For the Love of Plinking

[awp_101]

a Clark Custom Ruger A100 frame with a Douglas barrel and an Aristocrat sight rib.

Got any beauty shots of that Clark yet? A verifiable Clark Ruger is on my "just to have one someday" list.

To many, the 2nd Series Woodsman was the best version of the design. While companies like FN improved the design with barrels being swappable with a single screw, the dry fire feature on the Medalist, and a non-reciprocating rear sight, the feel of the Colt design in the hand is unparalleled. The pistol, even slightly enlarged from the pre-war design, is thinner than modern rimfire pistols while being very comfortable in the hand. The grip angle is more raked compared to the 1911 to keep the cartridge rims from interfering with feeding, but it still feels right to most 1911 shooters. The pistol is all machined steel with wood grips although plastic grips were available on some models, notably the Challenger and Huntsman. Literally no one designs pistols like this and very few (Standard Manufacturing is offering a 2nd Series Target clone) make pistols like this. There is just something magic about the Woodsman. It is hard to put into words, but the smile on the face of the shooter is the tell.

I fell into the High Standard hole when Colt's were out of my reach. I had a Model B ~20 years ago, I wonder how close are they are in feel to the Woodman?

[farscott]

Good timing on the Clark Custom Ruger. This one is actually my third Clark Custom built on a Ruger. I had one Mark II and an older A100 frame Standard that had the Clark magic worked on them. Those pistols were exemplars of Clark's work on the Ruger platform.

The new one is a bit of a unique beast. It is an A100 Standard from 1981 with the work being done in Keithville, LA. It has the usual Clark touches, including the steel trigger with overtravel stop and a very tight chamber. The twist is it wears an Aristocrat (not Bo-Mar) sight rib on top of the Douglas-barreled receiver. The rear sight is a regular adjustable instead of the cammed three-position PPC sight Aristocrat is known to offer. With the bull barrel and sight rib, it is one heavy pistol. It also has a Majestic Arms extended magazine release. There is some rust freckling on the barrel from being ignored but nothing structural and the bore is perfect.

Whether the Woodman's or this will be my primary shooter for indoor Bullseye is a good dilemma.

[awp_101]

Sweet!

[farscott]

I fell into the High Standard hole when Colt's were out of my reach. I had a Model B ~20 years ago, I wonder how close are they are in feel to the Woodman?

I have very little High Standard experience but they do feel very Woodsman-like. I have shooting buddies who swear by them and are quite competitive in our league. Not many shoot anything Colt anymore as the world has left that design behind. I am the oddball as I always have something unusual in my range bag as a backup or a pistol for people to try. I have brought everything from my Norinco TT Olympia to a Colt Trooper Mark III finished in "Colt Guard" electroless nickel.

[farscott]

As previously mentioned, I have a soft spot for old pistols that need some TLC. This one is a pre-war Colt Woodsman Target. It was made in 1938, and the finish showed every bit of its age. Near 85 years of use will do that, and I hope to look as good at that age as this pistol did before the refinish. The bluing was gone in places and the finish had lots of what is nicely called patina, but there was no pitting. The bore was shiny with well defined rifling. No doubt this pistol was used but not abused.

I was able to acquire the pistol for basically nothing as the two original magazines it came with covered the purchase price. As an aside, original Woodsman magazine prices are insane. The cost of two used Colt pre-war magazines will buy a Glock 19. And the Triple K aftermarket magazines do not feed well.

My buddy and I decided to be a bit creative and played with some different Cerakote colors. Most of the pistol is done in titanium, the controls are in gold in homage to the Browning pistols with their gold triggers, and the sights and a few small parts are in black. Not sure I would do this again, but the metal is protected for another 85 years or so. The reason is getting the trigger with its microscopic small spring back into the pistol was a serious challenge. Slave pin to the rescue.

The pistol itself is a delight in the hand and afield. It is lighter than a Ruger Standard RST6 due to the thin barrel and petite frame. It is a very thin and elegant pistol that would never be designed today. Even with the modern finish, there is no doubt it is a JMB design.

Fast reloads are not in the cards, but there is no fear of losing the magazine from the pistol as it takes a deliberate effort to move the very low-profile magazine latch and to pull the magazine free. It moves smoothly going in and out of the pistol while being nicely retained. The whole pistol is a very smooth thing. Not many sharp edges other than the sights.

While this pistol can use HV ammo, I stick to SV ammo. It does very well with the 42-grain Gemtech (CCI) Suppressor.

