Friday, April 05, 2013

Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #58:

A little rushed this morning...

Have to take the trash out and then run my membership renewal check over to MCF&G, and you know what's liable to happen if I find myself at a shootin' range on a fine spring morning. Especially if I accidentally threw a shotgun and some ammo in the Subie before I left.

Anyhow, here's some gratuitous gun pr0n from a failed photo session* for an upcoming Sunday Smith:

Perspective skews the size difference between the diminutive No. 1s and the monster .44 Hand Ejector
Starting in the back, we see the familiar shape of a Second Model .44 Hand Ejector (given its rough re-nickeled shape, those mother of pearl stocks are probably worth as much as the rest of the gun...) and in front of it is a tiny Number 1 Second Issue, probably dating from just after the Civil War. In the foreground is the subject gun: A Number 1 Third Issue from, and I'm guesstimating off the serial no. here, the late 1870s. I found it early last fall for, like, $125 in the showcase at a local gun store and I'm all but certain that's the original nickel.

The plated Aguila .22 Short round next to it is the right size to chamber, but despite the fact that the gun is mechanically sound and as tight a tip-up as I've encountered in a while, you'd never shoot a modern smokeless .22 Short in it unless you had a burning desire to wreck the gun.

I may run some CB Shorts through it, though, just to say I did...

*I just haven't found a new regular "spot" for Sunday Smith photos since I moved up here that has the gun up high enough that I don't have to get on hands and knees to take the shot and has ample available light with the sun high in the sky. Between the penny and the wooden railing, there was a handy built-in sense of scale to the old photos, despite the setting being less than artistic. Incidentally, I discovered that the latch on the battery door of the Oleg hand-me-down Coolpix 990 that took all those old Sunday Smith photos has finally failed. Sic transit gloria...

15 comments:

staghounds said...

I hope Gloria feels well enough to be back driving the bus soon. maybe by t
Tusdi.

fast richard said...

It's hard to imagine a .22 short having enough energy to damage anything, but with something that old I can see where a CB cap would be a better idea.

Tam said...

fast richard,

Because of its size, it's easy to forget that the SAAMI spec for .22 Short is 21,000psi, which is the same as .45ACP and considerably greater than .38Spl +P...

Kristophr said...

I once ran some CB caps through a Whitney revolver from about the same time period.

Two rounds hit the target, three didn't.

The rest of the rounds were stuck in the rough bore, stacked one on top of the other. I was able to carefully drive them out with a brass rod.

Be more careful than I was please.

Ritchie said...

I used to derive some entertainment trying to deduce the season and TOD from your porch rail shots.

Tam said...

Kristophr,

One of the interesting side effects of low-power rounds like Colibris, CBs, and Floberts is that, at pistol ranges, one can usually hear the smack of impact. It is desirable to hear that noise before pulling the trigger again. ;)

Mike W. said...

Slightly off topic, but modern .32 S&W ammo in a S&W Model 1 1/2? Yea, or am I going to break the thing?

Tam said...

Mike W.,

A centerfire top-break?

SAAMI .32S&W is loaded with those in mind; a few cylinders will not kill it provided it is tight and mechanically sound.

Will said...

Re the battery door on that Coolpix. That's the same camera I borrowed from my sister. Had a little strap just big enough to stick a finger into. Standing in her kitchen, I did that right after she handed it to me. F'ing thing had a snap on it, which opened, dumping it on the floor, and breaking that latch.

There were NO parts in the country, only in Japan. The cameras had just hit the stores a few days prior. Since they were leaving for a business trip to Europe a day or so later, they bought another one. They were over $1k. I taped the door closed to use it. Eventually the parts were shipped here.

Kristophr said...

Mea culpa. I just assumed that I had missed.

That assumption thingy again ...

Kristophr said...

I do still have a half box or .32 rimfire smokeless in exellent shape.

Not sure if I should fire it in my S&W 1 and half, or sell it a round at a time to collectors.

Tam said...

Will,

Sadly, the part of the latch that broke is the part on the camera body. :(

Rob Reed said...

Tam,

Check your e-mail for a mail from my hotmail account. I have an extra digicam, if you want it.

Rob (Trebor)

Will said...

Tam,

you might consider looking for an old drafting table (because tilting top), and adding a couple wheels. Drag it out to the yard, orient and tilt for best light, and set up your diorama.

Alternative might be to construct some sort of light box for indoor use.

Drawback, of course, is both ideas take up space. However, you could cover them and use as some sort of table when not being used for photography.

BTW, you might be able to cut a drafting table to a more amenable size for indoor use/storage. I suspect that your roomie has the appropriate power saw for hacking it to size :-)

Will said...

Forgot to mention that some drafting tables also had a height adjustment. This, of course, would be on the high end commercial types.