A couple of weekends ago in an effort to clear away all the accumulated stuff on my reloading bench, I loaded a bunch of .38 Special wadcutter ammo on my old Star progressive reloader.
A machine ahead of its time: the Star progressive reloader.
I wrote a series of blogs on my resurrection of the Star (I’ll provide a link at the end of this blog). It’s a wonderful machine and it does a superb job making .38 Special ammo. The Star is set up for what is widely recognized as the premier .38 Special target load: 2.7 grains of Bullseye with the 148-grain wadcutter bullet.
The Star reloader stages: 1 is where an empty case enters the shellholder plate, 2 is where the case is deprimed and sized, 3 is where the case is primed and flared, 4 is where the case is charged with propellant, 5 (out of view behind the press’s axis) is where the bullet is seated, and 6 is where the completed round falls through the loader into a net beneath my reloading bench. I can reload about 200 rounds per hour on this press.
I shoot .38 Special ammo loaded in the Star in three handguns: A Colt Python, a Smith and Wesson Target Model 52, and a snubnose Smith and Wesson Model 60.
The Colt Python, a marvelous revolver. This one had its trigged reworked by TJ of TJ’s Custom Gunworks.The elegant Smith and Wesson Model 52, one of the best target handguns ever made. It’s a semi-auto.My Model 60 Smith and Wesson, which was extensively tuned by TJ. This is a delightful little gun, one that is on my concealed carry permit.
As I was reloading my 300 rounds of .38 Special target ammo, I wondered: How would the velocities vary from one handgun to the next? It would be a perfect opportunity to use my Garmin chronograph, and it would make for an interesting blog. I’ve never read anything on this topic before (i.e., comparing wadcutter velocities from the above three handguns). Here’s what the Garmin chrono revealed:
Not surprisingly, the Colt Python and its 6-inch barrel took home the top velocity honors, the Model 52 and its 5-inch barrel was right behind it, and the Model 60 Snubbie and its 2-inch barrel was about 90 feet per second behind the Model 52. The Model 52 had the lowest extreme spread and the lowest standard deviation, but the Model 60 did well with regard to those two parameters as well. Actually, all three of the handguns did well.
So there you have it. It was an interesting topic to explore, and it made for a fun day on the range.
I reloaded one box of 9mm ammo yesterday in the garage and it was HOT. I had to stop because I was soaked and I was getting a little woozy out there. The heat this summer has been worse than usual, I think.
Bullets, powder, an ammo container, and reloaded ammo. It was hot out there, but I love reloading.
The load was 4.2 grains of Bullseye from an old bottle I got from a friend, the 125- grain Raven Rocks full metal jacket truncated roundnose bullet (seated to an overall length of 1.080 inches), and no-name factory second primers. I never used factory second primers before, but they were cheap and I can’t pass up a deal. The Raven Rocks bullets were cheap, too, but in measuring a few, the diameters varied from 3.54 inches to 3.55 inches (which is not very good). File that under “you get what you pay for.” Sometimes. I loaded with mixed brass, mostly because I had some readily available and I didn’t want to go to the bother of sorting headstamps. I didn’t load this ammo to nail a woodchuck at 500 yards or make “major” in the action pistol world (running around with a loaded handgun and shooting it as fast as you can makes that game a nonstarter for me). It’s 9mm ammo and I’m a guy who likes to go the range. If it feeds, chambers, and goes bang, I’m a happy camper.
This morning, I took the box of 9mm ammo and two 9mm pistols to my indoor range. The handguns were the S&W Shield and the SIG P226 (they are two pistols I shoot a lot). They are the two you see in the photo at the top of this blog. I’ve written about them before. They are both great guns.
At the range, I ran the targets out to 10 yards. I wasn’t really going for accuracy; I mostly wanted to get the chrono data for this load.
Smith and Wesson Shield, reloaded ammo, and the Garmin chronograph.The Shield target, fired at 30 feet. I’ve done better. I’ve done worse. Your mileage may vary.The SIG P226 with the Scorpion treatment. It’s a nice look. I think this is one of the finest handguns I’ve ever owned.
I shot 25 rounds in each pistol, and here’s the chrono data.
Note the relatively low extreme spreads and the tight standard deviations. Bullseye showed me once again that it is a great handgun powder.
