The Hobbit Hole XXXVIII - There and Back Again!

[ExGeeEye]

How about “Henrietta Immaculata”?

If she was a little less pristine, or accurate, I’d suggest “Filthy Harridan”.

[Squantos]

Persephone ..... Daughter of Zeus !

I have a same era 17, a new 617. Each purchased for either range fun then and now..... and or squirrels when I was stationed in Michigan .

Also have three of the super light and accurate 317’s that are in my small personal survival kits that are either in my go bag, the kit on my boat and ATV. Those are very very good “kit tools” to produce pot meat in a pinch.

Stay Safe.... Merry Christmas !!!

[300winmag]

I have a same era 17, a new 617. Each purchased for either range fun then and now.

I started researching the Model 17 series. Man, what a lot of variations built on that platform, some of which must be pretty rare. And I paid less for my "old timer" than the MSRP for the current S&W "classic series".

I also studied the collecting of the S&W Model 36. While I knew the 2" snubbie with round butt is the most common, there were models with barrel lengths to 5", square butts, odd calibers and finishes, etc. Most sought after by rabid collectors.

I also took my snubbie Python to the range for a feeding of 125gr practice ammo. While it's still a massive and heavy revolver, the lack of 4" of heavy barrel puts all that weight much closer to the hand. The resulting recoil and muzzle rise was similar to my "airweight" S&W .22WMR snubbie, meaning nearly nothing at all.

There's a lot to be said about full-house loads in a super-light revolver, but it's mostly swear words when it comes time to shoot it. If you can lug that weight around all day, a heavy snubbie pays off in comfortable shooting, rather than flinching. :)

[osagebowman]

Drool - the Model 17 some of S&W’s finest work. Congrats, you’ve got a winner there.

Pick up a copy of ‘Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson” by Jim Supica and Richard Nahas for hours of fun and hmm, I didn’t know that. It’s a big book, eminently suitable for perusing whilst sitting in the easy chair, by a roaring fire, sipping a seasonally appropriate beverage.

I’ve got all three editions (suitably inscribed by the author). The third edition is the best imho. Yep you can collect a lot of variations, Since 1957, when the K-22 Masterpiece 3rd Model became the Model 17, there are 8 numerical change models (17 to 17-7) and few others tossed in for good measure.

[300winmag]

Pick up a copy of ‘Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson” by Jim Supica and Richard Nahas for hours of fun and hmm, I didn’t know that.

Already have it, and it's considerably cheaper for the Kindle. Now I should get a color Kindle so I can enjoy the all-color 3rd edition.

There was yet one more Smith & Wesson revolver that followed me home. This one is both an absolute delight, and a deepening set of mysteries. The more I learn about it, the more questions I have. It even comes with some alleged provenance that is proving very difficult to crack.

Basically, it's a S&W US Army Model 1917 in .45ACP, made between 1917 and 1920. With an unknown number of years of a light coat of dried oil on the exterior, along with dust and crud. It was the personal sidearm of COL Walter M Johnson, originally from the 117th INF, 30th DIV. He made BG in the 11th AIRBORNE in 1953, and apparently retired about 1955.

With the exterior degunked, it looks about 95% mint, but with dozens of pinpricks of bare metal showing through the blue, and a couple of tiny rust spots. Certainly something that could still be eminently shootable. I also learned that these revolvers, called Second Model Hand Ejectors, were S&W's top of the line at the time, and the military model was made to the exact cosmetic standards as their commercial models, which came in a dizzying number of variations, on the same production line. This frame size eventually became known as the "N-frame" of today.

Opening it up for a peek inside was even more eye-opening. I have never seen the degree of perfection in machining a S&W. Of course, this is by far the oldest Smith I ever disassembled, and it showed me all sorts of production techniques that just can't be reproduced today.

The interior where the most components were located was given a jewel-like finish with what must have been an extremely sharp mill cutting at a slow speed and feed. They were working with a perfectly flat piece of steel, and only drilled and tapped for the "permanent" pivot posts later, screwing them in with special spanners. They look like rounded pins barely sticking out of the left side of the frame. In later years, the pivots would be press-fit into the frame, and any excess ground off from the left side for an invisible seam. Today, the posts are coined using machinery beyond comprehension in 1917.

