Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933

You'll have to ask the SASS front office what they are doing this year.

All the distributors sell "competion" ready revolvers as well. Just helps to be clear what you are talking about when asking tech questions.

Silngle shots aren't legal main match rifles either. Are you talking about a side match? Four guys standing in line for a side match ailn't the same as 400 guys waiting behind some one in the main match. In any event the 80's are long gone.

The past couple of years you have to figure out the application form and check the appropriate boxes.

Might be useful to specify whether you are talking about a rifle or a revolver. "1873" can be either.

+100%. I was at a very large match one time where they let a shooter use a muzzle loading rifle. Ten shots on the clock took a while. That shooter may have been having "fun" but for the other 289 people backed up in hour+ long delays on the other stages they were NOT having fun.

Twelve inches out of a rest at two feet! Who'd a thunk it. At any rate you said you like the American Derringer. Americans do not have a rebounding hammer so one way to "select" the barrel is to look at the breech face when the barrels are open. If the firing pin is sticking out of the top hole the bottom barrel will fire first. If it is sticking out of the bottom hole the top barrel will fire first. After the first two shots it will continue to fire in the same order. (Unless you slip hammer or somthing else causes the hammer not to come fully back and the pins get out of sequence.) Another way is to look at the pivot in the hammer face. If you look carefully you can see what postion it is in and after a while you can tell what pin it is going to hit. One thing with American Derringers is that since they do not have rebounding hammers you have to make absolutely sure the hammer is placed on half-cock before closing the barrels with rounds loaded in them. Otherwise you could get a nice surprise. Bottom firing pin protruding so the top barrel will be the next to fire.

I know what stippling is. It is usually done on metal with a prick punch. I just wanted to make sure what the OP was talking about. The photo in number four was done by laser and either Drifter or Taz can do it.

What do you mean by laser "stipling?" There are a couple of people that routinely show up at major matches to do laser engraving on wood. Drifter from (I believe) the Mid-West and Taz from New England attend many matches and both do great work. Taz is already parked at Ben Avery getting ready for Winter Range.

Unless the target was the berm I doubt I could hit the target whether I shot the bottom or upper barrel first at 25 yards.

I have manned the derringer/pocket pistol side match at EOT for years and cannot recall anyone selecting the barrel. The target is only two feet away so the winner is determined by who can retrieve the gun off the table the fastest and who can then also manipulate the hammer the quickest. I like Smokestack's theory and he is experienced. But 99.99% of derringer shooters I see at side matches don't have the expertise for shooting a derringer where firing the lower barrel first would make any difference. The OP says he has never fired a derringer and knows nothing about them. I was more interested in why he perceives selecting a barrel to be relevant.

Fun shoot but as noted the RV parking is strictly dry camping. Last year a bunch of us stayed at the Willow Wind RV park in downtown Hurricane. We reserved the party room and had a couple of very nice get togethers. There are a couple of nice places to eat in Hurricane and they are only a very short distance from the RV park.

Every time you cock the hammer the firing pin moves from one barrel to the other. You could theoretically look at which firing pin is exposed and manipulate the hammer until you got it set to fire a particular barrel. It is not an over/under shotgun. One barrel isn't full and the other modified. It does not have a barrel selector switch. Out of curiosity what possible difference would it make which barrel fires first?

If it's your picture MDQ.

+1. The question was about competition. If you want to compete the Bond is the choice. For self-defense a two shot die cast zamac derringer would not be high on my list.

Nothing you can paint on will be permanent. What works well for many people is flat back modeler's paint in the rear sight notch. Then go to Home Deport and get a little bottle of applicance touch-up paint for the rear surface of the front sight. White shows up surprisingly well and the applicance paint is fairly durable.

If you want to compete you want a Bond. As far as caliber you do NOT want a .45. The object is two quick shots. The winners normally get both shots off in less than a second. No matter how you load a .45 the recoil is not conducive to getting off two QUICK shots.

There's hard and then there is HARD. No one in their right mind is going to use a steel rod to push on a cap. Most people use deer antler, a piece of wooden dowel or plastic. One of the purposes is so you don't wind up with an exploded thumb. Remember the word "pushing." The object is not to hammer, smash, use a hydralic press, etc., the object is to "push" the cap on until it seats. Many posts are made about center fire rounds not going off on the first hit. The first question usually asked is are the primers seated to the bottom of the primer pocket? Same with a C&B. You want the top of the nipple cone to be in contact with the priming compound inside the cap. You also want a friction fit between the nipple and cap otherwise the cap will fall off when the gun fires. So with proper fitting nipples AND caps they are a sliding fit and merely need to be "pushed" onto the nipple. Anything other than that and the shooter needs to work on their nipple/cap fit.

I was referring primarily to Post #5. Pinching caps is not the solution to loose fitting caps.

Anyone that recommends "squeezing" caps to make them "fit" on the nipple is osmeone you don't want to be taking advice from. Sure sign the shooter does not know what they are doing.

The locking brace on a Uberti is nothing like a USFA, Taurus, AWA, or Pedersoli It is interesting you said you ordered parts for the Thunderbolt from Taurus. When did you order them? Did you get them?

Cap and balls are ".44s." Their bores are .454 which makes them an actual .45 the way bores and grooves are measured these days.. Been that way for 150+ years. Just got to adapt to the nomenclature. Rugers only came in one caliber. If someone is advertising a conversion cylinder for a Ruger it is going to be .45 Colt. I use the Cowboy Special as it duplicates the feel of my C&B load.

Most dealers haven't gotten any Federal primers in a long time. Dillon's has not had any in months. I ordered some from Brownells/Sinclair and after several months I did get a notice that they were cancelling the order because of continued uncertainty of when they would get any primers. What a lot of people have done is to order from multiple seller's and hope one of them will get some primers. I got an email from one saying I had two hours to respond if I still wanted some that had been ordered months ago. I wasn't home and by the time I opened the email the two hours were up and they were out of stock again. Doesn't do any good to whine about it. You just have to keep lookiing.

Wrapping and unwrapping your thumb from around the stock on your rifle as you fire then lever. Lots of new shooters do this and it is a real time killer.

The Smith Shop does not carry any Uberti parts and none of the USFA parts are interchangeable with Ubertis.