PDA

View Full Version : Terraced Ejector Star Face



JonInWA
10-30-2013, 06:08 PM
As some of you have requested (and I promised), here are several images of the Chris Peters-performed ejector star modification to my Ruger GP100; the cuts/terracing is intended to provide somewhat of a repository for unburnt powder granules that are blown back into the ejector area, and preclude the ejector's being unduly forced outward, potentially jamming cylinder movement/revolver operation. Chris called it his "Plus P Powder Eater" modification, as he perceived the problems being more prevalent with .38 Special .38 Special +P ammunition. It seems to work nicely; I've never had my GP100 operation hindered by any GSR/ejector star issues.

Chris performed the mod as part of the custom work that he performed on my GP, but he was also offering it as a stand-alone option as part of his custom gunsmithing menu of services.

http://i986.photobucket.com/albums/ae343/JonInWA/Ruger%20GP100/DSCN2380.jpg (http://s986.photobucket.com/user/JonInWA/media/Ruger%20GP100/DSCN2380.jpg.html)

http://i986.photobucket.com/albums/ae343/JonInWA/Ruger%20GP100/DSCN2381-1.jpg (http://s986.photobucket.com/user/JonInWA/media/Ruger%20GP100/DSCN2381-1.jpg.html)

Best, Jon

Tamara
10-30-2013, 06:10 PM
Above and beyond how well it works, that right there is evidence that someone cares. :cool:

Chuck Haggard
10-30-2013, 06:12 PM
Thanks for posting.

JonInWA
10-30-2013, 06:32 PM
Chris indeed did a superb job on my GP100. He did it when he was retired (or semi-retired) from his first career with Ruger, he was subsequently requested back, and I believe is currently heading up the Ruger East Coast Customer Service Department; I don't know if he's still performing custom bespoke work.

Here are some other images of the GP100-Enjoy!:

http://i986.photobucket.com/albums/ae343/JonInWA/Ruger%20GP100/DSCN1287.jpg (http://s986.photobucket.com/user/JonInWA/media/Ruger%20GP100/DSCN1287.jpg.html)

http://i986.photobucket.com/albums/ae343/JonInWA/Ruger%20GP100/DSCN1290.jpg (http://s986.photobucket.com/user/JonInWA/media/Ruger%20GP100/DSCN1290.jpg.html)

http://i986.photobucket.com/albums/ae343/JonInWA/Ruger%20GP100/DSCN1289.jpg (http://s986.photobucket.com/user/JonInWA/media/Ruger%20GP100/DSCN1289.jpg.html)


Best, Jon

Totem Polar
10-30-2013, 06:44 PM
Well, don't stop there: what other stuff did you have him do to it? Enquiring wheelie fans want to know...
:cool:

LSP972
10-31-2013, 10:32 AM
Many thanks. That's an interesting, and apparently useful, modification.

I have to wonder if there's enough "meat" on your basic S&W star to do that?

.

Chuck Haggard
10-31-2013, 11:07 AM
My first center fire handgun, which turned out to be my first duty gun, is a 4" stainless Security Six. I may have to look at getting that worked on, the rear sight is jacked up due to one too many fights that went to the ground and having a duty rig that didn't protect the rear sight,

Nice looking guns in those pics.

JonInWA
10-31-2013, 02:26 PM
Well, don't stop there: what other stuff did you have him do to it? Enquiring wheelie fans want to know...
:cool:

Fair enough question-Here's the details of the work I had performed; it was initially inspired by Massad Ayoob's article on Chris Peters' GP100 custom gunsmithing in the 1990 issue of The Complete Book Of Magnums:


Complete action/accuracy job
Chambers chamfered
Muzzle recrowned (11 degree cut)
+P Powder Eater ejector modification
Trigger rounded
Ejector rod polished
Ejector guide pins deburred
Forcing cone bevelled
Chamber necks de-burred
Millett Orange Bar front sight and White Outline rear sight installed
Rear sight retaining pin Locktited/peened
Crane/latch pivot screw Locktited
Letts custom laminated grips (winewood for large, silver black for compact, as seen in the images)
Barrel top rib and topstrap glass-beaded to reduce glare
Custom blueing



When initially checking the gun as provided for fit/function/accuracy, Chris was dissatisfied with the barrel and cylinder, and had them replaced by Ruger at no cost to me. I shipped my GP100 to him in Sept 1998 after I obtained it and test-fired; I found that the rear sight needed to be cranked totally over to the right to achieve a centered group, which I found a bit odd (needless to say); the barrel was apparently incorrectly manufactured/threaded/installed/torqued, which is probably the main factor in its being replaced.