The brown stuff is dried-up oil, which I eventually cleaned off. Then I tried to work all the parts in with nanolube, but the original fit was so perfect, there were no tight spots for the nanolube diamonds to work on. The bare steel beneath the hammer pivot, and the trigger opening, probably came from when the side plate was attached in final assembly, and a little bit of flex and "give" might have happened. But even the raw scratches show just bright steel, indicating it must have been a perfectly airtight fit. You can also see the tiny scratches, dings, and bumps on sharp edges of the exterior, which must have received a bit of rough handling over 30+ years. But I have never before seen that diagonal "jeweling" in the most critical internal area of the frame. I was able to accomplish a bit of polishing of the pivot posts, and the hole of the part that went on it, but flat-to-flat fitting was virtually perfect.

I wish I could open up more "ancient-mint" weapons and study them for clues as to how things were done. I also wish I had a time machine to bring some of the old-time craftsmen into our era, to see how much we've gained and lost in making the same revolver as they made in their days.

Sorry about rambling, but for me, this is the equivalent of opening King Tut's tomb. It's a love of design, craftsmanship, materials, and tools that all have to come together before even the first round is fired. Aside from newer steels, there is no way to improve on this design.

And for a final mystery, a look at the original walnut grips, which have the serial number written in pencil on the inside.

They show normal handling wear, but those two prominent notches, which look almost like they were made with a triangular file, seem very deliberate. Where do I remember a culture that commemorated significant events buy putting a notch in a wooden component of a weapon?

That ends today's quick overview of a couple hours of my study. I have a feeling this revolver can tell me still more, but I may have to toil away in research for quite a while. But the first discoveries already have left me stuned. :)

[Squantos]

Wow ...well written. I too was immediately drawn to the spanner holding the pins inside the frame. How did you come about the history linking the revolver to the General ?

Stay Safe !!!

[300winmag]

How did you come about the history linking the revolver to the General ?

A couple ratty hang tags came with the revolver, along with a bit more information from my LGS owner, who was selling a couple of rifles from the estate sale. One was a 1917 Eddystone, which he says was not GI, but Williams just picked up along the way. The other was a 1903A1 Springfield dated 1913. The finish was starting to vanish after 100 years, but the wood was in great shape, and it was mechanically near-perfect.

I suspect he was either a gun buff who bought some of this stuff when it was dirt cheap, or could prowl around the dark corners of arms vaults as the really old stuff was to be collected and sold as scrap by the ton.

[300winmag]

The grips for the S&W Model 17 came, and they look good on her. Her official title is "Lady Diana Smith-Wesson", but she said I can call her "Di".

The Hogue cocobolo grips remind me more of a dense, straight-grain walnut with lots of contrast. Nothing gaudy, just restrained good taste. She'll get a trip to the spa for some spring upgrades and a nanolube treatment before a trip back to the range.

Boxing Day was a good, but strange, day at the local gun shop. They said the place would be packed for an hour, then empty for an hour, and then another mob would appear. They said people couldn't throw money fast enough at their wares.

They also got in a gigantic shipment ("gigantic" meaning any quantity more than one of a model) from CZ-USA. Nothing has been inventoried yet, but we have high hopes for tomorrow. There are at least two CZ75 SP01s (over a year since they saw the last one), and another CZ-USA mystery weapon. It's an uncatalogued item called a "CZ75 Police Special", and nobody this side of Brno knows anything about it, other than it's vey limited production. Apparently it's a cross between a CZ75 and CZ85, all steel, non-standard barrel length, and perhaps other surprises under the hood.

With luck, at least I should get a look at both tomorrow (Friday), and maybe a purchase.

[osagebowman]

Morning Win-Mag, very nice looking grips, quite befitting a lady.

Aesthetically, I’m in the Magna crowd, diamond preferably. BUT for shooting they leave much to be desired.

Your coco Hogues have pleasing lines and checkering, I’ve haven’t tried that profile, it looks good to me. Kudos.

Good Luck on your on continuing quest.

