Heavily Modified 10-7 What do I have?

[BoulderTroll]

Not a lot to say the pics tell the story. Model 10-7 with little more bull barrel than usual and a little more target sight than usual.

Opinions, Myths, Facts, Fuddlore? Lets have it.

Looks identical to the one I shot PPC with. I didn't buy it, so I have no idea who made it, but wow...that gun was a tack driver.

 

[hkcavalier]

Sevens is right on regarding the tuning. One old trick was to have a hole in the grip for access to the strain screw, you could turn the tension down until you got light hits then bump it back to 100% ignition.

Not sure if it's an "old school" trick but you can accomplish the same with a hex head set screw. Set it to the lightest 100% turn. Some go as far as finding it then applying blue Loc-Tite but I never have seen the need, there's plenty of tension on the screw given by the mainspring.

 

[CALREB]

Back in the late 70s and much of the 80s there would be 800-900 shooters at the Nationals. Now I think its around 300 or less. Sign of the times. A lot of people shoot other stuff. Some of my old guns.

 

[RetCapt]

Adding to Sevens' excellent summary on getting the lightest DA pull, at the risk of failures to fire. Here was my experience.

Both of my PPC revolvers (my primary and the back up I never had to use) were (are, still have them) built up on Ruger Six Series.

Jim Clark, the patriarch of Clark Custom, came up the a method to adjust mainspring weight on the coil mainspring. He replaced the stock Ruger strut with a new one fabricated from cylindrical stock. The shaft portion was threaded. A nut was used to retain the spring at the bottom, rather than a pin on the stock strut. Turning the thread loosened or tightened the spring, thus varying trigger pull.

The department obtained wadcutter ammo from various sources, none of them, unfortunately, Federal. One had to make sure to test whichever ammo the department was supplying at any given time before a match to make sure it would light off. A couple of times I failed to do this and got a misfire during a match. That meant I was done. It was only ever one, so I was close on where I had adjusted the spring. But close don't count.

What I should have done was thoroughly test, find the FTF point, tighten the spring to get (apparently) past that, then tighten another half turn to make sure. But ammo availability and practice time and opportunity were limited so I did not do this as often as I should have. I paid the price.

Much later, and not too long before time pressure had forced me out of competition, another retiring competitor had given me a large quantity of Winchester wadcutter ammo. Not Federal but very good stuff. This finally allowed me to properly calibrate the mainspring. No more FTFs after that.

That Clark adjustable mainspring assembly was ingenious.

 

[jimmyj]

In the "PPC" days I used my service revolver and leather. Never a threat to the top shooters but I used my service outfit for two reasons: 1. little or no funds. 2. helped my marksmanship and reaction time on "The Streets" when on patrol.

 

[AJ]

A.F.Behlert made this one. It is a DAO. Even with a shaky old guy shooting it, it does pretty good.

I just checked the pull on this Behlert and it is 12 pounds. Smooth as silk.

 

[SGT ROCK 11B]

The downside is they are built for .38 Special 148 grain wadcutters.

Hey Sarge! Model 10/64HB guy here. How so? Rifling twist different from service bbls? How would they handle LRN service loads? Inquiring minds want to know.

Kaaskop49
Shield #5103[/QUOTE]

In PPC we all shot the 148 grain HBWC. PPC guns have custom barrels and the 148 grain HBWC is the load you want. Now for the Distinguished Match you had to shoot a Service/Duty revolver so the Model 14 (or another 6 inch) rule that with a 158 grain LSWC.

 

[SGT ROCK 11B]

In the "PPC" days I used my service revolver and leather. Never a threat to the top shooters but I used my service outfit for two reasons: 1. little or no funds. 2. helped my marksmanship and reaction time on "The Streets" when on patrol.

I think a lot of us started that way.

 

[silicosys4]

PPC guns are sweet shooters, I buy any I can find when they show up for a good price. I used to see them for under $500 unless they were a name-brand custom shop build. I haven't seen any for that price for a while now but I still keep my eye out.

The first one I bought was a very nice 10-5 by a shop called "Cole's Customs", but I've only ever run across one other gun marked as such so whoever that was couldn't have been that big.

 

[Protocall_Design]

The 2 main differences between a stock gun and a gun for wadcutters would be a barrel with a tighter rifling twist, usually 1 in 14 or 1 in 10.

Some guns had the cylinder cut shorter on the front so that the wadcutter ammo was just inside the front end of the cylinder, with a longer shank on the barrel to match.

 

[jumbeaux]

BOMAR made tons of the Top Rib with Adjustable sights back in the day IIRC. I seem to remember Jim Clark of Clark's Guns utilized them.

rick

 

[mckenney99]

SGT ROCK 11B;142202875]Hey Sarge! Model 10/64HB guy here. How so? Rifling twist different from service bbls? How would they handle LRN service loads? Inquiring minds want to know.

