Monthly Archives: May 2016

The Ugly Duckling’s Day Out

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So, Range report for 26 May- took the Rossi M68 and the Carcano-Mannlicher carbine over to Renton Gun Club. Mixed results for the day.
7.35BPcomplete

The Ugly Duckling “This isn’t even my final form!”

Starting with the bad news- Last time I took the Rossi M68 to the range it experienced 80% failures to fire. I replaced the mainspring and it’s an improvement- 20% failures. The primer strikes are a bit shallow; time to replace the hammer-mounted firing pin. After examining it it seems a bit short. I can buy one cheap enough, but I might just fabricate one; it’s not a complicated part.

Linda’s Rossi M68 with custom grip tailored to her hand.

 Now for the Carcano. The original front sight was drift adjustable and was offset significantly to the left. When I made the new front sight I canted it to the left to approximate the position of the original sight, though of course I had no real way of knowing that the original sight was correct. So when I go to the range I bought a large target- the one with five red squares on it- a two-inch square near each corner and a four-inch square in the center. I set it up at fifty yards; since there was not telling how far off the sights would be I wanted to at least keep them on the paper.
The range’s rules for rifles are that you can only load one round at a time, and this is a bit of a problem for Carcano rifles because they load from a six-round clip. The way the extractor engages you can’t simply drop a round in the chamber and close the bolt. So you need to either remove the bolt, clip the cartridge into the extractor and replace the bolt or try to get it to work with a single round in the clip. It doesn’t want to, and requires significant fumbling to get e round chambered that way. After I’d fired five rounds the solution was at hand- load five empties under one live round. Problem solved- load, fire, release the clip and repeat the process. Worked a treat.
The trigger has some slack, but after that it breaks pretty cleanly and the pull is not at all heavy. Maybe 5 lbs? Anyway it always surprised me with the bang, just as it should. Recoil is about what you’d expect from a 5-1/2 to 6 lb. gun in the .30-30/300 Savage range. It’s fairly mild, but after 15-20 rounds you start to feel it. I think there is a recoil pad in this gun’s future, but there’s no real hurry.

the steel butt-plate is OK, but a recoil-pad will be better.

Once I started shooting I discovered a problem with operator headspace and timing- I’d brought the wrong glasses. Instead of my general-use glasses I had my close-work shop glasses. This meant that while the front sight was sharp the little red squares tended to register as a tiny, indistinct pink blur.
So, based on my guess of how to set up the sights and allowing for the wrong glasses where did my Ugly Duckling hit at fifty yards? Dead On. Seriously, I mean dead-nuts exactly where the sights were pointed. Damn, I’m good… and absurdly lucky. Mostly lucky.
The sight picture does require a bit of explanation- The M1938 7.35mm Carcano had a fixed ‘battle sight’ that uses an atypical sight picture. The rifle has a drift-adjustable post front sight and a robust fixed V-notch rear. It seems crude and rudimentary but it’s actually quite clever. Italian soldiers were taught to center the tip of the front sight in the base of the V, rather than a more typical sight picture that would center it even with the top of the V. At ranges from 0-200 meters if they aimed center-mass of their target’s body they would hit somewhere on the torso. For longer ranges- out to 300-350 meters- they would get the same effect by centering the front post even with the top of the V. 350 meters was considered the maximum effective range of the M1938. Simple, clever and effective.
I wanted this to be a 100-150 yard gun and with that in mind I had altered the height of the front sight and deepened the V-notch. Using the ‘bottom-V’ sight picture it seemed to hit the exact point of aim. Using the conventional sight picture (with the top of the front post even with the top of the V-notch) the rifle hits about 4 inches high at fifty yards. If the tables I found are accurate this means it will hit about right on at 100 yards and about 3-4 inches low at 150 yards.
So how did I accomplish this remarkable adjustment to the sights to produce exactly the result I was hoping for? I’m going to go with Divine Intervention. Seriously, because I looked at it and guessed. Yes, I got the result I wanted, and yes I did it on purpose. I shortened the barrel and guessed at how tall the front sight should be and how deep the rear V-notch should be. But there is absolutely no way that it came out right by anything but sheer dumb luck. Like the man said, sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.
As some have predicted the muzzle-blast is spectacular. After I touched off the first shot I clearly heard the work ‘Blunderbuss’ from one of the gentlemen at the other end of the firing line. Well, you shoot a load designed for a 21 inch barrel out of a 16-1/2 inch barrel and that’s going to happen. Once I am loading my own I’ll experiment and see if I can tailor the loads to the shorter barrel. Big Fun.
So, a mixed bag today. I’m over-the-moon about the Carbine, frustrated and irritated by the revolver. Oh, I shot the 22TTP today also, and it did what it does- shoots good groups a bit too high… got to remember to fix those sights next.
Overall a good day.