[300winmag]

Aesthetically, I’m in the Magna crowd, diamond preferably. BUT for shooting they leave much to be desired.

Same here, but I've learned a lot about S&W factory grips over their decades of use, most of which is not encouraging for the purist. Since they took the diamond out, craftsmanship and pride has declined. They became chunkier and flatter, checkering got smaller in area, and flatter diamonds. Worst of all, the quality of the alleged gonca alves wood went down until there was no "flash" and fancy grain to most. Lady Di's original grips looked more like yellow pine, and not even fit for a commoner to wear. All too much time and materials to spend on something pricey that you're still trying to squeeze another ten cents of cost out. I see it in the auto industry all the time. The old-style Magna grips that somehow were still made of quality wood I keep stashed in a safe place.

Aside from lots of rubberized ergo-grips on the current product line, any models with wood or laminated grips apparently come from Hogue, which has spent big money to remain state-of-the-art on this area. With CNC checkering and shaping equipment, they can do more pleasing shapes, instead of by hand. The S&W aftermarket line has some of the styling cues of the old Magna stuff, but its overall shape is more rounded and contemporary.

[300winmag]

Just a quick news alert from Saturday Night Gun Pron: Santa had to leave these with a FFL holder, rather than in my stocking, but Boxing Day at the local gun store let them UN-box some of the stuff that just arrived. They had two items in my unofficial "hold" spot, waiting for my approval.

On the right, the now-rarely-seen CZ 75 SP-01 Tactical, with a diploma that shows that employee who administered the final exam might have hit the beer-vending machine in the lunch room a bit too much, first. No problemo, it leaves me with an achievable goal to "shoot for". :)

On the left, a bit of a mystery, but with great credentials. Both are all-steel, the SP-01 in .40, the Police in 9mm. Both got welcome-to-America grips fancier than the black rubber or plastic ones they arrived with. They may yet acquire some high-tech grips.

The basic model, "75 BD" is, according to the catalog, an ordinary variation, and part of their regular product line (if you can ever find one). Value-conscious shooters tend to snap up CZ products so quickly that most don't stay in stores for long. It's almost a cult item, with not enough for even the hard-core to just walk into a country (never urban) Wally World and get rung up.

What makes this one a mystery, outside the factory, is the combination of features that appear (or not) on different sub-models. All-steel frame, loaded chamber indicator, bright stainless trigger, can be found in different permutations on other models, but not all together on one. Especially the slide stamping POLICE, which isn't documented anywhere. To the CZ "enthusiast", it adds a hint of mystery to what already is a fine weapon that can be made even finer with the proper skills.

[300winmag]

Sorry, all anybody had to do was to go to www.czub.cz site, where it was all spelled out in black and white:

Model CZ 75 BD Police je standardně vybaven vypouštěním kohoutku, výstražníkem, otočitelnou zádržkou zásobníku, závěsným poutkem, drážkováním přední a zadní části rukojeti a rýhovanou spouští.

Can't get much clearer than that. (Don't worry, they also have decent English captions, too.) Plus, in Europe, if a government permits you to own a handgun, stuff like a suppressor, folding stock, vertical foregrip, etc. is just purchased as an accessory, like we'd buy a new set of grips, here.

However, scouring the CZ.cz web site turns up nothing with a slide marking "CZ 75 B COMPACT L" that I got from the CZ-USA custom shop in AZ. The combination of features on this gun are a mix from different standard models, but none matching this exact same configuration in the web site, and no special slide markings. So it's a definite CZ "Polecat Works" product, as opposed to the "POLICE", which is just a seldom-seen variation here in America.

[B4Ranch]

http://www.ammoland.com/2013/12/cz-usa-firearms-management-announcement/

[300winmag]

Welcome to Saturday Night Gun Pron's expanded coverage of the upcoming SHOT Show next week. Since none of us here are privileged (as far as I know) to attend, we will be studying speculation and intel analysis with others in the same boat we are.

First, let me say that I'm up so early/late because the igniter on the furnace cracked after eight years, and the house is stabilized at about 60 degrees (it's a balmy 44 outdoors right now), and I've been waiting for my 20-minute call-back from the tech for over four hours now.

