How to use moon clips?

[mistersmith]

Just purchased a mid 60s 25-2, S prefix. It came with a couple of full moon clips. I took it out shooting and had a heck of a time loading the clips and loading the gun, also had a challenge removing the spent cases afterwards from the clips. I'm sure there's an easier way to use these clips if someone would like to share.

The gun is a great shooter, thanks John.

Lastly, I want to purchase some additional clips, is there a preferred source or manufacturer, the pair I have seem super tight.

Thanks
Robert

PS. pictures to be posted soon.

 

[growr]

I use a pair of pliers to gently snap the cartridge in and a Demooning tool I bought from Dillon...you will get many other tips or suggestions to make this REAL easy.

Nothing faster than moon clips into the gun and out.....with the 230 fmj's they almost leap into the cylinder!

I shoot a 25-2 and a 625 .45acp in USPSA/IDPA/ICORE and have a blast with them!!

Randy

 

[k22fan]

I use demooners from Brownell's. All they are is a tube with one end closed and a step in the open end. Worded differently the open end is cut off square with one half cut a little shorter. You put the tube over a case then hold the shoulder against the clip while you rotate the tool. The empties drop into the tube. They are easily made by cutting off old golf clubs.

I do not use a tool to load the clips. I pin the cartridge against the corner of a depression in the top of a large plastic tool box while I press the full moon onto it with a thumb in the center of the clip. There are tools made for the purpose. Some expensive ones load the whole clip at once.

Filling or emptying clips free hand risks bending them. Bent clips cushion the firing pin strike causing missfires.

If you chamfer the chamber mouths and use round nose bullets .45 full moons can be tossed into the cylinder with a slight spin. The revolver only needs to be in your peripheral vision. S&W's most famous professional shooter, Jerry Miculek, has posted videos of how its done on you tube. More casually you should be able to just drop them in with the revolver pointed down. If they won't fall in then you need to reconsider your reloads.

 

[Neumann]

Moon clips are not only essential for a .45 ACP revolver, they are highly effective. Since both the chamber and star can be beveled aggressively without affecting extraction, moon clips are very fast.

I use a tool from Deluxe Moon Clip Tool, which not only loads but demoons effectively. I find with .45 ACP the first five are fairly easy to load by hand, but the last slot has no space for the ears to expand. Demooning is not only hard, but likely to bend the moon clip if you do it by hand. The two holes in the end of the grip fit .45 ACP and .38 cases, with a lip that engages the clip for leverage.

There's nothing wrong with the Brownell demooner, or a homemade one, but with the mooncliptool, it's one less thing to carry. Bench top loaders are great for .45, but bulky. Since I shoot .357 too, both 8 and 7 round, one mooncliptool works for both.

I bought enough moon clips so I can load 100 or more rounds ahead of time for a trip to the range. It's great not having to chase spent shells, and losing 30% of them in the process (100% when shooting outdoors in gravel).

 

[steelslaver]

I use a "homemade" tool to empty my moon clips. The clips are not expensive, and if you shoot yours much get a lot of them. Load them up during your spare time. I kind of think of it as part of my 45 acp reloading process. I lay a bunch of rounds on a old piece of fax marble counter top (piece cut out for a sink) that I also use to tool leather. Press the clips down on to the case rims. The tool I made to demoon is hollow all the way through and I work it over a plastic coffee "can" spilling the empties into it. Also, take a piece of 2x12 12 1/2" long and drill holes in it for 1/2" dowels. Start the first row 1 3/4" down from top and 1 1/4" in from one corner and then space every 2" down the length. Stagger the next rows 2' down from the one above it. Glue in 7" long pieces of dowel after you bevel the ends a bit. Now each dowel will hold 3 loaded clips. I left out the 3 center dowels of the middle row and used 2 long 1/2" bolts to make a handle that is centered and raised above the loaded clips. Bolt head is recessed into 2x12. Holds 79 clips or 474 rounds when loaded to the top. Adjust the size of the board or height of dowels to suit your desires. Someone did one like this and made it to fit inside an ammo can. http://smith-wessonforum.com/s-w-re...01-moonclip-storage-update-version-2-0-a.html


I keep thinking about making more demooners and putting an a in the for sale section.

 

[Jackcpat]

Moon clips

Look up moon clip mooners and de mooners on you tube. There's a de-Mooner similar to the ones Steelslayer uses but on the other end is the loader where there is a cut in the copper tube with an O ring rolled across it to hold the live round in place. Very easy to make yourself. I use the BMTMOONER for my 25-2 simple and fast loading and unloading, only down side is they're expensive.
Enjoy, that a fine handgun

 

[Basque1]

See my thread on this subject
http://smith-wessonforum.com/s-w-re...emooner-moon-clip-loading-unloading-tool.html

 

[Jack Flash]

You may already know this but you don't need to use moon clips any time they are more trouble than they are worth. The chambers of your revolver have a shoulder that will headspace the cartridges so that they will fire just fine. The clips are there to give the extractor something to engage on so that cartridges / empties can be extracted and ejected. Without clips, you can pluck the empties out with your fingers or poke them out with a pencil.

Or you can use my favorite, third-moon clips, which are a lot easier to load / unload. To boot, the clipped ammo will fit easily in a standard ammo box. See below ...

 

[walter o]

This is one i made

 

[Pizza Bob]

The best tool, hands down, for loading and unloading moon clips is the BMT tool. Expensive, but worth every penny. Found here...

BMT Equipped, Inc.

For the .45 ACP family of revolvers the Ranch Products moon clips are fine - even for competition. While sub-.45 calibers demand the use of expensive ($6 - $7 ea) moon clips, the .45 ACP clips work well with some cartridge jiggle. Ranch Products are appx $.35 ea (when bought in quantity). Here is their site...

