If you like old guns and family heirlooms, you’ll enjoy this blog. The Ruger Single-Six you see here was my Dad’s gun. This revolver’s 4-digit, no-prefix serial number puts its date of manufacture at 1954, which means it is just a little bit younger than me. Ruger introduced the Single-Six in 1953 and they only made 49 of these revolvers that year, so mine is a first year of production revolver. That’s cool.
Dad kept the Single-Six loaded in a drawer near his bed. I don’t remember him ever shooting it. He kept it there just in case. Storing any gun in a holster is not a good idea (the leather retains moisture) and it had a light coating of surface rust in a few spots when Dad passed. A bit of 0000 steel wool and oil took the rust off and the gun is in remarkable condition.
Don’t forget to take care of us: Please click on the popup ads!
You probably noticed the custom walnut grips on this vintage Ruger. Dad was an excellent stockmaker (his work was on high end shotguns), but the stocks on his personal trap guns were usually kluged-up affairs with adhesive padding on the comb and glued-on spacers to get the fit he wanted. Dad didn’t care about appearance on his competition guns; all he wanted was a good fit so he could smoke clay pigeons. The work he did on his friends’ shotguns…that was another story. Those were stunning. Those other guys weren’t great shots; they cared more about looks. Dad was all about breaking pigeons on his guns, bringing home trophies, and bringing home cash (the monetary awards, especially for live pigeon shoots, were significant). We always had walnut blanks and remnants in Dad’s workshop, and one day when he didn’t have anything else to do he crafted the custom grips you see here. The wood-to-metal fit and the oil finish is perfect on these.
The right side of my 1954 Ruger Single-Six.A perfect wood-to-metal finish. They don’t come from Ruger like this.
I wish new Rugers had grips that looked and fit like that. They don’t. You may recall the blog I did last year about a new Ruger .357 Magnum Blackhawk. It’s grip-to-frame fit was atrocious.
A current production Ruger Blackhawk. Somewhere along the line, Ruger lost its attention to detail. These ugly gaps can’t be unseen.
As an original Single-Six, this Ruger is what is referred to as an Old Model. It doesn’t have the transfer bar safety, and what that means is that if you drop it with the hammer over a loaded chamber, it can fire. Call me old fashioned; I’ve got my own safety approach to this problem: Don’t drop the gun. But that’s just me.
The Old Model Ruger revolvers are elegant. They are also referred to as three screw Rugers (because they have three screws on the right side; the newer model has two pins instead). The hammer cocking in the Old Model Rugers is similar to a Colt Single Action Army. There are four clocks, and that’s cool, too (especially for old guys like me).
The old three-screw configuration.
These old Ruger six shooters are also called flat gates because of the flat gate that opens for loading. The flat gate feature that didn’t stay on Rugers long. Ruger went to a contoured loading gate early in their history. It’s just something that sets this revolver apart.
The flat gate on my Ruger Single-Six.A better view of the Ruger’s flat loading gate.
The early Rugers had recessed chambers. I haven’t owned a new Single-Six in decades and I don’t remember if the newer ones do or not. It’s a classy feature.
Recessed chambers. Back in the day, everything was better. I know it’s dirty; I took this photo after the range session and before I cleaned it.
You probably noticed the gold inlay in this Ruger’s lettering. Back in the day, kits to do this at home were popular. I guess it holds up well; this was done quite a few years ago. You can still get these gold inlay kits from MidwayUSA.com.
Look for the Forster gold inlay kit on Midwayusa.com.Fixed sights and gold inlay. These old guns are awesome.
I grabbed an old box of .22 Long Rifle ammo and headed to the range a few days ago.
$8.96 for 550 rounds. We didn’t know how good we had it.Federal hollow point ammo. You can’t have these in New Jersey or San Francisco (they outlawed hollow point ammo). Sarcasm alert: That’s why their crime rates are so low.An ammo comparison. From left to right, it’s the Federal .22 Long Rifle hollow points featured in this article, one of my 9mm reloads, and a .357 Magnum hollowpoint.
I ran my targets out to 50 feet at my indoor range and had at it, shooting off hand with a two-hand hold. As always, the Single-Six did not disappoint. It has fixed sights, but they are spot on.
I held at 6:00 on the orange bullseye. If I had used a rest, the group would have been much smaller. For an offhand group, I’m happy.
When first introduced in 1953, the cost of the Single-Six was $57.50. I grabbed this photo from my old 1956 edition of the Stoeger Shooter’s Bible. The Single-Six had gone up to $63.25 by 1956.
They don’t do covers like this today: The 1956 Shooter’s Bible.The ad for Ruger’s Single-Six in 1956. Ruger’s Standard .22 automatic pistol was only $37.50 back then. The Single-Six was a more expensive handgun.
If you enjoyed this Rimfire Series story, keep an eye on us. Our next Rimfire Series story will be on a very cool Ruger 10/22 Mannlicher rifle from 1974, one with exceptional walnut.
