Beautiful weather yesterday for test firing guns

gmerkt · Mar 27, 2025

I'm still slogging through a bunch of guns that were left to me. I figure if I'm going to sell them as viable, functional firearms, I'd better make sure that they truly are functional. Which involves inspecting each one and then test firing it. This dovetails well in some cases with my trying to match up parts that have been swapped around by the former owner, namely 1911 pistols. He took several so-so now collectible guns and swapped parts. He also "upgraded" some of them with what he thought were improvements. Like shiny hammers, triggers, fancy grips, gold grip screws, as a few examples. Which weren't always good functional changes. More about that below.

Monday, I looked at the weather forecast for my favorite public lands shooting place out in the hills. It said no rain for Tuesday, so that was it. I selected 24 pistols to take out for test firing. No long guns to play around with actually having fun; this was strictly bidness. It takes time to go through that many guns, checking them for function, then getting slowed down dealing with any problem children.

When I got out into the hills, the weather was already nice. I took my jacket off right away. By the time I left a couple of hours later, it was 61 degrees which is very unusual for this time of year. By the time I got back to I-5 in Arlington, it was close to 70. Further south, I saw 72. By the time I got back to my place near the Sound, elevation 412 feet at my front porch, it was "back" down into the middle 60's. There were a few scattered clouds. Actually, when I was driving out to the hills, I could see low clouds hugging the southern slopes; which was like fog when I got onto the hillsides. It dissipated fairly soon after I arrived, however. It was a fine day for shooting of any kind in my book.

Most of the guns functioned as designed. The .45's, I start first with five rounds of semi wadcutter ammo. Which some .45's don't like. If they won't work with wadcutters, I next try five rounds of 230 gr. hardball. If that won't work, the gun goes in the gun hospital box. I had three 1911's that wouldn't work right. When I got them back home, I decided to work on the duds first before cleaning the rest. Two of the duds wouldn't let a load cartridge slide into battery under the extractor hook. Along with Dave's stuff came boxes and a chest of 1911 parts. The two duds with extractor problems had nice, shiny exposed heads that show through on the back of the slide. This is why Dave used them, because he liked shiny. I make no claim to be a gunsmith or a 1911 specialist. But there are certain mechanical principles that apply to all machinery including guns. These extractors were too stiff or the little pads near the ends of the hooks that govern depth were wrong. So I changed both of them, problems solved. The third dud .45 had a weak recoil spring, I could tell that when shooting, it didn't want to snap back into battery after a shot was fired. But to get back to the point, whenever parts are changed or swapped around, it's a good practice to test fire the durned thing to make sure it works!

I also took some other guns, three 9mm's, three .380's. and several mouse guns in .22 LR and .25 ACP. The 9mm's, no problems. One of the .380's, a Colt Government .380, would lock the slide back after every shot. I remembered that the last time Dave and I went shooting together, he could not get a Colt .380 to shoot right he was changing magazines, different ammo, etc. When I took the thing apart later, I found that it had what looked like a rubber recoil spring guide. Which I'm guessing was causing the slide lock to move up. I've ordered a steel replacement online which I figure will fix this one.

I got to shoot the Beretta M1951 ("Brigadier"), which I enjoyed some. And I finally got to shoot the Sig Sauer P225, which I enjoyed a lot.

The mouse guns. Two Budischowsky .25's both duds. One turned out to have a broken ejector, the other one I haven't figured out yet. Dave had about 8 or 10 Jennings/Jiminez/Sterling crap pistols. I had four of these along. Three worked fine. They all looked unused. One of the Sterlings I couldn't get to load ammo into battery. It had two magazines with it, right away I discovered that they were different, because a .22 LR cartridge wouldn't fit right. So I loaded a couple of .25 rounds into the magazine, inserted it into the pistol, and the .25's wouldn't chamber. When I got back to my place, I discovered that the pistol was a .22, not a .25. It had two mags in the box, one in each caliber. I had a 50-50 chance of getting it right and blew it.

The repaired duds will have to go back out for another test with the next batch. I test fire handguns at my place into a section of big lam beam, but that's just one shot at a time. If I have several that I want to shoot repeatedly, those go out to the hills.

After I got back, I had all those guns to clean.