Garrison Joe

The right side extractor on my 12's does not even touch the rim until the shell has started into the chamber. And that's with 12s without the flag. I don't see how the extractor can cause the shell to misalign and jam into the barrel breech. Look at the top surface of lifter - it may have had metal ground off the right hand side, or be a 3" lifter. Look for any burr on the barrel breech surface. Added - This may be a timing problem of when the lifter pops up. If lifter rises too late, the bolt could miss the shell rim and block the shell from rising to the chamber mouth properly. The lifter movement is very quick - occurs within about 1/2 inch of forearm motion as the action is being closed. It takes being off only a little to cause problems. Good luck, GJ

Sounds about time for a deep cleaning including taking the extractors off the bolt and checking their springs, too. Good luck, GJ

Cleaning or troubleshooting at EOT or WR is best done at one end of the Unloading table. Firing line is way too busy most of the time. You probably don't have room on most carts to hold all the loose pieces of a 1911 while you work on it. As far as the rules go, it would be allowed to tear one down there, just return to the unloading table if you want to dry fire or cycle slide several times (just to keep from scaring the uninitiated). For me, Rem Oil is quite capable of handling the environment at either venue. Most other quality oils should do the same. I really don't use a grease at all for a 1911. If I get in a bad dust devil at EOT, I'll take a dry rag and a finger tip and wipe off as much as I can, but I have never had a gun get gunked up so as to effect the function. Magazines can be clogged - so every time I get mine back, I look at the follower and wipe off dirt in that area. I use no lube on or in magazines. Good luck, GJ

If you can cite the Dixie Desperado's web site, folks may have everything they need to register. Except maybe the funds. ;) Good luck, GJ

All of them are OK. A cowboy hat is OK. Most other hats "of the period" are OK (I've seen newsboy caps, railroad caps, etc). No hat is OK. Mine is a 1902 brown USMC campaign/slouch hat. Figure with about 14 years of campaign wear, it would just be broken in when I had to go chase banditos south of the border. Good luck, GJ

Should be any BAMM legal rifle, I would assume. Open action, insert stripper carrying 5 rounds, press rounds into magazine, pull out the empty clip, press down on top round in magazine with thumb, and slide bolt forward. (Remove thumb from magazine before bolt goes completely closed - ;D) Good luck, GJ

LL - Those are WONDERFUL side match stage descriptions. Wish I could be there, especially for Sgt. York's side match. Good luck with WR! GJ

OD - Took a peek just now at the WR Cowboy Who's Coming list, you are on it. So you are a cinch for the WB match. GJ

If Winter Range WB match fills completely this year, I believe that would be the first time! Checks take a longer time to get deposited and cleared in late December, seasonally. GJ

The Winter Range site will probably have a WB Who's Coming list - they usually start this about 6 weeks before, so mid January I'd take a look. Good luck, GJ

Perfect your load until you get to where NO leading occurs. It is VERY important and fairly simple to do. Shoot a good fitting slug. Don't shoot a lubed lead bullet that is TOO HARD (at our pressures and velocities, a Brinnell hardness of about 9 to 12 is the perfect hardness - one that expands to fill barrel and is not so soft as to lead due to friction with barrel walls). Poly coated goes a fair way toward preventing leading....but make sure these don't leave you with a barrel film (like shotgun wads do). I still shoot lubed lead bullets almost exclusively, BTW, which does add to the "grease fouling" that blows into the action. Once you know that you don't have to clean crud out of the barrel, you reduce your quick cleaning to just taking care of fouling on the moving parts of the action. Blackfoot describes just about what I do to clean. Underside of slide, rail ways and "bolt" face with extractor. Barrel - throat/ramp, no barrel brushing. Frame - rails and barrel link area and top part of magazine well. Barrel bushing. Lube - Rem oil (or your choice) on slide ways and rails, a drop on the disconnector tip, barrel locking grooves and hood, barrel link, inside of barrel bushing and tip of barrel where bushing rides. Every six months I tear down more completely to get into fire control parts, magazine release, extractor and firing pin channels/spring. Check grip bushings for being tight/loctited. I'm not a "flush and forget" guy with 1911s because they generally don't run well and long when just flushed and no lube placed back on the steel. My main match Colt series 70 now is at 120K rounds and going strong and smooth without being loose. Good luck, GJ

Picture or model name would help reveal the extent of this external modification. But sure sounds to me like an external mod that is not allowed by the rules as written. A beveled grip frame butt (through the mainspring housing) has been examined by the rules committee and found to be not allowed. This could be treated the same way. (There' are tons of models that will meet the rules without a buyer having to undergo rules investigations.) Good luck, GJ

That chain link style stippling of the front strap is legal for a gun that you shoot in Modern category(ies). WB Shooter's Handbook. page 6. But not for a gun in Traditional. (It's easy to find this stuff in the Handbook.) You can get a copy at: https://www.sassnet.com/Shooters-Handbook-001A.php Scroll down to bottom of page where the WB books are. Good luck, GJ

Could even be an insurance requirement. I can imagine an insurance company having the position, "if you (SASS) are not setting the rules and qualifications of safety officers for that game, we no longer want to insure it under your (SASS) policy." Good luck, GJ

I think you will have good luck with the taper crimp at 0.470" The .45 auto does not need as much crimp depth as most revolver loads anyway, so Precision's recommendation is probably a little tight for auto. We are not running high-recoil loads (to cause bullet pull), and if your gun feeds well without jamming nose of bullet into ramp or barrel hood (no bullet collapse), you should be good. You can always do the "loaded round push test" to see if crimp is snug. Take a round you loaded, hold in hand, push nose into a hard wooden object (like a garage door frame). If bullet does not push into case further, and bullet does not rotate within case either when twisted by hand, crimp is good. Good luck, GJ