The same ammo and an old Mannlicher 10/22. Watch ExNotes for the story. It will be the next featured in our Rimfire Series.
If you want to make sure you don’t miss the upcoming 10/22 story, please subscribe to the ExNotes blog:
If you would like to see our earlier blogs on .22 rifles and handguns, here’s a set of links.
Reading good buddy Airborne Mike’s javelina story brought back memories. I’ve been chasing pigs for more than 50 years and I only ever got three. Two were captured simultaneously via film (the two you see above); the other was nailed in Arizona and brought home for consumption. Yeah, I’m a Jewish kid who ate pork. Don’t tell anyone.
I’d been on javelina hunting trips numerous times when I lived in west Texas, and on every one of those trips, we never even saw a javelina (we could have just as easily described those expeditions as T-rex hunts, because we saw about as many of them). Good buddy Jose commented on Mike’s previous post that javelina make for good eating, but I’ve never had the pleasure and if offered, I’d politely decline. Although they definitely look piggish, javelina are actually not in the pig family. I’m told they are rodents. No thanks. I’ll forego rat tacos.
Help us bring more stories to you: Please click on the popup ads!
About that Mama Javelina and baby photo you see above: All those javelina hunting expeditions when we didn’t see a single javelina? Well, we stayed on an Arizona guest ranch one year (not hunting anything except good times) and there were javelinas out the gazoo. We heard them snorting and grunting up a storm outside our cabin one night, so I went outside with my manual focus Minolta 35mm film camera and took a bunch of flash photos, moving the focus ring a little bit each time because I couldn’t see to focus in the dark. I got lucky with one of them. I didn’t know there was a baby javelina in the mix until I got the prints. The mama and her baby were only about six feet away (I was using the Minolta’s standard 50mm lens). A guy who saw that photo told me I was lucky Mother Javelina didn’t go after me.
I’ve been on three wild pig hunts (not javelina, but actual wild pigs). On the first one, we spent three days rooting around in northern California and we didn’t see a single pig. Our guide pointed out what he claimed was pig poop, but hell, it could have been any kind of poop. What do I know from pig poop?
On a second northern California wild pig expedition, we were skunked again. Not one pig and not one pig sighting. Not even pig poop this time. All I came home with was the worst case of poison oak I ever had. The itching was intense raised to an exponent, and nothing seemed to work except consuming large amounts of Budweiser, which I did for the three days it took to get over it. After that episode, I stayed away from hunting pigs for the next 30 years. Then, I got the bug again.
My pig and I, taken near Kingman, Arizona. That rifle (a maple-stocked SuperGrade Model 70 Winchester in .30 06) will shoot quarter inch groups at 100 yards.
About five years ago good buddy Paul and I hunted wild pig in Arizona and we both scored. Our guide told me mine weighed about 130 pounds; Paul’s was a monster at well over 200 pounds. I got an education on that trip. The butcher asked us about the cuts we wanted, but I really had no idea (it was my Jewish ignorance about all things of the porcine persuasion). I let the butcher recommend what to do. When we reached the end of the list, I realized we hadn’t added bacon to the list and I asked about it. “There’s no bacon on wild boar,” he patiently explained while looking at the top of my head (I think maybe he was looking for a yarmulke, or maybe where I had my horns removed). “Bacon is belly fat, and wild pigs don’t have any.” Hmmm. Whaddaya know.
That butcher’s guidance about wild pigs lacking fat had further implications. The meat had absolutely no flavor. Zip. Nada. Zilch. No fat, no flavor. I made a lot of chili with that meat over the next year (cumin, red chili flakes, and Anaheim chiles bring their own flavors). But one of the “cuts” was sausage and that was good because it included a little fat. I found a recipe for and made a wild mushroom and pork sausage barley casserole. It was outstanding, so much so it has me thinking about going pig hunting again.
I know what you’re thinking: This is going to be a blog either for or against conservatives.
Nope. It’s not. We don’t do politics here on ExhaustNotes. This story is about a Ruger No. 1 that shot far to the right and how I fixed it. If you want politics, watch the news or pick up a newspaper and take in what passes for journalism these days.
This is ExhaustNotes. We’re pure. All we care about are good stories and you clicking on the popup ads.
One of my good buddies bought a very slightly used Ruger No. 1 several years ago (it appeared to be unused) after hearing me rave about how classy these rifles are. It’s the one you see in the photo at the top of this blog. This Ruger No. 1 is particularly desirable. It is chambered in .22 250 (a wonderful cartridge), it has fantastic wood, it is an early production model (the serial number dates it to 1971), it has the early style checkering pattern, it has a red pad, and it is a pre-warning gun. My buddy and I both bought Ruger No. 1 rifles that day. His was the .22 250 you see here, and I bought one chambered in .22 Hornet.
Highly-figured walnut, a red ped, and old style checkering…it doesn’t get any better than this.
