Caspian frame, Baer slide ready for test fire.

[Magnumite]

Long story edited real short. Started this pistol and hit frustration points. I just put it in the safe then life stepped in. Well, got it ready to test fire.

Edited story, along the way while high cutting the front strap hit a porosity spot..brown spot in pic. Got the frame, slide, barrel and bushing fit. Went to install the firing pin and stop…the freaking firing bore is about .125” low at the rear of the slide. Firing pin hole at the breechface is located correctly. This is where I just put it away.

Laundry list of goodies:

Slide frame fit came out to be:
front: .0017” lateral; .0011” vertical…
rear: .0005” lateral; .0007” vertical….

Kart barrel and bushing fit went great.
Some of the other pieces used:
Greider medium length trigger;
Ed Brown lockwork kit, strut, pins l. I like EB parts;
Ed Brown machine grip safety…wow!;
Les Baer extractor;
10-8 angled mag catch and plung;
EGW fps, single side thumb safety, slide stop, oversized ejector, plunger tube;
Not sure, but the grips maybe VZ;
Colt rear BMCS pattern reat sight, Novak .185” front sight;
Mainspring housing, flgr, and a couple small parts Thunder Mountain Custom.

The trigger ai just touched the hooks and the sear nose. Cut a relief angle. Have a very nice crisp 2 3/4 pound trigger that stays put on an empty slide drop (done only to prove action work).

After test firing I’ll need to make final adjustments, get the rear of the frame and ejector set back into the slide. Usual cosmetic blending and a gentle dehorn and rust blue it.

 

[Rockzilla]

Long story edited real short. Started this pistol and hit frustration points. I just put it in the safe then life stepped in. Well, got it ready to test fire.

Edited story, along the way while high cutting the front strap hit a porosity spot..brown spot in pic. Got the frame, slide, barrel and bushing fit. Went to install the firing pin and stop…the freaking firing bore is about .125” low at the rear of the slide. Firing pin hole at the breechface is located correctly. This is where I just put it away.

Laundry list of goodies:

Slide frame fit came out to be:
front: .0017” lateral; .0011” vertical…
rear: .0005” lateral; .0007” vertical….

Kart barrel and bushing fit went great.
Some of the other pieces used:
Greider medium length trigger;
Ed Brown lockwork kit, strut, pins l. I like EB parts;
Ed Brown machine grip safety…wow!;
Les Baer extractor;
10-8 angled mag catch and plung;
EGW fps, single side thumb safety, slide stop, oversized ejector, plunger tube;
Not sure, but the grips maybe VZ;
Colt rear BMCS pattern reat sight, Novak .185” front sight;
Mainspring housing, flgr, and a couple small parts Thunder Mountain Custom.

The trigger ai just touched the hooks and the sear nose. Cut a relief angle. Have a very nice crisp 2 3/4 pound trigger that stays put on an empty slide drop (done only to prove action work).

After test firing I’ll need to make final adjustments, get the rear of the frame and ejector set back into the slide. Usual cosmetic blending and a gentle dehorn and rust blue it.

View attachment 386144 View attachment 386145 View attachment 386146 View attachment 386147 View attachment 386148 View attachment 386149 View attachment 386150 View attachment 386151 View attachment 386151

Mag, looks great as always, awaiting test fire results.
blending and fitting look great also....like the difference in shades of
gray / black, then the grips to bring it all together
fire it up....

-Rock

 

[Magnumite]

Thank you, Rock. Hopefully will hit the range this weekend.

The tones do compliment each other. Pistol will be rust blued

 

[boothdoc]

Another sweet piece. I can’t wait to see it rust blued

 

[Magnumite]

Thank you. Of one went through my safe one woukd see many of my pistols are not finished, i.e. they are built, contoured, blended, textured…raw carbon. Not crazy about applying the final finish. I am actually getting pumped about bluing on thos and a couple more I need to finish.

Blued and black park, DLC are my favorite finishes.

 

[Rockzilla]

Thank you, Rock. Hopefully will hit the range this weekend.

The tones do compliment each other. Pistol will be rust blued

Take some picz when you get it rust blued (I know you will)
It would almost hypnotize you if the rust blue blends in with
the grips.
what you gonna test it with? ball or some SWC (H&G 68's),
185gr JHP's gotta ask.

-Rock

 

[Magnumite]

I’ll definitely run ball, a mag or two of RP 230 JHP, and some 200 gr lswc, 68 style bullet at about 725 fps.

 

[Bisleyfan44]

What a great build! Thanks for sharing this one.

 

[Magnumite]

thanks!

 

[Rockzilla]

I’ll definitely run ball, a mag or two of RP 230 JHP, and some 200 gr lswc, 68 style bullet at about 725 fps.

sounds like a plan. If the Ransom rest was still here (MD) that would be a great way
to check it out. Awaiting the range report. great day to test it out.
about like you, shoot a mag of ball, then 230g LRN, #68's with 5.1 grs 231
185g JHP 4.1g N310 (proven accurate load)

-Rock

 

[rob b]

very nice

 

[Magnumite]

Thanks, Rob.

 

[Magnumite]

some additional work do e…
Rear of frame and ejector to rear of slide.
Top of beavertail to frame blend

 

[Magnumite]

Took the pup out for its first walk.

Eager to shoot it, I did. And a lesson or two along the way.

There was one malfunction with the first defensive round. A Double Tap cartridge, head stamped “45 AUTO”. It was factory round I bought in a lot from a member of another websire. It was not reloaded…nickeled case was cherry. I touched off the shot. WTF!!!! I have no idea what they loaded in it. It was more like a 45 Super round and said, “Who is your daddy now, beotch?!”. Anyway, the sharp recoil caused an inertia feed since the pistol isn’t tuned for that power level. That was the only malfunction.