As you can see from the above targets, the SIG does a little better for both accuracy and velocity, mostly because of its longer barrel and longer sight radius.
I had one misfire in the SIG, but that was probably due to a primer that wasn’t fully seated. Was that a function of the primers being factory seconds, was it the result of my Lee Turret Press not fully seating the primer, or was it just me? Who knows. When I cocked the pistol and released the hammer a second time, it fired. That’s a classic symptom of a primer not being fully seated. The first firing pin strike seats the primer all the way into the case, and the second lights it.
The Bottom Line
I like this load a lot. I haven’t really done a lot of work with Bullseye in 9mm before (mostly it’s been Unique, Accurate Arms No. 5, and Red Dot in the past). 4.2 grains of Bullseye was a moderate recoil and velocity load and I think it is accurate enough. At around 1000 fps average velocity in both pistols, it’s good enough for me. Like I said, I wasn’t going for accuracy, but I think if I shot from a rest this load would do better in both pistols.
One final note: Bullseye propellant has been hard to get. My local reloading components store and most of the online outlets don’t show it in stock. Natchez does appear to have 8-lb bottles in stock, priced at about $355 (a sum that would have been unheard of in earlier days). What’s nice about Bullseye is most loads only need a little bit of the stuff. I have enough to last for a while.
Any day spent on the range is a good day, but some days are better than others. Today…well, let’s just say that some of my other days I’ve done better.
The S&W Shield with reloaded 9mm ammo. This was old stuff that I wanted to use up (and I did).
I belong to two ranges: The West End Gun Club up in the San Gabriel Mountains, and the Magnum Range in Rancho, California. The West End Gun Club is good for rifle and handgun (and now, shotgun, too), and you’ve seen more than a few photos of it on this blog. The WEGC shooting stations go out to 325 yards.
It takes about a half hour for me to get to the West End Gun Club, and as a guy who is still recovering from back surgery, it’s a bit tougher given my current (and hopefully, temporary) physical limitations. Carrying a target frame out to the 100-yard line is just not in the cards for me yet. Carrying all my gear to the bench exceeds my lifting restrictions.
The indoor range in Rancho is a lot easier. It’s about 10 minutes away. Rancho has a motorized target placement and retrieval system. The indoor range only goes out to 50 feet, but for my handgun shooting that’s plenty.
I paid $599 for my Garmin and it was worth every cent. You can get them now for $399. That’s a hell of a deal. These are my results with the box of 50 cartridges I had reloaded several years ago (long before I bought the Garmin).
On this particular day, I wanted to use a box of ammo that was hiding in the ammo locker. It was 9mm ammo I loaded several years ago. The recipe had been an accuracy winner in my Model 59 and Model 659 Smith and Wessons, and that load was the 125-grain Missouri cast roundnose bullet with 4.8 grains of Unique. It’s not a max load, but as you can see from the above photo, with an average velocity of 1043 feet per second, it’s hot enough. The spread and the standard deviation were higher than I’d like, but I guess that’s okay. I was using mixed older brass (which I didn’t bother policing when I was done shooting; it can get mixed in with the other spent cases and it is probably already on its way to the recycling center).
Win some, lose some. At 10 yards, I would probably still come out ahead if this was a bad guy. But from an accuracy perspective, I was not on top of my game.
In my two other Smiths (the 59 and the 659), this was a good load. In the Shield, not so much. The groups were too big. Was that me? Was it the shorter barrel and sight radius? Was it the ammo? Or am I just getting older? It might be all of the above, but I think my getting older is probably the biggest accuracy detractor.
That’s a lot of leading. Leading occurs if the bullet doesn’t seal well in the bore. Hot gases sneak around the bullet (between the bullet and the barrel) and it melts lead onto the rifling.
The good news is that I only had one failure to feed in a box of 50 rounds, and that one held the slide only slightly out of battery. I pushed the slide forward another maybe tenth of an inch and it fired on the next trigger pull. All the rounds extracted and ejected. There was quite a bit of leading, which surprised me. This load had not leaded the bores of either my Model 59 or Model 659. As the ammo was several years old, perhaps the lead had age hardened a bit, preventing the bullet from obturating adequately. Eh, it’s history now; this was the last box of that ammo. More good news is that the leading came out easily. A few passes with a stiff bore brush and it was gone.
