[glenwolde]

There's nothing like a trip to the range! We had kind of a fluke here in North Texas today. One of those days between cold fronts when it has enough time to warm up. Hard to argue with 72° and mostly sunny a few day before Christmas. There was one guy leaving when I arrived, other than that I pretty much had the place to myself for a couple of hours. Another guy did show up shortly before I was finished.

I had yet another load to try out with the Kimber 1911 .45ACP, and the second try on what I think is going to be my standard range load for the .41 Magnum. I also wanted to test out the FEG PA63 with an eye towards using it as a carry gun. Plus as always, I warmed up with a .22 (this time out it was the High Standard)....

Everything is at 15 yards.

Nothing really exceptional with the .22. I've done better but this is probably average....

Next up was the .45 ACP. Not sure it makes a difference what you stuff in this, it all seems to shoot well. This was 5.5 gr of Universal under a coated cast 185gr LSWC....

Then the .41 Magnum with a 215gr LSWC over 6.0gr of Universal. I shot two targets....

Then on my third target I had "The Fluke of the Year 2017"....

I decided to stop shooting at it. With five rounds touching and all in the bullseye to boot, it's not like I was going to improve on that. But still, just a fluke. If you do this enough eventually you'll do it exactly right five times in a row. Though I do think it shows what the gun can do. I really need to get back to shooting some of this stuff from sandbags.

The last .41 target went back to normal...

Didn't save anything from the FEG. It's had a spring kit put in it and I was worried about it being reliable. It isn't reliable with factory steel case 9 x 18. On DA (and sometimes SA) I got anywhere from 50% failure to fire to 4% failure to fire depending on brand. All fired with a second strike. Other than that it was great. This was all foreign ammo so maybe the Hornady stuff or reloads might be more reliable. There's something to work on.

Super nice day out there.

 

[jonrjen]

The weather today was flat beautiful given that it is the first day of winter. Too bad it comes to a quickly diminishing end after midnight.

Ya do have to love Texas climate changes.

Nice shooting, looks like a productive day.

 

[daytonaredeye]

Those SWCs and LSWCs certainly leave nice round holes! Back when I shot on rifle teams (22LR) we had to use a magnifying glass with a 22 caliber peg on it to score our targets.

 

[darbo]

Nice shooting! Sounds like a great day at the range!

 

[Woody USSLUCE]

Nice shooting ! The FEG is a nice gun and can be very reliable with the right ammo.

 

[glenwolde]

Nice shooting ! The FEG is a nice gun and can be very reliable with the right ammo.

I traded some 9mm ammo for it during "The Great Shortage". It had a spring kit put in it and the previous owner gave me a big bag of springs with it. Wolf has three different mainsprings for it and I'm not sure which one is in it, but I believe the whole selection is in there. If not I'll get them.

But I might just try some reloads first. I bet American primers will be more reliable. Midway has .365 diameter 95gr Hornady XTP's on clearance for $14.85/100. It looks like they are on clearance at other places too, which may be a bad sign. They have Berry's 95 gr plated for $20 for 250. I also have a few hundred LRN in my stash.

Really it's a dead ringer for a Walther PP, except in 9x18. Which I don't mind. Not quite as well made but also a heck of a lot cheaper.

 

[CWB]

I traded some 9mm ammo for it during "The Great Shortage". It had a spring kit put in it and the previous owner gave me a big bag of springs with it. Wolf has three different mainsprings for it and I'm not sure which one is in it, but I believe the whole selection is in there. If not I'll get them.

But I might just try some reloads first. I bet American primers will be more reliable. Midway has .365 diameter 95gr Hornady XTP's on clearance for $14.85/100. It looks like they are on clearance at other places too, which may be a bad sign. They have Berry's 95 gr plated for $20 for 250. I also have a few hundred LRN in my stash.

Really it's a dead ringer for a Walther PP, except in 9x18. Which I don't mind. Not quite as well made but also a heck of a lot cheaper.

FEG contracted to make Walthers for awhile, back in the 50s or 60s, I believe. I've got an FEG AP66 in .32 ACP that I carry from time to time. Feels good in the hand, and a natural pointer that shoots well (but probably now well enough to match your 4th picture). The only thing I dislike is the slide mounted safety. I paid just over $200 for it. This is a generic picture, mine is in much better shape.

 

[glenwolde]

I finally figured out was was wrong with the PA63. I completely disassembled the slide. There was some peening on the locking surfaces of the firing pin so I cleaned them up but that only seemed to help a little.

It was clear to me from the internals that the gun was shot a lot, even if the outside is pretty flawless. I came to the conclusion it could only be one thing, and the only way to verify I was right was just replace the part, as I could not find factory specifications for parts dimensions.

For those unfamiliar with this gun, and the Walther design in general, at rest the firing pin is locked in place. It is forced downward by a spring (#8 - firing pin is upside down in this picture) A vertical pin (#37 - sear pin) pushes it UP as the trigger is pulled and exposes it to the hammer. A really solid and safe design.

My malfunction was 10% failure to fire in DA. It wasn't the mainspring. There was no firing pin indentation at all. That means that in the slightly shorter DA stroke the sear pin just wasn't lifting the firing pin quite far enough occasionally. The hammer is further rearward in SA mode, so the extra time it has to fall gives just enough more time for the firing pin to disengage it's locking blocks when shooting SA. It was 100% reliable in SA.

Given the wear elsewhere, and the complete lack of visible wear on the bottom firing pin surface where the sear pin rides (remember the firing pin is upside down in the picture, the red line shows where the two parts make contact) , led me to believe that the top of the sear pin took all the wear. I ordered a new one ($7.50 which was mostly postage).

The new one was indeed a tad longer in the pin length. After I replaced it...voila...no more misfires in DA through 100 rounds. I'll run some more through it before I fully declare it reliable.

View attachment 408177

 

[olfarhors]

We have had some wonderful weather here for the last month, a few days of rain and today is very breezy and about 60 degrees.
Saturday was like 75 degrees , light breeze blowing and low humidity.
I can't spend every nice day at the range so I grab a cold glass of Iced Tea (or an adult beverage) and sit here and admire my handy work many days.
its tucked away in the rear corner of the back yard under one of my big old Jap maples.