Both the .22 250 and the .22 hornet are stellar cartridges, but the .22 250 holds a special place in my heart. The first Ruger No. 1 I ever saw was in a sporting goods store in Bound Brook, New Jersey, and it was chambered in .22 250. The Ruger No. 1 had only recently been introduced, and my father really wanted the one we saw that day. Like all Ruger No. 1 rifles it was elegant, and as a varmint hunter Dad was in love with the .22 250. We didn’t get it, but seeing how excited Dad was left me with a lifelong appreciation for any Ruger No. 1 and the .22 250 cartridge.
The flip side.A close up of the original Ruger No. 1 checkering pattern.
So my friend bought the .22 250 (as I mentioned above) but on our first trip to the range his .22 250 was a disappointment. It shot way to the right at 50 yards, even with the scope’s adjustment all the way to the left. It was a frustrating day for him. My buddy removed the scope rings and found that one of them had been bubba’d (the victim of incompetent gunsmithing). It had been crudely filed in an apparent attempt to get the rifle on target. Bubba (the guy who did the work) didn’t understand what he was doing (or how Ruger’s ring design worked) because the material he had removed didn’t shift the scope alignment with the bore (if ignorance is bliss, Bubba was indeed a happy guy). My friend bought a new set of Ruger scope rings and remounted the scope. It made no difference; the rifle still shot far to the right. I was starting to understand why the rifle looked like new. Whoever owned it before encountered the rifle’s bias to the right, couldn’t fix it, and gave up on it.
Resized, polished, and trimmed .22-250 brass waiting for powder and bullets. This is a great cartridge.
At that point, my friend lost interest in the rifle, too, and I picked it up from him. It made for an interesting project. I put a different scope on the rifle (a Leupold I had used on other rifles), but the problem was not the scope. The rifle still shot way to the right.
Help us bring more content to you: Please click on the popup ads!
In the past when I had encountered this problem, it had always been due to poor forearm bedding. I closely examined the Ruger and determined that the rear of the forearm had clearance between the forearm and the receiver on the right side, but it was contacting the receiver on the left side. That would push the barrel to the right, and it could cause the strong rightward bias this rifle exhibited. You’d be surprised; it doesn’t take much pressure on a rifle barrel to push the point of impact significantly off center. I removed the forearm, delicately sanded it at the rear to have the same forearm-to-receiver clearance on both sides, and remounted it. At the next range session, I saw that my efforts had no impact. The rifle still printed far to the right and the group size was running 2 ½ to 3 inches at 100 yards. It was terrible.
A closeup photo showing intimate contact between the rear of the forearm and the front of the receiver on the left side. On the right, there was clearance. This could have been the cause of the problem, but it wasn’t.
I next tried shimming the scope. Using thin metal shims, I angled the scope enough in its rings to get its range of adjustment on target. But I still had to have the scope cranked all the way to the left, and the rifle still grouped poorly. The scope shims were a Mickey Mouse, Bandaid approach. I knew this wasn’t the solution.
Sometimes when you can’t find the answer to a problem, the best thing to do is ignore it for a while. I put the rifle in the safe and forgot about it for a few weeks. Then one day when I was driving back from one of our adventures, my mind drifted back to the Ruger. The Ruger No. 1 has a very slick quarter rib at the top rear of the barrel. The scope rings attach to it, and the scope mounts in those rings. I wondered: What if that rib was mounted at an angle to the barrel’s bore? The solution, I thought, might be a new quarter rib.
I called Ruger’s customer service (a marvelously responsive organization) and told them about my problem and that I thought I needed a new quarter rib. A few days later, I had one. At that point, things became even more interesting. The older Ruger No. 1 rifles (including my .22 250) had quarter ribs that mounted with two Allen-head screws, and the barrel had a pin that fit into a hole in the quarter rib. The quarter rib Ruger had just sent to me had two holes for the mounting screws, but no hole for the pin on the barrel. I thought about that and it made sense; the barrel pin was a belt-and-suspenders feature and it was unnecessary. Ruger made the right engineering decision to eliminate it. I thought I could just drill a hole in the new quarter rib or I could pull the pin from the barrel. I would soon learn that neither one of these solutions was going to happen.
My first step was to remove the Ruger’s quarter rib. That’s when the fun began. As I mentioned earlier, the quarter rib is secured to the barrel with two Allenhead screws. The problem I immediately ran into was that the Allen socket is very small, and those screws were originally installed with a lot of torque. I put a small Allen wrench on each screw and both wouldn’t budge. I had an Allen socket head and a ratchet that would give me more leverage, but the screws were so secure I was afraid I would round out their Allen sockets trying to remove them. I was getting nowhere with the little Allen wrench. In for a penny, in for a pound, I thought. I mounted the Allen socket on my ratchet and, with great trepidation, starting putting more torque on each screw. It worked. Both screws came out with their Allen heads intact. They hadn’t been Loctited; they were just torqued by a madman (or a madwomen), or more likely, somebody at Ruger with a power tool.
