Finished my 45 Caliber Target Pistol, Part 2

[oldracer]

Here are full length pictures of both sides. I got the correct sized machine screws to get rid of the nuts I was using as a safety item.

[dondiego]

Is that "full auto"?

[oldracer]

Why yes it is, 30 round clip! Actually the funny looking butt parts are so the gun can stand upright for cleaning and loading without a stand of any kind.
John

[dondiego]

Ha! That makes sense for loading!

[LAGS]

Does the extra weight to the rear help with aiming when shooting freehand ?

[oldracer]

The rear end weight may help a little although we can shoot with both hands, especially in my case since I am getting over cancer radiation treatment. I plan to try the pistol tomorrow since I modified the sights so the little red dot is hidden now at 25 yards where before it was 10 inches high and low and behold that is just where the impact was!!! I added a piece of copper tube on top of the front sight blade as I can not see it and cut the notch way down in the rear sight since it had a small "V" which didn't do much.
John

[3leggedturtle]

Is that "full auto"?

It has to be, one squeeze of the trigger and the pistol is empty!.....

Forgot to say I like it. Would like to see your groups when you get it dialed in.

[oldracer]

Fired it at our monthly match today. 30 grains of Goex FFG made it shoot a tad high, just off the top of the 6x6 target. So I dropped down to 25 grains and the next 3 shots went across the bottom of the square, left to right. The target was at 25 yards and several times the set trigger did not trip the sear so I ended up pulling the gun slightly to the right I think? My mentor said 28 grains... and as usual he is right! I notice the hammer does not stop at half cock and full cock is maybe 1/2 inch throw! Might have to redo the square in the cock to get more through. Since it is new and just getting tested I was happy.
John

[mazo kid]

Nice work. Make sure the trigger and lock internals are not riding on wood, keeping the half-cock from catching.

[oldracer]

That is one thing I noticed with the "pistol lock assembly" as it has a larger tumbler and super main spring compared to my rifle locks. I used some of my wife's bright red lipstick in the wood area and then when color would transfer I would remove the wood.
John

[mazo kid]

HAH! I have used old lipstick tubes as a color transfer for years. One more thing...on that other stock blank, if you inlet the lock facing backward (other side of the stock) you will move the barrel to the rear 4-5" over the standard way of inletting. This will put the pistol in a more "neutral" balance position, but recoil will move the barrel more.

[GregLaROCHE]

Do you have any pictures of the internal parts? They would be interesting to see. Great job you’ve done.

[oldracer]

Man oh man those guys in WI have some pretty good ideas! I have a large enough piece of the walnut that I just might try that on. Next time I clean it apart if I remember I'll snap some pictures of the internals and also the holes I had to make.
John

[oldracer]

I may have posted else ware but I got the single set trigger/cock assembly to function as I wanted. Here is what I did starting with the super hard to trip sear. It was due to a deep notch in the tumbler so I had to do a bit of stone work to the point where the sear edge just caught it. Took me about three days to complete and I would stone a little assemble it, try it then repeat! The next item was the sear spring which was super stiff so I cut off some with my Dremel diamond wheel and then used a lighter coil spring similar to what is used with some Lyman rifles.

But....the set trigger would not come up hard enough to hit the sear and make it trip? Since this is a single set trigger, I looked and looked and didn't see anyone with the same issue. Tripping the sear without setting the trigger first resulted in about a 5# pull, waaaaayyyyy too much. I took it apart and back together several times and finally noted the large spring that set the pressure on the set part of the flat steel that pops up (this is usually part of the regular trigger) rested on a bump machined onto the trigger plate. I decided that removing that bump would put more force onto the popup and again this took about a day for filing, assembly, testing and I noted a slight increase of force so I cut it all the way off! Before reassembly I said a little prayer and figuring the Lord shoots black powder ("holy black") put it all together, oiled it some and tried it. Boy did that popup come up! It was a tad harder to set it but once the pistol was back together the hammer fell with a bout a 4OZ touch of the trigger! Yeah, yeah, yeah!

So last Wednesday I tried it at 50 yards with 28 grains of Goex FFG and a 209 shotgun primer adapter and got 5 holes in a 3 inch circle resting the stock on a bench rest. Each shot was exactly the same with the set trigger working as I hoped it would so now I have to wait 'till out next pistol match in December to see how well I can do with it off hand and the checkering is allowing me a pretty good grip. If all that sounds confusing, sorry as it took me a couple of weeks to figure that all out.
John

[dondiego]

Seems pretty light!

[oldracer]

I am making an "educated" guess on trigger pull as it feels about the same as the Hawken rifles I got from Doug Knoell several years ago. He had gone over them before I got them and I got used to their set trigger pull. I do have another single set trigger rifle and it feels about the same although there is a lot of free play to take up. That is the way it came?

[dondiego]

Yes, I forget "Set" triggers are light.