Dusty Devil Dale

My problem is the opposite. I have a fair sized timber ranch that is a perpetual hunting trespass problem. Our warden force in CA is very understaffed, consequently, it is often impossible to get a timely response when somebody decides to enter property deer hunting, without permission. If you have nothing to hide, game warden presence can be an asset, as much as an issue.

Thank you. I will change the spring. The gate snaps shut solidly, though, and the bolt comes up in proper time.

Somehow, I neglected that option. The DIY in me always looks for what I can do first. Sometimes, that carries a bit too far. Thank you!

Videos are abundant on the Internet, and they are fine, as far as they go. Don't be surprised if you watch a video, then take your side plates or stock off and see something entirely different. There are many tuning/upgrade kits out there and all of them look and operate differently. Many brand new guns are offered with one or the other of those kits installed. I strongly suggest getting together with a friendly fellow CAS shooter who has experience with different short stroke and spring kits. Get them to walk through a disassembly and reassembly on YOUR GUN with you. That way you will come away understanding how the works function in the firearm that you own. Ask around to find someone who really knows what they are doing (doesn't just think that they do.) And FWIW, I disassemble the side plates, lever, lifter, carrier and bolt on my '73s after about every 200 - 300 rounds, and prior to any big match. I shoot light Titegroup loads, and they tend to blow back and be fairly dirty. I take the effort, because I want the guns to work uniformly, without extraction, feeding or other problems and without excessively wearing the contact surfaces. Others' mileage may differ and probably does. Properly done disassembly does no damage to a firearm. Failure to clean a firearm will eventually stop it from functioning correctly. So I take the time to keep 'em clean. JMHO.

A man has to recognize his limitations. I suspect that level of gunsmithing is far above my pay grade. It might make the gun work, but I don't have the tooling or holding jigs to avoid really messing up the receiver. I NEVER alter a receiver.

A local cowgirl friend asked me to take a look at her Ruger Single Six pistol. It frequently skips past one (always the same one) index recess on the cylinder, leaving the gun out of battery for the following round. I microscopically inspected and measured the cylinder recess dimensions and spacing, sprocket spacing, and hand/pawl (lower spur) engagement length and angle/fit. I found no differences between the cylinder recesses and no differences or wear on the pawl or sprocket. When I swapped in another cylinder from her other pistol, the gun ran fine, and the problem transfered with the cylinder to her other gun. So, I chucked the problem cylinder both, between centers, then from the external circumference in a precision second operation lathe and measured the runout of the hole and the outside cylinder circumference, at both ends and over the index recesses. Runout was 0.037" at the sprocket end, 0.041 at the recesses, and 0.044" at the front hub. That seemed excessive. (By comparison, the other good cylinder runout was 0.011", 0.014", and 0.018", respectively. ) I have been unable to find replacement cylinders for the old Single Six revolvers. So unless somebody out there sees other options, I see only two possible remedial paths. 1) Take a spare bolt and TIG Weld on a longer upper tang, machined 0.040" longer than the original, hoping the longer locking tab will engage the recess on all 6 cylinder stations, or 2) LN2-Freeze, then Press a tightly fitted pin into the center cylinder bore, then re-bore to spec. a new (round, rather than oval cross section bearing hole). The first jeopardizes only the cheaply replaceable bolt, while the re-boring option necessitates precision lathe work, and matching of the cylinder and pin alloy hardness to assure concentricity of the new boring. I am less than confident about attempting that work myself. Done professionally, the cost could easily approach or exceed the gun's value. Does anybody else see another option? I have already replaced the worn base pin. End play on the cylinder is within spec. at <0.005" All of this points up the importance of thoroughly and frequently cleaning the base pin and the center bore, and properly lubricating both. The center bore is only about 1 -2 mm away from the firing chamber, so the carbon and cellulose crud that you see on the front hub is also blown into the front of the center bore. Frequent careful cleaning is a cheap, easy alternative to some expensive gunsmiting work. I will appreciate any thoughts or options anyone may have to offer. Thank you in advance. DDD

The Ft. Miller Shoot-out is now only about 4 weeks away, on April 18th-20th. . If you will be in central CA at that time, this is always a fun and traditional Cowboy Action Shooting event. There is still time to get signed up.

Try Numrich.