The Ruger No. 1 scope mounting system.
Okay, the screws were out, so I thought I could now remove the quarter rib. “Thought” is the operative word in that sentence. That quarter rib wasn’t going anywhere. It was wedged onto the barrel like it was welded. There is a small gap between the bottom of the quarter rib and the top of the barrel (you can see it in the photo above), but I didn’t want to stick a screwdriver in there to pry the quarter rib off. It would have scarred the barrel or the quarter rib or both. I needed something softer that wouldn’t mar the barrel or the quarter rib.
If you’re like me, you save old toothbrushes and use them when cleaning your guns. I thought I could use one of mine. Its plastic handle wouldn’t damage anything. The toothbrush handle was too thick to fit in the gap, so I filed it down to create a wedge. That got the handle in between the quarter rib and the barrel, but the quarter rib wasn’t going anyplace. I worked on it for 20 minutes until I broke the toothbrush handle in two. So I filed down another toothbrush handle. Three modified toothbrushes and an hour later, the Ruger’s quarter rib came off.
My initial thought was that what had made the rib so hard to remove was that its rear was interfering with the front of the receiver. That was sort of the issue, but it wasn’t induced by the quarter rib’s length or the receiver’s dimensions. I looked closely at the quarter rib and then I was really surprised. The hole for the barrel pin was off center. By a lot. Wow, I thought. That would certainly push the barrel to one side. It was what had been causing the rifle to shoot way to the right. It was a subtle anomaly. Who would have thought this had been the problem?
Whoa…something slipped while this part was being machined!
I was surprised that Ruger was able to assemble the rifle, but then I remembered what I had thought about earlier. Ruger probably used a powered screwdriver when installing the quarter rib’s Allen screws, and the technician who assembled the rifle probably did not notice the increased torque required to install the screws. The conversion of screw torque to linear force is extreme; I once participated in a fatality investigation where an operator sheared a munitions safety pin screwing on a submunition parachute without realizing what he had done (and the device detonated). But I digress; back to the Ruger story.
Older Ruger No. 1 rifles used a guide pin on the barrel. This was an unnecessary feature and it was later eliminated.
I examined the barrel pin (the pin that fit into the barrel to help locate the quarter rib). It was a press fit in the barrel, and it was obvious it wasn’t going any place. I thought about trying to pull it out with a pair of visegrips, but again, I didn’t want to bubba up this beautiful rifle. That meant I wasn’t going to use the new quarter rib Ruger had sent to me. When I tried to put the old quarter rib back on the barrel, the misalignment between the barrel rib hole and the screw holes was obvious. After thinking about this a bit (and realizing the barrel pin was unnecessary), I concluded that the best fix would be to simply enlarge the offset rib hole so that it allowed clearance between the barrel pin and the quarter rib hole.
I took a small circular file to the quarter rib hole and got nowhere fast. The quarter rib had been hardened to about two million on the Rockwell C scale. To enlarge the hole, I would have to grind it. I mounted a small rotary stone on my Dremel tool and went to work like a demented dentist. It took a while, but I finally enlarged the hole enough so that the quarter rib and its mounting screws could be installed and removed from the barrel easily. I used cold blue to blue the quarter rib’s hole inside diameter (where I had removed material), remounted the quarter rib, reinstalled the Ruger scope rings, remounted the scope, and headed to the West End Gun Club.
Three-shot groups at 100 yards. This is a very accurate rifle.
The trip to the range was extremely satisfying. The rifle’s extreme right bias completely disappeared, and after a few adjustment shots, the holes on the target were in the black. More surprisingly, the Ruger’s groups shrank dramatically. The No. 1 had been a 2 ½ to 3 minute of angle shooter before I corrected the quarter rib mounting issue; now it was a sub-MOA rifle. Life was (and still is) good. I love my Ruger No. 1 rifles, and I especially love this .22 250. I have two other Rugers chambered in .22 250. One is an unfired 200th year No. 1 with even better walnut (see below). The other is a tang safety Model 77 with the heavy varmint barrel (also see below). I could be talked into selling these two rifles, but not the .22 250 featured in this blog. I’m keeping that one for the duration.
My other .22 250 No. 1. It’s unfired. Nice wood, wouldn’t you say?A Model 77V tang safety. It’s a pre-warning, heavy barreled .22 250 that is extremely accurate.
One of the best things that’s happened to me is the MacManus Award, which I received in 1973 (50 years ago this year). Captain Colin D. MacManus was a Rutgers graduate who was killed in action in Vietnam in 1967. His memory lives on with this award, and CPT MacManus continues to inspire young Army officers.
US Army Captain Colin D. MacManus, Rutgers University ’63.
