PPC Course of fire

J

JRD

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Even though I've never done PPC competition, nor have any aspirations to, I do love to shoot revolvers. Mainly it's just informally ringing steel gongs with my friends at the gun club with old S&W's.

Lately I've been eyeing PPC revolvers, thinking they look really cool, and would be fun to ring some steel with 38 wadcutters.

I notice many- but not all- revolvers modified for PPC are K frames that have been bobbed for DAO.

Is PPC competition all fired in DAO as a rule, or was the timed component such that it dictated shooting in double action to get your shots off?
 
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In my most formative gun years, Mom signed us up at the local Sportsman's Club. I joined the four position smallbore team and also shot skeet first on Sundays and later, twice a week. I literally spent portions of 5 days out of each 7-day week at this club.

And Saturday morning was official PPC matches on the indoor basement range. I watched in awe at the custom rigs and ultra-cool speed loaders and slick custom revolvers.

It's part of who I am now even though I've never once shot the course. I do chase old-school custom PPC guns now and I love 'em. LOVE 'EM!

I said all that to say this:
If you buy an old custom PPC revolver, you will almost surely face a fork in the road. One way, you need to be a handloader and you must make your ammo with Federal primers. If that is not your path than the other fork is that you shim your mainspring tension screw.

If you try to ignore this fork than you'll likely see 30-75% (estimated) failure to fire in double action with a custom 70's/80's built proper PPC gun.

Single action? Most or maybe all will go bang. Double action? You'll have so many FTF's with factory ammo that you'll cry. If you take the path and shim the strain screw, it will work but it's simply gonna crush that absolutely sublime, slick custom DA trigger stroke.

I'm definitely not trying to deter you from an old school custom, but I do want to make sure you know the cost of admission.

Me? I've stocked a slew of Federal 100 primers and I only, ONLY use them for me sweetheart PPC rigs. Got some Strahans, got some some Davis, they make my face hurt from the ear to ear grins. :D
 
Thank you for the explanations gentlemen. I'm a Model 52 fan so I shoot plenty of mid-range wadcutters already.

The Federal primers needed for lightened mainsprings, I understand, though I'd have to decide whether to load dedicated PPC ammo, or perhaps undo some of a trigger job by swapping in a stronger mainspring. I have a good grasp of firing pin energy and the factors that affect it for a hobbiest tinkerer.

First I need to find the right PPC gun and it's fun to be looking and doing the research anyway.
 
JRD said:
…

perhaps undo some of a trigger job by swapping in a stronger mainspring...
Click to expand...

Swapping in a mainspring does not undo a trigger job. I have always used a factory mainspring in my revolvers. I need a smooth pull that will go bang every time. Light does not cut it, smooth is what is needed.

Kevin
 
I shot PPC from the late 60's to the early 80s (when work no longer allowed the time to practice and compete).

My PPC revolver was built up on a Ruger Six series, and I had this built in '77. It was close to this time that I decided to shoot the entire course DA. It took 3k rounds of practice before I got the technique down. I so prefer shooting only DA that to this day, if I pick up a DA revolver to shoot, I am going to shoot it DA.

Legendary gunsmith Jim Clark was among the PPC gun builders. He, along with most others, built the revolvers on either Smith K frames, Ruger Six series, or Colts. Jim Clark designed an adjustable mainspring assembly for the Ruger coil mainspring. Inside the mainspring is a strut. Clark created a new round one, which he then threaded. By turning a nut one could adjust their mainspring as light or tight as they desired.

I did find out, the hard way, that it was way too easy to adjust to a mite too light, just enough for a FTF. I blew a couple of outstanding scores this way, with a single FTF out of 150 rounds while on the line. It was best to do a lot of testing before using a new spring setting in a match. I finally got to where I would practice with a setting, then tighten by half a turn to be on the safe side.

I still have that great old revolver, still with the Rogers grips. Still shoot it occasionally, and it is still better than I ever was.

Very late into this I had a Smith 6" 586 with the tall Patridge front sight customized for competition use. It never saw the heat of competition because I dropped out of competition shooting. But it is a beautiful revolver with an even heavier muzzle than my Ruger and an extremely smooth action. I think it would have been a great match gun.
 
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^^ Yes, I love it! ^^





This was built by Bill Davis (I did not commission this build) and it's a Python barrel on a 1980 Ruger Police Service Six. Unfortunately, my coil mainspring strut is not threaded and adjustable like the cool Clark you described. I did once experiment with shimming it so that it would reliably detonate CCI primers and succeeded at that, but the difference in the DA stroke was gargantuan in my opinion.
 