You know, I like posting targets with tight groups clustered into one ragged hole. But those kinds of groups are becoming harder and harder to create. I’d be lying if I said I don’t care. I’m bothered when I don’t shoot as well as I think I should, and it lets me know that the years are catching up with me. It’s still fun to get out on the range, though, even when the groups aren’t that tight. Even a bad day at the range is better than sitting around in a doctor’s waiting room, which seems to be what I do a lot of anymore.
One of the more interesting folding hunter knives I own is a Smith and Wesson Model 6060.
My Model 6060 Smith and Wesson folding hunter. My father gave it to me in 1974.
The Smith and Wesson 6060 entered production in 1974. It’s been out of production for decades. An interesting fact is that it was never manufactured by Smith and Wesson (more on that in a minute).
I’ve been a bad influence most of my life, and one of the guys I influenced most was my father. As a kid and as a young man, I’d get an interest in something and then Dad would, too. The list is long: Slot cars, Lionel trains, archery, motorcycles, handguns, VW Beetles, CB radios, and probably a few other things. Don’t get me wrong; the influence thing was not a one-way street. Marty Berk influenced me a lot, too, and in many different areas (if you doubt this, take a look at the 1,800+ blogs that preceded this one).
In the summer of 1974 I was in the U.S. Army and I had orders to Korea. I was on a Smith and Wesson kick, and my brand loyalty more or less drifted over to my father. Dad had friends in high places in the gun world (he was a world class trapshooter), and one of those friends included a firearms distributor. That gave us access to a lot of the hard-to-obtain Smith and Wessons, such as uber-cool Model 29s (in the wake of Dirty Harry, they were just about impossible to get; we bought three of them). The Smith and Wesson magic dust fell upon us, and in addition to those big revolvers, we picked up a lot of Smith and Wesson branded merchandise. Dad bought a Smith and Wesson folding knife (their Model 6060), and he gave it to me before I shipped out for Korea. It was a nice knife. It came with an embossed leather sheath. I think I still have the original Smith and Wesson box and papers, too (they are around here somewhere, although it would probably take me a day to find them).
Wesson wood scales (as they were called), and that beautiful nickel-plated S&W grip medallion.The Model 6060 and its original sheath, which is still in excellent condition.
Smith and Wesson’s Model 6060 Folding Hunter knife was designed by Blackie Collins in 1972. Walter Wells “Blackie” Collins (1939 – July 20, 2011) was a prolific knife designer who was killed in a single-vehicle North Carolina motorcycle accident. He was an icon in the knife world.
Two Smith and Wessons; two grip medallions two generations apart. The world was a better place in the 1970s, I think.
Smith and Wesson wasn’t set up to make knives and they had no intention of ever doing so (in fact, they couldn’t keep up with demand for their revolvers), so they contracted with three different knife manufacturers to make the Model 6060: Alcas, Bowen, and the Carolina Knife Company. Most of the Model 6060s were made by Alcas, a knife company formed by Alcoa and Case (hence the name, Alcas). I believe my knife was most likely manufactured by Alcas, as the Carolina Knife Company produced only 35 custom knives (with special scale materials, like ivory and such). A few of the standard Model 6060s were made by Bowen, but it would take an expert to determine if mine was (there were differences in the finish of some internal components between Bowen-manufactured knives versus Alcas knives). Bowen didn’t make nearly as many Model 6060s as did Alcas, so I’m sticking with my conclusion that Alcas made my knife.
The Model 6060 went out of production in 1979, after a production run of approximately 35,000 knives. To put that in perspective, Buck has manufactured approximately 15 million Buck 110 knives since it started making them in 1964.
A photo from the Ebay Model 6060. I pulled the trigger on it while writing this blog.
The Model 6060 retailed for a surprisingly high $200 when new, and in the 1970s that was the price was for an N-frame Smith and Wesson revolver (in other words, it was a lot of money). Smith was cruising on their Dirty Harry exclusivity and brand recognition. You can still buy a used Model 6060 on Ebay and from other outlets, with prices starting at $95. I saw a new one listed with the original box and all the papers for $149 while researching the Model 6060 for this blog. Even though I already have a Model 6060, that was too tempting to let go by. Yep, I bought it, and now I have two.
My Model 6060, as explained above, was a gift from Dad. I wore it during most of my tour in Korea. I have an emotional attachment to my Model 6060 and I’ll never part with it.
