From: bercov@bevb.bev.lbl.gov (John Bercovitz)
Subject: Re: a 10mm auto as first handgun
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley

In article <33068@mimsy.umd.edu> baechler@liasun4.epfl.ch ((Emmanuel Baechler)) writes:
## #I'm a novice thinking about getting a 10mm as a first handgun.

#  I would not recommend a 10mm as a first handgun: this cartridge is a
#.........
#  I would recommend you to start with a .22LR and to learn all the bases
#.........
#  It is also important to go progressively toward bigger calibers. Firing

Mea culpa!  When I wrote all those nice things about the 10 mm when used
with the FBI load I had not noticed that this is to be a _first_ handgun.
Mr. Baechler is absolutely right - this would be an extremely poor first
handgun unless you're some sort of "inert" person, shall we say.  It 
wouldn't be a bad first choice if you wanted to set in a flinch that'd
take you 10 years to get rid of.

#  Finally, the 10mm has yet a pretty big problem: there is very few guns
#able to shoot it, and there is even less able to shoot it accurately. I
#found an issue of "Shooting times, Handgun Quaterly" (I don't know what's
#the reputation of this magazine in the US) who tried a Colt Delta Gold Cup,
#a S&W 1006, a S&W 610, a 10" Contender, and a 14" Contender. All were fired
#on a Ransom Rest machine at 25 yards. The 14" Contender was the only one
#able to bet groups under 1 inch. The Delta Gold cups had groups of more than
#6 inches (on average), and the "less worse" gun was the S&W 610. However it
#had several groups of more than 2 inches. So, unless you are able to find a
#gunsmith able to considerably improve your gun, it looks to me much wiser
#either to use a .45 or to buy a .40S&W which looks more accurate than the 10mm
#(there was also a test in the same magazine, but only with the S&W 4006).
#

I agree that 10 mm handguns as they come from the factory have pretty poor
accuracy.  But "poor" being a relative sort of word, we need to ask, "Compared
to what?"  My Series 70 45 GC as it came from the factory printed 25-yard 5-shot
groups of around 4 inches out of a Ransom Rest.  I've Ransom-rested a GM and 
gotten 16" 5-shot groups at 25 yards.  (Both of these guns now shoot under an 
inch.)  I've found better accuracy in the Smiths than in the Colts as they
come from the factory, on average; but I don't think that that should be your
determinant - you gotta like the type of action; accuracy can be gunsmithed
into it later.  Many "furrin" (to the US) makes do much much better as they 
come from the factory, but again, you've got to like the type of action.

Incidentally, a Ransom Rest can fool you occasionally with a GM or similar.
For instance, I have a 10 mm DE which does better off of sandbags.  It has
a tight barrel-slide fit and a loose slide-frame fit.  Since the Ransom Rest
grips the frame, this particular firearm doesn't do as well in the rest. 

JHBercovitz@lbl.gov    (John Bercovitz)

From: bercov@bevb.bev.lbl.gov (John Bercovitz)
Subject: Re: 10 mm accuracy (was 10 mm as first handgun)
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley

In article <33207@mimsy.umd.edu> baechler@liasun4.epfl.ch ((Emmanuel Baechler)) writes:
#  Ok, if a .45 Gold Cup National Match has four inches groups, the groups
#of the others are not so terrible. By the way, this gives me, finally, a
#solid reason to send mine to a gunsmith. I was wondering since quite a long
#time wether it is worth to rework it, to put a new barrel (Bar Sto or Wilson)
#and to put improved commands, without being able to get a clear answer. Now,
#I have one.

If you just buy a match barrel and install it, you'll get substantially
better accuracy, but it won't be as good as having the barrel fit to the
slide by machining it to the right size.  On a 45 you can weld up the 
barrel hood and the underlug to get almost the same effect, but I wouldn't
try it on a higher pressure barrel like a 38 super or a 10 mm.  I say
almost the same effect because when you weld material to the hood and
remachine the hood so the barrel just fits, the chamber comes out pretty
deep which I don't like.  I've tried welding up the top lugs with hard-
facing material, but it just won't hold up to anything but a target load
in the 45 ACP.
 
## Incidentally, a Ransom Rest can fool you occasionally with a GM or
## similar. For instance, I have a 10 mm DE which does better off of
## sandbags.  It has a tight barrel-slide fit and a loose slide-frame
## fit.  Since the Ransom Rest grips the frame, this particular firearm
## doesn't do as well in the rest. 

