lever and head is the powder container, and the narrow tube to the right is (I think) the primer dispenser.

I’ll start cleaning the Star this week, and once I’ve got it cleaned and lubed I’ll do my best to understand how it operates. I’m not nearly as mechanically talented as Joe Gresh, so this resurrection will probably take a while. But I’m going to enjoy the ride, and I think you will, too. Like we always say: Stay tuned.

Boy oh boy, we’ve got cool stuff to link to, like our Resurrections page and our Tales of the Gun page. And hey, if you don’t want to miss any of it, be sure to subscribe to the ExNotes blog. We’re running a special this month, and if you sign up now, it’s free!

A Tale of Two Leupolds

About 10 years ago, maybe more, I had a gig in Houston to teach an FMEA course to a consulting company. This particular consulting outfit had a contract to teach Failure Modes and Effects Analysis to their customer, and they had taken the assignment without knowing anything about the topic. It happens more often than you might imagine. It was no big deal for me as I’d been teaching FMEA for years, I had a class ready to go, and I was in and out in a couple of days. There was a nice paycheck at the end, and it was all easy peasy.

While I was in Houston, I found a local gunstore. I stopped in to check out what they had. I do that pretty much every place I go and I’ve been doing it for nearly 50 years. You never know what you’re going to find. The Houston gunstore was a disappointment (like most have been in the last 20 years) because all they offered (rifles, handguns, and shotguns) were these black plastic abominations. Like the cannibals say, there’s no accounting for some people’s taste.

Anyway, the Houston gunshop had a junkbox/discount container holding all the gunshop detritus they were blowing out. You’ve seen that sort of bargain bin before, I’m sure…things that are one step away from the dumpster. In that box was a beat-up old Leupold 4X scope that was so severely worn there was almost no anodizing left, the lenses at both ends were scratched and chipped, and there were dents and dings along the scope’s length.

But, it was a Leupold. In the scope world, that’s as good as it gets. Leupold scopes are the best. I bought that scope for $20, figuring maybe I’d use it if Bass Pro ever ran another scope sale where they give you $40 on any trade-in scope. They used to run sales like that, and I’ve used decrepit scopes as trading fodder, but my trade-ins were always cheapie scopes that had failed and didn’t cost much more than $40 when new. That wasn’t the main reason I pulled the trigger, though. That scope was a Leupold. Even though it was trashed, it was still a Leupold.

The hoped-for future scope sale at Bass Pro never materialized (I guess they learned their lesson from guys like me on past sales). The Leupold went under a shelf on my reloading bench and I kept it for when I had to mount scopes with twist-in rings, figuring the clapped-out old Leupold 4X was good for that kind of abuse. With all the damage on the lenses you couldn’t hardly see through the thing. It became my scope mount installation assembly aid. Now it was in my junkpile instead of the one at that gunstore in Houston.

About a month ago good buddy Greg and I were on the range and a different Leupold scope (a 3×9) that I had on a .22 250 Ruger No. 1 wouldn’t adjust (it’s the scope on the No. 1 in the large photo above). That surprised me, as a Leupold scope had never failed on me before. The elevation dial was stuck. I wasn’t worried, though. Leupold scopes have a lifetime warranty, as mentioned in the video below:

When I got home I took the 3×9 scope off the No. 1 and sent a note to Leupold’s customer service. Then, just for grins, I told Leupold about the old 4X (the one I described above), and I asked if they could refurbish it. I didn’t know if Leupold offered that kind of service for old scopes. Within a day, I had an email from Leupold with a return material authorization for both scopes, and off they went. I didn’t think they’d be able to do anything with the 4X scope, and they didn’t tell me what they would charge to refurbish it. But I sent it in anyway.

The Leupold 3×9 came back a couple of weeks ago and it’s fixed, cleaned, and it looks great. Leupold somehow managed to refinish the minor marks in the anodizing (you know, what you get from the scope rings), and the scope could almost pass for new. I’m very satisfied with it.

And then, a week or two later, the 4X scope (the one I paid $20 for) arrived. Except it wasn’t the scope I had sent to Leupold. It was instead a brand new Leupold FXII 4×33 (they don’t even sell these anymore), but there it was, brand new and in a new shrink wrapped Leupold box. As a point of reference, when this scope was last offered by Leupold (I’m not sure when that was), they went for $389.

