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Ah, thanks Ned. I was merely curious as I haven't seen this done before. Awesome build BTW.

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Semper Fi

In terms of both gear and techniques, J is an interesting mix of cutting-edge, tradition, and "what I like". It works for him!

Week and a half ago, "J", Patrick Sweeney and I were at an Army base and after hours, we shot the military pop-up range with pistols. This has been an ongoing thing with us-- especially those two, as I usually only have my OACP along (craftsman blaming his tools ). These vacuum-formed targets are at ranges from 50 to 300 meters, and go down when you hit them, or they time out and go down if you don't. I believe the previous record had been 9 or 11 out of 20. "J" was shooting his "High Mileage" gun, and Patrick was shooting a 6" 625 wheelgun as he is getting ready for the World Shoot in Greece. I managed a 10 and was feeling pretty good until Sweeney shot a 14 I believe-- might have been 15..... and then "J".... well, there is just no beating him. He just..... won't..... HAVE it! He is as dogged a competitor as exists anywhere. He shot a 16. 16 out of 20 with a .45, and yes..... yes.... there was a hit at 300.

Now, we have managed a few hits at 300 before, but "J" really had sussed out the drop by now and that hit was a real hit, not luck. And at this point, Patrick and I were done so we were watching.

BANG!
tick
tock
tick
tock
I said, "that's a mi.....", and then we saw the target wiggle a bit, and go down. Then a second later, the sound of the hit reached us.... a faint "whack".
We went out and got some pics of the target while I searched and search for that 200 grain H&G 68.... I wanted to gold plate it for "J", but no luck.

Through the spleen, at 300 meters.

Perhaps some clever person out there can tell us the downward angle of a 200 gr .45 bullet, just making Major, has when it hits at 300 meters.

Near as I can figure, time of flight is just under a second and a half, and retained velocity is 576 fps.

And Ned, I only got 14. Double action.

I shoulda mentioned that..... double action. Confirmed..... I watched Sweeney on several runs and there was no single action fire......

"J" has a saying, it's a credo really, goes something like this-- "You can't brag about yourself but you can brag about your friends".

Patrick is the rare gunwriter, who writes about guns, but also knows how to by God shoot them. Some of them only know how to write about them......

Thought I had posted this a few months ago. The 300 meter shot:

No, you hadn't posted, just sent it to us. (Silly me, I walked 300 meters to look at the target, and didn't take my camera.)

Isn't he due for a new barrel by now? I mean, it's been six whole months.

And if you need something besides an OACP, I've got a few loaners. Even some you've worked on.....ammo's on me.

J's barrel a couple weeks ago. I was fitting a new bushing and found this.


He doesn't know how it got there. There was a stuck bullet some time ago that he had to beat out but he's sure there was no damage-- and this looked kinda fresh. What to do, he asked. I said shoot out the burrs and let's see what happens. There is probably at least another thousand on it since then and no issues, no accuracy complaints. I watched him shoot maybe 200 rounds earlier in the week and it'll put them in one hole at speed at 6 yards, not a real accuracy test maybe but enough to say it's not shooting all over the place.

That sure looks like a chip of steel (and where could it have come from?) got ahead of the bullet, and was driven forward with 17-18,000PSI of oomph.

That it still works, and still shoots well just confirms my opinion of JMB as demi-god.

Here it is several weeks later and 2000-ish more rounds through it.

How it looks today. Round count on this barrel is in debate but well over 40,000 and quote possibly in the 'hood of double that. It still groups well but groups have been drifting to the right. I have a theory on this, later. The crack-stopper hole is still stoppin' the crack.

We grouped this one a fair amount today, getting the sights dialed in to a gnat's-butt at 28 yards. It totally groups well enough to do this with Jeff's 200 SWC load. But-- again-- groups have crept to the right at a pretty even pace over the last few years.

Slide to frame fit...... I could hear the rattle from across the shop with Humble Pie on the stereo at about 6. We measured the clearances with slivers of shim stock-- about .010 left right and up/down. This immortal Colt has a lot going against it accuracy-wise but-- groups hovered around 2" and on down to 1 5/8".