#  This is also someting interesting. I had never seen any comparative
#evaluation of the different methods to test handgun's accuracy, and I
#naively believed that the Rest machine was the absolute reference. Are
#there some papers about this?

Sorry, this is just personal observation over many years.  But I wouldn't
be surprised to hear that it's modestly common knowledge.  I don't want
to knock the Ransom rest because it's a very fine rest, but it is also
subject to other problems such as looseness in the pivot.  So as with any
mechanical device, you have to stay awake when you're interpreting the
results.  But I'm extremely pleased with mine - when you have a lot of
testing to do, you find that it has a lot more tolerance for abuse than
thee or me.

          JHBercovitz@lbl.gov    (John Bercovitz)

From: bercov@bevb.bev.lbl.gov (John Bercovitz)
Subject: 3 dot sight on GM
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley

A few years back when I purchased my Delta Elite, I opted for the 
three-dot _fixed_ sights so's I'd have a good knock-around gun.  The 
three-dot sights have worked out really well for shooting steel 
chickens in the gloaming.  Seems to me the tritium sights are too dim 
at dusk and aren't really useful until it's so dark you can't see the 
target.  But that's just my personal opinion.

If you're like me you first develop a load for the new fixed-sight gun 
and then file or mill the front or rear sight elevation to agree with the 
chosen load.  Naturally I didn't want to do that to these sights since 
then the tops of the sights would be mis-registered with the dots 
below.  So I did what in retrospect seems the obvious thing: I re-linked 
the barrel so that it shot to where the sights pointed.  I don't think I'd 
recommend this procedure if your barrel shoots low; fortunately my 
barrel shot a good deal too high and a long enough link was found to 
bring the rear of the barrel up far enough to agree with the sights.

This was done a couple of years and several thousands of rounds 
ago.  There has been no change in point of impact over this period.

This approach may be common practice but I haven't heard of it so I 
thought I'd share it with you folks in case you run into the same
problem some day.

           JHBercovitz@lbl.gov    (John Bercovitz)

From: bercov@bevsun.bev.lbl.gov (John Bercovitz)
Subject: Re: To trim or not to trim auto pistol brass
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, California

In article <35600@mimsy.umd.edu> boyd@mailer.cc.fsu.edu (Mickey Boyd) writes:
#However, this may also imply that by using "correctly" sized and lengthed
#brass you may get more consistency (ie accuracy, never mind where you would
#get this brass).  Anybody tried this?

I've tried it - with 45 Win Mag brass.  The only trouble with using this
case as a starting point is that you have to thin out the neck walls where
the bullet goes because after you shorten the brass, the bullet will seat
in the thick-neck area of the case.  You may not have this problem if you
start with Detonics cases because they're only a little bit longer than
45ACP brass.  I've never tried Detonics cases fearing that they're probably
expensive and hard to come by.  Do remember that case capacities will vary
with different constructions.

As far as getting a more accurate load by using this brass - well, I haven't
been able to detect it.  That's what I wanted, but I didn't get it.  I have
a very tight Gold Cup and it didn't know the difference out of the Ransom Rest.

I do sort my brass by length though.  This way I get a consistent taper
crimp.  I believe that that helps though I've never done a rigorous test.

      JHBercovitz@lbl.gov    (John Bercovitz)

From: bercov@bevsun.bev.lbl.gov (John Bercovitz)
Subject: GM accurizing trick
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory

I was talking with F. Bob Chow a few months ago and somehow the topic got
around to accurizing government model Colts.  He told me of his method of
tightening up the barrel-slide fit.  Since Colt leaves .015 inch of
clearance between the top of the barrel and the underside of the slide,
he puts an .015 clockspring shim in the rearmost groove of the slide.
The way he makes it stay is to make it a little too wide: .001 inch.  To
get the overwidth shim into place he bevels the edges a little.  An end
view of the shim looks like this:
             ________
            /_________\

Since the groove is about .180 wide, this end view shows a trapezoid
.015 high by .181 wide.  The shim's length would be about 5/8 inch.
The orientation of the shim as ASCIIed is correct if the slide is viewed 
from the side.  This struck me as a great way to create a situation where 
you might get a loose extraneous part floating around in your action at the 
worst possible moment.  But apparently Bob never had one fall out.  Bob's
accurized many many thousands of guns over the past 40 or 50 years.

Naturally, I had to try this trick because I've always improved the
barrel/slide fit by one of the hard methods: either welding up the barrel
and recutting it (OK on a 45 but don't try it on a 10 mm) or just 
jamming the barrel up into the slide as far as possible by welding up 
the underlug and recutting.  Nowadays, of course, you'd just buy an over-
sized barrel from any one of a number of barrel manufacturers and cut
it to fit; no welding required.  That's progress.