My charge? $0.

Yep, Leupold replaced that beat-up old scope with a brand new one at no charge. I wish I had taken a photo of the original scope. Trust me, it looked like a $20 bargain bin item with one leg in the trash and the other on a banana peel. In its place, I now have a brand new Leupold.

You might wonder: Why a straight 4X scope? Even though many scope companies don’t offer fixed power scopes in 4X these days, I think that a simple 4-power magnification is the best there is for hunting. The higher mags have too narrow a field of view, it takes too long to find the target, and the whole variable power thing, to me, is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. Nope, I’m perfectly happy with a straight 4X scope.

Leupold doesn’t offer the straight 4-power scope any more, but they have a wide variety of variable scopes. The most frequently seen variant is the 3×9 Leupold. This is the Leupold you see on that beautiful Ruger No. 1 you see at the top of this blog. I have the 3×9 Leupold on my Model 70, too…the same one I used on a successful wild pig hunt a couple of years ago.

Folks, trust me on this: When people say Leupold has fantastic customer service, they speak the truth. I can’t imagine ever buying another scope from any other company.

More Tales of the Gun!

A Tale of Two More .45s

A couple of weeks ago I tested three .45 ACP loads in a Model 625 Smith and Wesson and my Rock Island Armory Compact 1911 using Winchester’s 231 powder and Jim Gardner’s 230-grain cast roundnose bullets. We’ve done a bunch of accuracy testing in both .45 ACP revolvers and autos with other loads (and you can find those stories here). This blog focuses specifically on Jim’s 230-grain roundnose bullets with Winchester 231 propellant.

Reloaded .45 ACP ammo with Gardner 230-grain cast roundnose bullets. The 230 cast roundnose bullets replicate GI hardball ammo and this bullet feeds in just about any .45 auto.

To get to the point quickly, the Gardner 230-grain cast roundnose bullets did well (as you’ll see below). My testing consisted of three .45 loads with 4.5, 5.0, and 5.6 grains of WW 231 powder:

I was checking for accuracy and functionality in both guns. Here’s what I found:

- The Compact 1911 likes 5.0 grains of 231, and that load functioned best with this powder in the automatic. The slide locked back after the last round the way it is supposed to; it would not do so with 5.6 grains of 231. Getting a short-barreled 1911 to function well is a bit tougher than a full-sized 1911. With 5.0 grains of 231 and the 230-grain cast bullets, my Compact 1911 functions reliably. Your mileage may vary.
- 4.5 grains of 231 functioned okay in the 1911, too, but it is the least accurate load in both the 1911 and the Model 625 (of the three loads that I tested).
- The Model 625 likes both 5.0 and 5.6 grains of 231, with a slight accuracy edge going to the 5.0-grain load (although what you see here is probably more a result of my skills than anything else). The 625 is not as accurate with the lighter 4.5-grain 231 load.

Lyman’s reloading manual has 5.8 grains of 231 as the accuracy load with this bullet, but I didn’t go that high (it was a max load). Like I said, it doesn’t function reliably in the Compact 1911, and my testing showed 5.0 grains to be the Model 625’s sweet spot from an accuracy perspective.

All shots were at 50 feet, and all loads used the Lee factory crimp die (which assures easy chambering in 1917-style revolvers). The loads would do better from a machine rest or a steadier shooter. It was hot out on the range the morning I fired these targets and that probably adversely affected accuracy, too.

Here are the Compact 1911 targets that I shot using the 5.0-grain 231 load:

Compact 1911 results: Close enough for government work. I use Alco targets for this kind of testing; these have four silhouettes per sheet.

The Compact 1911 is not a target gun, but it is accurate enough for its intended purpose. The Rock Compact 1911 is very concealable and it’s the handgun I carry most often. They are surprisingly inexpensive and surprisingly accurate with the right loads.

These are the targets with the Model 625 and 5.6 grains of 231:

The big Smith and Wesson Model 625 worked well with 231 and Jim’s 230-grain roundnose bullets. This is the 5.6-grain target; 5.0 grains of 231 were even more accurate for me.