The Smith and Wesson Model 6060 knives are good; I think every bit as good as a Buck 110 used to be, and better than what is coming off the Buck line today. Owning the Model 6060 has a certain coolness associated with it, but most folks probably don’t know that. I sure do, and now you do, too.
I had not been to the indoor handgun range for a couple of weeks, and recent post on Facebook about close-range, rapid-fire shooting made me want to try the same. Most of the time, I’m a target shooter, which usually involves longer distances and careful aim. This would be different: 10 feet and firing as quickly as possible. What slowed my aim was not recoil or the ability to find the front sight; it was the target moving. At that short distance, and with a hanging target, muzzle blast made the target move around. The results were relatively acceptable.
The two guns were the Springfield Target 1911 (in .45 ACP) and the 9mm Smith and Wesson Shield, and the loads were with the ARX bullets I’ve written about before. In the .45, the load I use is 8.8 grains of Power Pistol and 118-grain ARX bullets. In the 9mm, it’s 5.2 grains of Winchester 231 and 65-grain ARX bullets. Both loads are completely reliable, the ammo feeds beautifully, and they group with target handgun accuracy.
I buy the targets you see at the top of this blog from Alco, which is in nearby Duarte. For that target above, I put 25 rounds on each of those upper little silhouettes with the 9mm Shield, and then I did the same with the .45 on the lower two silhouettes. The .45 is more accurate, but it’s a big gun and it’s not comfortable for concealed carry. The little Smith and Wesson Shield is much better for that job.
I think it would be difficult to be a firearms enthusiast and not be a student of history. Firearms are history. And some of that history revolves around the Texas Rangers, the oldest and perhaps most legendary law enforcement group in US history. I’ve always been fascinated with the Texas Rangers, starting with their use of the very first Colt Paterson revolvers in combat, the early Captain Samuel Walker days, and the emergence of the Colt Walker black powder revolver.
Texan Ranger Captain Samuel Walker.
When I was a kid, we had a steady diet of Westerns on TV and in the movies, and the Texas Rangers figured prominently in many of those shows. I’m a Lonesome Dove fan, having read Larry McMurtry’s novels and watched the television series numerous times. Go Gus and Woodrow (but especially Gus; he carried a Colt Walker).
Robert Duvall as Gus MacCrae in Lonesome Dove, and his Colt Walker.
You would think with the Texas Rangers’ historical and often romanticized use of Colt revolvers, Colt would be all over the Texas Ranger commemorative gun business. They did so in the early 1970s with a very limited run of Single Action Army revolvers, but that was the only time.
Colt’s Texas Rangers 150th Anniversary Commemorative. These guns don’t come up for sale often, and when they do, the price is stratospheric. It’s the only Texas Rangers Commemorative Colt has ever done.
The Texas Rangers commemorative mantle has been picked up by Smith and Wesson, first in 1973 for the Texas Rangers’ 150th anniversary, and again in 2023 for the 200th anniversary. These are beautiful firearms (they are art, in my opinion).
A Texas Rangers 150th Anniversary Smith and Wesson Model 19.Another view of the Texas Rangers 150th Anniversary Smith and Wesson Model 19.
Jumping back to 1973, Smith and Wesson offered a cased commemorative Model 19 Smith and Wesson along with a Bowie knife. A standard Model 19 cost about $150 back then (I had one); the Texas Rangers Model 19 with display case and matching Bowie knife was a whopping $250. It seems an almost trivial amount today. A standard Model 19 costs around a thousand bucks today, and the Model 19 of today is not the same gun it was in the 1970s. The older ones, as is true with many things in life, are better.
The 200th Anniversary Texas Rangers Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum revolver.
Fast forward to 2023, and Smith and Wesson did it again, with a Texas Rangers 200th anniversary revolver. This time it’s a highly polished N-frame, fixed sight version. The N-frame is Smith’s big gun frame used on their original .357 Magnum, the Model 27, the .45 ACP revolvers, and the .44 Magnum revolvers. You know, the Big Boy guns for us full-figured shooters.
A real beauty, these 200th Anniversary Texas Rangers Smith and Wessons are.
