As readers here know I modify old guns. It’s a hobby with practical applications. I delight in taking old guns, particularly revolvers, that are on their way to the trash-heap of history and giving them new life as useful, practical weapons.

I buy them in bad, non-collectible or even non-functional condition, make them work and change them to suit my preferences. I am a skilled metal-worker and by this point a pretty decent amateur gunsmith. I use proper metal-working and/or gunsmithing tools and I do a good job. I take pride in craftsmanship, both in my day job and my hobby. The guns I modify are well done and good enough that I can and do bet my life on them.

Readers of this blog seldom have an issue with these pursuits; I imagine it’s part of what you all come here for. But I post in gun groups on Facebook and gun forums as well. Folks on gun forums are pretty good about their responses. On social media most people are polite and considerate in their responses even if they disagree with my choices. But there always ‘that guy’ that has to make a snarky comment about Dremel Tools or ‘Bubba-ing.’ BTW, I know a gunsmith who is actually named Bubba, and I’ve never seen him do anything egregious to a firearm. But I digress…

These folks are mortally offended that a gun has been altered by a normal person, or indeed at all. I have defaced a sacred artifact; I am a vandal destroying our legacy and erasing history. The hair-tearing and gnashing of teeth is distracting, but typically I shrug and scroll down. Usually the worst I experience is a momentary sense of irritation before I forget about them and get on with my life.

Arguably I’m asking for it. We all know what social media is about and how it works. Let’s face it, my motivation for posting these things is hardly pure; yes. I am sharing with fellow enthusiasts but I am also, frankly, showing off. Approval seeking. Mia culpa. I ‘m not perfect and we all have our little flaws. If this were my biggest flaw I’d feel pretty good, actually. It should also be obvious by this point that I let one of these clowns get under my skin, or else I wouldn’t be posting this. Oops- still human.

If I am going to post on social media I need to pull up my big-boy pants and accept that people are gonna be shits sometimes. Grow a thicker skin, and get better at shrugging and scrolling down. It will be better for my blood-pressure, my state of mind and my life if I simply overlook the trollish, Fudd-virtue-signaling jerks that have to snark to because they have no other reason to feel good about themselves or their lives.

OK, it’s a work-in-progress. I’ll keep working.

Stay safe and take care

Michael Tinker Pearce, 20 December 2021

I had a couple of 12-gauge doubles I wasn’t interested in anymore and stopped by Pinto’s to see what they’d give me for them and… well, Pinto’s. I spotted something in the case, then Linda looked at it and thought it was adorable and that’s all she wrote.

In the first half of the 20th C. the .25 ACP cartridge was very popular for tiny semi-auto pistols for self-defense. Designed by John Browning as a center-fire, more reliable cartridge than .22 Rimfire for pocket autos the .25 ACP is now largely obsolete. It was always frankly pretty marginal as a defensive cartridge, but the guns were so small and convenient people seemed to think the trade-off was worth it.

Frantisek Dusek was a Czech gunmaker and importer. Initially he imported Spanish pistols, mainly copies of the Colt 1908 Vest Pocket like the Ydeal. In 1938 he began production of his own pistol, the Duo. This was a near-copy of the Colt, but lacked that pistol’s grip safety.

When the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia in 1938 Dusek refused to cooperate with them, and the Germans took over management of the factory. The small pistol was popular with Nazi officers (though they had to purchase them for themselves) and to select civilians under their rule. The pistols could be purchased with a leather flap holster that held the pistol and a spare magazine for wearing on a uniform belt. By the end of the war the factory had produced 110,000 of these guns.

After the war production continued, and in 1948 the factory was nationalized. At that point these became CZ Duos. All told these pistols were made for around 50 years before being discontinued.

The pistol is a single-action striker-fired blowback pistol. It has a six-shot magazine and a manual thumb-safety that is also used to disassemble the gun. The hard-rubber grips have a basket-weave pattern and a molded medallion with the word Duo in the center.

To disassemble the pistol you remove the magazine, set the safety, rotating it 180 degrees to the rear, then you withdraw the slide until safety clicks up into a recess and locks the slide about 1/2 from being in battery. You can then rotate the barrel 90 degrees to the side, release the safety and move the slide forward off the pistol. Care should be taken to insure the springs for the striker and main recoil spring don’t depart for places unknown.

Last evening I popped out in the shop and loaded some ammo for it. I used a 55gr. LFP bullet over 1.1gr. of Red Dot with a Federal small pistol primer. This afternoon I set out for the range to have a go.

Shooting the Duo

First impression is that this is a very well made little pistol; it gives up nothing in quality to the Colt and FN pistols it was copied from. The magazine has witness holes and is pretty easy to load. The sight, if it can be dignified with that term, is a simple groove running down the top of the slide to the muzzle so aimed fire isn’t really this gun’s forte.

This gun was designed to be used at an arms-length, so to start I ran a target out to 3 yards. I loaded the gun and blazed away one-handed, as fast as I could pull the trigger without aiming.

Accuracy was, um… OK, it was non-existent. Sure, you wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end, but yeah, it works about as well as you’d expect. Next I tried aiming using the groove and that went rather better.

Even though it’s not really intended for it I ran a target out to seven yards and fired one shot per second, again trying to aim.

It’s not going to win any bullseye matches, but it’s seriously not too bad. If it had proper sights I suspect it would be pretty accurate. Recoil was basically non-existent, as you might guess, and the trigger pull isn’t bad at all. Even though I have large, meaty hands the gun did not pinch or bite anywhere. It’s really very pleasant to fire. Over the course of fifty rounds there was not so much as a bobble; the gun seems quite reliable.

This is a nice little gun. It’s cute, it’s fun and I am very happy we got it. No, it ain’t gonna drop a bull elephant (or even a really big squirrel) in it’s tracks but I like it.

Stay safe and take care.

Michael Tinker Pearce, 19 December 2021

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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