Each year the MacManus family presented a Colt 1911 to the graduating Rutgers ROTC cadet who held Captain MacManus’ position in the Corps of Cadets, and in 1973 that cadet was me. It was quite an honor. We’ve kept the tradition alive, and I’m happy to report that another graduating cadet has been selected and will receive his Colt 1911 this year.
I still have and I still shoot my MacManus 1911, and 50 years after I received it, I can still hit the target. I had my MacManus 1911 out just last week.
The groups have grown just a bit over the last half century, but I can still do well with my MacManus 1911.
We’ve reported annually on the MacManus award, and if you’d like to read the earlier posts, here they are:
If you reload, you know that one of the toughest things to find over the last two or three years has been primers. I was one of the lucky guys…I laid in a stock of primers and I came through the shortage in fairly good shape. Primers are available again, but good Lord, the prices are obscene.
Before the pandemic, primers typically cost about $35 per thousand. That seemed to generally be in line with the last few decades of inflation (when I started reloading about 50 years ago, a brick of 1000 primers cost about $7). Then the pandemic came along, and BAM!, primers are now selling for $80 to $125 per thousand. As a former manufacturing guy, I can tell you that is outright gouging by the manufacturers and distributors. There’s nothing that changed in the materials that go into primers or their manufacturing processes that could possibly justify the 300% to 400% price increase. The manufacturers and distributors are gouging their customers.
The price increase has attracted at least one new player to the US market (the Argentinean firm Aventuras). But even those are $79.95 to $95 per thousand. The manufacturers, distributors, and resellers know that we’re willing to pay those prices so that we can continue to reload, but it’s an outrage. My message to the primer supply chain is simple:
Shame on you.
Want to know how primers are used in the reloading process? Check out our series on reloading .45 ACP ammunition.
I promised an update on my Smith and Wesson 9mm Shield, and this is it. I’ve put 2,500+ rounds through the Shield (all reloads with different bullets and powders). Until I recently took my Shield to good buddy TJ, I was growing increasingly dissatisfied with the pistol’s frequent failures to extract, and I wasn’t alone. If you Google “failure to extract” and “Smith and Wesson Shield” you’ll find a lot of people are having this issue. My problem is in the rearview mirror, though, and my Shield is 100% reliable now. That’s because of TJ. I’ll get to that in a minute.
That target above? It’s 50 rounds at 30 feet through my Shield, shooting offhand. If you’re a reloader, here are the load specifics:
Jim Gardner 125 grain powder coated roundnose bullets (Jim sized these to 0.356 inch, which is his standard bullet).
Cartridge overall length 1.145 inches.
5.4 grains of Accurate No. 5 propellant.
Lee factory taper crimp (light crimp; see below).
Ammo loaded on Lee Classic 4-Turret press.
Mixed brass.
Ordinarily, I tailor a load to the handgun, and I thought I would be able to do that relatively easily with the Shield. I found that not to be the case. The Shield seemed accurate enough with nearly every load I tried, but nearly all had reliability issues. On the low end, the lighter loads didn’t have enough energy to cycle the action (a common enough problem on compact semi-autos). Light, mid range, and hot loads all gave the Shield extraction issues. The Shield experienced a failure to extract about every other magazine. It was very frustrating. I scoured the Internet forums for this issue and the opinions were all over the map. Here’s a smattering of the drivel I found:
Don’t use Winchester ammo because the rims are smaller (I measured them; that was baloney).
Don’t use cast bullets because they hang up (I knew that was baloney).
Don’t shoot aluminum ammo (which I never do, anyway).
Don’t shoot 115-grain bullets.
Don’t shoot 125-grain bullets.
Don’t shoot 147-grain bullets.
Clean your gun after every round (seriously?).
Don’t limp wrist your gun (again, seriously?).
Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t do this other thing…
Do this, do that, do this other thing…
It was all written by people who apparently love the sound of their keyboards clacking. None of it was useful information. I felt stupid for wasting my time reading it.
Help us keep the content coming: Please click on the popup ads!
What I found was that the extraction problem occurred more with powder coated bullets than either plated or jacketed bullets. Other than that, there wasn’t a lot of correlation between any of the load variables I could play with and the gun’s failure to extract propensity. Then, during one range visit when I had a failure to extract, I fell back on my failure analysis background. I put the loaded gun down on the bench (being careful to keep it pointed downrange) and took a photo with my iPhone.
A cartridge case caught during extraction on the mouth of the case immediately below it.
Wow. How about that? It was apparent that the case being extracted was hanging up on the case mouth of the round still in the magazine, and it was a strong enough obstacle to pull the extractor off the rim. This brought up a lot of questions in my mind centered on the crimp and the bullet. The Gardner bullets have a slight ramped step just north of the crimp. And when I crimp a bullet for a semi-auto, I put a slight taper crimp on it with the Lee taper crimp die. I want enough of a crimp to remove the case mouth flare (part of the reloading process to assure the bullet will enter the case mouth without shaving lead or copper), and enough to assure the cartridge will chamber easily. Maybe I didn’t have enough crimp, I thought, and that was causing the case being extracted to hang up.
