Joe West

I've done a bunch of them. Mostly for ranch use or field use. Don't take off metal unless you verify that is dragging by using dye. There are few points of drag or even contact in the action of a 94. Reduce the lever lock plunger spring, you may be able to reduce the main spring, lever wrap, and polish hammer to bolt contact keeping in mind take off too much it quits cocking far enough. 44 spl with heavy bullets work great , shoot easy , and give very good accuracy with little experimentation. Why buy a new gun when this one will do fine? Big bullets easier to handle when you have arthritis .

87 grains is correct but I used a 115 grain. The original spring set ups were slow, as you lighten things or increase speed past cowboy movie speed things change, be flexible in your approach. Never used a 25-20 for sass/cas but it was good on varmints. In 92's my rule is cartridge flips up bullet too light , short, or both. Trouble feeding into chamber, cartridge too long. You may even have to alter the lifter rate to get optimum operation for sass/cas. In the original guns the guide spacing was usually good and doesn't change. But if that fixes it good. I usually measure side cleara

Pyrodex works with standard lube bullets. If you care much about accuracy you'll find standard lube bullets attain very good results with pyrodex and triple 7 . The bore and chamber must be thoroughly cleaned of all smokeless residue first no matter what though as the interaction of the pyrodex and smokeless residue gives something like diamond hard build up. I've used pyrodex in .38 special cases for many decades. Black powder lube bullets are a must for real black. I did a lot of ammunition and target testing in the 1980's and 90's. Fill the case near full and put a bullet on t

No, won't judge you if you do.

I slicked up several 32-20 92's and 73's early on as we mostly used original guns pre sass or early sass. Haven't worked on one for awhile. I'd say 32-20 has a following in IHMSA. It makes a great round for single shot pistols when using heavy bullets. I still have some bullets cast for me by old AA, Armand Arnsen. The round is a wonder for shooting but a trick to reload if you want to use a repeater. Educating the shooter as to best reloading practices was a part of action work on that caliber. Even factory rounds can collapse in the mag tube. Best to use black powder loads or as Abilene p

I won that 1998 match but I doubt my advice would be that helpful. I used a 45 colt marlin , a .357 Colt 7 1/2# bbl, and a 38/40 Uberti 5 1/2" bbl along with a Stoeger so my choice of firearms and caliber seems moot. I loaded my .38s with 180 grain bullets so recoil would feel similar. It was a great party. I didn't do as well in 1999 but it was just as fun. Thanks Jack. Joe West

I don't have a picture of that. I was always last off the range so often missed it. His wife made me promise to make sure nobody busted his teeth.

This is a ,1998 I believe, pic as we throw Coyote Calhoun into a very splintery wagon. There were several takes. Joe West

Meeting and becoming friends with new people was our best quality. We didn't put cas matches together to give away money prizes, we came from other shooting sports, racing, or whatever seeking something different. Our gatherings were like a big reunion with new family members each time. The best matches still are. That attitude carries over to most folks that post. But any group with Isom Dart in it automatically goes up a notch. When Kid Concho , Isom ,and me were shooting together that was as good as it gets.

Like Fireball I use hard cast bullets. My cartridges are loaded full case triple 7 2f , no wad standard lube, heavy bullet for caliber. Antique firearms would need a little more gentle load but modern mfg firearms, hard is better. Less leading equals less pressure build up as you shoot and easier cleaning. Less deformation of bullet gives better accuracy. It needs to fit the chamber mouths go smoothly into the forcing cone and obdurate into the rifling and it'll hit where your barrel ends up pointed.

I've shot the lever revolution 44 mag in a Winchester 94. Those are good shooting rounds. The polymer tip really provides a superior ballistic bullet to safely use in tube mag guns. There's no need to guess when a company puts it resources and expertise into providing a quality product. I know from running ranges people are going to do whatever suits them and justify their actions anyway they can regardless of rules, manufacturers recommendations, and often in spite of common sense. It's human nature, most of what little knowledge I've retained is from my screw ups. In the end it's simp

Only witnessed it once, Remington factory round nose lead round nose .38 spl. yellow box in 1866 carbine Uberti. CAS match in Dalton, GA. 2nd shot ignited 3 rounds blew side plate off & deformed and blew out mag tube. No injuries as no one close to the side plate. Val Folgett found us a side plate, unfinished rough cast, as it was an early 1xx serial number Navy Arms gun and I was able to salvage the gun. It's still in use today with the caveat not to use round nose bullets. One of my pards blew his hand up a bit with a 1860 Uberti Henry with rnfp 44-40 bullets when the follower slippe

The 1866 was made until 1898. The 4th model was it's latest version, some sent to the Mexican Army, were centerfire 44. I had the opportunity to examine one.