The Model 625 Smith and Wesson is more accurate than the Compact 1911 (hey, no surprises there). They are both fun guns to shoot.

I usually load .45 ACP ammo with either Unique or Bullseye powder, but I thought I would try 231 just because I had some on hand and I wanted to see how it would do. I have an accuracy load for the Compact 1911 with Bullseye and a 185-grain bullet that we wrote about earlier. Other guys tell me 231 is their preferred .45 ACP propellant and I still had a can of it that I had purchased for the 9mm cast bullet comparo some time ago, so I thought I would give it a try in the two guns featured here. With the sketchy availability of reloading components during these uncertain times, it’s good to know that this powder works well in .45 ACP. But after this test, I’m going to stick with the other two propellants (Unique and Bullseye), assuming I can get them. What I didn’t like about 231 is that it is a sooty powder…I found it to be significantly worse in that regard than Unique.

WW 231 propellant is accurate, but it sure is a dirty powder. My left hand was covered in powder soot after just a few rounds.

I’ve been real happy with Gardner’s bullets. They are less expensive than other cast bullets, the accuracy is good, and I observed no leading in either handgun. I’ll be purchasing Gardner bullets again. If you haven’t tried Jim’s bullets, you might give them a try.

More Tales of the Gun, 1911, 1917, bolt action sporter, milsurp, load data, and other good shooting and reloading posts are here!

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LA Sheriff’s 1938 Pistol Team Video

Here’s one that’s pretty cool…a 1938 video from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. There are a few things in there that are a little scary, but I’ll let the video show all that. Enjoy, my friends…and kids, don’t try the chalk or cigar stunts at home (or anywhere else).

More gun stuff? Check out our Tales of the Gun page!

A .257 Bob Triple A French Walnut Kimber

I like fancy walnut. I won’t buy a gun unless it has exceptional wood and it’s in chambered in a round I already shoot (I don’t want to buy new dies and components, and with the exception of .22 Long Rifle, I only shoot what I reload). On rare occasions I’ll come across a rifle with wood so exceptional, though, that I’ll set aside my caliber rule. This is a story of one such rifle: A Kimber 84 Classic Select chambered in .257 Roberts.

The Kimber “Select” designation means the rifle has been selected for the figure in its stock, but I’d seen any number of Select Kimbers with mediocre wood. That’s not the case here, though. The two photos directly below were straight from the Gunbroker.com ad, and I’d never seen one as beautiful as the auction photos indicated.

I knew I wanted the rifle, but I was a bit skeptical because I’d talked to a guy at the range with a .257 Roberts Kimber. When I asked him how it shot, he just looked down and shook his head. “With that pencil weight barrel, it’s hard to hold 3 inches,” he said. “Good enough for deer, I guess.”

But still, that wood. When I saw those photos above online, I called the store behind the Gunbroker ad. “Is it really as nice as the pictures?” I asked.

“We were stunned when we opened the box,” the guy at the other end said, “so the answer is yes. We’ve never seen one like it.”

That cut it for me. The rifle had a “buy now” price posted on Gunbroker, and that’s what I did. The time to buy something exceptional is when you see it. I suspect if I had let the auction for the Kimber run its course, the bidding would have taken the price well north of the buy now number.

I was a little leery of the .257 Roberts cartridge having had zero experience with it, but everything I read about it was good. Ned Roberts (a gun writer and wildcat cartridge developer in the 1920s) necked down the 7mm Mauser round to .25 caliber (the actual bullet diameter is 0.257 inch). Remington added legitimacy to the cartridge by offering it in 1934. Folks say it’s perfect for hunting everything from groundhogs to deer. All that sounded great, but I remembered that guy with his .257 Bob at the gun club. I need not have worried, though. You’ll see why in a minute.

So how did the Kimber shoot? In a word, it was fantastic. How about sub-half-minute groups the first time out?