Good to know. Thank you. That leaves the snap caps as probably the best plan for guns like you described. I once deliberately tried to soften Ruger Vaquero hammer springs by leaving them cocked. It did "soften" them, but the fatigue was not the same as getting a lighter spring. The spring response time was greatly lengthened to where I had to literally wait for the hammer to fall, and hope it would ignite primers. I learned a cheap lesson. But the lesson won't be so cheap on a shotgun. I would put in snap caps and decompress the springs by firing.

Release the forend grip to unload the cooking levers. Close the shotgun and replace the forend. Springs will be unloaded.

That is unhappily pretty true. But there are lots of "normal" people out there still. Our club is using our Facebook Group Page and our web site, almost daily, to find them. We've grown by about 30% in the two past years. A lot of our new members are under 40, physically capable, and active in the work parts of our club. The electronic media do work for finding interested folks of ALL ages.

Do you have transfer bars in place, or removed? If transfer bars are in place, you are likely to need a slightly harder spring, since the hammer impact must move that larger mass, and also be attenuated by two impact points enroute to the fp.

Just WOW!

Obviously, you're correct. Us older guys and women just can't dive under stage coaches any more, at least not without help getting back up. Age matters. But there is a lot of room for reasonable stage variety, and within that range, the same good shooters will rise to the top nearly every time.

Great comment and attitude! (Seriously). Matches are what you make them. Do the work and enjoy the outcomes.

Yep. That is a fact. I just came home an hour ago from a scheduled Club Workday to get ready for our Annual Match. Twenty some people, young and old, had a great time together, topped off by a barbecue. A handful of us retired folks are there at the range working on facilities and match set-up several days each week. We do the work and reap the fun. The shooting is a big part of it, but not the whole story. Our club has gone from forty some members to seventy some in two years, because it is a functional club. The key to recruitment is to be energetic, visible and attractive to newcomers. Variety is part of that.

I agree in part. But there are ways to shoot creative, western themed stages, without the athletics. For example, a wrecked buckboard, turned on its side, with close "outlaw" targets arrayed among clumps of brush, shot from tables at each end of the hijacked wagon. Rifle target is a 16" round pendulum at 8 yds, alternating 10 rds with adjacent stationary targets in the brush at the same range. Stage times on that kind of stage will be below 20 for fast shooters, and in the 20s-30s for most of us in the middle. The only athletics are one 10' position change and in picking brass. At 74, I will attest that stages requiring athletics don't bode well. But in the last 5 years, our club has recruited about 30-40% new growth. They are younger shooters, mostly in their 30s, who came to us after watching our matches. They came looking for more variety than stand-and-shoot stages with big, close targets in simple sweeps. Most of them came to us from other shooting sports, so they are quite competent at shooting 8 -10 yd pistol and 12-18 yd rifle targets and flying clay birds w/ SG. They also like handling more challenging shooting sequences. They tell us that they will quickly get bored shooting stages that lack western flavor/creativity and can be won by little except hand speed, gunsmithing, and fast transitions. They also want challenging target acquisition. They left the other speed sports to come and play cowboy. So our club looks for variety and a middle-ground that offers some of both. We get variety by inviting different members to write monthly stages. Our strong growth, as a club, shows that shooters enjoy that variety -- at least that is what they tell us. Many of them make the drive to Bordertown every year for super fast shooting competition. But they still come to our distinctly "Cowboy-flavor" matches, and recruit their friends in the other sports. Our game does not have to evolve to survive, but it does require expenditure of creativity, and LOT of effort to provide thematic variety. That works for our club. Others' mileage may vary in different geography.

The kinds of stages you described do exist. Writing them takes much more creativity than most CAS people want to mess with, but they can be done in a way that makes stages fast, easily shootable, but also thematic and imaginative; making you feel like an old west Marshal or outlaw shooting your way out of situations. Our club, in central California, runs strongly western/ cowboy themed scenarios in our monthly matches and also our annual match, The Shootout at Fort Miller (coming up April 18-20). The stages feature pendulums, T-Stars, shooting from a fast rolling ore cart enroute into an open pit mine, clay bird throwers shot with shotgun and occasionally with rifle, and occasional longer targets. These kinds of things are definitely not for everyone, but our matches are well attended every year. We are, in fact, one of relatively few rapidly growing clubs; welcoming new members almost every month. There is a fairly large number of CAS shooters who joined the sport/game for that kind of shooting. Check us out at kingsriverregulators.com. Different people want to shoot different kinds of matches. There isn't anything wrong with providing the variety that you asked about, catering to all interests. But Stump Water said it above-- the really good shooters come out on top, no matter what the stages offer.