I finally got a chance to try it last week.  I have a 10 mm I had linked up
to get the thing to shoot where it looks but it was getting loose and
group sizes were suffering and the point of impact was shifting.  So it
was a good candidate.  As an experiment, I dropped a thin (.020) piece of
teflon about .15 x .50 into the slot and shot the gun.  Amazingly, the
shim didn't fall out even after 20 rounds!!  It did shift a little anti-
clockwise as you're looking at the safe end of the gun with consequent
shift of point of impact - kind of amusing, really.  So it's evident that
there isn't much of anything trying to knock the shim out of its groove.

Next I made a steel shim out of a cheap .014 feeler gauge from an automotive
store since I didn't have any clockspring of the correct thickness laying
around.  I scribed a line on the feeler gauge, cut it with snips, and
filed it to .183 x .62 for my .181 groove.  I put about a 15 degree bevel
on the long sides. Then I curved the thing to approximately fit the groove
by putting it on a piece of 3/16 thick hard rubber, laying a piece of 3/8
rod over it and hitting the rod with a hammer.  In this way, the shim 
attempts to take on the radius of the rod though there is so much springback
that it actually produces a much larger curve.  I finished up by tapping
the piece into the groove and letting the slide slam shut a few times.
Then I went out and shot it a few hundred times over the next few days. 

There has been no loosening or shifting of the shim.  The cartridges are
now struck dead center of the primer.  The groups are now centered on the
point of aim and are tighter than before.  After the thing is fully
beaten in by a few hundred more rounds, I'll re-link the gun to take out
most of the slop - I'm not going to weld anything on this barrel!  It's
interesting to look at the shim now that it's been used a while.  Since
the shim decreases the radius of the groove, the radius that the barrel 
sees is now less than that of the top of the barrel with the result that 
the barrel contacts the shim in two places rather than fully.  This is the
kinematic ideal, of course, so no harm there.

This is a really intriguing concept for me.  It gives you the potential of
steering the barrel if you've got its muzzle nailed down with a national
match bushing.  If you want the gun to shoot higher, you put in a thicker
shim and enlarge a link hole.  If you want it to shoot lower, you put in 
a thinner shim and re-link it.  This worked out really well for me with
my stock 3-dot sights which I did not wish to alter.  You don't want to 
overdo it though; you've got to retain plenty of locking lug engagement
or suffer the consequences.

         JHBercovitz@lbl.gov    (John Bercovitz)

From: bercov@bevsun.bev.lbl.gov (John Bercovitz)
Subject: Re: M1911 Questions
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory

In article <37779@mimsy.umd.edu> iex!callisto.tmc.edu!david@uunet.uu.net 
(David Hancock) writes:

#I would like to note here that a number of 'smiths specializing in M1911
#work guarantee 50 yard machine rest accuracy of 3" or smaller groups.
#I don't know if this *always* requires a new, custom barrel. 

Speaking from my rather modest experience, I haven't yet found a 1911 barrel
in reasonable shape which wouldn't shoot if the gun around it is tightened up
sufficiently.  Reasonable shape includes land-to-land and groove-to-groove
dimensions being somewhere in the ball park of being nominal.  My experience
includes several Colt barrels and several 3rd party military replacement
barrels.  They'll all shoot under 3" at 50 yards with appropriate loads.

The big advantage of the Clark and Wilson and Barsto barrels is that you
can get them oversize and machine them to a very close fit with the slide.

       JHBercovitz@lbl.gov    (John Bercovitz)

From: bercov@bevsun.bev.lbl.gov (John Bercovitz)
Subject: Re: +P+ loads in 45, and barrels w supported chambers
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory

In article <37852@mimsy.umd.edu> bcstec!iftccu!bressler@uunet.uu.net 
(Rick Bressler) writes:
#James Douglas Del Vecchio asks:
##How far can one increase the load of the .45acp, given a fully
##suported chamber?  Where can someone get such a barrel, and what
##guns come with such barrels?

#To my knowledge, no 1911 style guns have the fully supported chamber. 

There may be no stock 1911s with a fully-supported chamber (aka ramped
barrel), but you _can_ buy an aftermarket ramped barrel in 45 ACP.  It's 
made by Clark and sold by Brownell among others.