The secret sauce for the Kimber is 36.5 grains of IMR 4320 propellant under the 100-grain Sierra jacketed softpoint bullet (their No. 1620 bullet). My Lyman manual lists a propellant range for that bullet of 36.0 to 40.0 grains. I had three loads prepared that went up to 38.0 grains, but I found the 38.0-grain load too hot (the bolt was difficult to open). You should always start low and work up, and I had just proven that. Every rifle is different (even when they are identical), and 38.0 grains was too hot in my rifle. The 36.5-grain load was the Goldilocks load: It was just right.

More beautiful wood and secret sauce reloading recipes? You can read them right here!

Turnbull Guns

My Dad was a world-class trapshooter and he owned more than a few exotic shotguns when I was a kid. I didn’t know much about them but the names and the quality of those trap guns impressed me even as a little guy. Ljutic, Parker, Winchester, Perazzi, L.C. Smith, and others were stacked in every corner of our little place in New Jersey, and the colors, the wood, and the engraving stuck in my mind. Of particular interest to me were the fine walnut and the exotic colors. Dad explained that the swirling grays, browns, and blues on the receiver were done with an exotic color case hardening process that used bone charcoal laid on the parts at high temperature. It’s magical stuff. I didn’t understand all of it then and I don’t pretend to understand all of it now, but I sure like the way those guns looked.

Fast forward 50 years or so, and I learned of a company in New York called Turnbull Manufacturing. Doug Turnbull runs it and the focus originally was on firearms restoration. As part of that, Turnbull researched the history and lost art of color case hardening so he could include it as part of the restoration process. Turnbull’s work was stunning, and it didn’t take long until a few firearms manufacturers and gun distributors realized it would make a highly-marketable feature on limited runs of new guns.

The Turnbull 1917 Smith and Wesson

A 1917 Smith and Wesson, part of a limited run offered more than a decade ago with Turnbull color case hardening. The photo doesn’t do the gun justice; it’s beautiful.

15 years ago Smith and Wesson introduced a reissue of its World War I Model 1917 for a very short time, and as part of that deal, the new Smith included Turnbull color case hardening on the frame. I saw one of the Turnbull 1917 revolvers at a local Bass Pro and it sat in the display case for months. Where I live, the rage is all plastic guns that wannabe gangbangers hold sideways like they see in movies released by folks whose entire knowledge of guns could fit on the head of a pin (with room left over for the Gettysburg Address), so the re-release of the Turnbull 1917 Smith stayed in the Bass Pro display case for a long time. It was a thousand dollar handgun that Bass Pro had marked down to $695, and it still hadn’t moved.

A few weeks later I stopped at Bass Pro and the 1917 was still there. I asked the kid behind the counter what they would take for it; he read the price tag and told me $695. Would you consider less, I asked. I’d have to ask the manager, he said, looking at me and not moving. Why don’t you do that, I answered. He finally realized his job was to sell stuff and I was a real live customer, so he took off in search of whoever the boss was.

“We’ll take 30 off,” Junior said when he returned.

“Is that percent, or dollars?”

He smiled. “Dollars.” It was still a hell of a deal and I pulled the trigger (pardon the pun; some of these almost suggest themselves).

All that, and it shoots, too! The fixed sights are right on the money with 185-grain jacketed hollow points over 7.0 grains of Unique.

I love my 1917 and I love shooting it. It’s accurate. It looks cool, it hits where I want it to hit, and it’s a .45. It makes me feel like Indiana Jones. And there’s one more cool thing…this gun carries well. Indiana Jones has nothing on me. That Cairo guy cloaked in black twirling the big sword? Bring him on.

Turnbull’s 1895 Marlin

Next up? That would be my 1895 Marlin in .45-70. Turnbull did a series of these, too. That Marlin 1895 with Turnbull’s color case hardening hit home for me as soon as I saw photos of it. I had to have one.

One of a limited number of Turnbull finished Marlin 1895 rifles in .45 70 Government. In addition to the color case hardening on the metal bits, Turnbull also refinished the stock and fore end to match the colors on rifles that left the Marlin plant a century ago.

Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, factory Marlin lever guns were color case hardened. I am a big fan of .45 70 Marlins (as a quick review of Tales of the Gun will show you), and an 1895 with the Turnbull treatment was irresistible.