While the initial time estimate for the work was three months, the entire project took from the end of Sept 1998 to mid-October 1999, a huge amount of that time was subsumed by issues surrounding the custom blueing; the bluer that Chris used had conflicts with a hunting trip, followed by an injury precluding his working for a protracted time, and then Chris was dissatisfied with the initial blueing when it was done and had it re-done. When he finished the mechanical work and it became apparent that the blueing was going to be protracted, Chris offered to have Ruger apply their OEM brushed blue finish as an interim finish, and when the custom bluer was up to the work I could send the GP100 back, but I elected to have the gun held in place with Chris and Skip Christie (Skip owned Wind River Trading Post, under whose aegis Chris performed his custom gunsmithing at the time) and was the superb conduit for most of my communications about the project to Chris, although Chris and I spoke several times during the process as well).

Since Chris was with Ruger at the time much of the work was performed, he felt compelled for purposes of shielding Ruger from liability to use OEM factory springs, apparently strong enough to single-handedly support the Golden Gate bridge. So the revolver came to me with a beautifully smooth, but inordinately heavy triggerpull, what with the OEM spring weightings of a 14 lb mainspring and 11 lb trigger return spring. Eventually I replaced the both springs; the mainspring first with a 12 lb Wolff, and ultimately with a 10 lb Wolff, and the trigger return spring with an 8 lb Wolff. Due to Chris' work in smoothing and deburring the components, the lighter mainspring performs uncompromisingly with a wide variety of cartridges/primers, both in .357 Magnum and .38 Special, and including with a correspondingly wide variety of primers, including hard CCI primers.

While I have both the Ruger large and compact grips (with Letts custom laminate inlays), I much prefer the compact grip-especially with .38 Special +P cartridges. With .357 Magnum cartridges, especially with harder-recoiling heavier loadings and bullet weights, I would probably switch to the large grip. With the compact grip, the revolver is eminently concealable and usable, availing a full-handed grip.

While I have various holsters, it is usually carried (and IDPA'd) with a Kramer mahogany horsehide IWB holster; for rugged field/outside duty belt (unconcealed) carry, I also have Bianchi's excellent UM84R, their full-flap revolver version of the military UM84/92/M12 holster; the flap is removable if desired for quicker access and draw.

All inner action components are sprayed/applied with a coating of Dri-Slide, a molybdenum disulfide dry film lubricant/anti-corrosive carried in a liquid solution; after application, the liquid evaporates, leaving a dry film of protective lubricant. The exterior of the revolver has been treated with a coating of Sentry Solutions' Tuf-Cloth, a chemical protectant suspended in mineral spirits on the cloth for rub-on application; the mineral spirits evaporate after application, leaving a durable protective coating to ward off corrosion. And advantage to using such dry film protectants is that they protect and lubricate without serving as an attractant for GSR and foreign detritus that could gum up the works. I do use TW25B for the crane/cylinder surfaces where the cylinder rotates around the crane, and for where the crane pivots in the receiver when the cylinder is opened.

The gun is an excellent heavy-duty carry and IDPA SSR competition revolver-although as I mentioned in the thread that initiated this discussion, its use will be primarily constrained to daytime carry/competition, and home nightstand use.

Chris Peters subsequently provided an action job and trigger-rounding to my Ruger P944 (the .40 variant of the P94), through no fault of his, I was ultimately less pleased with that gun, and I believe that I traded it for one of my subsequent Glocks. To the best of my knowledge. Chris is still with Ruger on the East Coast; unfortunately Skip Christie has apparently passed away, as neither I nor Massad Ayoob have been able to contact him. I frankly have no idea if Chris is still performing custom gunsmithing, but if he is, I unhesitatingly recommend him, especially for Rugers.

I hope that this level of detail hasn't put all of you to sleep...


Best, Jon

JonInWA
10-31-2013, 03:01 PM
My first center fire handgun, which turned out to be my first duty gun, is a 4" stainless Security Six. I may have to look at getting that worked on, the rear sight is jacked up due to one too many fights that went to the ground and having a duty rig that didn't protect the rear sight,

Nice looking guns in those pics.

Tpd223, I believe that Bowen makes some excellent heavy-duty replacement sights that he manufactures for both the Ruger GP100 and Security Six, with various brear sight blade options-you might want to check them out at www.bowenclassicarms.com.

Shameless as I am, here are some images of my 1878-vintage Security Six, which I obtained used from a very reputable local gunshop. It came with a set of Ruger OEM wood Target grips (but not OEM for my particular variant, which would have been issued with the Ruger "splinter" grips. The Target grips were aesthetically attractive, but operationally left a bit to be desired, especially regarding grip and speedloader accessibility-I initially replaced them with a set of Hogue's rubber fingergroove grips (a huge operational improvement), and ultimately with a set of the late Jacques Trausch's TJ84R grips, which he personally modified for me, adopting the grips from their round-butt installation molding to accommodate my square-butt Security Six, and whittling the forward upper left portion of the left grip to accommodate both HKS and Safariland Comp II speedloaders. These Trausch grips provide superb automatic-pistol-like ergonomics, particularly for the backstrap area. His grips aren't particularly well-known in the US, but are extremely well-regarded in Europe, and were used back in the day by some of the leading high-speed-low-drag LEO and .mil units that utilized revolvers (a long-time sidearm of preference of some leading French and Austrian units).