     JHBercovitz@lbl.gov    (John Bercovitz)

From: bercov@bevsun.bev.lbl.gov (John Bercovitz)
Subject: Re: Beretta military trial (X9) info
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, California

In article <58340@mimsy.umd.edu> lucifer@world.std.com (Kevin S Green) writes:
...stuff deleted....
#There was one slide that cracked, belonging to a Navy
#officer. The slide was modified by that officer prior
#to the test by attempting to squeeze the sides of the
#slide closer. (Apparently this can be done with the
#1911's and results in better slide performance.) The
#intent was to cause the railings of the slide to hug
#the frame better.

This works on pre-series 70 and earlier Colts but don't
try it on today's Colts or you'll crack the slide.
Today's slides are hardened enough that they can't
take that much bending.

John Bercovitz     (JHBercovitz@lbl.gov)

From: bercov@bevsun.bev.lbl.gov (John Bercovitz)
Subject: lapping the GM slide
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, California

Those of us who like to fit the slide of a government model 45 closely with
its grip frame or receiver are familiar with the tried and true method of
peening the receiver rails over a hardened steel flat to close the groove
in the receiver which the tongue of the slide fits in and also to peen
outward the tongue or rail of the receiver which fits into the groove of
the slide.  After this is done, the rails are machined to the correct width
to just fit in the slide, and some fine lapping compound is applied to the
interface to take out the tight spots.

However, there is oftentimes a problem in that the groove width in the slide
varies by as much as .005 along its length.  This is the groove which has
two parallel faces roughly 1/10 inch high and 3/4 inch wide.  It's the 3/4
dimension which varies so much.  No doubt this is the result of heat treat
after machining.  You can get this groove to be parallel by lapping the
receiver to the slide, repeening the receiver rails, and repeat ad nauseum,
but I think I've hit on a better way.

I've made a copper lap from 1/8 copper by thinning it to have good
vertical clearance in the slide groove but machined to be fairly tight
(-.001) across the 3/4 dimension.  Furthermore, I've made it into a split
lap and added a flat head #6 machine screw as the expansion wedge.  I
peened one end of the screwdriver slot in the screw to kick out a burr
which engages the split in the lap and keeps the screw from turning
relative to the lap.  I put a flat washer between the nut and the lap.
So now I have a lap which I can tighten in situ while using the grit.

I tried a couple of different grits.  I found Clover 180 grit was much
too slow so I went to 120 grit.  This is a little coarse but you can
switch to finer grit when you lap the slide to the receiver.

At any rate, the goodie works just super.  I can very quickly lap out a
slide so that the groove walls stay a constant distance apart well within
.001".  This allows a really close fit of receiver and slide.  The
work shows itself off best in a machine rest, which of course holds
the gun by the grip frame.  In this instance, it is very important that
grip frame and slide have a constant relationship.  Considering that
the parts of the receiver which bear against the slide are 3" apart,
a nominal .001" total gap (front + rear) gives a horizontal dispersion of
(.001/3)*900 or 0.3" at 25 yards.  There are other contributors to horizontal
dispersion than this single cause, of course, but at least this cause's
effect is reduced.

I've tried to make some ASCII graphics to illustrate the split lap.
I have sort of a face view and a side view in standard American
projection below.  Europeans can just swap the views to make sense
of the drawing.  The "S\/\/\S" is supposed to indicate the squiggly
line break.  That's because the handle is actually pretty long.  At
the end of the handle, I bent it down and taped it up for comfort
during use.  Oh yeah, I don't use octagonal nuts but I couldn't
figure out how to draw one hexagonal.  8-)

I've tried this on a couple of GCs so far and was able to lap each of
them to parallelism in 5 or 10 minutes.  So this is a tremendous time
saver.  Give it a try and let me know how it works for you.



		 -----                       _
                |     |                     | |
                |     |                     | |
                |     |                     | |
                |     |                     | |
                |     |                     | |
		S\/\/\S                     S/S

                S\/\/\S                     S/S
                |     |                     | |
                |     |                     | |
                |     |                     | |
                |  _  |                     | |
                | | | |                     | |
                | | | |                     | |
                | | | |                     | |
              __| | | |__                   |_|
             |    | |    |                  | |
             |    | |    |                  | |
             |    | |    |                  | |
             |    |_|    |                 _| |
             |   /   \   |              __|_|/|
             |  |  O  |  |             |__|_| |
             |   \__ /   |                |_|\|
             |    | |    |                  | |
             |____| |____|                  |_|



John Bercovitz     (JHBercovitz@lbl.gov)

From: bercov@bevsun.bev.lbl.gov (John Bercovitz)
Subject: Re: Removal of take-up on M1911
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory

In article <40250@mimsy.umd.edu> hays@ssd.intel.com (Kirk Hays) writes:

#Anyone have any tips on removing that last bit of takeup on a
#M1911-A1?  Springfield Armory Series 90, if it matters.