I’ve been perusing both of these Texas Ranger guns on the gun auction sites. I can get the 1973 version (which was based on the Model 19) for about $1500, which isn’t a bad deal considering you get a more collectible gun, the knife, and the case for not too much more than what a new Model 19 cost today. I’d shoot it, too, if I bought one. And then there’s the current Texas Rangers 200th Anniversary revolver, built on the N-frame Those are going for around $2500 or more. That a bit pricey, but maybe in 50 years $2500 will be a trivial amount. I’m a firm believer that you can’t pay too much for a gun; you just maybe bought it too early.
A lot of things are different today, and the price for either of the Smith and Wesson Texas Ranger commemoratives is just a starting point here in California. Compounding the felony on both guns is our outrageous California 11% excise tax on firearms and ammo (that little bit of silliness and government overreach went into effect this month), which gets added onto:
Our outrageous California state sales tax
The federal government’s $40 background check and ATF Form 4473 (the one that Hunter Biden was convicted of falsifying when his sweetheart deal fell apart)
The FFL dealer’s $40 transfer fee
A $75 shipping fee to get the gun to me here in left wing Utopia (i.e., the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia)
It all adds up to roughly another $700. And all that’s aggravated by the likelihood I couldn’t even get the 200th Anniversary Texas Rangers commemorative because our California Attorney General hasn’t seen fit to add it to our roster of approved handguns. Even Gomer Pyle wouldn’t know how to react to all these added government fees, but I’m guessing his reaction would be a heartfelt Gosh, or a Golly, or maybe even a Shazam! It’s almost as if California doesn’t agree with the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.
But that earlier Texas Rangers Smith and Wesson…the Model 19 150th Anniversary gun. It’s now over 50 years old, and that makes it an antique in California’s all-seeing and all-knowing firearms book of state regs , and antiques are exempt from the Roster of Approved Handguns limitations. I’d still have to pay all the fees described above. But it’s doable, and I’m thinking about it.
You might wonder: Are the Texas Rangers still around, and what sidearm do they carry? The answer is yes; the Texas Rangers are part of the Texas Department of Public Safety. Texas Rangers are issued a SIG 320 (a 9mm semi-auto), but they are allowed to carry their personal sidearms. Many choose to carry the 1911.
When most folks think of the .45 ACP cartridge, they think of the 1911 and other semi-auto handguns. The big .45 also makes an ideal wheelgun cartridge, especially in N-frame Smith and Wessons. I own four (the ones you see above) and I shoot them all.
The .45 ACP Revolver Story
Smith and Wesson forayed into the .45 ACP revolver business when Colt couldn’t keep up with the demand for its 1911 semi-auto in World War I. The Army asked both Smith and Colt to make .45 ACP versions of their large-frame double action handguns, both manufacturers did, and the Army designated both revolvers as the Model 1917.
After the World War I, the 1917 revolvers became available to civilians. Colt left the .45 ACP revolver business, but Smith and Wesson soldiered on, and to this day Smith still offers several different models.
Shooting .45 ACP ammo in a revolver requires a clip. You have to snap the rounds into the clip so they will fire and extract in a revolver. At one point, the 1917 revolvers were popular enough that Remington introduced the .45 AutoRim cartridge, which is a rimmed version of the .45 ACP that allows use of the cartridge in a revolver without the clip.
.45 ACP rounds in a star clip. I have a tool that makes it easy to insert cartridges in the clips and remove the empty cases after shooting. In World War I, clips held only three rounds (you needed two to load six rounds in a 1917 revolver).A .45 ACP round (left) and a .45 AutoRim cartridge (right). Note the difference in rim configuration at the base of each cartridge. I’ve experimented with both ACP and AutoRim brass in my .45 ACP revolvers; both deliver comparable accuracy.
Over the years Smith and Wesson has manufactured several .45 ACP revolver models. I’d like to own them all, but there’s only so much room in the safe and Susie’s willingness to indulge my gun collecting. The four this blog addresses are:
The Model of 1955
A Jovino snubnose
Smith’s reincarnated and Turnbull-finished Model 1917
The Performance Center Model 625.
Info on each follows.
The Model of 1955
Smith introduced the Model of 1955 as an alternative to the 1911 semi-auto for bullseye target competition. Mine was made in the 1970s. I bought it from Rutgers Guns in Highland Park, New Jersey shortly after I left the Army (Rutgers Guns had no connection to Rutgers University other than geography). I paid around $200 for it new.
A typical Model of 1955 three-shot 50-foot group. This gun shoots everything well.