Turnbull did a magnificent job on these. It’s more than just color case hardening on the receiver. Other bits and pieces received the Turnbull treatment, and Turnbull refinished the stocks with a red stain like Marlins had a hundred years ago. The Turnbull Marlins are very limited production items, and Turnbull had photos of each Marlin they offered with this treatment. The photos you see here are the actual rifle I selected.

Color case hardening is like highly-figured exhibition grade walnut. It looks alive, it changes subtly under varying light conditions, and it is mesmerizing.

I’d like to be able to say a got a hell of deal on this one, and in a sense I did: I paid list price for the Turnbull 1895, and that was still a good deal. To make it even better, shortly after I purchased the rifle Turnbull bumped the price significantly. Got in under the wire on that one, I did.

The Turnbull Ruger Super Blackhawk

But wait: There’s more! I’ve been a Ruger fan for years. That particular affliction started with a Super Blackhawk I bought when I was in the Army in the 1970s. I shot it in International Handgun Metallic Silhouette matches back in the day, and I still shoot it. Rugers are great guns and they last forever.

Yours truly on the Fort Bliss Rifle and Pistol Club firing line in 1976. The game was metallic silhouette and the Ruger Super Blackhawk was perfect for it.

You can guess where this story is going: Turnbull teamed with Talo (a Ruger distributor) a couple of years ago to add Turnbull color case hardening to a limited run of Ruger Super Blackhawks. Wow! .44 Magnum, a Super Blackhawk, and Turnbull color case hardening. It’s like these guys knew me personally. I kept an eye on Gunbroker.com and when one of the gun outfits advertised these guns at something like 30% below list…well, you know how that wave crashed on shore. It’s an awesome handgun and I had it on the range out at the West End Gun Club just last week.

A Turnbull-finished Ruger Super Blackhawk. You can still find these brand new on Gunbroker.com, but when they’re gone, they’re gone. This is a gun that will only go up in value.

The Turnbull color case hardening treatment just flat out works on a Ruger Super Blackhawk. No two guns are exactly alike.

A view of the right side of my Super Blackhawk. I shoot a light .44 Magnum load in mine, as I’m not trying to knock over metallic silhouette rams at 200 meters these days. But if I wanted to, I still could.

If you want to learn more about Turnbull, their guns, and their services, you might want to poke around a bit on the Turnbull site. The photography and the info there make it worth a visit.

More Tales of the Gun stories? You bet!

Stranded in Baja, Hearst Castle, and more…

Every once in a while we do a blog that covers a bunch of topics, and this is one of those times.

Good buddy Mike Huber and his friend Bobbie motorcycled Mexico (Baja, to be specific, almost another country all by itself), and he most recently published an excellent story about being stranded down there by the Covid 19 pandemic. It’s not often that we recommend another blog, but hey, Mike’s writing is outstanding and it’s a great story. Take a look; it’s very good.

My favorite motorcycle magazine (that would be Motorcycle Classics) sends out marketing emails on a regular basis, and in those emails they include links to past (and sometimes recent) articles. I write for MC, and the most recent email that slipped into my inbox included a link to my Destinations piece on Hearst Castle. You might want to read that story; I love Hearst Castle. It’s closed for the pandemic, but the pandemic won’t last forever. Hearst Castle will be there when it’s over.

We’re having a heat wave (both here in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia and at Tinfiny Ranch). That prompted us to start a piece on riding in extreme heat. My first recommendation would be: Don’t. But things don’t always work out the way you want them to. I once rode the length of Baja on a Mustang replicas with several friends, and due to a lack of research on my part we did the ride in Baja’s hottest month (and that’s September). You can read about the 150cc Baja ride through Hell here. Do you have any advice for riding in high temperatures? Please share them with us (info@exhaustnotes.us) and we’ll include your recommendations here on the blog.

We have more motorcycle, gun and other stuff coming up, including info on Ruger’s new Custom Shop and their Super GP100 .357 Mag revolver, favored loads in the Henry .45 70 Single Shot, a piece on Turnbull’s iconic color case hardening and restoration services, a stunning (and tack-driving) Kimber with exhibition grade French walnut, the wrap-up of our ride through the Andes Mountains in Colombia, the Canton Fair, and for you fans of The Ten Commandments, making bricks without hay and mortar. And a whole lot more.