#...., but that 3/32" take-up
#before the break is *not* acceptable.

#Is it OK to silver solder a shim on the back of the trigger
#bow?

As a matter of fact, 30 years ago and more before the present legal
climate, folks used to do just that.  The problem is that after doing the
modification, you have to hold the trigger back when dropping the slide
or suffer an accidental discharge.  That slop in there is the space for
the trigger to jump back relative to the frame when the slide is dropped
and hits home yanking the frame forward with it.

That take up section of the pull has never bothered me unless the
trigger doesn't run smoothly in its tracks.  Perhaps your take up is
too crunchy and that's what is annoying you?  In that case you can
disassemble the gun and use some abrasive paper in the tracks and
smooth the exterior of the trigger bow.  This result in a trigger
with a distinct change in force when the trigger bow reaches the
disconnector/sear.

        JHBercovitz@lbl.gov    (John Bercovitz)

From: bercov@netcom.com (John Bercovitz)
Subject: Re: Building a bullseye .45
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)

In article <D1I8qt.LIL@acsu.buffalo.edu>,
P.VASILION <v111qheg@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu> wrote:
#	What would you consider the most important steps needed to
#transform a stock Colt series 80 into a good bullseye pistol? Aside
#from target sights and a tight bbl bushing, what is usually done?

You also need to get the rear end of the barrel fixed in the slide.
You can do this by welding up the rear of the barrel and remachining
it, or you can buy an oversized barrel and machine it to fit.  I've
always done the former, being a basically broke sort of guy.  8-)
I don't worry about welding a 45 barrel; the pressures aren't that
high.  I wouldn't weld a 9 or 10 mm barrel on a bet, even though
they have thicker walls.  I also like to fit the slide to the frame.
This helps a lot when you're testing in a Ransom Rest since it grips
the frame.  I forgot to say, when you fit up the rear of the barrel,
you need to shove it up hard into the slide.  The slide stop does this.
I put shims in the grooves in the top of the slide to bring the
center of the barrel down into alignment with the firing pin.  This
also gets you part of the way to a firm lockup.  ~.015" stainless
shim stock is what I usually end up using but any shim stock which
is fairly hard but not brittle is good.  To complete the lockup, I
weld up the underlugs and cut them back to shape.  You don't want
much clearance over the slide stop pin.  In fact, I like a slight
resistance here.  To fit frame to slide, I weld up the frame rails
and remachine them.  The frame is soft and the slide is hard so it's
the frame you want to work on for the most part.  Slides are usually
not very straight because of the hardening procedure.  I made a copper
lap which is rectangular and adjustable.  I use this to lap the grooves
in the slide.  Once the grooves are lapped, the slot size is constant
all the way down and furthermore the slot-to-slot distance is constant.
I only weld the front and rear 5/8" or so of the frame rails.  The stuff
in between is superfluous; only the front and rear of the frame tell the
slide where to point.  (Boy will I get flamed for saying that! 8-)
Some folks like to do the entire frame rail length.  What else?  Oh
yeah, I usually take a cut on the bottom of the slide to make the
thickness of the slide rails constant too.  Often the slide's slots
are cut at an angle to the bottom of the slide when they need to be
parallel, of course.  Then you peen the frame rails down to close
up the frame slots to fit the slide rails.  Use a hardened piece
of ground stock to stick in the frame slot to peen the frame rail
down to.  Then you can machine the frame rails for width.   Got to do
things in the right order. 8-) You also need a good trigger but there are
good, cheap drop-in hammer and sear sets these days so why go into that?
The finger piece plus stirrup need to be light so you won't have accidents.
Heresy #2: I like a recoil spring guide.  Keeps the recoil spring from
binding and adds a little weight where a bullseye shooter could use it.
I also find that gluing lead sheet into the grips helps feed reliability
for some people, especially those who don't grip too tightly.  I guess
I should have written this off line; it's a real mess but I hope you
get the idea.  Someone told me about a Baer? was it? and I told him
it sounded like a heck of a good deal considering the amount of work
required to bring an issue Colt to target accuracy.  Oh yes, I like
a lighter recoil spring plus a shock buffer if you can get away with
it.  That way the accuracy job lasts longer since the slide isn't
slamming so hard to a stop at the forward end of it's stroke and loosening
things up.  The shock buffer then takes care of potential damage at
the other end of the stroke.  I guess that's heresy #3.  8-)  I use
a heavier spring than a standard bullseye spring, though.  More like
a hardball spring but then I mostly shoot hardball equivalent loads.
Definitely get better reliability as spring force goes up, within
reason.

