Garrison Joe

The Wilson 920 series of magazines are legal, though. Stainless: 920-45FS7 Blued: 920-45FS7B Even this 8 round mag, but no Wild Bunch need to spend the extra few bucks: 920-45FS8 good luck, GJ

This whole thread is about the Shooter's Choice options, some of which involves watching for engaging a target.

I would suggest discarding any rule which involves having to watch for "target engagement" with the 1911. Thus, we would not have to try to get into the shooter's head about "did he or didn't he" have the gun covering a target when a failure to chamber or fire occurs. Especially when considering only the TO is usually close enough to the gun's firing axis to even begin to guess about pointing at the target. Just: 1 - watch the shooter for safety violations, 2- count the misses, 3- watch for violations of any specific shooting order that instructions call for on the target array (to award any earned Procedural penalty), 4 - someone (preferably TO) watching the rounds-fired count (to award a P for too many rounds fired, or to let shooter know he is not yet finished with the required rounds-fired count). And to know what target(s) to direct the shooter to, when they need a "brain-restart" sometime through the string. That is about enough for any TO and Spotter crew to keep track of when the competitor is shooting 28 to 42 pistol rounds in a WB stage. good luck, GJ

That is a major difficulty for some shooters to understand. Review the definition of engagement of a target once more. And, no, engaging a target is not fully equivalent to firing a round down range intended for a target. The use of "engaging a target" is mostly to protect a shooter from a "target-sequence P" on specified-target-order scenarios (like sweeps) during situations where the round does not fire. I have never liked that the rules ever included having to watch for "engagement" of target just in case the shooter could not get the round to fire, and then protect the shooter from the P IF they skip trying to fire another round there. I am much more in favor of discarding "engagement" with just counting rounds fired and misses which occurred. good luck, GJ

Big money to replace a barrel, especially if it shoots well as installed by RIA. Lots of labor, as even the drop-in barrels often are not as easy as the name makes it sound. And not a job for a first time 1911 surgeon, as some things require some special tooling and measurements. So, WHERE on the existing barrel are rub points or tight spots when you install the barrel or work the slide with gun empty? If replacing the barrel simply because of "rub marks" - that is not very wise. If you do not change dimensions where that barrel was fitted to the gun (the locking lugs, the under-lugs on the barrel, the chamber fit to the feed ramp, headspace, barrel hood fit to slide, or the last inch of the barrel where the barrel bushing rides, you can probably file and sand on your factory barrel to clean up cosmetic drag scars or slight rub marks. Maybe take a few pictures of the barrel (or a disappointing target at 10 yards) showing what you don't like right now. good luck, GJ (just GJ, or Joe, or you can spell it out, too. And MR? I keep thinking my Dad (a 1st Sgt in 82nd Airborne in three theaters in WW II) might be looking over my shoulder as I i write. ☺️)

General recommendation for making cowboy/WB shot loads, which are almost always loaded lighter than the minimum starting load normally published by Hodgdon or Alliant or VitaVouri, is to start with a 3/4 ounce wad and the powder weight from a 7/8 ounce load. Although there is a trend recently in conventional shotshell loading (trap, skeet, sporting clays) to load lighter payloads, they usually drop the shot weight to 3/4 ounce and add a little more powder to a published 7/8 or 1 ounce load and accept a higher velocity (like 1250 or 1300 FPS). That type of load does not make friends on the Cowboy range and has more recoil than you want when shooting fast. So, loads for Cowboy shells are almost never found in a published manual! They do not have a lot of "conventional" use. You have to either try stepping down powder a little at a time from what you do find published until you find a load that you like, or you get another pard who has a load built the same way who shares data with you. There's not a lot of SAFETY risk with decreasing powder weight in a load (and thus chamber pressure and velocity), but you do HAVE TO BE AWARE OF GOING SO LOW ON POWDER AS TO MAKE AN INCONSISTENT performing shell. The big danger - squibby shells that leave a wad stuck in the barrel which could bulge a barrel on the next shot, or even worse. You also have to be concerned that you have enough stack height (powder plus wad plus shot) that you can make a solid enough crimp to avoid shot leaking out! Next concern - TiteGroup is a fairly dense powder. The Clays or Red Dot you have been shooting are fluffy (low density) powders - only Trail Boss is significantly more fluffy. Using TG leads to lower stack heights and poor sunken crimps that don't "seal" the petals at the center. So, fixing that? Use a tall wad....the pink Winchester-clone wad CB0175 from ClayBuster is often chosen, as it is one of the "taller" wads in any maker's 12 gauge wad line. Second suggestion - load in one of the smaller volume hulls. Any of the Remington target type hulls (STS, Nitro27, Gun Club, American Clay and Field). Or, the new Federal High Overall hull (which is just a maroon colored STS hull). Or, a Winchester AA-HS hull. Don't run yourself through the ringer and try to load very light loads in the econo Federal Top Gun, or any of the European straight-wall hulls (Rio, Challenger, Nobel, Cheddite etc). Too much volume to have to fill to get the crimp to work well. Third (reluctant) suggestion - a little filler or an over-shot card or plastic disc over the shot. A Cheerio or similar cereal piece has been used by many light-load shooters. I avoid that, since I load on a progressive loader and don't like to slow down the process to stick something into hull after the shot drop. Fourth (even more reluctant) suggestion - trim hulls enough to make a good folded crimp, or even put a roll crimp on the light loads. I never would, ,though, and have never needed to. I find a light 7/8 ounce shot load in a Remington hull with a 7/8 ounce wad, with only enough powder to give me 1000 FPS, suits me just fine. Never have a knockdown fail to tip over, never have to worry with a flying clay bird, or a 20 yard KD target. Make a few slow 7/8 ounce loads - you may find you like them! The main "safety concern" that the powder makers who publish shotshell loads have is folks trying to load "too heavy" thinking that will kill more birds or varmints. So, they are quite concerned if you ask for anything outside of their pre-set range of chamber pressures that they consider best for conventional shooting (targets, upland game, rabbit and squirrel). But, they also want to be sure their published loads will cycle most of the semi-auto shotguns on the market. They get tired of answering mail (texts today I guess) saying - "Your starting load won't cycle my 3" chambered auto-go-boomer! They really don't worry too much about you modifying a recipe to go lighter, as long as you know how to stay away from squibby loads. If all you are willing to load is a published-minimum-load from Hodgdon, you are right, you won't find one light enough for pleasant Cowboy shooting. good luck, GJ

