Leg Room
Oh, I'd love to put this thing to bed...but I can't. It's not a matter of one method versus another, and never was. It began weeks ago over a procedure
that was incorrect and potentially unsafe, and repeated attempts have been made to show that it was correct. The argument went from verifying a safe condition all the way to custom-building a non-standard gun...in yet another attempt to make it appear to be correct...and that was never the argument...
at least not in the beginning. It has evolved into that, though.
To recap...A barrel was "shown" to have a perfect headspace condition by the use of a loaded round that was inserted into the chamber. Closer investigation revealed that it not only wasn't perfect, but was in fact dangerous. So...it's a safety question and not one of method vs method.
If it were a question of a custom-size/length/width/shape chamber, I would gladly concede to that fact. A custom-builder is the designer, and may
set his specs with whatever methods and to whatever dimensions that he chooses. No problem there. I've set chambers slightly shorter than spec
for a variety of reasons.
It's a question of verifying a safe or unsafe condtion *in an existing gun*...and that makes it a liability if somebody assumes that the condition is safe in a gun that he or she owns builds, or cobbles up from a variety of parts of unknown specifications. Some things are critical, and must be verified by the correct procedure rather than some haphazard shadetree method.
The problem doesn't lie with experienced smiths who read these posts. It's about the inexperienced folks...which makes up a majority of our membership and lurkers in the shadows...who decide that the incorrect method okay by them...and proceed to either continue to use an unsafe weapon...or create a
dangerous condition because it appeared to be safe by virtue of the man who presented the better argument. Like a Philadelphoia lawyer who gets a guilty client aquitted. The outcome isn't decided on facts...it's decided by virtue of
the clever presentation of the evidence.
If you'll remember, a barrel was deemed perfect, and was returned to the owner with a clean bill of health, and the only thing that prevented the guy from installing and firing the gun was that a bushing had been fitted to the barrel without providing linkdown clearance, and the barrel wouldn't unlock.
That stopped him cold...and he had another barrel retrofitted to the gun.
He sent the barrel to me, and by checking it in several different slides, provided strong evidence that the headspace condition was not only excessive, but dangerously so...and had he fired the gun in that condition,
it very likely would have resulted in a blown case.
So..I can't "agree to disagree" here. There is a moral responsibility and probably a legal one as well, and I will NOT allow a clever presentation
to skew the facts.
Cheers and all that...
But that's not the high road.