625-6 In for spa treatment

[catadjuster]

Very nice work indeed. I don't believe that peening and metal displacement was caused by really fast double action. It seems much more likely to me that some knucklehead spent some time spinning the cylinder (in both directions) prior to flipping the cylinder shut.

Just my thought, but it doesn't fit with the crane appearing to be straight still.

 

[notsofast]

Nice work, great write-up. Thanks

 

[292]

Thank you so much. Great thread.

 

[BMCM]

Evening Gents,

Progress update on Doug's M625...

Setting up to chamfer the cylinder's chargeholes and spotted this bent leg on the extractor star. This got by me earlier, good thing I caught it now.

I straightened that out with this parallel jaw plier with the brass lined jaws. Good to go now.

Now over to my bench lathe. Instead of turning the cutter with the little clunky "T" handle, I choose to use the lathe. I have the cutter held in a 5C collet and turn it at about 40RPM. I have a Bodine brushless motor with controller on my lathe which permits infinity variable spindle speed and loads of torque at very slow speed.

Anyway, 45° chamfer cutter with a 45ACP chamber pilot installed. I put three cases in the cylinder to support the extractor, butter up the cutter & pilot with some cutting oil then cut the chamfer on the other three chargeholes.

Shift the brass cases to the freshly cut holes then do the three remaining.

Looks much better once it's all cleaned up.

The chamfer provides a smooth lead in so the case mouth/s wont catch on the way in.

Reloads just drop right in there slicker than.... Well... slick

One more thing to check on the cylinder assembly. Put the thing back together and load it into the test fixture. And yep... a bit over 0.015" of runout in the extractor rod. That's no damn good at all.

After about 20 minutes or so of careful un-bending and spinning the thing we are now under 0.002 for runout. Good to go.

Over on the barrel, I fixed a divot on the underlug front bottom with some careful filing and a little buff with some abrasive tape. That rod you see in the bore is the pilot of an expanding mandrel to index a crowning cutter off of.

And now we have an 11° recessed crown.

Next up is prep for some media blasting. I need the mask off the barrel to protect the laser etching and to keep any media out of the locking bolt. Also going the install the yoke, sideplate and the three screws and bead blast that all together except the yoke barrel will also be masked. I will blast the stripped cylinder separately.

My blast cabinet is loaded with mixed media (glass beads + aluminum oxide). That stuff has too much tooth for this surface finish so I'm going to go with straight glass beads. I'll have to do this open air weather permitting with my Paasche hopper gun. I'll get on that perhaps tomorrow or Wednesday, that's all for now.

Cheers
Bill

 

[Nick B]

I wish you were my next door neighbor.

 

[Billythepoet]

Amazing level of detail here!

 

[BMCM]

Ahoy there Gents,

Tended to the bead blasting today...

Here's a couple shots all masked off & plugged up. I turned a couple plugs out of some delrin rod, one to stop off the muzzle and and another to fit the forcing cone wedged in place against the recoil shield. Also put a sleeve of shrink tube over the yoke barrel.

And the starboard side.

I used straight number 10 glass beads which are 100-170 mesh size in a Paasche hopper gun at 60 psi.

Only took perhaps 30 minute to do everything. Still, I don't particularly care to blast stuff in the open, it makes a big mess. I have a good size patch of the gravel drive that looks like fresh snow Anyway I think the finish came out pretty nice.

Here's all the bits right after cleanup.

A closeup of the spot where the cylinder was smackin' the frame.
While you can still just make out where the dings were, I think it cleaned up pretty well.

The area of the backstrap that was all chewed up.

Seems I need to put this back together

Training day tomorrow... Squats, press & deadlift so... I'll probably get after this on Thursday. Until then...

Cheers
Bill

 

[CH4]

Very nicely done!!

Silly question: Not being a fan of the new-style frame lug, how hard would it be to remove the section above where the original stop would be located, i.e., make it look like the old style?
I know it's not practical, but never cared for the look of it. If I had your abilities and was already that deep into the "spa day" project, Id probably find away to remove it.

 

[BMCM]

Very nicely done!!

Silly question: Not being a fan of the new-style frame lug, how hard would it be to remove the section above where the original stop would be located, i.e., make it look like the old style?
I know it's not practical, but never cared for the look of it. If I had your abilities and was already that deep into the "spa day" project, Id probably find away to remove it.