The Model of 1955 has Smith and Wesson’s target trigger and target hammer, and it has target sights (with a Patridge style sight in front). It originally had checkered grips, but shortly after I bought it I put a set of smooth grips on it. I think the smooth grips both look and feel better. Back in the day, you could purchase those grips new for around $25. Today, a set from that era (like the ones you see above) would fetch $300 to $400. The Model of 1955 has the highly polished and deep blue finish that is the hallmark of earlier Smith and Wesson revolvers. It is a beautiful handgun.
I never tried a load in the Model of 1955 that didn’t do well; every powder and every bullet combination I loaded grouped well. In the nearly 50-years that I’ve owned this revolver, I’ve only seen one other guy on the range with the same gun. I asked him what load he used and he told me the gun likes everything; every load he ever tried shot well, too. That said, the load I use is typically 4.2 grains of Bullseye and a 200-grain semi-wadcutter bullet. I use Lee’s Deluxe 4-die set and I crimp the bullets with their factory taper crimp die to assure easy chambering and to prevent bullet pull under recoil (although recoil with this load is light).
The Jovino Snubbie
The Jovino snubnose revolver is a rare animal, one of 650 customized by New York City’s John Jovino Gun Shop (which no longer exists; when it closed, Jovino was the oldest gun shop in the country).
The Jovino snubnose .45 ACP revolver. It’s a real rarity.
Back in the 1980s, Jovino’s built custom guns. Their main clients were the NYPD and other police departments, so many of the Jovino customs tended to be duty-oriented carry weapons. Jovino bought 6 1/2-inch barreled Smiths like the one you see above and turned them into 2 1/2-inch snubnose revolvers. The conversion was not just a simple chop job, though. Here’s what Jovino did to these guns:
Shortened the factory barrel to 2 1/2 inches.
Installed a crane lock to replace the ejector rod lock.
Relocated the red ramp front sight.
Rounded the butt to the S&W K frame round butt configuration.
Tuned the double and single action trigger.
Radiused the hammer spur.
Polished the trigger face.
Fitted Pachmayr rubber grips.
Reblued the cut barrel (the new bluing is actually a bit darker and more polished than the stock bluing).
The original grips that came with the Jovino snubbie were rubber Pachmayrs, but I wanted the look of ivory grips. That’s when I found out that the Jovino guns did not have a standard N-frame rounded grip profile. It took a lot of patient sanding and polishing to get the fake ivory grips to fit. I like the look.
The grips look good. So does the revolver. One of the Jovino custom touches was to round the hammer spur profile. I like what they did.
The double action trigger on the Jovino is incredibly smooth. The slick trigger and the red ramp and white outline sights work together well, and the gun is very accurate. I’ve never seen another one of these guns on the range, so the exclusivity factor is there, too.
Smith and Wesson’s Reincarnated 1917
Smith’s resurrected Model 1917 .45 ACP revolver, shown here with AutoRim ammo.
About 20 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. I saw one of the Turnbull 1917 revolvers at a local Bass Pro and it sat in the display case for months. Bass Pro had it marked down to $695 and it still hadn’t moved. 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 the boss.
“We’ll take 30 off,” Junior said when he returned.
“Is that percent, or dollars?” I asked.
He smiled. “Dollars.” It was still a hell of a deal, so I pulled the trigger. Today if I wanted to sell this gun I could probably get $1500 for it. But I don’t want to sell it, and I never will.
Another view of the 1917, its glorious Turnbull color case hardening, and .45 ACP ammo loaded in clips.
I don’t shoot my Turnbull 1917 all that often; my preference is the Model 625 described below. The 1917 groups well, but its small checkered grips are punishing. This is another cool gun. I’ve never seen another one on the range.
Smith’s Performance Center Model 625
The Performance Center is Smith’s marketing shtick for guns that have been slicked up a bit, which is Smith and Wesson’s way of saying they build Performance Center guns with the attention to detail that used to be standard on all Smith and Wessons. This one has a good trigger, a different barrel contour, blended edges on the front of the cylinder, and probably a few other niceties I can’t remember right now.
