Tully Mars

I believe mine to be made by Tipton, red plastic with a brass bass. I use them for magazine change practice and sight accusation. While wearing my WB rig with all six magazines in pouches and one in the gun, each magazine has a snap cap in it. At the beep I'll draw and rack the gun, get my sights on the target and pull the trigger. Drop that mag, insert another, acquire my sights, press the trigger, drop the mag and repeat until all magazines on my belt have been used. I only rack and dry fire the first round, the snap caps inserted in the remaining magazines make the insertion of the mags easier. Make sure you're seeing your sights and target. One other thing I've found very useful in the past was a cheap, $15-20 spring loaded 1911 airsoft pistol. Maybe I've been fortunate, but the two I've owned have been right on target. I'd use these in the garage with a cardboard box with a shoot n see target. The trigger isn't great so you're forced to pay attention to your sights and pressing the trigger. Tully

Welcome Marshal Flint, The 1873 Winchester would be my first choice of a rifle. Yes the 66' would work fine, but there's no lever safety and the possibility of an out of battery discharge is more likely with the 66'. I love my 66' and Henry, but can't run either as fast as my 73'. Model 12 in 12 gauge would be my shotgun of choice with the barrel cut to 22ish inches. Model 12's can be found with a flagged or un-flagged carrier, my preference is flagged. However I own both and haven't had issues with either style. Tully

Trooper, it sounds like it was a great shoot! Tully

Thanks Happy Jack. I haven't seen them in person, price seems fair considering what's on them. I'm sure you're correct about the magazines, take a look a the follower, they look decent. Tully

While visiting Standard Manufacturing's website and drooling over their SAA's, I noticed they make 1911's! These 1911's have a matched barrel and bushing with a checkered front strap starting at $1,300. Also the magazines look great at a decent price. Does anyone here have experience with SM's 1911's or their magazines? Thanks, Tully

He's correct, or at least in my opinion. :)

San Joaquin Shootist, GJ is providing some good advice. If you shoot a 73' I'd stick with the 73'. My WB rifle is 44-40 and I love it, but it doubles as a BP rifle too which is why I went with 44-40. I have a 44 spl 20" Marlin and ammo you're welcome to barrow until you find a rifle. Heck I sell it to you for a good price if you like it, but I would recommend sticking with the same rifle for Cowboy and WB. There's a different feel between the two. PM me on Facebook, I'll give you my cell number. Tully

I've been using poly coated for quite a few years. My hands stay cleaner when reloading, the dies don't have the lube build up as they do with lubed bullets either. Chronograph your loads, as I recall I gained FPS with the poly coated too, but I can not verify that. Tully

Hey Silvertip, I will take that under consideration. I think I'm on the right track at this point. The barrel is going out for some honing, hopefully that fixes things. Otherwise it's working with more recoil spring. Thanks for the offer! Tully

Thanks to everyone who has responded. Using a shorter OAL of 1.25" and an increased crimp, didn't change a thing. However increasing my recoil spring from 15 to 18lbs, resulted in the gun clambering all the rounds loaded into it. I don't think it's OAL, crimp or freebore. Factory ammo shoots and chambers fine. I think the chamber is tighter than my other pistols. At this point I believe honing the chamber as Garrison Joe mentioned is the ticket if I wish to go to a lighter recoil spring, otherwise I'll use the 18lbs mainspring and in time the chamber wear on the tight spots. At least that's my thoughts for now ;) Thanks, Tully

GJ, Above all else I would like to make this work without reaming or honing. However a cast of the chamber might answer some questions. Hopefully tomorrow will work, if not I'll order some cerrosafe. At this point I still think reloading adjustments will take care of it. The bulge buster works, but isn't really what I want to resort to. Thanks, Tully

Tropper, I'll keep this information in mind. Thanks

Happy Jack, We're in agreement on the LFC, it's not what I want to use and yes it increases the OAL. I've loaded 150 with the adjusted Dillon crimp. I'll do another 150 with a change in the OAL. Hopefully one of these adjustments will take care of it. In addition I'll run 100 of my current loads through the bulge buster just to see what happens. My big concern is getting the TRP to run reliably, without losing reliability in the three other guns. If the bulge buster works 100% of the time, I'd consider leaving my load alone and running the TRP rounds through the bulge buster. Tully

Hi August West, Are you suggesting trying a shorter OAL due to the "zero tolerance freebore", that was my first consideration. But changed when I used the Lee crimp die which improved my FTF dramatically and got me thinking about chamber tolerance. I should have mentioned that all my 1911's are Springfield's. One has a match barrel and bushing installed by WTB the others are standard barrels. I'll load some shorter and take them with me tomorrow to the range. What makes this so irritating is that that the range is an hour and a half away. Thanks, Tully

GJ, You and I are thinking alike on this, however I'm going to try the adjusted crimp first. It's frustrating since this has been a reliable load for years, until the new gun. Thanks, Tully

Flash and Happy Jack, I've adjusted the Dillon crimp die, loaded 150 rounds and cased gaged them. I'll try them Tuesday. Thanks for the suggestions. Tully

Everything case gages well with my current load. I'll try adding more crimp with the Dillon die and see what happens. Thanks

The current set up with the Lee die is giving more crimp, it's also resizing the top 1/4" of the case.

Are all dies created equal? I know case gages vary, my Lyman is of a tighter tolerance than my Dillon. Here's the issue, my current load using a 650 and Dillon dies has worked for years in my three WB pistols without any issues. Recently I bought a Springfield TRP and my current load will have failures to feed. For example, 2 FTF in 5 magazines, it's the last 1/16" to 1/8" of an inch. By changing my Dillon crimp die to the Lee Factory crimp with the carbide insert, I was able to reduce the FTF to 2 out of 100 rounds. Pretty sure if I ran my current loads through the Lee bulge buster they would all feed reliably. I want to avoid this if possible. The Lee dies produce a round that is .469-.470 from the case mouth to the top 1/4" of the case. The Dillon is .471-.472", there's a .003" variance. At this time I believe the chamber to be a tighter tolerance than my other guns, I don't think it's an OAL issue (1.235" with a 230 RN SNS). Can I purchase dies other than Lee that will give me a tighter tolerance? I really don't wish to use the Lee dies on the Dillon. I haven't tried a heavier recoil spring as of yet, it might make the difference, I it's a 16lbs spring. Either way the recoil spring is not the main issue. Thanks, Tully

Hey August West, Sounds to me like the targets were close together and it was just a miss. At the end there should have been one KD still standing for the missed one, correct? Tully

WOW! Glad no one was hurt.

Both the Wild Bunch and the cowboy matches were awesome! I really enjoyed the downrange movement stages as well as the plate rack, hostage taker stage. The folks in Nevada put on a great match! If you have the opportunity to go next year, do it! By the way the food was very good! This was my third year attending the Nevada state WB match, it gets better each year! Tully

JJ, I wish you would have said something at the time. I'm no M12 gunsmith, but I know my why around them and would have happily looked at your gun. Tully

There's a post on the Cowboy wire about WB 1911's, someone responded positively in regards to the Iver Johnson. You might want to ask them some questions. Tully

Sometimes it makes life easier if you lock the slide back and drop the magazine when clearing a stubborn jam in the 1911. Tully