Yeah I don't much care for the new look either. It wouldn't be too much trouble to mill that off. The tricky bit would be getting the cut areas to blend with the existing flats such that it doesn't look like a hack job. I'd almost be more inclined to wipe to whole thing off and poke a hole in there to install an old style frame lug instead of trying to fiddle with shaping one out of that cast in lug. In any event, I only try experimental stuff on my personal guns and since it's pretty unlikely I'll be owning one of these new models the point is moot

Cheers
Bill

 

[BMCM]

All done but the test drive

Evening Gents,

Wrapping this job up...

Started out with trial fitting some sideplate shims in there since there was a bunch of lateral slop in both the trigger and hammer.
I wanted to take some of that slop out without binding of course.

Set the shims in place with just the hammer & trigger in there then bolt the sideplate down and check for function. I wound up adding 0.002" on each side of the hammer and 0.004" on both sides of the trigger.

A light polish on the bottom & left side of the rebound slide with a fine ceramic stone then stuffed all the remaining bits in there.

Strategically lubed here and there with a bit of Brownells action lube plus and some Lubriplate FMO 350AW

Before I buttoned her up.

The Spegel boot grips I degreased and cleaned a few days back and left them to dry thoroughly. Gave 'em a wipe down with some tung oil today.

But those grips a too small for me so I stuck these open backstrap Nill grips on there. They're a bit small for me too but much better than the boot grips.

Weather permitting I'll be heading over the the Concordia Parish SO range on Saturday for a test drive and to regulate the new sights.

Range report to follow sometime Saturday.

Cheers
Bill

 

[CH4]

Yeah I don't much care for the new look either. It wouldn't be too much trouble to mill that off. The tricky bit would be getting the cut areas to blend with the existing flats such that it doesn't look like a hack job. I'd almost be more inclined to wipe to whole thing off and poke a hole in there to install an old style frame lug instead of trying to fiddle with shaping one out of that cast in lug. In any event, I only try experimental stuff on my personal guns and since it's pretty unlikely I'll be owning one of these new models the point is moot

Cheers
Bill

Thanks for your concurrence. I like your idea about eliminating the entire cast lug and installing an old style lug. Nonetheless I am very impressed the outcome.

 

[TAROMAN]

Better than new!
A masterful job, Master Chief.

 

[Adupuy]

Wow that's a beautiful gun, now. I can't believe it's the same one as
Before.

 

[Doug M.]

Looking good. I am going to be glad to get it back, and I think all who read this can see why I am confident that having Bill do the inspection and work was a great idea.

 

[BMCM]

Evening Gents,

Well, it's all dirtied up again

Considering my lousy eyesight I can't complain about the accuracy. This is six shots of TZZ 185gr match wadcutter at 15 yards.

Did identify one issue with the sights though. The thing is... the shooter's eye is drawn to the gold bead so when you center the bead in the "V" notch the front sight blade is proud of the backsight by a good measure such that I ran out of elevation adjustment. If I leveled the the top of the sights fore & aft then half of the bead is obscured.

This scribble sort of represents what the sight picture looked like.

Back in early February we were discussing the sights and Doug asked about a wide "U" for the rear. Knowing that wasn't an available part anyone made I suggested the "V" notch slide. Well, while mine was was a good idea in theory, in practice it sucked. So, I made it into Doug's wide "U" notch.

This will do much better.

Now I gotta go clean the thing again

Cheers
Bill

 

[oldbrownhat]

I wonder if a gold/brass insert in a front sight would be a possibility- like the XS white line (which I like) but in gold. A sliver of brass inserted into the blade could be flush with the top, rather than stopping short as the SDM bead does. And I guess the head of the SDM bead isn't "larger enough" than the shaft behind it that the blade itself could be milled down to allow the bead to sit right at the top.


In any case, Doug is going to be one happy fella when he gets that back

 

[Doug M.]

I darned sure am. A significant portion of my affection for the "U" notch is the work of a pistol smith who himself getting older; I think it was Chuck Rogers. He advocated a wider "U" and relatively larger front sight and calls them "old guy" sights. A few years ago, I learned the hard way that I was now in the group that needed such a crutch.

 

[oldbrownhat]

...A few years ago, I learned the hard way that I was now in the group that needed such a crutch.

Join the club

 

[rm06]

What an awesome thread, thanks for posting it! Excellent work as well, I really enjoyed watching the transformation.

It makes me think I need to get a 625 now...

 

[Bob L]

Thanks for the education Bill!! I really appreciate you doing posts like this.