This revolver originally had clown-like, awkward, red-white-and-blue grips. I quickly swapped the goofy factory grips for what were advertised as rosewood grips from a third-party vendor (they weren’t rosewood at all; they were instead fabricated of cheap laminated and dyed wood, as I found out when I refinished them). But my custom grips fit my hands much better, and this is an extremely accurate revolver. I also installed a red ramp front sight and a white outline rear site. The white outline rear sight Smith sells today has barely-visible gray lines and the red is not as bright as it used to be, but they are better than the gold dot front sight and plain black rear sight that came on the gun (I don’t like gold dot front sights).
Six rounds at 50 feet, standing, from the Performance Center .45 ACP Model 625. This revolver has grips I refinished and a red ramp and white outline set of sights. The target shown here was shot with the 200-grain semi-wadcutter bullet and 6.0 grains of Unique.
My usual accuracy load for the 625 is a cast 200-grain semiwadcutter bullet (sized to .452 inches) over 4.2 grains of Bullseye. Another load that works well is the same bullet with 6.0 grains of Unique (it’s the load I used on the target above).
After reading about the above Smith and Wesson .45 ACP revolvers, you might have two questions:
Good buddy Paul sent this very recently released video from Lipsey’s to me last night:
The video is just under 10 minutes long and it’s worth watching. To me, this new J-frame Smith addresses most of the shortcomings I’ve noticed with my concealed carry J-frame revolver. Here are my thoughts:
I like it.
The ideal of a .30 caliber 6-shot is intriguing (in addition to the 5-shot .38 Special version Lipsey’s is also offering). I know most concealed carry handgun encounters are settled in less than two shots, but having an extra round (one over the standard 5 shots) makes sense to me.
I notice the grips don’t go below the bottom of the grip frame, which would be a problem for me. Getting my little finger caught under the grip frame is what makes shooting a J-frame revolver uncomfortable (in fact, it’s downright painful after a shot or two). I do like the G10 material grips, though. I have those on my Sig Scorpion 226 and it is the best grip material ever, in my opinion. I would like a set of G10 grips that extend lower than the bottom of the grip frame, like the Altamont grips I put on my J-frame. These would be very comfortable.
The sights are a much-needed upgrade. The stock Model 60 and other J-frame sights are a joke.
The aluminum frame means light weight, which I guess is good for carrying the gun all day, but those little J-frames can have fierce recoil. My stainless steel Model 60 packs a punch; the aluminum version recoil will be worse. I suppose the assumption for most is that the gun will be carried more than it is shot, and that makes sense. But, still, that’s going to be a lot of recoil.
The J-frame endurance package is sorely needed. I shot the hell out of my Model 60 doing rapid fire at 7 yards and it quickly went seriously out of time. That was an expensive fix. Mine also had excessive headshake. I was able to address it with a shim kit, but it should not have been necessary.
It will be interesting to see what this new Lipsey’s/Smith and Wesson J-frame revolver costs and if it gets approved in California. My prediction is that Lipsey’s will later release a .357 Magnum version (not that anyone would need it, but it would probably sell well). I also predict a 9mm version. 9mm is the most popular centerfire handgun cartridge in the world, and I believe a 9mm version would sell well, too.
The stream crossing to the West End Gun Club has been too deep to cross in my Subie Outback since early January. I tried it once back then and I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
My January Meyer Canyon Road mishap. The Subie is not a submarine and I am not a U-boat commander, although we both came close that morning.
I’ve been going to the Magnum Range in Ontario (an indoor pistol range), watching the West End website for updates and occasionally driving out to check the stream. The Magnum Range is a good place to shoot, but I missed shooting my rifles. Then a good thing happened earlier this week: Good buddy Duane offered to pick me up and attempt a stream crossing in his Toyota 4×4. I was in.
Duane’s Toyota 4×4. It’s an impressive vehicle.
I’ve known Duane for years, going back to my work with CSC Motorcycles in their early days of the replica Mustangs and the RX3 250cc adventure bike. Duane and I both owned the CSC bikes and we traveled extensively on them.
Duane in the commander’s cupola.
The Meyer Canyon Road stream crossing was still deep and the water was moving swiftly, but Duane’s Toyota had no problem crossing it.
Entering the fray…
I knew which rifle I wanted to shoot when I received Duane’s email invitation: My Mosin-Nagant 91/30. It’s the one you see at the top of this blog. The Mosin is a favorite. It’s accurate, I reload 7.62x54R ammo, and it is fun to shoot.