What we're seeing new this year is the tendency of some companies to dribble out samples of new product, or at least literature, to select dealers. Fortunately, my LGS is one of them, and I have a real physical copy (they sent 5) of the 2014 CZ product guide in my hot little hands. Vendors need tons of reading material, along with free food and booze, to hand out at Las Vegas, so it takes a while for the leftovers to make it out to the unwashed masses. In fact, the LGS just got in a half-dozen boxes of the 2012 CZ catalog. And it's not just them, most companies are like that.

Among the good news was the arrival of several physical samples of real warez. Remington sent out five boxes of new .45ACP defensive ammo, which I scored a couple of. A very nice Ruger GP100 done up in a deep blue that externally resembles the quality finish of the S&W "Classic" series. Other new variations of existing weapons from other companies. Not a lot, but at least something physical for potential customers to look at, once all the publicity from the show makes it to the mortal realms.

I was present when the local semi-famous professional gun writer stopped in to get his evaluation copies of two new Glocks that we weren't supposed to see until Glock announced them at the show. Fortunately for everyone, another writer posted pictures and details online already, so that bit of suspense is now shot to hell. Everybody will be deluged with details and opinions (so of them informed) next week, so these are just random snippets.

A number of companies are promising a trickle of sample items that will appear in stores right after the show. Remington will release their new R51, a modernized version inspired by Pederson's Model 51, but beefed up for 9mm +P, rather than his elegant .32 and .380 blowback versions from the 1910s and 20s.

The store owner has already paid Remington for an initial order of 50, and hopes to see 5 or 6 this year, which is how things work in today's world. Further down the line in Remington's plans are to produce the R53 as the modern equivalent of their Model 53, which was a .45ACP weapon that could have provided a significant challenge to the Colt M1911.

The Marines had been on the Navy's case about getting them more M1911s, but the Army had all the productive capacity tied up in their own needs, which is was one reason the M1917 revolvers from Colt and S&W were produced as a stopgap. Remington quietly built two modified M53s for low-key, informal testing by the Navy and Marines, with one of them quietly vanishing into the mists of history, or into someone's vault. The Navy had no problem finding enough Marine volunteers to put over 6000 rounds through the other without a stoppage, and without even cleaning it. Not totally scientific, but a good indication of what it could do.

Colt and the Army were invited to an informal plinking session, and asked to bring some NIB M1911s to make it interesting. At this time in the 1911's life, there were problems with barrel bushings cracking, because World War One could be considered "advanced beta testing", with hundreds of millions of rounds still needed to be fired to make sure the deeply-hidden flaws were all flushed out.

The Marines took the filthy M53, and proceeded to shoot rings around the Colt, including turning in groups that were consistently half the size the Colt was capable of. There was an uneasy silence as everybody contemplated broken rice bowls, with a final agreement that everybody was better off swearing that this never happened.

One final anecdote to finish off my trip to the LGS today: as I walked in, a couple were being told that the AR15 they bought from the trunk of some guy in the parking lot of a gun show was not an AR15, but a commercial version of the Colt M16A1. The man insisted that the seller told him the "extra stuff", was just there for looks, but the store gunsmith took the lower half of the weapon, and gave them a crash course on what the "happy" setting on the selector really did. The two halves were wrapped up, and given back to them, and six burly and heavily-armed sales bubbas escorted them to the door, and advised to find the "nice man" from the parking lot to take back the assault rifle before BATFE or some local police started looking at their $300 "bundle of joy".

A properly-papered version of that weapon would be worth about 100x what they paid for it, so what they had was really no bargain, just a ticking time bomb. :)

[300winmag]

Oh, and another byte of news left over from yesterday.

Smith and Wesson will debut their new L-frame-based five-shot revolver in .44 Magnum at the SHOT Show, too. For people who feel that a .38 snubbie revolver isn't quite big enough, they're stuffing a big V8 engine into a Ford Fiesta for you. :)

No mention of scandium frames, or 2" barrels, but I wouldn't put it past them for some time in the future. While I won't buy one NIB, I have the feeling there will be a few near-new ones in the used-gun case once novelty wears off, and the recoil effects start to kick in.