[farscott]

There is a large difference in collector interest in pre-war and post-war Colts and S&W firearms. The war, of course, was WW II. The big difference is that wartime production mandated maximum production rates. One of the ways to increase the production rate was to reduce manufacturing time for a given design. Eliminating unnecessary manufacturing steps was a means to reducing manufacturing time. Once the war ended, the firearms manufacturers did not forget that lesson, and much of the hand fitting and attention to detail that was part and parcel of pre-war production was lost. That manifested in the post-war firearms lacking the attention to detail and a loss of some features, including ones most people never notice.

This applied to the Woodsman. After the war ended, Colt exhausted the supply of pre-war parts and started to make changes to the Woodsman. The sights were improved and simplified, with the windage-adjustable rear and elevation-adjustable front replaced with a fixed front sight and fully adjustable rear sight. Colt moved to a 1911-magazine release and added a magazine safety. Not long after that, Ruger introduced the Standard at a much lower price point than the Colt. Before the 3rd Series was introduced to further cut manufacturing costs, Colt applied the lessons of wartime production to the 2nd Series design.

One of the subtle ways that Colt simplified the manufacturing was to eliminate a feature most people never noticed. That makes a ton of sense as there is no reason to spend manufacturing steps on a feature that no one will miss if it is removed. That change was to the assembly lock plunger aka "that button that is pressed to lock the recoil spring for field stripping". What Colt did showed the attention to minutiae in the original design. If one looks at the assembly lock plunger on a pre-war or early post-war pistol, the contour of the plunger can be seen to follow the curvature of the top of the slide. This is hard to photograph with a blued pistol. The contrasting colors on the Cerakote pistol make it a bit easier. The button is also checkered just like the safety assembly is. Just a little button that is only used when the pistol is to be field stripped, and it received that much attention during design, development, and manufacturing.

On the post-war pistols, the first change was to just serrate the button on the assembly lock plunger. The next step was to simply the assembly plunger manufacturing by removing the machining step to make it follow the slide curvature. Most no one noticed, and Colt saved some manufacturing time and money. This was the beginning of the end for labor intensive processes in the firearms industry, leading to where we are today. It is also why the pre-war guns bring the prices they do. They are just nicer.

[farscott]

The Match Target has reproduced. Well, sort of.

The heavy barreled six-inch 2nd Series Colt Woodsman Match Target does not balance well for me. It points extremely well, I love the sight picture, it is reliable, I like the 1911 magazine release, and I can shoot small (tiny, tiny) groups with it. However, I seem to be fighting the gun. It is just too muzzle heavy. That manifests itself at the end of a match with steadily increasing group sizes.

Mentioned this to a buddy and he let me try his 4.5" Match Target. Felt much better in the hand and the shorter sight radius was not the handicap I expected. The ColtMaster rear sight of the early 2nd Series pistols provides a great sight picture combined with the front post. So, this happened. A 1951 shooter-grade Match Target with ok-but-not-great grips and a trigger shoe.

Now I know why the 4.5" Match Targets demand such a high premium compared to the 6" pistols.

[awp_101]

I'm trying to resist a Beretta Neos in the used case of a local pusher. I bought one right when they came out and mine had the issue of the trigger bar rubbing the frame enough to impede the trigger reset. Beretta replaced the pistol under warranty but since I was unhappy my new toy didn't work right out of the box, I let my money get mad and I immediately traded off the replacement for a Bulgarian Makarov (because Russian designs never fail, amiright? ). After a few years I realized that was a pretty stupid decision and the idea of picking up another one surfaces when I run across one in a used case somewhere for a good price.

Unrelated to the above rambling...

[awp_101]

[farscott]

As part of divesting myself of most of my collection, I unloaded both of my Clark Custom Ruger Standard pistols. One was the Aristocrat sight rib Standard, and the other was a Mark II wearing an Ultra Dot. I also moved the six-inch 2nd Series Woodsman Target Match, the Colt Officer's Model Target, and a Mark II Target with the infamous two-piece bolt. As such, I was going through rimfire withdrawal. When I stumbled across this, I had to grab it.

A Volquartsen built on a Ruger Mark II in a style I had never seen. 7.5" ported Volquartsen bull barrel with an optics rail, Volquartsen action parts, and Volthane grips. It is called "Terminator" which was an old-school model (like late 1980s) from when Tom ran the company, but this one was built under Scott based on the graphics. It is still old enough to have the wider trigger.

Looking at using this for Bullseye. If I have to replace the sight, I have an Aimpoint T1. That may not be optimal, but I am looking to have some fun just experimenting.