One of my reloaded 9mm rounds with a taper crimp and a Gardner powder-coated bullet.
I examined my ammo and I thought it looked good (actually, I thought it looked great; like most reloaders, I enjoy looking at my finished ammo). But, to make sure, I loaded another box with as much taper crimp as I could get out of the Lee die. Lee is right when they say their taper crimp die makes it impossible to deform a case: I put a very pronounced crimp on all the cartridges in the next box of ammo. But that wasn’t the answer, and it created a new problem. With a semi-auto like the 9mm or the .45 Auto, the cartridge headspaces on the case mouth. When I used a more pronounced crimp, I started getting misfires. The rounds were going too far into the chamber, and the firing pin wasn’t igniting the primers reliably. Nope, more crimp wasn’t the answer.
At this point, I was getting a little frustrated. All these problems aside, I wanted to like my Shield. I wanted to use it as my concealed carry weapon, so I needed the thing to be reliable. Faced with this issue, I knew it was time for what works every time: A visit to TJ’s Custom Gunworks.
TJ examined the Shield. He observed that the magazine positions the first cartridge in the magazine unusually high in the gun, and that was probably aggravating the failures to extract. But there’s not really anything you can do about that. It’s the gun’s design. It is what it is.
The Shield’s magazine sits relatively high.A loaded round waiting to chamber when the Shield’s slide returns to battery.
TJ then took a look at the extractor. It was pretty dirty with combustion residue, but he felt it should work. TJ, honest as always, told me he could polish the ramp and the chamber (they come from the factory pretty rough), but he didn’t know if that would fix the failures to extract. I asked TJ to proceed.
A photo from TJ showing how dirty my extractor was. Even though it was funky (shame on me), TJ felt it would not have caused the extractor to slip off the case rim.
Here are a couple of photos of the chamber and the ramp as they come from the Smith and Wesson factory. The Shield always fed and chambered reliably; it was only the extraction that was an issue. TJ explained that if the chamber is rough, it can hang on to the fired case as it is being extracted. I’ve experienced that on other guns. The Shield’s chamber and its ramp looked about like I’d expect them to look on a mass-produced pistol, which is to say not very good. I asked TJ to work his magic on both the ramp and the chamber.
The Shield’s feed ramp and chamber as delivered from the factory. Rough, but not ready.Another view of the factory Shield feed ramp. It looks like it might have been cut by hand with a dull chisel.
TJ did his usual excellent job, and here’s what things look like now.
Pure TJ magic.What a good ramp looks like. Slick. Smooth. Shiny.
TJ told me he also put a slight undercut on the extractor to allow it to get a better grasp on the case rim.
The Shield’s extractor, as seen from the bottom. This is the piece that pulls the fired case out of the chamber. TJ undercut the area indicated by the arrow to give the extractor a better grip on the case.
I picked up my Shield a few days later and went to the range that afternoon. The Shield is now what it is supposed to be. You saw the target at the top of this blog. I fired 50 rounds without a single failure to extract and eject. The gun just feels a lot smoother and slicker now. My Gardner bullet and Accurate No. 5 load is perfect. And the recut extractor drops the cartridges in one nice small pile on the floor behind me. Wow. I’m impressed. Then, just to make sure (and because I was having so much fun) I fired another box of 50 rounds (again, with ammo loaded on the Lee Classic Turret press using the load at the top of this page).
Another target, another 50 rounds. Reliable as death and taxes, and accurate. Now, the Shield is as it should have been from the factory (thanks to TJ).
The Lee Classic Turret press does a magnificent job, and now, so does my Smith and Wesson Shield. It’s the way the pistol should have come from the factory.
It’s bothersome that most of my recent gun purchases have required additional work to get them to perform the way they should. In my former life as an aerospace manufacturing guy, I used to manage organizations with machine shops. I know it would cost a little more for the gun companies to do the kind of things TJ did to my Shield (and several other guns, for that matter). I wish the gun companies would do that; they ought to just hire TJ as a consultant (he knows what they need to do). The bottom line here? If you have a Smith and Wesson Shield and you want it to be what it is supposed to be, get in touch with TJ.
There are a lot of things I like about the Shield. Accuracy and illuminated sights are at the top of the list. You can get a feel for its accuracy from the targets shown here. None of this was bench rested; it was all shooting offhand on an indoor range with banging and clanging and brass flying all around me.
I found that after firing a a box of ammo, gunshot residue tends to occlude the sides, front, and rear of the front sight, and that causes the red to glow a lot less. But that’s a minor point. The Shield’s high visibility sights are great.
Holstered, the S&W Shield is about the same size as the Rock Island Compact 1911.Another Shield-to-Compact-1911 comparison: The holstered Shield on top of the holstered 1911. Length and height are about the same.The Shield is narrower than the 1911, and much lighter. It should be easier to carry concealed.