John Bercovitz (JHBercovitz@lbl.gov)

From: bercov@bevsun.bev.lbl.gov (John Bercovitz)
Subject: barrel too tight?

A friend of mine asked me to measure the groove to groove diameter of his
Colt 45 ACP Gov't Model.  I used one of those 3-prong bore mikes that reads
in tenths.  After calibrating the mike, I found that at the deepest part
of the groove, the bore diameter was .4506 except for one little tiny area
which measured .4507.  This is the tightest barrel I've ever measured.  I
wonder if the engraving forces might boost chamber pressure too high.  Any
thoughts?  Anybody know the mil specs on 45 barrels?  

Thanks,  JHBercovitz@lbl.gov    (John Bercovitz)

From: bercov@bevsun.bev.lbl.gov (John Bercovitz)
Subject: Re: barrel too tight?
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, California

In article <34476@mimsy.umd.edu> JHBercovitz@lbl.gov (John Bercovitz) writes:
#Colt 45 ACP Gov't Model......
#groove to groove diameter is .4506
#This is the tightest barrel I've ever measured. 
#Anybody know the mil specs on 45 barrels?  

Looks like I can answer my own question.  Somebody gave me a print of a
barrel drawing from Rock Island Arsenal (thanks, Jim). The dimensions
are given with unilateral tolerances: dimension +.xxx / -0.
      bore diameter: .442 +.002
   groove to groove: .450 +.002 
       groove width: .147 +.013
              twist: 1 in 16
Bore finish to be 32 microinch rms or better.
There was also a note that if there was a difference in diameters between
the breech and the muzzle, the muzzle had to have the smaller diameter.
(Sort of a squeeze-bore specification.)

       JHBercovitz@lbl.gov    (John Bercovitz)

From: bercov@bevb.bev.lbl.gov (John Bercovitz)
Subject: King's GC trigger
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley

There is a short aluminum Gold Cup trigger manufactured by  King's 
featured in the April "American Rifleman" (the cover is of a soldier in 
Saudi Arabia holding an M-16 with no magazine in it).  I have short 
fingers (my hands have the aspect ratio of ping pong paddles), so I 
was very interested and ordered one.  The triggers come in a plethora 
of colors, but because of high demand, King's was out of pink, purple, 
and putrescent green and so I bought black.

It took very little effort to install the trigger - the finger piece was 
purposely made a few thousandths too tall but a file took care of that.  
The trigger bow is bent from mirror-finished stainless steel sheet sheared 
so that the burrs are on the interior of the bow.  The burrs were easy to 
remove.  The length is perfect for my fingers; no more messing around trying 
to pull straight back even though my finger is on the edge of the trigger.

Since we've been discussing hammer-follow here on the net, I took 
the opportunity to weigh the King's trigger along with a few others for 
comparison.  Using dial calipers I measured the lengths of the 
triggers from the point in the front which your finger contacts to the 
point in the rear which contacts the sear.  Then I normalized the length 
data to that of my stock Series 70 Gold Cup trigger.  Weights are in 
grains (grams) while lengths and widths are in inches (millimeters).

                    weight        relative length      finger piece width
stock '70 GC      245.5 (15.9)         0   (0)            .340 (8.64)
King's short      140.3  (9.1)      -.130 (3.3)           .346 (8.79)
stock WWII GM     241.7 (15.7)      -.050 (1.3)           .245 (6.22)
short alloy GM    108.3  (7.0)      -.240 (6.1)           .245 (6.22)

Trigger bows (stirrups) of all four triggers had identical dimensions 
within a couple of thousandths.   The finger piece of the King's was 
slightly thicker than that of my stock Gold Cup trigger but was well-
centered on the bow so there was still plenty of clearance on either 
side of it and hence no drag due to the bow and the finger piece both 
trying to tell the trigger where to be at the same time.  The "American 
Rifleman" article listed their King's short trigger as being .170 shorter 
than their Gold Cup trigger.  What can I say?


King's phone number is 818-956-6010 and they're in Southern Calif.

           JHBercovitz@lbl.gov    (John Bercovitz)