Would love to see what some fresher, sharper eyes connected to experienced hands and some really primo ammo could do with it, and then, I'd like to shoot it with the slide shimmed left and down, then right and up, each shot. These would just be 1/16" wide strips of .009 shim stock set in there after loading the chamber. Shoot, recover shims, shoot again. See what the effect is on accuracy and point of impact. Shim strips could be long enough for an assistant to hang on to, to speed up the process.

Barrel wear with lead bullets-- I'm becoming more and more convinced that keeping tumbling media fresh helps barrel life when shooting large volumes of ammo. I know my own tumbled cases are very clean on the outside but the inside is always "dusty". My tumbling media must be 10% dirt by now, I'm thinking it sticks to a lead bullet and abrades the bore.

This guy is a high-volume shooter with the AR15 too. "My Noveske KX3 seems heavy, it doesn't hide flash any more, and it won't come apart":

Oh my. So much for casual maintenance schedules.

This is a great thread..

This well-used Colt as of 9/9/16. No new cracks! Compare to previous pics to locate the welded areas.


The barrel—that gouge is polishing out nicely. Round count since last pics—my guess— 10K minumum.


The bushing. This gun has an inexplicably large slide bore and has been through several bushings because they move around and the lug gets deformed. I finally sleeved this one up, silver-brazing a piece over it and fitting it to the slide. Seems to be holding up.


The crack in the slide has not gone past the hole I drilled long ago. If you want your barrel clean get the blue Nylon brush from Iosso and wrap it in Chore Boy copper pan scrubber.


Seven rounds, 50 yards yesterday. Jeff has done more long-range 1911ing than anyone I know. 300-meter pop-ups are not too far to try it—and I’ve seen him connect often enough that it is not luck. This is all from standing, no rest.

Jeff has a Ransom rest and assures me he will get it set up and test this gun in it-- that should be interesting, especially with some high-end target ammo.

Also, being as how there is a lot of slop in the slide to frame fit, I have cut some shims for further testing: shim the slide low-left and shoot a group, then shim it high-right and repeat. Gonna take a while as the shims will obviously shoot out each shot.

Update on the old Colt. The gouge in the barrel is polishing out nicely with tens of thousands of rounds over it. Freebore and throat are becoming quite advanced.



Slide stop broke. Pretty sure it's an Ed Brown, a cast part, I believe. With this much use I'd say it held up well.


This gun is about to get a new slide and barrel.... well deserved.

As this old Colt slowly moves to the front of the line for its well-deserved rejuvenation, let me throw in a little filler here. Colt Rail Gun, 6000 rounds. Discuss.

Here's the new Nowlin barrel with no rounds through it. This guy seems to keep pretty good track so let's see if I can track wear in the next few years.

Note the ridge or buttress on the trailing edge of each land. Dunno if that's intentional or not but I don't see any harm. I'd have thought it might be of more value on the leading edge but in my experience Nowlin barrels are good and very possibly they know exactly what they're doing....

Errr.... How's it shoot with that hole in the chamber?

VIS appears to be ill defined, perhaps needing to be cut a bit deeper. Photo is a bit washed out, so hard to be sure. Also appears that there is no radius at the root of the lug. If so.... well, there ya go!

Good eye on both counts, BBBBill!

Exactly the cause as far as I'm concerned. Colt DID give it the bowtie cut, it was just so shallow that as the barrel and VIS mated, the barrel feet started making contact. Radius at the barrel body / foot junction could have been bigger; might helped.

The other thing, I've had at least one barrel maker tell me that 416R stainless, especially optimized for rifle barrels, does not do well where shear and impact are present. I don't know the formulation but this was a stainless barrel. that said, I have used and continue to use a lot of stainless 1911 barrels and they seem fine. And I've seen this exact same failure in a non-stainless barrel.

It continues to amaze me that the barrel foot doesn't actually shear off, it pulls out by the roots all the way up to the chamber.... although I have seen it also simply shear off horizontally.

Not an expert on this by any means, but I've heard/read that for years. Sulfur stringers creating weak spots as I recall. I believe that Wilson used to make (or have made) their barrels from 17-4PH, although recent production is marketed as 416R. The old and new barrels have a different look for sure.

The old Colt went in for laser surgery the other day; step one in the well-earned rejuvenation project.