Ranch Products

This is a cottage industry and all their website nets you is a phone number. You have to call and talk to a live human being to place an order or make an inquiry. Don't be surprised if the phone gets answered like it was your next door neighbor - maybe they are.

Lastly, I have to respectfully disagree with Jack Flash and his claim that moon clips aren't necessary and that the round will headspace on the shoulder in the chamber. Theoretically, he is correct. However, since SAAMI sets the specs for cartridge dimensions, the shoulder is placed at maximum case length depth for a given caliber. My experience has been that any factory ammo or brass, when new, is always considerably less than this dimension - meaning that, in reality, headspacing on that shoulder, by the case mouth, seldom actually occurs.

This is more common with newer .45 ACP guns with SAAMI-spec chambers. While SAAMI has been around since 1926 and the .45 ACP was adopted in its current form in 1911, the SAAMI chamber dimension drawings weren't done until 1979. So it is quite possible that early .45 ACP revolvers may be more likely to function without clips with a higher rate of reliability, than guns made post-1979, as chamber dimensions were at the discretion of the manufacturer.

What does happen is that variances in chamber roundness, smoothness, cleanliness and other variables, will hold some cartridges firmly enough that a firing pin strike will ignite the primers. Others are driven forward in the chamber, which results in a light primer strike and a failure to ignite.

Just as some rounds are held tightly enough for ignition and others are driven forward, some cases may drop out of the cylinder from gravity, while others may be "pluckable" and yet others will have to be poked out using a rod.

You should consider moon clips essential for any revolver that is chambered for a rimless or semi-rimmed round. The other alternative is using the rimmed version of that round, if one exists (in your case the .45 Auto Rim).

Moon clips are the greatest thing since sliced bread and people's aversion to them is, most likely, founded in falsehoods found on the Internet or from people who either have no personal experience, or just a passing experience with them.

Adios,

Pizza Bob

 

[H Richard]

The Mooncliptool is what you need to make your life easier.


It is adaptable for various different calibers, I use mine with both 45 acp and 9mm.

 

[bananaman]

I have a de-mooner tool. It works just fine. Not all metal clips are created equal. I got some that were too thick, and caused my cylinder to bind. FOR RANGE USE, I use RIMZ poly moon clips. Work great, and no tools. Not expensive either. Bob

 

[drummer007]

I agree with Pizza Bob, the BMT is far and away the best tool to load and unload moon clips. I have purchased and used most all of the other tools designed for loading and unloading moon clips and the BMT is the BEST. Pricey, but well worth the money. Like they say: "buy once, cry once".

 

[k22fan]

Starting with the introduction of the Model 625 in the late 1980s S&W instructions changed to writing clips are required for ignition. They changed from a square head spacing shoulder to a beveled shoulder. While other members have reported missfires without clips, all of mine, including 625s, are reliable without clips. Despite reading for 60 years that without clips you have to poke empties out with a rod I have never seen anyone do that. We all have finger nails that will easily pluck out cases that were loaded to SAMMI pressures.

Despite all that, I love Auto Rim brass.

 

[sandspur6]

I recently bought a bag of 100 moon clips off eBay for 36.99, with free shipping. I don't foresee ever needing to buy any more for the rest of my life. I also bought a de-mooner, which works very well. But, I still load the clips the old fashioned way.

 

[zonker5]

....FOR RANGE USE, I use RIMZ poly moon clips. Work great, and no tools. Not expensive either.

+1 on the Rimz clips. Much easier to use than the metal ones even with a tool.

 

[deyomatic]

I just put one finger inside the hole in the full moon clip and press the rim over with my thumb. If you "roll" it slightly it snaps right in. I use a home made de-mooner as shown above.

I get mine from this place:

Premium Moon Clips | The Revolver Supply Company

 

[Jack Flash]

I did not know that anyone has ever had a failure to fire with a S&W .45 ACP revolver when not using moon clips. Has anyone had personal experience with this?

I like clips and always use them. Long ago I tried shooting .45 ACP without clips in a well-worn Brazilian I had at the time. They all fired fine. But that was just a "see if it works" test done once with that particular revolver so I certainly can't say anything conclusively. I don't own an M25 but I could try it in a couple of M625s when I get time.

People on this Forum are always talking about shooting .45 ACP without clips in revolvers with no problems. Perhaps one of them can chime in.

You would think that all S&W M1917s would work fine without clips since this is likely to be required by wartime excegencies.

I'm not arguing, but it sure seems odd that S&W would change this on later revolvers, whether made exclusively for the civilian market or not.

 

[jack the toad]

I'm not an expert plus my experiences are limited. I've successively fired with and without moon clips (both metal and plastic) as well as auto rim, in older 1917's, the 25-2's, modified 25-5's, current 625's, as well as the Governor. The only trouble I recall, was the plastic Rimz clips wouldn't allow the cylinder to close in the Governor.
ETA:
I much prefer using the clips. I'd like to try the BMT (maybe someday) but only tools I currently have is a home made de-mooner and the Mooncliptool that I acquired along with a M25 long ago.

 

[Neumann]

My new 625 PC has square shoulders in the cylinder, and will head space off the rim just like a 1911. There is no recess in the cylinder, and the rim sits nearly as high off the face of the cylinder as when the moon clip is used, with ample room for a thumbnail. How tight the spent shell will be, I can't say. I haven't had it long enough to experiment. Replacing a fired shell is tight and won't fall out on its own, but not hard to remove either.

That might be nice in an emergency, but fast it is not.