Colt 1903

I found this old Colt 1903 on Gunbroker and decided to buy it and try to make it great again. As you can see, most of the original bluing was gone except small area under the grips. The grips themselves are the ugliest ones I’ve ever seen, they somehow remind me of Spanish Inquisition. I […]

Here We Go Round the Barrel Bushing

A new bushing came this morning from EGW. It fits like a glove, very tight and very well made. In fact, it was just a hair too tight on the barrel, so I put a dab of very fine grit lapping compound on the tip of the barrel, assembled the slide with the barrel and […]

A Little Help For My Friend

Rebuilding a Springfield RO Elite Target for my friend. As usual, the bushing is loose, there’s a bit of a play when I wiggle the barrel between the breach face and the top lugs, and the trigger group is nothing to write home about (unless, of course, you want to whine about how gritty and […]

Raw Deal Project, Part III

As promised, here’s part III. I blasted all parts with 120 grit AlOx media and blued them using the Brownells’ Belgian Blue process, which resulted in really nice deep matte black finish. Again, she’s not a beauty queen and never meant to be, but she’s beautiful to me. My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the […]

AZ State Championship, Show Low, AZ

It was a great match, really enjoyable and easy going. I had a clean timed fire target and a decent .45 NMC slow fire. But 1911 is still killing me, I really can’t shoot sustained fire with it. Well, I do have some ideas, but it is a very long shot (pun intended!) In other […]

Be Vewy Vewy Quiet

No, I’m not hunting wabbits 🙂 But I did submit my ATF Form 1 and fingerprints yesterday and I’m going to purchase some components and raw materials. This is going to be an interesting build 🙂 On a related topic, how come suppressors are not used in the bullseye sport? Is it because rules prohibit […]

Raw Deal Project, Part II

I started cleaning up the slide with face mill and noticed that it leaves very deep tool marks. Obviously, either I was doing something wrong or the tool was not the right one of the job. Most likely, all of the above. So I used various grits of sandpaper and a lot of elbow grease […]

Raw Deal Project, Part I

One of the obligatory activities at Camp Perry is, of course, shopping at the Commercial Row. Every time I end up buying a lot of things, some of which I do need, and some of which…well, let’s face it, I don’t really need. I load my car up with cases of ammo, jugs of powder, […]