The Ugly Ducking- Carcano-Mannlicher Carbine Project

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My Uncle Jim passed away last year and left me his guns and tools. Among these was a ‘sporterized’ M1938 7.35mm Carcano rifle of the type that used to sell by mail-order for about $5 before the GCA68. It was un ugly rifle, and standing in a corner unattended for forty years had not improved it.

This is perhaps the least desirable of collectible military surplus rifles, and this one was in miserable shape. Worth about $80 retail it’s not really worth the effort of selling it. On the bright side the bore and action are good, and he left me quite a lot of ammunition packed in the rare and hard-to-find clips. There’s a mix of military ball ammo and soft-points, and by all accounts these are a decent 100-150 yard deer rifle. So… what to do…

I’ve always fancied a Mannlicher carbine, and I’ve taken up gunsmithing as a hobby- why not turn the ugly rifle into one? Deciding to do so and actually doing it were too different things, not the least because a decent piece of wood was going to run a $100. For an $80 rifle? Yeah, not high on my list of priorities.

As fate would have it a friend dropped off a whonking-big chunk of Walnut, thinking I could use it for knife-handles. I told him, ‘Not so much, but I have this project…’ He was cool with that, so now I had the wood. Now it takes a pretty long piece of wood to make a Mannlicher carbine, and the standard stock was a bit short for my manly frame, so I wanted to extend the reach from the trigger. To make the most of the wood- and because of my addiction to ‘snubbies,’ I trimmed the barrel down to 16-1/2 inches (a half inch longer than the legal minimum for rifle barrels) and re-crowned it. Then I make up a rough outline of the stock I wanted and sawed it out.

The original rifle with the barrel trimmed and the stock blank.

Longer than it needed to be, but it’s a lot easier to make it shorter than it is to make it longer. later in the week I took and evening to mill out the slot for the magazine/trigger housing. I used my Uncle Jim’s old Craftsman drill press for this with a 3/8 inch mill.

Then I milled in the magazine slot. The drill press isn’t really designed for this, but with the Shop Fox milling vice and a little care it got done. Not perfect but a pretty decent fit.

The next evening it was time to inlet the action. Aside from milling the ‘tang’ slot the drill press wasn’t really set up for this, and wouldn’t really do the job. As luck would have it among the huge quantity of tools Uncle Jim left me there were a lot of wood-chisels, gouges and carving tools. I sharpened them all up and set to work.

It’s not as hard as you’d think, but it’s plenty hard enough. I mounted the smallest contact wheel on the belt-grinder and cleaned up the barrel channel. I’t set up so that the barrel floats from the rear-sight block to the muzzle. It took hours, and since it uses different muscles than I usually employ in my work it made me stiff and sore as hell. The end result was worth it, though.

This is how the action will sit in the finished stock.

Then is was time to take the wood to the belt-grinder for shaping. The Butt is offset to the left to give a nice palm-swell, and of course it’s shaped and fitted to my hand. Then I went after it with the orbital sander and took it up to 400 grit. It took a little fussing and fitting, but I was pleased with the result.

Friday afternoon I knocked off work at 2:30 and decided to deal with the front sight. I grabbed a piece of 1/2″ mild steel stock and went to work with the grinder. After the basic shape was done I filed the bottom to match the contour of the barrel. of course I couldn’t mount the sight until I refinished the barrel… basically the steel was all dark, dull and pitted from years of neglect in a coastal town, and the salt air had not been kind to it.

The cut-off end of the barrel shows what the condition of the metal was like throughout. I took it to the buffer with some Black Stainless rouge, and after an hour or so things were looking better. I soldered on the new front sight and treated it with Birchwood Casey Perma-Blue. Big improvement!

The original sight was drift-adjustable and was off the the left a good bit, so I soldered the new sight slightly canted to mimic it’s original position. Of course I have no idea it that’s right, but I can always use a little heat to move the sight if needed.

I’b been planning to do an oil finish, but about this time I noticed that the raw wood was picking up oils from my hands, random drops of sweat etc. Can’t have that! As a temporary measure I re-sanded it and applied a hand-rubbed Carnauba Wax finish. It looked so good I applied more coats and kept after it. I may actually stick with this finish!

Saturday night I was feeling a bit restless, so I decided to address the butt-plate. I  fabricated one from half-inch mild steel, finished it to 400 grit with an orbital sander and blued it. Nice. It adds a bit of weight to the gun, but it brings that balance to right where I wanted it. So the gun is now effectively finished until I get a nice piece of horn for the tip under the muzzle, and I’ll likely add sling swivels at some point too.