I bought a Bianchi leather holster for the Shield. It’s similar to the Bianchi I use with my Compact 1911. When I put the Shield in its holster I was surprised: It’s really not any smaller than my Compact 1911. It’s a bit narrower, but by the time both guns are holstered, the overall width is about the same. Where the Shield has a clear advantage, though, is weight. And even though the Shield with its polymer frame is much lighter than the Compact 1911, the recoil is quite a bit less than the .45. Now that the Shield has been made more reliable by TJ, it will make a good concealed carry gun. Incidentally, TJ worked his magic on my 1911, too. It’s one of the most reliable handguns I’ve ever owned.
Ten rounds from the Compact 1911, ten from the Model 60, and ten from the Shield. All are in the 10 ring, 28 of the 30 are in the X-ring.
Here’s another story from good buddy Jose. These are his opinions about his worst gun, a Cobra Derringer. Jose gives us an interesting set of observations.
By Jose Armenta
Davis Industries of Chino, California, began manufacturing these cheap Derringers in 1982 until they were sued into oblivion in 1999. They are made of cast Zamak, a zinc alloy containing 93% zinc, 4% aluminum and 3% copper. You and I might call it “pot metal,” a material commonly used for inexpensive die cast model cars and other toys.
The Cobra Big Bore 38 Spl is small indeed.Looking down .38 caliber junk barrels.Pointing with index finger while firing with the middle finger. It’s the way some people shoot the Cobra Derringer, but I don’t recommend trying it. I don’t recommend this Derringer at all!
Cobra Enterprises acquired the Derringer manufacturing part of Davis and began producing identical guns in Salt Lake City, Utah. Then in 2016 someone had been carrying his Cobra Big Bore (in the 9mm Luger version) with the hammer resting on one of the firing pins, put it on a bench, and it discharged, hitting the gun’s owner in the stomach. I don’t know much about it except the guy sued Cobra and Hornady, the ammo manufacturer. In anticipation of a judgment against them, the company owner started another company, Bearman Industries, also in Salt Lake City. Cobra filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy in February 2020 and shortly thereafter Bearman took over Derringer production. And now Bearman is again plagued with consumer lawsuits.
Please click on the popup ads! It’s how we get paid.
This example is a Cobra I bought new around 2014. It is of the typical Zamak pot metal construction with some kind of cheap steel rifled barrel liner. The trigger is absolutely horrid and the cross-pin safety is barely functional. It shoots best with handloaded 148 grain wadcutters because its 2.75-inch barrel is totally useless with hollow point ammo. The gun wouldn’t be so bad if the crossbar safety wasn’t so hard to disengage. I might try polishing the safety detent when I get some time.
The mystique of the derringer hide-away gun is deeply rooted in 1950’s Hollywood western movies, such as this still of Paladin from Have Gun Will Travel.
Firing a Derringer takes some practice. If you pull straight back on the trigger, it will not fire even with 20 pounds or more. To fire, the trigger must be pulled slightly downward and not straight back. An old time cowboy action shooter once taught me that Derringers are best fired with the middle finger on the trigger while the index finger points at the target alongside the barrel. You hold your hand outstretched with the fingers open. Now watch your middle and lower fingers as you slowly close your hand into a tight fist. Just before your finger contacts the palm of the hand, the middle finger moves slightly downward at the very end of the pull. Weird, huh? But it works!
Pressing the trigger straight back will get you nowhere with a Derringer. One must pull the trigger slightly downward to release the sear. This is accomplished pretty easily by using the middle finger. Try this: hold your hand outstretched with the fingers open. Now watch your middle and lower fingers as you slowly close your hand into a tight fist. Just before your finger contacts the palm of the hand, the middle finger moves slightly downward at the very end of the “pull”. Weird, huh? But it works!
Check out these trigger pull directions from the manual.
Using this middle finger method works well at across-the-card-table distance. However, my index finger is a bit longer than the barrel so I have to bend my finger a little to keep it away from the muzzle.
Would I recommend the Cobra Big Bore Derringer to anyone? Absolutely NOT!
But I’ll still keep mine as a conversation piece. It’s a fantastic example of a crappy gun. I shoot it a couple times a year just to remind myself of what a pile of junk this thing really is. Someday maybe I’ll find an old Remington .41 rimfire Derringer just for fun. I understand the Remingtons have no safety at all and may be equally as crappy. Who knows?
I liked good buddy Jose’s blog about his Marlin Glenfield .22 rifle, and we thought it would be a good idea to include a Rimfire Series category here on ExNotes. When the idea first surfaced, I thought we might have done a blog or two on .22 rimfire firearms. When I searched through our blogs, I found that we’ve already posted six .22 blogs. For your quick reference, here they are:
We’ll be including a category for these on our Tales of the Gun page, too.