That's one of the benefits of patiently panning for gold every day. Every once in a while, you get a real streak of "color" in your pan. :)

Coming later today, no definitive answers, but some really informed guesses about the mysterious CZ Compact-L

[300winmag]

Continuing to fill in blank space until the upcoming SHOT Show allows an opportunity for spouting some fresh hot air, let me present some tentative theories on what exactly the CZ Compact-L is, in addition to being a fine handgun.

It is roughly equivalent to the CZ 75D Compact in 9mm.

CZ has a lot of mix-and-match parts that can be combined into new variations. But one thing unique to the Comp-L is the aluminum frame. The dust cover is slab-sided, and extended right to the muzzle. This allows just enough room to add a short rail with a single cross-sight, for light or laser. The CZ compacts have a shorter grip with two fewer rounds in the magazine, shorter barrel and slide, and no rails, all in the effort to make a shorter, lighter, handier weapon for people who desire those qualities.

But, for CZ-USA only, the factory in Brno makes the Comp-L, and ships it to this country like any other of their products, complete with the usual final exam papers. But from there it goes to CZ Custom Shop, where their resident Scottish mad scientist, Angus Hobdell, puts them through more transformations, resulting in a second certificate, showing the improvements.

Visible changes include the longer SP01 slide release, Hogue aluminum "gunfighter" grips, and even further refinement of trigger quality. But the biggest change is accuracy, which changed from the usual CZ "not too shabby" to "OMG!". It's then packed back in the American BATFE-compliant packaging, with Angus's smiling face added to a sticker to make the box stand out from the other CZ inventory.

That was the extent of our analysis until Friday, when professional gun writer James Tarr came in to pick up his almost-secret Glock evaluation guns. He was stuned to see that last of the five CompLs still in the box, waiting for the owner to take it off of layaway. Looking at it, he recognized it as the production version of Angus's custom piece that he'd been carrying for over two years. For all we know, which still isn't much, those five may be the first ones allowed outside and into the real world. He griped that nobody called him to let him know they came in, and left with new owners, about a month ago.

To which Mike, the owner's son, said, "well, if you came in more than once a month, rather than jetting all over the world getting paid to shoot someone else's guns, you could have had one. But we had no idea they were in that last shipment, and still no better idea when we looked at it, trying to figure out why it existed. Now you know to squeeze Angus for more answers, and probably get paid to write an article on it if we ever see another one". Tarr had snagged the first-and-only CZ P09 in 9mm when it got to the store, while I beat him out to the first-and-only (at that time) P09 in .40S&W. He just doesn't know that it was me, and I'm not going to volunteer. I'm already under surveillance by a couple of wealthy old Colt collectors for beating them out on those two Pythons.

Sometimes it pays to work in the rice paddy every day, because on rare occasions that makes you the early bird that gets the worm. :)

[osagebowman]

ohmygoodness Win Mag...what a nice CZ, custom shop no less Finally got to see what it looks like. They are thing on the ground around these parts, time was, pre-bo, that the CZs were a regular item. Now gone with wind. Kudos on diligence and persistence, it has sure paid off Is a range report in the offing? One hopes so.
My buddy has picked up a CZ, hope to find out what it is next week at the range.
again, nice find.

[g'nad]

yer CZ fetish is wearing off on me...

[300winmag]

yer CZ fetish is wearing off on me...

I do my part to help. Anything I can help with? So far, most of my experience has been with their handguns, although rifles and shotguns are now slouches, either. And it's not a fetish to like one of the highest-performing weapons out there for the most reasonable price. To be honest, a CZ Custom Shop or Sphinx is a real fetish for me, but so much worth the money, when I have it.

While that's an aftermarket pink finish, CZ is now offering their own official CZ 75 SP01 Shadow with black frame, and pink everything else. Pink is not usually a "guy color", but if TheWife or TheGirl like pink, it might make the purchase of your next regular-color CZ that much easier, and much less likely to be borrowed. :)

[g'nad]

you may have somethin’ there...