The end result is a 38 inch overall length, a 15 inch reach from the trigger to the butt (I’m a big guy,) it balances perfectly in my hands, and makes a handy ‘brush gun.’ It’s pretty, too, if I do say so myself. I’ve now made my first-ever rifle stock, too. It won’t be the last, either. So- Uncle Jim’s tools help me turn his old gun into something that is now very special to me, and I think a fitting tribute to him. I think he would approve.

Now to get out to the range…

Kickin’ it Old School 2: Carrying a Single Action Revolver?!

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Ruger Vaqueros

Yep, there are people that do. Seriously. Here in the 21st Century where carrying any revolver for self defense can get you funny looks there are still people that carry single-action revolvers. Not just a .44 Magnum Blackhawk for defense against bears while hiking, or for hunting where you might expect to see it either. As an EDC. Crazy, huh?

Single action revolvers require you to manually cock the hammer for each shot- but in return you get a short, crisp, light trigger pull which promotes greater accuracy. It also promotes greater likelihood of an unintentional discharge, but that’s nothing that can’t be moderated by training. Modern single-action revolvers can also carry all six chambers loaded with virtually no chance of an accidental discharge if the gun is dropped, so there’s another plus. These guns also generally come in potent calibers like .357 Magnum or .45 Colt. Most of these guns are pretty large, but no more so than a lot of modern ‘combat’ revolvers. Easy enough to carry if you are a large person, and many guns like the Ruger Vaquero or Cimarron Thunderer are available with ‘Bird’s-head’ handles for easier concealment. If you need a smaller gun Cimarron offers their ‘Lightning‘ model with a scaled-down frame and cylinder in calibers from .22LR to .38 Special, even .41 Colt if you are so inclined. With a 3-1/2 inch barrel it’s a pretty handy package.

‘Small-frame’ Lightning in .38 Special

These guns arguably require extra training, but that’s not a huge issue. So what’s the problem? In a word, reloading. Almost all modern single-action revolvers are slow as hell to reload. You open the loading gate and use the ejector to kick the shells out one at a time, then replace them one at a time. On the range this is no big deal, but if you need to reload in the middle of a fight? Ouch. There is a reason why 19th Century Lawmen and Gunfighters often carried several guns.

OK, yes- there are S&W top-break replicas that auto-eject the shells, and these can be reloaded as quickly as a modern revolver. They are large compared many modern revolvers and are very expensive; I don’t know anyone that carries one as an EDC.

The argument that many make for guns like the J-frame S&W for self defense is that civilian self-defense shootings almost never require more than 2-3 shots, and it’s a valid argument. The odds of a civilian getting into a protracted firefight are almost nil, and a reload is unlikely to be needed. That’s fine, but if you do need to a modern double-action revolver can be reloaded in 4-5 seconds with a bit of practice. In a Colt Style single-action (which is what we’re really talking about here)  a reload will take maybe 30 seconds. That’s a lifetime in a gunfight… if you’re lucky. So why carry a Single Action as an everyday EDC?

Most people that do this carry them because they like them. They find them comfortable and familiar. They are confident in their ability to put shots where they want them. Yeah, they might be better off developing that level of skill and comfort with a modern firearm, but they just don’t care enough to bother. And lets face it, someone points a Peacemaker at you and thumbs back the hammer they are going to get your undivided attention! These things are pretty scary looking from the receiving end.  I’ll tell you this, I’m a lot more likely to be scared of a gray-haired old man with a Ruger Blackhawk than I will be of a gang-banger with a generic 9mm; he’s a hell of a lot more likely to know how to use it!

Then there are the people who just think they are cool, or macho or romantic. The feeling of connection to the ‘wild-west’ gunslinger of old makes them feel good. But like the song says, these guns ‘could get you into trouble but they couldn’t get you out’ unless you are very good indeed.

So is there any good, rational reason someone might use one of these guns for EDC? Surprisingly there is. Some people can’t manage the double-action pull of a modern revolver, and/or have trouble working the slide of a semi-auto. Given that any gun is better than no gun such people might find a single-action revolver, particularly a small frame gun like the Ruger Bearcat or Single-Six, or the Cimarron Lightning might work for them. For these people even an inexpensive single-action .22 like the Heritage Rough Rider is better than being unarmed. Let’s face it, the thing any defensive firearm absolutely must do is go bang when you pull the trigger, and if you can only spend $125 on a defensive gun a Rough Rider is a lot more likely to be reliable than anything else you can get for the money.

Heritage Rough Rider .22LR/Magnum convertible.

I have carried Single-Action revolvers. Mostly when hunting, but occasionally as a defensive carry gun- usually because it was the best I had on hand at the time. Honestly for most EDC I would not feel tragically under-armed with a 3-1/2 inch Cimarron Thunderer or ‘birds-head’ Vaquero in .45 ACP. Would it be my first choice? Probably not. That doesn’t mean I will make fun of you if you choose to. OK, I’m lying,  I will. In a good-natured way at least.