Please click on the popup ads!
Watch for upcoming rimfire stories in this series, including a blog or two on the GSG .22 1911, the Ruger Single Six, the Smith and Wesson Model 41, a Mannlicher CZ Model 455, a Trainer CZ Model 452 , a Winchester Model, a Remington Custom Shop Model 504, a Ruger Mannlicher 10/22, a 200th year Ruger 10/22, a target grade Ruger Mark III, a vintage Winchester Model 62, and more. Yep, we like our rimfires. Big time. Stay tuned, Amigos!
Good buddy Jose, who has written for us before (I’ll give you a link to his other articles at the end of this blog), sent this story to us a day or two ago. I enjoyed reading it and I think you will, too.
By Jose Armenta
Hi Joe!
I have one you might like….
“Minute of Golf Ball”
I was at the range two weeks ago on a very busy day fooling around with the first 22 semi auto rifle my parents bought me for Christmas when I was 12 years old (um, I mean Santa Claus did). It’s a Marlin Glenfield Model 60 and it came with a 4x scope.
Anyhow some years ago I mounted an inexpensive BSA “Sweet 22” 4×9 scope on it, I mean really inexpensive like 60 or 70 beans. I put four golf balls out on the ground by my targets at 100 yards while some kids and the range hands looked on. Using bulk “rot gut” Federal ammo, I picked off all four balls with four shots. Golf balls fly about 10 to 15 feet when hit with a 22, sort of like when you hit them with a chipper iron. Two kids with a Ruger 10/22 tried bouncing them to no avail. So next range break I set them back up and did it all over again, and the results were 4 for 4!
I told the kids my 50+ year old department store rifle was “minute of golf ball.”
Oh, and yes, it does have the famous Glenfield squirrel stock. I learned to hunt with this rifle so it will always be my favorite.
Who still shoots their first 22 rifle?
Jose
Jose, that’s awesome.
To answer your question (Who still shoots their first 22 rifle?): I know I do, good buddy Greg does, and I suspect quite a few of us do. My first .22 was handed down from my Dad, who bought it when he was 8 years old for $8 in New Jersey of all places (a state with what are probably the most stringent gun laws in the country). I like your story a lot, Jose. It’s a good story, it hits on a topic that many of us can relate to, and it suggests a new blog line: The Rimfire Series. Thanks for submitting this to us, and if you have more stories, please send them in!
I visited with good buddy TJ of TJ’s Custom Gunworks a few days ago. I’m having TJ work on my Smith and Wesson Shield (we’ll post that story in a future blog). While I was there we talked about the poor trigger pull inherent to striker-fired pistols, and TJ mentioned his custom Glock. He showed it to me and I was blown away. It is beautiful. I’ve seen custom Glocks before, but nothing like the pistol you see here. This one is in a class all by itself.
TJ calls this pistol the Rock Glock for good reason: Check out the granite-speckled, multi-color Dura-Coat finish. The pictures are good, but they don’t do the gun justice. In person, it is visually arresting. Stunning. Beautiful. There are probably more adjectives I could use, but you get the idea.
TJ’s Glock started life as a Glock 22. Here’s a partial list of the custom features TJ incorporated:
Custom Glock 34 9mm slide
Match barrel with MWG compensator
Double-textured grip stippling on the front strap and trigger guard
Custom contoured slide release (it provides a much easier lock and release)
Extended magazine release
Doctor red dot optical sight-scope
Custom Overwatch aluminum trigger
Match connector
Full action and reliability work
Like all of TJ’s custom handguns, this one is not simply a collection of drop in off the shelf custom parts. TJ does a full customize, fit, and polish on everything (the custom parts and the mating Glock components). The Rock Glock is old world craftsmanship applied to modern weaponry. The man is a perfectionist and it shows in everything he does. It’s what keeps me coming back to TJ when I need (or want) custom work done on my handguns.
Please click on the popup ads…it’s what keeps the content coming!
Interestingly, TJ kept the factory Glock striker (the firing pin) in the Rock Glock. He finds them to be much better made than aftermarket strikers. Kudos to Glock on that.
Check out the grip area (both front and back) and the trigger guard. They are deeply stippled to assure a rock-solid, zero slip grip.
One of TJ’s purposes on any project is to assure absolute reliability. That’s not hype. I’ve experienced it with all the guns TJ’s modified for me. Part of that includes recontouring and polishing the feed ramp on semi-auto handguns. Check out TJ’s touches on the Rock Glock’s feed ramp.
TJ let me dry fire the Rock Glock and I was impressed. He told me that the stock gun had a 6.5-pound trigger pull and it was rough. The Rock Glock now has a 3-pound trigger pull and it is buttery smooth.
It was a good visit and I’m eager to get my Shield after TJ works his magic on it. You’ll get the full report here on ExNotes when I do.
A Tale of Two .22s (a CZ Model 452 and a Remington Model 504)