Unfortunately, I did not get to do the shim test. this gun had up to .010 slide/frame slop and I wanted to shoot it with and without narrow shims taking the slop out to check the dif on target. I had an appointment with my new laser guy and there just wasn't time. I did shoot it "before" though and I'm pretty sure that after I fit the new slide and barrel, the old one will still fit and a lot better, so, maybe I can shoot it that way and we can get an idea as to what effect the slop was having on target.

The bowtie cut on this one has become shallow and has already been recut. The most recent barrel had the additional measure of a step at the back of the barrel foot; in the several barrels this gun has been through, all were shot out but none had a barrel foot break. Notice how the recoil spring guide flange, in tens and tens of thousands of rounds, has hammered its impression into the bang-off surface in the frame.


Slide stop notch crack has not propagated in the last three or so years since I drilled a hole at the end. The slide stop surface has flanged out from, well, a great many lock-backs.


The new slide’s rail cuts were recut as they were nowhere near straight and parallel enough for a perfect fit—then the frame rails, having been laser welded, were cut to match.

Still working on this old Colt on a catch-as-catch-can basis, almost ready to test fire with the new slide and barrel and snapped a few pics today.

The magwell, and the bottom of the mag chute, show that a boat load of reloads have taken place here. Jeff has actually worn out a mag catch to the point where it was holding mags too low and the gun started misfeeding. If you think about it, even at 150,000 rounds, which we are certain this gun is way over that but at 150 K that’s 18-20,000 reloads. Shooting with him as I often do, and watching him, I can say, “Reloading, yep. He’s got that down”. The S&A magwell would not be my choice for high-end custom gun but it works well and with a little tightening-up stays in place well enough for a good side-to-side match. Anyway it’s Jeff’s preference and I seldom contest what he uses since he uses it so dang well.


Even the top of the mag chute shows some wear from all this reloading. The four-post plunger tube has been on there since before they came out and is staying tight.


This is one of the most interesting hard-use telltales. When you shoot this much you have many magazine. Some may be sharpish at the top edges of the feedlips; as the magazine is inserted and comes in contact with the mag catch it is bumped hard over to the left. Do that enough times and you get this:


….and, on the rear wall of the mag chute, at a certain point there are roundy grooves worn in, about .005 deep, where the rear of a magazine’s upper profile will make contact before the mag is forced into better alignement. I stuck a mag in there to illustrate this. CMC Power Mags were never my favorite but Chip's latest with the rolled lips and improved follower have been great sofar:

So..... the new top end seems to have tightened up groups a little.

DANG IT why did I have to fire that fifth shot.

Left target, "as received". Right target is, I confess, the best of several groups I've fired but not a fluke. And the front sight at that point was a temporary one, something I do sometimes to get an idea of what level the new front sight needs to be cut in at.... a 3-48 socket head cap screw. I can dial it in for elevation and know exactly how high to make the new front sight. Point being the head of a screw is a poor front sight but this new Kart barrel looks like it will do the job. I will be doing further grouping with it as I finish it up in the coming weeks, with ammo that might be more accurate than my 200 SWC load as in these two targets.


That old conventional wisdom about the first shot in a group being outside the group-- with accuracy like this you would see it. I test for this all the time just because, well, much of the shooting I do is checking accuracy or zeroing so it's kinda easy to watch for this phenomenon and I just don't see it. I always note, too, the very first round out of a new barrel and even that does not tend to go to a different POI.

I finally delivered this a week ago and the round count on the new top end is now at 500. I expect that rate to even out to probably average half that or so, maybe 12K / year, I dunno, maybe half that, but we have agreed that Jeff will from this point forward attempt to keep an accurate count.

Thanks for the update. Tracking the use and wear is valuable info for some of us.

Oops, round count 710.

Not gonna give a daily update, that would be a full time job with this guy.... but I will throw some numbers out from time to time.

Thanks-- I agree it's useful info. This is a gun that has truly lived a thousand lives compared to the vast majority. There is nothing, nothing at all wrong with getting a fine 1911 and keeping it for the sake of having it, possessing it as a prized possession only. I get that, and with a few things, I do it. This gun however is pure tool. If he was a roofer it would be a primo hammer, if he was a musician it would be a custom Les Paul.