2021 and News of My World

Last summer my emails got messed up, and I haven’t been able to access my Patreon account for some time. Now on 1 January 2021 I suddenly have been able to straighten things out and have access again. It turns out several of you have been supporting me and I didn’t even know it! Thank you all very much- it means a lot.

As of December we’ve crossed the $100/month threshold, which means I’ll be making more shooting videos. I whined to Linda that I needed to start a new Youtube channel and she said, “Why? You’ve already got one…” OK, duh. I’ve shot a few ‘action’ videos of shooting to post here and other places, and you can find them here- https://www.youtube.com/user/tinkerpearce/featured

Future videos will be posted there as well. For now I’m planning on only doing videos to post here and other gun pages rather than having a ‘show.’ We’ll see how things progress. In the meantime I need to look into some equipment, and I while I don’t know what some of it is going to cost I feel a cringe coming on…

Interesting things coming up in 2021; there’s a project almost completed that’s carried over from last year. I wanted to finish it before now but, well… 2020.

In other news I bought some magazines for my Sig P-6 that turned out to be, frankly, cheaper than I’d want to bet my life on. But, acting on a whim, I discovered they would fit in my Beretta M1951 if I cut a notch for the handle-mounted magazine release. Which means they’d fit the Helwan .380 conversion…

My Maadi Helwan, which I converted to .380 ACP after the locking lugs peened. Of course the moment I did I discovered that quality replacement locking-blocks had become available… after I had bored out and sleeved the chamber, them reamed it for .380. Oh well, at least it’s not a paperweight…

I took one of the magazines apart and visited the Bin of Random Magazines at Ben’s Loans and bought a couple of .32 ACP magazines to cannibalize the springs. I modified the follower from the cheap magazine for the shorter cartridge, then soldered a brass spacer into the back of the magazine. Installing the modified follower and the spring from the .32 magazine gave me a functional .380 magazine for the Helwan.

You can see the brass spaced, and how it holds the cartridge in the proper position to feed. I may tweak the feed lips a bit, but it works pretty darn well already.

This is a big improvement over the cludged-together magazine I originally did for this gun. Yes, a 9mm magazine will still fit in the pistol, but a 9mm cartridge won’t fit in the chamber since I re-did it, so there’s no safety concern on that score.

So, how does it shoot? A little low, but recoil is minimal; it’s a very pleasant gun to shoot. The magazine holds nine rounds, and aside from a single stove-pipe on feeding it’s been reliable.

Shoots a little low, but that’s a respectable 7-yard mag-dump.

I think I need to make another of these magazines…

Anyway, Happy New Year to you and yours!

Michael Tinker Pearce, 1 January 2021

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