Search Term Roundup

I haven't been tracking these as closely lately, but here's the search terms from the last week of visits:

history of plumbum
Plumbum is latin for lead. It doesn't have a history. It's a malleable, dense metal, silver-gray in color, and frequently used for projectiles. What more do you want?


craigslist winchester 30-30 pre 64
I've seen this go through in various forms more than once. Suggestion: search in your local city, not via google, and keep in mind that Craigslist specifically forbids firearms and related items in its terms of use. Not that this stops people from posting them - just look for posts titled "hunting items" and asking you to email for details.


"s&w 647"" performance center"
The Performance Center is S&W's in-house custom shop. They do some very slick work. The 647 PC is a .17HMR DA/SA revolver, 12" barrel, picatinny rail, sling studs, and bipod mount. It's supposed to be a hell of a varmint and bench pistol. I don't have exact numbers off-hand, but anecdotally, total production was under 500. Expect to cough up big bucks, IF you can find one.


"s&w 28" exploded view
The 28, also known as the Highway Patrolman, is a lesser-polished version of the Model 27. That is, a DA/SA revolver in .357Magnum. The internal workings are essentially identical to those of ANY 3-screw pre-lock S&W revolver, so any disassembled view should point you in the right direction. A word of caution: DA revolvers are some of the most complex firearms out there and should not be tinkered with lightly.


superstitious day
Well, the post *I* wrote was about a Friday the 13th. Other good options are All Hallow's Eve, All Saints Day, your wedding day, birthday, the Ides of March, St. Patrick's Day ... the list is long.


"smith & wesson 647"
Go read this entry. That's all I have to say about that.


broken shell wolf .223
Most Wolf-branded ammo is steel-cased. Steel is less ductile than brass, and doesn't do as well under the stresses of firing. It tends to become work-brittle very easily, and can either blow the head off the case or allow the rim to be torn off. When it happened to me, the extractor ripped the rim off the case and dropping a brass rod down the bore cleared the chamber easily. There are numerous broken-shell extraction tools out there as well. If you're planning to shoot lots of cheap ammo, it would behoove you to buy one or more of these for the range bag. Better yet - shoot better ammo. Wolf will almost certainly never occupy my ammo shelf again.

Search Term Roundup

It's been a while, and this one will be less tongue-in-cheek.

champion c46514
I've had this term show up in various flavors, sometimes with "review" as an addition search term. This is the generator I bought for emergency use. It's inexpensive ($250-350 at Tractor Supply, depending on sales and rebates), made in China, and low on features. It also works just fine. I haven't needed to run the house on it yet, but I fire it up every couple weeks to keep parts lubricated properly. I have tested it with loads, and it grunts and then smooths right out.

I was asked by someone if I'd trust it to run 24/7 for a week or two. Short answer: no. It's not designed for that duty cycle, and I don't need it to run that long. One or two hours in three or four or five hours is more realistic, and I would trust it for that. If you need 24/7 reliability, then you need to cough up a LOT more than $300. In truth, you should be looking at a permanent-mount genset that runs on natural gas or propane, or a very high-end portable. We're talking order-of-magnitude price increase, though.


effectively shooting the .38 snub revolver
You're kidding, right? Everyone knows that simply owning a .38 snubbie makes you a Hardcore Badass! By holding it, you will instantly become a shooter on par with Jerry Miculek.

The only way to learn to effectively shoot anything is PRACTICE. Dry-fire practice regularly, get some snapcaps and practice reloading, practice your draw a few times a day. Try to get to the range every week or so and run at least a few cylinders through it to really learn to handle the recoil. A high grip will help to reduce muzzle flip, but you will likely get bitten by the cylinder release occasionally. Live with it.

Last but not least, and this is my personal opinion, always do your practice in double-action. A .38 snub is really a close-range (less than 10 yards) defensive weapon. If you need it, it's going to be in a hurry, and taking the time cock the hammer and then shoot is precious time you may not have. Learn to squeeze through that heavy trigger smoothly and keep your sights lined up while you do it. (I carry a S&W 642, which is a "hammerless" and therefore double-action only.)


taurus pink lady 38 trigger job
I don't know as I've ever shot a Taurus revolver. I can't comment on how the triggers are out of the box, but if you're looking for a trigger job, you don't like yours. Here's what I'd do with any snub that didn't have a trigger to my standards:

(1) Open that bad boy up and hose it out, lightly lubricate, and close it back up. If your gun is new-in-the-box, it's not uncommon for some tiny pieces of metal (leftover from machining) to still be in the works. These will make the trigger gritty and somewhat unpredictable. If you're comfortable removing the parts and really scrubbing, do that, but otherwise a good hosing out with gunscrubber or some other action cleaner should help. Lightly oil the pivot points and moving parts, and close it up.