Talking about the way the pistol is set up. At the rear of the pistol is an EGW flat bottom firing pin stop and a 23 pound mainspring (standard 45 weight). Recoil spring, a close out special was rated at 15 pounds and has both ends closed. Good set up in the past.

Fired cases show off-center firing pin strike, not Sig like…but its there. Shooting the pistol it seems indifferent to strike position. That’s good news.

*•I used a KimPro mag. Fed well, very CMC ProMag-like. EXCEPT, you can tell this is an 8 rounder in a 7 round mag body. You can almost forget seating it on a closed slide. On an empty slide it ‘kerchunks’. So personnel transferred it to 7 round status. I also used a rebuilt Mecgar 7 rounder with hybrid feed lips. Worked well.

Shooting was more deliberate for most shooting but I did shoot some rapid fire at two targets from 10 and 15 yards using mostly 200 grain wadcutters and about 10 WWB. The pistol tracks very well and runs flat.

Ammo used:
- WWB 230 grain ball at about 850 fps. Typically shoots pretty good. This pistol shoots it good for blasting grade ammo.
- Winchester JHP 230 grain. Shot 10 rounds.
- Federal 230 grain Hydra-Shok. I like these…they are on house duty.
- The lone Double Tap I had. LOL.
- 200 grain cast SWC hand loads, .452”, 4.0 grains Bullseye, goes about 725 fps in my other 5” accurized pistols. This load is always a good performer and use it as a “is it me or the gun” check.

Targets pics attached. All targets shot two hands standing at an indoor range using a 6 o’clock hold on the target. I threw a few high and left today. But the shots were where I called them. I got straightened out toward the end of the day. Shot initial ball rounds, rapid fire onto a defensive training target after shooting a Sig 365. 1911 much better shooter. This is a fun gun to shoot.

Target 1 - I flip my targets 180 degrees when shooting pistols that shoot low. Reduces paper use. One group of 5 ball rounds, 3 in a nice cluster, at 10 yards to check impact point set at the bench. Group 2 shot at 10 yards, inverted with a sight change. Group 3 shot at 17 yards. Yellow circled shot was a called flier. So the bullet rise at that sight setting can be seen.

Target 2. WWB, 25 yards, two called fliers. redice group size by a third or half and this pustol will shoot even with blasting grade ammo.

Target 3. Defensive WIinchester 230 grain JHP at 25 yards. Wow, you can tell the ammo quality difference. Two shots in lower right corner I had a couple ‘stray’ loads so I function checked with the hollow point genre ammo. The two high shots to the left of the target center..my sights were well up in the black so those were called. This pistol shoots well.

Target 4. 200 grain SWC handloads. Distances of 10 and 17 yards. Groups circled, one called 17 yard flier circled in yellow.

Target 5. 200 grain SWC. 18 shots. First group of 6 shots threw two called fliers left. Readjusted my stance to how I normally shoot and the remainder of the three 6 round mags went into a stable horizontal spread. The vertical stringing was me. Fuzzy top of the front sight from 66 year old eyes (with prescription shooting glasses no less) doesn’t help much.


There you have it. Readers may form their own conclusions.

 

[Rockzilla]

Not bad there Mag that Double Tap Case looks a little hot, could be my ole
eyes, looks like it has smacked the breech face.. compared to the 2 others

-Rock

 

[Magnumite]

the primer metal has that magnum promer against the breechface look. It was definitely hot…

 

[Magnumite]

I shot it again. This time I took along my nearly 40 year old pistol perch and a bench bag.

I first started off with a 7, 10, 17, and 25 yard composite group using my Ruger SR1911-CMD as a warmup and site regulation check. That is target ‘T1’.

Then I jumped right in shooting the Caspian/Baer gun. 25 yards, off hand to warm up using 200 grain cast SWC load. These are not fluttered target loads, they are practice or steel loads, but still quite decent. Target T2 is that first group.

The benched targets each have two clusters. Each cluster is a group. The first group on each target was shot. The target was rotated 180 degrees and the second group was shot.

Group shooting off the pistol perch and bag was compromised because I didn’t have a chair to sit on as I used the stomach high bench. They are what they are. Anyway, targets T3-T5 (groups 2 - 6) show the subsequent groups with 200 grain SWC load. Some were 5 shots, some 6 shots. All groups exhibited tight doubles and three round clusters. For the greater part, the groups improved. There were two called fliers. I cocked the pistol slightly for one and had a low shot where I didn’t push into the bag enough. I only discounted one flier in the measurements. These clusters probably indicate the true potential of the pistol. Massod Ayoob stated shot in this manner those clusters would assimilate a Ransome rested groups.

Target T6 is two five shot groups using CCI Blazer Brass 230 grain FMJ ball. Blazer Brass is not my favorite ammo but both of those group were 1 3/4”! Consistent and pretty good.

I also included one ‘rapid’ or cadenced shot target (T8) at 10 and 17 yards using 230 ball. I included this target simply because the pistol is so manageable to shoot. Also, the approximate group centers are indicated.

Its obvious I am not the best bench test test shooter.

 

[Rockzilla]

hey Mag, hope you had a great, safe holiday.
how's it going with this project? or did you sale it?
just checking in.

-Rock

 

[Magnumite]

Holiday was good, thank you. Howz about yours,…joyful I hope!
I still have it, shhot it again and reslly taking a liking to it. I will be doing two or three guns in the rust blue soon after the holidays. Working on s humidifier ‘cooker’. Quick and easy since its a handgun.Stainless kettle with a humidifier inside of it.