For those who remember my earlier post about my 1909 New Service, I finally got it back from the GSmith. They did a great job on it, clean, timed and the action is smooth as silk now. But the mystery continues for me. If you remember the GSmith said it had been converted to 45 ACP from 45 colt. Well, all pumped up now to go shoot, I try it out, buy moon clips, ammo etc. I loaded up a full moon clip, stick it in the cylinder and try to close it and it ain't happening. I cannot even get the cylinder started in the frame. No room for clips. I call the Gsmith today and he said when he test fired it, no problems but he was using half moon clip instead of full moon. ARGH!
I don't have any half moon so I think what the H*ll I will make a halfer out of a full moon, take my dremel and wallah two half moons. I did not expect it to work but at this point I was willing to try it to see if a halfer would work, anyway it didn't as expected.
So now my questions are what is the difference in length between an acp cylinder and a 45 colt cylinder. I measured the cylinder with my dial calipers and it came to about 1.600", there were a couple of places that were off by .005" but I just chalk that up to being old. The next question is, is there a diffence in thickness of the .5 moon vs full moon? Or is the halfer moon a different shape where it would fit closer to the cylinder. The thickness of the clips I have is about 0.040". I guess if the clips don't work my last resort is auto rim which I would rather have any way. It seems the issue is that there is too much room for long colt between the firing pin and primer and not enough for the acp with clips. I am going to call the Gsmith tomorrow and see if he can't measure his halfers to see what thickness they are, I guess I could grind the clips down but I would probably take the tips of my fingers with it, I don't want to do that it makes things more complicated.
Any thoughts, prayers, words of wisdom, would be appreciated. BTW it appears that the change to ACP (if that is what really happened I have my doubts now) was either done by colt or a wanna be gunsmith. IE no armory roll marks. Thanks
[This message has been edited by DVG73 (edited 05-24-2005).]
[This message has been edited by DVG73 (edited 05-24-2005).]
I don't have any half moon so I think what the H*ll I will make a halfer out of a full moon, take my dremel and wallah two half moons. I did not expect it to work but at this point I was willing to try it to see if a halfer would work, anyway it didn't as expected.
So now my questions are what is the difference in length between an acp cylinder and a 45 colt cylinder. I measured the cylinder with my dial calipers and it came to about 1.600", there were a couple of places that were off by .005" but I just chalk that up to being old. The next question is, is there a diffence in thickness of the .5 moon vs full moon? Or is the halfer moon a different shape where it would fit closer to the cylinder. The thickness of the clips I have is about 0.040". I guess if the clips don't work my last resort is auto rim which I would rather have any way. It seems the issue is that there is too much room for long colt between the firing pin and primer and not enough for the acp with clips. I am going to call the Gsmith tomorrow and see if he can't measure his halfers to see what thickness they are, I guess I could grind the clips down but I would probably take the tips of my fingers with it, I don't want to do that it makes things more complicated.
Any thoughts, prayers, words of wisdom, would be appreciated. BTW it appears that the change to ACP (if that is what really happened I have my doubts now) was either done by colt or a wanna be gunsmith. IE no armory roll marks. Thanks
[This message has been edited by DVG73 (edited 05-24-2005).]
[This message has been edited by DVG73 (edited 05-24-2005).]