This might be the fastest ‘next post’ in a series ever. In the last post I mentioned the keyholing issue, which first made itself known firing Aardvark Bullets cast 124gr. RNL. I briefly considered that it might be these bullets, as I have had other Aadvark bullets with an inexplicable tendency to key-hole. Nah, I thought, what are the odds?

In response to my previous post today a couple people suggested that opening the sides of the weight might relieve the shockwave in the tube and keep the bullets from destabilizing. What the hell, it can’t get more broken, right? I locked the weight down on the drill-press and punched me some holes, then headed back to the range to see what would happen.

What happened was interesting. With the 124gr JHPs over 5.8gr of Unique groups were tighter and fewer bullets Key-holed. The tighter group indicates that the bullets were yawing less; the more they yaw the bigger the spread. There seems to have genuinely been a positive effect on the Jacketed bullets.

OK, not perfect but it’s a step in the right direction. Let’s see how the 124gr. cast bullets fare.

Poorly, as it happens. Every single bullet key-holed. Hmmm… my Spidey sense was tingling. I loaded an eight-round magazine for my Sig-Sauer P6 and took a few shots.

Every bullet key-holed. Against expectations the Aardvark 124 gr RNL lead appear to be crap. I couldn’t test the jacketed bullets through the Sig because I’d fired them all, but it looks like I need some new bullets to try, and this time I need to make sure that damn things fly straight before I test them in the project gun!

A bit of a roller-coaster day, but it appears this project is not dead yet. Stay tuned for further developments!

Stay safe and take care,

Michael Tinker Pearce, still 16 December 2021

My 9mm project was a pretty cool idea, and it sort of works… but it very much doesn’t also. Once I got it working reliably enough to pay attention to accuracy I noticed there was an issue. Bullets are keyholing at seven yards. This is not conducive to accuracy…

This did not happen before the dust cover was extended and the weight added, which narrows down the search for the cause. It turned out that while I had been careful to insure the hole in the weight was well-centered on the barrel I had not accounted for the fact that the barrel points slightly downward when locked up. After exiting the barrel the bullets were coming quite close to the lower edge of the opening in the front of the weight. It seemed likely that the muzzle-blast within the confined interior of the weight was exerting asymmetric force on the bullets, causing them to tumble.

OK, I can fix that. I honed out the inside of the weight so that the bullet will remain centered in the ‘tunnel’ until it exits the weight. Time to test fire…

No-go. Bullets are still not flying true. Something is awry, and it’s something to do with the weight. Bugger.

There are several options at this point, and some question about where I go from here. The issue isn’t that I wanted a fast ‘race gun.’ I wanted to see if a specific concept, a short slide and barrel with an extended fixed weight, would work. It looks very much like it doesn’t. From that perspective the gun is a complete success; it answered the question. It wasn’t the answer I wanted, but that’s really not the point, is it?

I invested over $800 in this gun so far (if one includes magazines) and I am not going to let that go to waste. It will become a useful, functional gun. The question is what kind of useful, functional gun? The options for using a fixed weight with a full-length barrel have pretty much been explored and compensators proved to be a better mousetrap, so there’s not really any new ground to break there.

Not sure what’s next for this project, but whatever it is will I’ll have fun doing it.

Stay safe and take care.

Michael Tinker Pearce, 16 December 2021

The 9mm 1911 is all in one piece. Weight is finished, sights are mounted. All ready for finishing work? Not quite. First it needs to work. Yes, after 300+ rounds it does work. Mostly.

The first range trip happened yesterday. I’d decided load some 124gr JHPs over 6.2gr. of Unique, and hand-cycling led to my first discovery. Here’s a note about this; the ability to hand-cycle rounds from the magazine does not guarantee the gun will cycle, but in my experience the inability to do so means it won’t. It’s a place to start, not a definitive test.

In hand-cycling I found the gun prefers that flat-nosed bullets (and hollow-points) be seated rather deep. OK, this isn’t a maximum- pressure load, it can take a bit more pressure. I backed the charge off to 6.0 gr. and seated the bullets relatively deep. This worked. Mostly; the gun does not like two of the Sig-Sauer magazines. Fair enough, that’s an easy fix. Also it’s shooting very low; another easy fix, just shorten the front sight.

I stopped at Pinto’s on the way home and picked up the two Mec-gar magazines they had in stock. Mec-gar makes a good magazine, so I thought it worth trying. Besides, more magazines is better. *Nods wisely*

On arriving home I shortened the front-sight and commenced to reloading. I loaded a hundred more of the 124gr. JHPs, and then decided to load some of the 124gr. LRN bullets I had also bought at Pinto’s. After consulting the reloading tables I selected a modest load of 4.5gr. of Unique.

First thing this morning I headed back to the range to try things out. I promptly discovered was that the gun is still shooting low. No worries, plenty more sight to ‘adjust.’ The second thing I noticed was that my 124gr. RNL loads were a bit too modest; they often failed to cycle the gun. Ugh. OK, back to the jacketed loads. These continued to work fine from the Sig Sauer magazines but there was an issue with the Mec-gars. Occasionally the lip of the cartridge would catch on the back of the barrel-hood and stop the gun. Pushing down on the cartridge would cause the gun to go into battery, so this seems like a simple fix; if I chamfer that edge this will stop that from happening.

Ok then, shorten the front sight, chamfer the edge of the barrel-hood and load the 124gr RNL a bit hotter and it looks like we’re there. Time to head into the shop, makes those fixes and do some more reloading. After lunch. Priorities.

Oh, no target pics from today’s range-session; I forgot to take my phone. Well, they weren’t that impressive anyway. Double-taps are reasonably well-grouped but significantly faster than usual; the TISAS’s excellent trigger helps this a lot. Not sure exactly what the future will bring, but I do know that more practice won’t hurt…

Stay safe and take care,

Michael Tinker Pearce, 11 December 2021

If you like what you see here, please consider clicking on the link above and supporting me on Patreon.