The only other work I've had performed on my Security Six has been to replace the front sight with the now sadly unavailable Millett Orange Bar front sight; the OEM rear blade with mine was (extremely fortuitously) Ruger's .140 wide notch plain black blade-perfect for defensive/tactical/competition use. I had a local revolver gunsmith chamfer the chambers, and remove a burrs in one or two of the chambers. After acquiring the gun, I sent it to Ruger to thoroughly go through the revolver and bring everything back into spec as needed-when I got it back, literally 10 minutes after UPS dropped it off, when dryfiring, the trigger return spring broke. The Ruger Customer Service Manager was mortified; she immediately sent me a shipping label, and they no only replaced that spring, they thoroughly went through the entire gun again...This gun has a superb triggerpull, smooth and light-it's actually better that the triggerpull on my above-described Chris Peters gunsmithed GP100, possibly due to the component architecture of the Security Six design, which more amenably lends itself to tuning efforts. Overall, however, I slightly prefer the handling dynamics and overall ergonomics of the GP100, especially for competition.

I have several holsters for the Security Six-primarily used for most of my carry and competion needs is a Blade-Tech kydex IWB, but I also have a classic Hunter oiled leather OWB belt holster with thumbstrap retainer, and a Pacific Canvas and Leather Co. reproduction USN WWII Naval Aviator's shoulder holster (perfect for nightstand use-a simple shoulder holster rig is great for securing a gun if necessary, as thrusting a gun into the waistband of one's jammies usually leaves a bit to be desired....both conceptually and supportability-wise...My Bianchi UM84R holster also works extremely well with the Security Six for flapped field carry (the flap is easily removed if desired). The revolver is reloaded with HKS and Safariland Comp II speedloaders; the HKS ones actually seem to be a bit better for the Security Six in my experience.

The internals are treated similarly as my GP100 discussed in the above thread, and the exterior is hand-polished with Mothers Magwell Polish, burnished to a medium-high polish, and then treated with the Sentry Solutions Tuf-Cloth protectant.

http://i986.photobucket.com/albums/ae343/JonInWA/Ruger%20Security%20Six/DSCN1636.jpg (http://s986.photobucket.com/user/JonInWA/media/Ruger%20Security%20Six/DSCN1636.jpg.html)

http://i986.photobucket.com/albums/ae343/JonInWA/Ruger%20Security%20Six/DSCN1637.jpg (http://s986.photobucket.com/user/JonInWA/media/Ruger%20Security%20Six/DSCN1637.jpg.html)

http://i986.photobucket.com/albums/ae343/JonInWA/Ruger%20Security%20Six/DSCN1633.jpg (http://s986.photobucket.com/user/JonInWA/media/Ruger%20Security%20Six/DSCN1633.jpg.html)

http://i986.photobucket.com/albums/ae343/JonInWA/Ruger%20Security%20Six/DSCN1027.jpg (http://s986.photobucket.com/user/JonInWA/media/Ruger%20Security%20Six/DSCN1027.jpg.html)





Best, Jon

Chuck Haggard
10-31-2013, 03:57 PM
Thanks Jon, good info. Nice looking Security Six too.

Ref Tanker holsters, good gear. I carried a 1911, a K frame or a M9 in one for many years and over a lot of various terrain.

LSP972
10-31-2013, 04:16 PM
Ref Tanker holsters, good gear. I carried a 1911, a K frame or a M9 in one for many years and over a lot of various terrain.

We got a bunch of dyed-black ones from a surplus deal via the jarhead reserve unit in New Orleans. They were new, never issued. We had just gone to G35s as the issue SWAT pistol. Those M7 tanker holsters proved to be the perfect way to tote one's handgun when "suited up" in the issue flight suit/coverall, but not "geared up"… IOW, when it was your turn in the barrel to work the command post and be the admin gofer to the incident commander. Those chest rigs were much more comfortable than the standard belt rig, which had a thigh holster on the strong side and a multiple magazine pouch/etc. on the off side.

I've still got mine around here somewhere, come to think of it…


.

JonInWA
10-31-2013, 05:02 PM
I've got the leather Naval Aviator's one in the nightstand for revolvers, and a cordura Spec Ops one from Eagle Industries that was originally made up for my P229, but is actually amazingly adjustable and wholly usable for a wide variety of semi-autos. I seriously consider a simple tanker-type rig to be an ideal home defense nightstand rig-it's easily thrown on, and provides a secure, but reasonably accessible holster to stow the gun when not needed, without requiring a belt (or heavy-duty slacks or shorts); concealability really isn't much of a criteria/issue.

Best, Jon