You mentioned they were slightly used. If a prior owner buffed out marks and scratches for re-selling, it is possible that the buffing abrasives used induced color. In the jewelry trade, buffing and surface coloring go hand-in- hand. So you might first try acetone or spray carburetor cleaner and gentle rubbing with a clean rag. Failing that, you might VERY CAREFULLY buff the stainless steel with ex-fine blue or soft white (NOT white diamond) abrasive compound. Be careful high-speed buffing on a wheel around the front site. When heated up, a buff can pull the sites out of their keyway. (Ask me how I learned that).

"Level playing field" is good sounding rhetoric, but in the real world of CAS, there are a lot of variables that can affect stage times. Spotting/counting is a big one. PM direction clarity can be another. Prop or target position v. shooter height, or even weather and light condition variation through a day can be enough to affect final standing. Nothing is ever truly "level" across 600+ individuals and 12 stages. We play this game as it is, with all of its inherent weaknesses and variations. We all do our best to minimize inequity where we can see or anticipate it. But at times, mistakes are going to be made. Stuff happens. A part of playing is accepting some inherent inequity. Every sport has it.

The Who is Coming list is now posted on our club website at kingsriverregulators.com

AT&T finally admitted that they no longer maintain their landlines infrastructure in most areas. For decades, they were our sole provider in the location where we live. Finally last year, we switched to Starlink. I've never looked back. The service is uninterrupted, fast and inexpensive -- the antithesis of AT&T. It took 10 months, three registered letters, multiple phone calls and a threat from a lawyer to get AT&T to believe we had quit their service after 40 years, and get them to stop billing us and threatening us with collections. AT&T just grew too big and lost control of their company and innumerable foreign sub-contractors. Every "department" is a different contractor in a different country.

That is the sustained yield way to do it if you are mainly just sport fishing. The only species I kill these days are yellowfin that are fast maturing and heavily commercially harvested, or Wahoo, Dorado or yellowtail that exist mostly ocean- or worldwide in astronomical numbers and receive comparatively light harvest pressure. I long ago stopped fishing the grouper family, because of the barotrauma- swim bladder issues. Also, a 120- pound Black Sea Bass can be 70 or 80 years old, and I have a definite reverence for that.

As strong as it appeared, probably 80% or better. Swordfish don't really fight and generate a lot of lactic acid like tuna, wahoo, or marlin do. Swords just sulk, spread their long pectoral fins, and circle deep, with their weight being like a very heavy anchor. The hook should corrode or fall out within a week or so, so the drag of line would have little effect -- and even if it took longer, the drag of just a hundred or so feet of line is less than significant to a fish of that size. I do regret leaving the line floating free in the ocean though, tangling up anything from whales to sea birds. Fortunately 120 pound line is not very prone to tangling.

Courtesy to others is important. Here's a story from my other favorite sport. I was on long-range tuna trip out of San Diego a few years ago. We were enroute to Clipperton Island, 1050 nautical miles off of southern Mexico's Pacific Coast -- the 3-week trip of a lifetime @ $8,000+ per person. We stopped the second night at Alijos Rocks to fish big yellowtail, wahoo, and to gather needed bait. In the middle of the night, I sent a 6 pound live squid down 300+ feet and hooked up what acted like a huge swordfish. 4 hours later, daylight broke. I had worn myself down, but despite continued hard short stroking, I could only gain about a quarter of the line back after the initial run. The skipper thought it was probably a really big sword. It did not run like a shark. It just sulked and swam in wide, deep circles. The rod was solidly pinned to the rail for hours. An hour after sunrise, the fish was still very strong. I was not. The other fishermen gave much encouragement and seemed thrilled at the prosect of seeing a probable 600# sword. Several took a turn relieving me. Everyone seemed patient, but I could feel some anxiety building as time passed. The skipper was right beside me and I thought I also sensed concern on his part. The entire boat relaxed when I quietly pulled out my cutters and severed the 120# line. I never have looked back --absolutely the right thing to do. We got underway and had a great trip with some 200# plus Clipperton yellowfin. The swordfish of a lifetime is still out there for a future trip. I never saw it. Courtesy to others is important !