I competed with this one,

strawhat-albums-strawhat-ii-picture25045-d52df450-cfde-42a2-9704-7a6e0fd37384.jpeg


Kevin
 
Do they allow American Commoners? NRA doesn't like anybody but cops shooting at humanoid targets. I shot under the old Police Marksman's Association and they winked at my "honorary deputy" card up to the state level.

My PPC revolver was built up on a Ruger Six series,
Legendary gunsmith Jim Clark was among the PPC gun builders.
Click to expand...

I never saw but two full house PPC Rugers, both done at Clark's.
One's DA was comparable to a Smith, the other was pretty heavy and only somewhat smoothed.
 
Jim Watson said:
Do they allow American Commoners? NRA doesn't like anybody but cops shooting at humanoid targets. I shot under the old Police Marksman's Association and they winked at my "honorary deputy" card up to the state level.
Click to expand...

Good point, Jim. The NRA rule book addresses LEOs only. Marysville admits so-called "civilians" to the matches in separate categories. PPC has historically been for law enforcement personnel, but I think it's good that Marysville opens it up to all. LEOs shoot alongside non-LEOs in a number of local matches, PPC and others. I like that.
 
PPC, for LE purposes, which was how an officer or agent qualified back then, was considerably different than the PPC match course. The Bureau started at 60 yards, but lots of local agencies shot no further than 25 yards.
 
I shot a lot of PPC in the mid 70s till the late 80s. Fired revolver and auto (.45 Gold Cup) and the snubbie/off duty class (max of a 2 1/2 barrel) fun shoot.

Was also a instructor and RO at those events!

For regular revolver I just could not justify all the money needed to have a space gun. I did quite well on my customized by me Model 28 6". I started out shooting single action at 50 but as I got better and a bit smarter I went to DA for all my shots. Why have two different forms of gun handling? Only practice one.
 
Sevens,

Still two ways to a lighter mainspring despite the Clark adjustable mainspring being long out of production.

One option, perhaps, would be a Wolff Six series mainspring. I don't know if this specific spring is still available though. Last I looked they packaged the main and trigger return springs in a package for both the Six series and the GP 100 series. The problem with that is that the mainspring supplied is for the GP 100 series and way too long for the Six series.

Here is one you can still do. When I first had my Ruger built up into a PPC revolver, no reduced power mainsprings were available and Clark had not yet introduced his adjustable assembly. I had read somewhere that a 10/22 bolt spring would work. It required filing down the strut to make it narrow enough to go inside the narrow 10/22 spring. It worked perfectly. It made for a much lighter pull with no FTFs. I only went to the Clark unit because I wanted the adjustability to try and go lighter. I still have that 10/22-Six series-strut assembly.

Beautiful Cougar BTW. I have a 6" Python I used for the leg matches. It has an excellent trigger job, and I did well with it. But, my Ruger PPC guns and my customized 586 all have lighter and smoother actions. So with what you have, it is the best of both worlds. Between my 586 and my Six series, while they differ in feel, it is too close to call as to lightness and smoothness. Even after all these years, both still amaze me.
 
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I took an old PPC parter to IDPA today. He has stayed with PPC even though the matches are few and poorly attended. He said he went to two this year without a shot fired because only 3 people showed up.

shawn mccarver said:
PPC, for LE purposes, which was how an officer or agent qualified back then, was considerably different than the PPC match course. The Bureau started at 60 yards, but lots of local agencies shot no further than 25 yards.
Click to expand...

Early days, the FBI PPC shot a string at 7 yards then moved to 60.
Advance to 50 and 25 at your own pace, the range lanes diverged so you could have men shooting at different ranges without sweeping each other.
In 1959 they went to "stages" with individual fixed times on a square range so as to accommodate more shooters in the same space.

My local shoot was an abbreviated 7, 15, 25 yard CoF but there was another range nearby shooting the regulation event to 50.

A big change is aiming at all ranges where you used to have to hip shoot at 7 and "point shoulder" at 15 yards.
Speedloaders were the other big innovation; making time limits with belt loops or dump pouches was a lot tougher than whipping out a speed loader.
 
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JRD said:
Even though I've never done PPC competition, nor have any aspirations to, I do love to shoot revolvers. Mainly it's just informally ringing steel gongs with my friends at the gun club with old S&W's.

Lately I've been eyeing PPC revolvers, thinking they look really cool, and would be fun to ring some steel with 38 wadcutters.

I notice many- but not all- revolvers modified for PPC are K frames that have been bobbed for DAO.

Is PPC competition all fired in DAO as a rule, or was the timed component such that it dictated shooting in double action to get your shots off?
Click to expand...

Shooting double action is the best way to go, shot PPC for 4 years and it all was double action. I don't know if it was a secret, but aiming at the neck was how you got your best scores. Smaller target to aim at, still the best hold today for some classes. Shot Bullseye with revolvers double action for years, I held my own with everyone.
 
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