I'm sure there were many reasons for the use of wadcutters.
I know one of the reasons is that the flat nose of the wadcutter cuts a nice clean edged full diameter hole in the target. That clean edge is important because if the bullet hole cuts the line of the next higher scoring ring, you get the higher "point". LRN bullets cut a puckered hole instead of a clean hole and can just tear the target leading to all kinds of challenges.

 

[H Richard]

When I transitioned to a 1911, built for PPC, the 200 gr SWC cut as clean a hole, and lots larger.

 

[SGT ROCK 11B]

PPC guns are sweet shooters, I buy any I can find when they show up for a good price. I used to see them for under $500 unless they were a name-brand custom shop build. I haven't seen any for that price for a while now but I still keep my eye out.

The first one I bought was a very nice 10-5 by a shop called "Cole's Customs", but I've only ever run across one other gun marked as such so whoever that was couldn't have been that big.

View attachment 729945

"Cole's" were likely Regional based. Remember before the Internet most shooters bought what was local.

The other day I came across a "Cheshire & Perez" PPC revolver and that was the first one I have seen in 30+ years, but they were big in the 1970s out of Monrovia, CA.

 

[fouraceswes]

I went out and shot the 10-5 PPC Revolver last Wednesday and ended up putting about 100 rounds through it. All 125 grain Hornady reloads, ones I did myself. It was so darned much fun, I always have fun when I shoot but this was a sort of "extra" experience. I do shoot some double action with my other revolvers but not 100 rounds at a time. The extra challenge of it was really something. I am not the most accurate shooter in the world by a long shot but a couple cylinders that were very tightly shot showed me what this pistol could do in the hands of someone who could really shoot.

The trigger is sublime and I noticed for the first time the ball detent that was added on the cylinder. I did get maybe three or four light strikes and misfires but just went over them again.

What a great shooting experience of an old, cool firearm. The unknown history of its creation makes it more fun.

I appreciate everyone's input and would appreciate even more if anyone had any other input.

 

[Vtgw938]

Don't think anyone mentioned it but most or many PPC would use a neck hold at 50 yards. With the top of the front sight level with the top of the shoulders of B27 target, one would have a setting that would drop the wadcutter into the X ring hopefully.It was easier to replicate the hold on the distant target.

 

[dsf]

Mine started life as a Model 65 - 4" I'm supposing.



The barrel is marked 148 wadcutter only. Not that it would matter, given my skill level, but I reload using 357 cases rather than 38 Special.

The gun has the "floating hand" S&W used for a bit. Again, not sure if it makes any real difference in the pull.

 

[Sevens]

I appreciate everyone's input and would appreciate even more if anyone had any other input.

If it were mine -- I would stick to lead bullets only, simply because that's what the barrel was designed around specifically. I'm sure that opinions would vary WIDELY and I wouldn't mind hearing them, but in my opinion, this is not a high volume produced factory gun and it's purpose-built barrel is arguably irreplaceable, and it was designed specifically for 148 grain wadcutters.

I'm not saying that jacketed or plated bullets will HARM this barrel, I'm simply saying that it's outside the scope of its design. For me, I have a dozen other revolvers that eat jacketed and plated bullets, so my PPC guns shoot lead bullets only.

I would also point out that a PPC revolver barrel almost surely has some trace lead in it already and pounding jacketed or plated bullets over trace lead is definitely not a good idea at all. The bore gets incrementally smaller with lead buildup and jacketed bullets over trace lead make that lead extremely hard to remove.

The barrel is marked 148 wadcutter only. Not that it would matter, given my skill level, but I reload using 357 cases rather than 38 Special.

I don't see anything wrong with choosing to use .357 brass here, but at the same time, I would slot this right next to cleaning primer pockets. Some people do it, never will I ever do it, and if we (somehow?) had the data and evidence from thousands of PPC competitors from the 1960's through the 1980's and especially the champion shooters, I bet we wouldn't find any using .357 brass.

However, much like cleaning primer pockets, I absolutely endorse the choices that other handloaders make if the end result is their having confidence in what they are doing., and confidence in the ammo they are making. That confidence leads to success, in my opinion.

I will note, simply because it seems relevant, that the few PPC builders who elected to do builds on .357 chambered guns typically stated quite clearly to NEVER run .357 Magnum ammo through these custom guns. The explanation I've read is that they warned against torquing of the massive barrel in the frame. This custom barrel was designed for 700-800 fps, not the 1,200-1,600 fps that you can attain with .357 Magnum.

(not that you ever suggested you were doing that with your .357 brass)