A Pair of Snakes

[rickhem]

Some really nice revolvers there, and who doesn't like shooting the wadcutters? Little recoil, incredibly accurate (especially with the faster twist Colts), and the holes actually give you a little coaching if you know how to read them.
That little grey crescent smudge that shows up on the edge of the holes in the target means that the bullet was yawing as it went downrange. My mentors used to preach the steady hold, smooth trigger motion, and consistent follow-through, as the key to not have those smudges. They'd look at how bad the smudges were on my targets, and tell me how shakey I was as the bullet left the barrel. I almost never had one in slow fire, but the timed and rapid would always have a few.

I don't see any on your targets though BOM. Nice shooting!

[BrokenolMarine]

Thanks guys. It's been a good while since I was shooting on a regular basis due to the weather and my health. Miss T made the comment the other day that I hadn't been shooting, and why was I still reading about the guns all the time if I wasn't going to shoot. (Reverse Psychology at work.) "It's been 110 degrees plus for the last two months," I shook my head.

She grinned. "It's in the mid 80s today, get out there."

I realized she was right, and got up and got busy. Between the weather and my health, I hadn't been able to shoot and I had the range RIGHT THERE. Now, even if it's just a few rounds, I want to try and shoot a couple times a week. I remember telling my students, It doesn't take much to keep your skills up.

I moved the Iron Lady onto the range so even with really cold weather I could drive down and hop out and fire ten or twenty rounds and drive back to the house and warm up. Never have to open up the doors on the Range House.
I'm thinking seriously of putting the 8" plates out before the weather turns really cold, placing them around the edges of the berm for other targets to shoot at.

[BrokenolMarine]

Another look at my original four inch blue Diamondback. I bought this in the 80s, and I took it to a gunsmith and had him add a bright red insert to the front sight. Funny, all these years later, that bright red insert looks a bit pink.

four inch blue diamondback 22.jpg (317.05 KiB) Viewed 1099 times

Those Colt Grips? They ARE Colt Diamondback Grips. They are Custom, hand fitted, Diamondback grips. The original grips were the fat bottomed, heavily checkered, grips. I didn't care for them and as a young Marine I didn't have the money for the ones I wanted, the STAG grips from "Eagle Grips." What I could afford, was a file and a package of assorted sandpaper from Lowes. (NO Home Depot back then, Sears, or Lowes.)

I sat in the shade of my front porch, with the grips OFF the gun and screwed onto a slat of wood from the bottom of a coke crate, (Remember the wooden crates that held 24 bottles, actual bottles, of coke?... ) and began to shape the grips to fit my hand. I filed the grips to the basic shape and tried them on the gun. Didn't quite point the way I wanted. Back on the Coke Slat, and back with the file. Back and forth until the gun naturally pointed.

Then I sanded up thru the misc grits until it was smooth, and stained it with pecan stain to bring out the grain, applying several coats to get the shade I wanted. I waxed it ten times to work the wax in, and then reinstalled the Colt Medallions. The grips still make the gun point where I want and the kids all learned to shoot WELL with this gun. They will all get to choose one gun from the safe when I pass, and have all put in their picks. My oldest daughter chose this gun a long time ago. Always was her favorite.

[North Country Gal]

Love the grips. Not many shooters can say they made their own grips. Very impressive.

[daytime dave]

Of all the Colt snake guns I passed on (I passed on them all so far), a diamondback was the one I shouldn't have. Just from handling some I really like them. That is a really nice on Marine. I too appreciate someone who can fashion their own grips.

[BrokenolMarine]

It's funny, the first set of grips I made, even impressed my stepfather at the time. I had traded something for a single shot 22 caliber CO2 pellet gun whose make I can no longer remember. It had very good target sights on it, and the CO2 cartridge was loaded into a tube that rode under the barrel. You rotated the cover for the chamber and pulled it to the rear, loading that single pellet. To fire you pulled a knurled knob at the rear to charge, and aimed in. Tack driver.

The grips were cracked, scarred, and dented from hard use. I worked at a grocery store as a bag boy, and one of my duties was keeping the returnable bottles neat and sorted until the drivers picked them up. The coke driver gave me a broken crate. One slat turned out to be cherry.

At thirteen, I removed the bad grips, traced them onto the slat, and cut out the rough shape with a borrowed jig saw. I used a file to get them close and strips of sandpaper to shape them back to the gun. They ended up thicker than the plastic grips had been, but looked very good, and filled the hand. From the bottom of that crate.

[fortyshooter]

Nice pair of snakes with a bite! I just sold my only snake the Anaconda.

[BrokenolMarine]

Nice pair of snakes with a bite! I just sold my only snake the Anaconda.

Sorry it had to go, never got it to where you wanted it?
They looked good.

[fortyshooter]

Nice pair of snakes with a bite! I just sold my only snake the Anaconda.

Sorry it had to go, never got it to where you wanted it?
They looked good.

Well it had to go back twice for repair in the year or so I owned it. It shot very well but it is one of those revolvers that you can't repair much yourself like Rugers and Uberti and old single action Colts. Have something coming to replace it though!

[North Country Gal]

Yeah, too bad about the new Colt, forty. Hate to say it, but I'm seeing a lot of folks on forums and YouTube having similar issues with the new Colt revolvers. Can't say new Rugers or Smiths have any fewer issues these days, though. Hope you do better with the next 44 mag.