I'd mentioned elsewhere that I found all the sharp corners and edges I could find on the big RIA double-wide 10, and smoothed those puppies out. i've taken two swings at this until now I find the grip on this gun nice and comfy.  So, off to the range today with about 400 rounds of various handloads...some 155 gr truncated cone cast, 155 gr Noslers, 180 gr Hornady XTPs, 165 gr cast truncated cone, and about 40 rds of of Armscor.

The benefits of woodshed 'melt job' are unmistakable--it was a pleasure to shoot this session with no issues at all on the strong hand.  My left hand got up high in the way of the slide stop on a shot or two, and that razor sharp corner on the back of that opened up a minor little cut on the back of my thumb.  That happened early in the session, and I was able to tighten up my weak hand grip and keep it where it belonged.

The lower-powered loads were a real blast and a nice relief mid-session.  A welcome break.

Shooting accuracy was nothing to write home about--I had my reading glasses on for the first 100 rds, and while the front sight was sharp and in focus, that target was just too much of a blur to really do well. I changed to my shooting glasses, the right lens of which is a prescription specifically to bring the front sight into focus--left lens is just plain safety lens.  That shrunk my groups in half, but still nothing to brag about. At 14 yds (the max length of this particular range), I wasn't able to do any better than a double 0 buck pattern.

The only other thing I wanted to mention in this information-free little tale is that I happened to find my long lost digital calipers in my range bag pocket. Lucky me, because I was able to measure cartridge overall length in each of the groups of handloads--those that ran without issue were generally just a hair under 1.260, those that consistently jammed up were 1.262 or significantly longer--like as long as 1.274 or so.  Stovepipes, nosedives and failure to go into battery were fairly common with the longer loads.  So, everything I have left will be going through the seating die again.

That's it...no big revelations. The gun ran wonderfully and felt great with the shorter loads.  With the right load workup and shorter shooting sessions, I expect some good groups to come out of this.

Thanks for the range report Bongo Boy, the Ultra is a fine Weapon for the price  : )

Ken

I would be interested in some pictures of the melt job when you have a moment.

Quote from: sqlbullet on November 08 2019 09:28:55 AM MST
I would be interested in some pictures of the melt job when you have a moment.

Ditto!!! 

+3 on the melt job.

And Congrats on that RIA Ultra FS HC !!




.

Warning. The following images contain graphic content some viewers may find disturbing--viewer discretion is advised.  Just take into consideration a) I didn't spend more than 30 min on this, b) I didn't even take the time to disassemble the weapon, c) the job will be 'finished' when I do disassemble, complete the contouring, polish the surfaces and d) have the parts refinished.  In the mean time, I wanted to shoot the gun, so--quick and dirty was the choice I made.  Those are all the excuses I can come up with. Oh..the other excuse is that I intend to replace the ambi safety with a standard non-ambi GI safety--so leaving tool marks in it doesn't bother me at all.  As an aside, it's hard for me to imagine a goofier safety--this one looks like it was intentionally designed to snag on absolutely everything, and I find it engages about every 5th shot if I don't concentrate on not touching it.  I honestly don't think some of these innovations are even tested by people who shoot, but to each, his own.

Ah, the other thing I didn't mention--jams on the last round.  I've heard of this from other shooters with other guns, but I experienced it first with the Armscor ammo and was hoping it was limited thereto.  Unfortunately, no.  But I didn't see a consistent pattern to this malfunction--seems a bit random.  I've reseated the buillets now on about 400 rounds of handloads, and found about 150 rounds of 200 gr XTP loads I didn't know I had. These are book max loads or a tad under ('book' being Hornady load manual)...I'll be sure to report on any jammage happening with these newly shortened cartridges.

At this point and with the available data, I consider ALL malfunctions I've experienced to be 100% my fault, with the exception of the last-round in the mag problem. My plan is to first get the COAL issue sorted, then worry the other problem.

Liking the melt.  I will have to do this on mine.

Tool used is Grobet Swiss diemakers riffler that looks like this: