Dusty Devil Dale

I had a similar thing happen with a '73 hammer leaf spring. I stored the rifle for a couple months in a pull-on cloth gun sock, inside a safe. When sliding it into the sock, I evidently pulled the hammer back to the full cock position and stored it that way. When I next took it to the range, the hammer fall was visibly slow and the FP would not break about 20% of the primers.

The gunsmithing part is interesting, but the OP was just intended to share a way to quickly remove the thin shaved lead collars on re-seated bullets.

Sorry --Typo. The too-long rounds were 1.545" (I went back and edited-corrected)

Two- handed shooter has a misfire on the 5th round in first pistol. He re-fires 8 times with no additional round discharging. Reholsters pistol with hammer down on an expended round, and bad (live) round in cylinder, not under the hammer. T.O. stops shooter to check for a live round under the hammer. Round under hammer is expended. T.O. grounds the gun and directs shooter to proceed. The delay costs shooter about 20 seconds. Shooter is denied a reshoot. On appeal, what would be the appropriate action? My own thoughts: Shooter definitely had one round unfired (miss). Reholster was not a violation if hammer was down on an expended round, so being stopped was unwarranted. -- Offer re-shoot of stage with miss from the unfired round carried forward.

It has a Jim Bowie Gen 3 short stroke, but no other mods. It operated OK with the longer rounds until the Western Regional last August. Then the 1.545" [edited] rounds rising in the carrier began to hang up on the lower extractor tab, causing nuisance jambs. I have no idea why. I lowered my crimp die to get a COAL of 1.525" and it works just fine. I gave up trying to figure out why and just shortened the prior loaded rounds.

The last joint outward was severed in a jointer-planer about 45 years ago. It took several surgeries and 8-10 years to re-learn how to play guitar.

Good idea! Then re-seat and re-crimp? But unless somebody makes a better (i.e. metal) hammer- puller than what I have found, I'd need to buy about 10 of them to process 600 rounds. But the idea of shifting the bullet mass forward first is a clever approach that I will try.

Here's a little trick (tool) that saved me some time and kept some rifle ammo out of my "practice box". I loaded about 600 rounds of .38 rifle rounds with a seating die that had moved out of adjustment. The 1.545 [edited] COAL rounds just wouldn't work through my 1873. I re-seated the rounds to shorter length, but because they had already been crimped, re-seating left a thin collar of shaved lead around the crimp on each round. I was concerned the collars would be dislodged in clambering, fouling the chamber and feeding. I did the following, which has worked very well, so I thought I'd share it here for others with similar situations. First I took an empty, unprimed .38 case and belled the end, using a cheap 3/8" HFT drift punch (any 3/8" rod of hard dowel would work), ground to a slight taper at the tip 1/4". (I first tried using the powder die belling feature, but it didn't bell the end deeply enough down the case) I filed four shallow notches in the end, leaving them rough, as teeth. I chucked the belled round in a screw gun and inserted the re-seated rounds tip first, running at very low speed (wear good gloves). The rough brass easily removed the shaved lead collars, leaving me 600 perfect rounds of correct length. When it wears or stretches too much, I can cheaply make another or roll the edge against a hard surface to restore it. Occasionally, someone here posts about re-seating cartridges, so I thought I would share. This works better than grinding the tips off of bullets, and I once discharged a round in my hand from the heat of that kind of grinding.

Folks could use more important things to worry about-and looking at the world today, those things might be coming sooner than we would like.

Regarding wooden plank boardwalks, we have many at our club, and for the most part, I maintain them. Even in our less severe California weather, they are high maintenance. They swell in winter, shrink in summer, and like to warp upward, regardless of material or how carefully and strongly you attach the planks. In wet seasons they can be slippery, and then when they dry out, the attachment deck screws sometimes work their way upward creating trip hazards. They seem to shrink just enough for .38 brass to lodge between them. TREX is one (IMO poor) expensive alternative, but it becomes VERY slippery when wet or icy, or gets even lightly covered with leaves or needles. The wood looks great and period authentic, but if you install it, plan a regular safety inspection and maintenance program.

Rule of thumb: Don't re-seat bullets in cartridges that you did not load yourself or do not know powder VOLUME and type. "Rattle testing" isn't diagnostic.

Directions need to use language that is the same for everybody. If you call it a "Okie Washtub Sweep", or any other colloquial name, then PLEASE also include the target number sequence in the stage instruction.

What is this "Plans" thing that you speak about?

Try this: Hold your arm straight, wrist straight and try to move your trigger finger without also causing a small amount of wrist flexure or rotation. That translates into muzzle motion. Unless you are very unique, you cannot quiet the index finger tendons through the wrist. That is why I like to slip hammer. My grip hand can remain entirely quiet and Master Grip solid, while the non grip hand does the hammer work. For me, It has little to do with speed and a lot to do with steadiness.

Boars, sows and what else? To determine their gender, don't you need to ask how they identify today?