(2) Have a professional polish/stone the sear very lightly. Either a gunsmith you trust (with references) or the manufacturer. Smith&Wesson's Performance Center will do an action job for about $150, if memory serves. You don't want to change the sear angle or depth, only polish the surfaces so they move and break cleanly. A poor hand with a stone will turn those expensive parts into expensive paperweights at best, and major liabilities at worst. (Think hammer push-off: the hammer can be dropped without touching the trigger. This is a Bad Thing.)

(3) Without having tried this, I can't speak to its effectiveness, but there are people who insist that polishing the turn ring on a cylinder - where the cylinder latch rides - will decrease some of the gritty feeling. You'll end up with a narrow band (1/8-1/4") of very highly-polished metal around the cylinder notches. This is something that needs to be done by a professional in order to maintain reliability and timing. Done right, it's beautiful - and that's, IMHO, the only reason to get it done. Looks. A turn ring from dry firing will smooth out the rough spots just as well.

That's it. Some people will change springs to a lighter setup which will decrease the trigger weight. I can't recommend that for a defensive revolver. You must have 100% reliable hammer strikes/ignitions. Every. Single. Time. If you simply HAVE to lighten the trigger by changing springs, test the gun thoroughly before returning it to service as a carry piece. Expect to run 200-300 rounds of your carry ammo through it. And yes, use your carry ammo, not reloads or cheap bulk range ammo - primers have different hardness levels, and you need to know your carry ammo is going to work.

Search term round-up

Aside from a brief Tamalanche early after installing Sitemeter, a normal day here has been ... slow. That's likely due to not updating daily. I do get a fairly regular stream of hits from google searches, though, and a la the Munchkin Wrangler, I'll post a few highlights.


small rifle primers

The little round thing in the back of a centerfire cartridge that's struck by the firing pin and ignites your gunpowder. There are at least eight different sizes - small and large rifle and pistol, and magnum/non-magnum variants of each. Small rifle primers are used, in particular, in .223Rem/5.56NATO, which is pretty rare these days. If you have primers, count yourself lucky. PowderValley claims they have backorders for 50,000,000 primers, and they're not the only ones.


kns hooded front sight match approved

I'd suggest checking the rules of the particular match you are entering, as NRA Highpower has different rules from Benchrest and Smallbore and so on.


a2 rear sight jpg 0-2

I don't have pictures of them, but try the Google image search. Or look at an AR - the flip-up rear aperture with the larger hole (0.200" diameter) is the 0-2, and is conveniently labeled as such. It's not a precision aperture, but is designed for limited visibility and moving targets. It also has a different zero from the small aperture.


wolf 223 stuck

A frequent issue, particularly with tight chambers. Older Wolf ammo, along with some of the various "Bear" ammo, is lacquer-coated. At higher rates of fire, the chamber gets hot enough to melt this lacquer and effectively glue a round in place. Clear your rifle, remove the bolt if possible, and CAREFULLY tap the round out with a brass rod from the muzzle end. Use acetone to clean your chamber and dissolve the lacquer, then a chamber brush and normal cleaning procedures... and then stop shooting crap ammo in a good rifle. Save the Wolf for the Mini14 and .223 AKs.


hooded cross hair front sight for 22 rifle

Swap your crap Ruger factory sights for a set of Tech-Sights, and the front sight tower accepts all standard AR front posts, including the KNS hooded crosshair.


walmart pistol primers

Walmart doesn't have store-branded gun anything. Not ammo, not primers, not nothing. Some Walmarts apparently do sell reloading components, but I've never seen it.


kns with rra 2 stage trigger

Well, KNS doesn't make lowers. If you mean KNS anti-rotational pins with a RRA trigger, it should work fine. The pins are standard diameter, as are the triggers. The pins just look fancy and mean you need one more tool in order to disassemble your rifle if something breaks.


5.56 a2 rifle insert notes lesson 6

I see you're in the UK. Naughty, naughty! I'm not sure where you're inserting that A2, or why you need notes, but apparently you've made it to lesson 6, and that takes some dedication. Keep practicing and you'll get there!


And that concludes the highlights of this set of search terms...