My Mosin-Nagant 91/30. The Russians built 17 million of these rifles. They are becoming hard to get and prices have risen substantially. These rifles are surprisingly accurate.
I’ve owned this Mosin rifle for maybe 10 years now. It came about almost as an afterthought. To me, the Mosins appeared to be cheap pieces of junk. Then one day after a class about engineering creativity, a student asked about the cover photo on a book I wrote. He told me he and his father owned a Mosin and enjoyed shooting the rifle. I saw a Mosin on the rack at a sporting goods store a short while later for $139. It looked crude, but for $139, I thought I’d take a chance. The guy who sold it to me did not know there was a bayonet in the Mosin’s cardboard box, and when he put the rifle back in its box, the bayonet scratched the stock. Neither of us knew this until 10 days later (after California’s silly waiting period). The store offered to sell me a different Mosin, but that meant starting the 10-day waiting period all over again. I viewed the scratch as an opportunity, and indeed it was. I refinished the stock (10 coats of TruOil worked nicely). Then I glass bedded the action, reworked the trigger, polished the bolt, and worked up a load. It was fun and I learned much about the rifle. Mine has matching numbers on the receiver, the butt plate, and the bolt. I know it’s weird: I own some really nice rifles, but the Mosin is one of the ones I love the most.
Serial Number 2339, built in 1940. Production rates ramped up sharply in 1940, but this rifle was built before that occurred. Fit and finish nosedived that year; mine is one of the good ones.The Mosin’s buttplate.The serialized (and polished) bolt.
When Duane and I arrived at the range, I set up a target at 50 yards. Like always, shooting the Mosin felt good. It had been too long.
Duane is a milsurp rifle enthusiast, too. He has a beautiful 8mm Mauser K98 that his uncle took home from Germany after World War II. I keep trying to buy it from him. He keeps saying no.
A World War II K98 Mauser.Left view of the K98 Mauser.Nazi markings on the Mauser’s barrel and receiver.
Like me, Duane is a reloader. He had reloaded reduced loads for our outing. A reduced load is one loaded for lower velocity, which means the rifle has significantly less recoil. One of Duane’s loads had cast bullets. The other had jacketed 150-grain bullets. Both were loaded with Trail Boss powder, and both shot well.
8mm Mauser reloaded ammunition. The upper rounds have 150-grain jacketed soft point bullets, the lower rounds have 150-grain cast bullets.
As soon as Duane fired his first shots, I knew he had reduced-load ammo. Check it out in the video below.
Duane and I both brought handguns, and to my surprise, we both decided to bring our Smith and Wesson 9mm Shields. I’ve written about the Shield before, as well as the custom work TJ (of TJs Custom Gunworks) did on my Shield. I shot my Shield at 50 yards. Using a short-barreled 9mm concealed carry handgun at 50 yards is not a formula for accuracy, but I managed to keep all of my shots on the target. The group was large, but at least they were on the paper.
My Shield in flat dark earth. I shot my reloaded ammo with Gardner powder-coated bullets.My Sheild and Duane’s. Duane’s has a Crimson Trace laser just forward of the trigger guard. The laser is actuated by a pushbutton below the trigger.
One of the things I like about my Shield is its bright sights. Duane’s Shield has white dot sights and a green Crimson Trace laser mounted beneath the slide. The laser is a cool touch for close in work. My Shield has high visibility fiber optic sights (they catch light from the side and light up green and red dots). They’re good if there’s any light at all. If there’s no light, the sights don’t light, but if there’s no light, it’s not likely you’d be shooting.
A comparison of the sights on both Shields. My pistol’s Hi Viz sights are the best I’ve ever used on a handgun.
Before we called it a day, Duane let me try a couple of shots with his Mauser. I shot at the same 50-yard target I’d been using with my Shield and the Mosin-Nagant.
The proof is on the paper. The upper red circle surrounds the shots I fired with my Mosin-Nagant (with one exception, all are in the 10 ring…that one exception was the first shot I fired). The circle around the two shots below were mine, fired with Duane’s 8mm Mauser and his reduced-load ammo. All the other shots were with the Smith and Wesson 9mm Shield.
After the West End Gun Club visit, we stopped at our local Mexican restaurant. I had albondigas soup and a chile relleno. As always, both were outstanding.
A toasted chile relleno. It was excellent.
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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.
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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.