Look at the velocity variance of the 3.9 grain loads. Velocity range ran both lower and higher than for the 4.0 grain load. Sounds like that 3.9 grain load just was not a consistent performer. There should in general only be a slight increase in muzzle velocity going to 4.0 grains, but trying to compare one load that had velocities wandering all over to another more consistent load, it becomes to hard to draw much meaning in the differences. It's not a true decrease in velocity going with 4.0 grains, and if 25 rounds of each load were chronographed, the statistics would likely show a more realistic velocity average difference. "5 shot" velocity groups are suspect here. GJ

Use a diamond grit, small round ball-tip grinding bit and a Dremel or other rotary tool like a die grinder. Knock in a starting ding with a center punch where you want the retainer dimple. Then, secure the slide stop in a vise, brace your arms and carefully grind a single divot into that rather hard slide stop surface. Use other commercial slide stops as a guide. Grinding hardened steel is easier than spot drilling it. If you do put a stronger slide stop plunger spring in, it WILL make it slightly harder to operate the thumb safety. Not a problem in WB but if you need to shoot quickly for other purposes - consider if increasing spring strength is what you want to do. I've deepened worn dimples in slide stops before. It's pretty quick. good luck, GJ

Same as your new pistol powder - TiteGroup. It will make nice 7/8 ounce loads at about 1000 FPS that work well for Wild Bunch. Also, remember that if you find bottles of High Gun, it is EXACTLY the same powder as TG. (it's just a renaming thing from Hodgdon). Good luck, GJ

How About: Call Mernickle Holsters and tell them exactly what you wrote above. They will be honest with you about how any of their holsters will hold the gun. Cliff is one to ride the river with! good luck, GJ

That would make it a clean stage, yep. Drop mag at end and rack to slide stop to make sure the 1911 is open and empty. GJ

He did have 3 misses. He had a jam preventing firing on T5 of the second sweep. Yes, it was "engaged" when he attempted to fire at it. But no round fired on it, and he skipped 2 targets in the second sweep (I assume) without engaging T6 and T7. How many unfired rounds fell out of gun when clearing the jam are inconsequential. A miss on T5. 2 misses for T6 and T7 that he did not shoot NOR engage, and a P for not engaging T6 (also T7, but P already earned). But, I did not read in the "theoretical play-by-play" that the shooter EXPRESSED his decision to skip 6 and 7 target "to save time" - so it's real hard to read that into the shooter's intent and not simply accept that they were working from memory shooting sweeps, and with the fresh magazine they started on T1 again. IMHO. So, P and 3 misses. GJ PS - the definitions section of the handbook, of course, sets the meaning of the term Engaged on page 38

Buckshot - I know that the Red Dot you have a stock of would work REAL well for you. It was not on my list because here in the US, Alliant has not released any to the marketplace for 18 months or so now. Same reason my list did not include Clays - has been impossible to find ever since Ukraine was invaded. And, if you have a newly-made ADI powder that is a Clays replacement, that would work well too. GJ

If you are going to cite the VV powder company, then to be useful to the shooter, you should say WHICH of the several VV powders you see being used for WB. GJ

I'm not sure what availability of powders in Australia looks like right now, but to answer this with a US-suitable reply, I'd have to say TiteGroup (aka High Gun). A good replacement for both pistol cartridge and shotgun, but slightly louder report and can be slightly dirty at low pressure. Followed up with 700-X,Trail Boss, Bullseye, Solo 1000 and Winchester Super Handicap (won't be much data for these last two). If you have to drop to slower powders, then Unique or Win 231. We are not seeing any Alliant pistol/shotgun powders in our marketplace in US. good luck, GJ