A con - if you are sensitive to expensive powder, it's at the top of the price list. Fewer vendors carry it. A pro - usually accurate. Good luck, GJ

I think almost all the pards know about the WB wire. I think some may be a little intimidated to ask here. Fairly frequently one of our WB gang will make the gentle suggestion and post the link for using the WB wire. Seems to work fairly well. Good luck, GJ

I'd say it is well out of the acceptable range of rifles fielded before the end of WW II. Probably a very good rifle, just not a BAMM compliant gun, nor is it chambered for a round used before end of WW II. Good luck, GJ

If you allow loading the magazine only with 5 rounds at a time, that "levels the reloading process" for most military bolt guns. Good luck, GJ

Mine is a 0.256" bore diameter (lands) per the stock disk (6.50 mm marking). Haven't slugged it to measure groove diameter. I size bullets to 0.266". As long as I keep the velocities at 1600 FPS. I get good accuracy, no leading. Good luck, GJ

Factory 230 grain loads make about 187 PF. Wild Bunch shooters run about 165 PF. That leaves some room to lighten springs to get easier (quicker) racking of slide manually, and to ensure you get consistent ejection with those 10% lighter loads. Factory 5" government models are usually shipped with 16# recoil and 23# mainsprings. Because the 1911 uses a balanced set of springs (mainspring to convert recoil energy into cocking the hammer and slowing the slide down, and recoil to strip the next round and drive the slide forward), if you lighten the recoil spring, you should also lighten the mainspring. This also will probably require smoothing out (honing) the mainspring housing's spring bore, since a lighter mainspring will be storing less energy. I (and many other folks tuning their 1911s) find a 15# recoil spring and a 19# mainspring work real well with Wild Bunch ammo. Do you HAVE to change springs? No, the factory springing works pretty well for some folks. But if you find you are leaving an occasional fired case in the slide, and the extractor and ejector are doing their job most of the time, then it's time to either step up the powder charge (slowing you down) or lighten the springs (speeding up parts of your loading and firing cycle). A lighter mainspring also slightly improves the trigger pull weight and felt smoothness of trigger pull, too. Yeah, as a rule of thumb, I like to see a well tuned gun throw it's fired cases 6-8 feet from where I stand. Does that prove anything? Wilson and several other tuners think it does. It certainly is better than having cases dribbling out of the gun, because soon one case won't. Another rule of thumb - lifted from Wilson - Fire a single round from a good magazine (loaded with just that one round) with weak hand only - if you can get a reliable slide lock back 10 consecutive times the recoil and main springs are not too heavy for your ammunition. Well broken in, or deburred/slicked guns, can usually run with lighter springs (sorta like cowboy guns can). Good luck, GJ

I don't shoot the 140 grain slugs much, as I've found heavier ones are better in the Swede. Best "5744 plus 140 grain slug" load - grouped about 1.75" at 100 yards. That was with 16 grains 5744. Best groups so far after a couple years of testing loads and shooting matches: A 162 grain bullet, with either 17 grains of 4227, or 17 grains of SR 4759 (hard to get) or 17 grains 5444. Some of those will hold close to 1.5" at 100 yards in my gun. As small a diameter as the bullet is, it has to be cast of really clean alloy and care taken to avoid/reject voids or imperfections! Good luck, GJ PS - with 140 grain bullet and 4759, I'd start at 16 grains. The Lyman book shows a range of 13.5 to 22 grains of 4759 as safe with the 140 grain slug, velocities for those run from 1375 to 2200 FPS (that top end is way too fast for any accuracy) I agree that 4759 powder is usually the ACCURACY STANDARD for cast bullet loads in medium and even large rifles! GJ

Marshal - What's that lever at the leading edge of the trigger guard? Is that an aftermarket speed safety made to work like a Garand's safety? That probably would be considered an external modification that could be ruled illegal. Worth asking about before you go shoot in a match. Good luck, GJ Did some more digging. That indeed seems to be an aftermarket "rotating" or "crow's foot" safety that has been found on a VERY few Model 12s - reported to have been marketed in the 50's to work like a Garand or M1 Carbine lever safety at front of trigger guard. Although we don't use the Model 12 safety in WB matches, I would expect you would have to get that thing cleared by the Rules committee, or it could well be declared an illegal external modification. Similar to the poly-choke being an illegal modification. Good news is, lots of places have parts for a Mod 12 safety rebuild. GJ

Sounds light, and I'd guess about 1350 FPS would be the velocity. Safe, perhaps not top accuracy. Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook, for a 1600 FPS load with 140 grain slug, likes 17 grains 4227 or 16 grains (or slightly less) of 2400 Those, or slightly slower velocities,would be where I'd start with the more common powders. My best accuracy in the Swede usually comes with 5744, but it's a pricey powder. Seat bullet to a fairly long overall length so the jump into the rifling is as short as possible, too. As always, working up a good cast bullet load depends SO much on the condition of the individual rifle. What my rifle will shoot to 1.5 MOA groups, yours might throw out to 4 MOA. Or vice versa. Good luck, GJ

I am concerned that a shock buff would be taking up 1/4" of room that JMB designed into the recoil spring area. I see no reason to shove a foreign object in there where critical functions are already working perfectly. (Not a single shock buff was needed in any 1911 all during WW I and WW II.....) Good luck, GJ