Win some, lose some range day.

[NIGHTLORD40K]

Had a half-day today so got to shoot 3 new-to-me guns after work. I brought my first (owned) Glock, a Gen 3 G19, the gorgeous 6" Official Police I got from Jeff Olson, and my $100 Beretta 16 gauge single with some cartridge adapters. Pistol-caliber to 16 GA adapters aren't easy to come by, so I made these by cementing 20 GA Shooter's Box rifled pistol inserts into Little Skeeters 16 to 20 sleeves.


First up was the Beretta with a .38/.357 adapter. I fired 3x5-shot groups with 158gr SWC Specials and another 3 with 125gr JHPs. These were the best I could manage at 20 YD, even making sure the adapter was indexed identically for each shot-


A bit disappointing, for sure. These adapters are rifled, though the lands and grooves are cut rather rough and very shallow. Didn't see any actual keyholing, though some of the holes may have exibited a degree of yawing. Count this one a loss.

Next up was the 9mm adapter with 115gr ball-

Best of 2x10 shot groups, if you can believe it. Definitely a keyhole there too- also a loss. I'd have to conclude these adapters are useless beyond point-blank emergency need.

I finished off the shotgun with some Aguila #1 buckshot-

Nice tight two-shot pattern from the full-choked 16, I think. Recoil in this relatively light gun was stout, but not uncomfortable. I'll put this one in the win column.

Then my buddy handed me an old Stevens 311 12GA double-barrel he wanted to sell me. I fired two shots, liked the gun, but......the action locked up solid afterwards. I'll let him try to diagnose that one before I revisit that idea, lol. Call that a loss.

Next, I put 50 rounds through the Glock in 2-shot rapid aquisition drills-

Man, always that one flyer! Overall though, well, it's a Glock. Zero problems, and soooooo easy to put rounds on target quickly. Definitely a win.

I finished off the box of .38s with my beautiful new (1962) Colt-

The Flyer strikes again, argh!
The service stocks look great, but make DA grouping challenging to be sure- still pretty happy with this gun. I'm calling this one a win too.

Well, win some lose some, but the worst day shooting is better than the best day working!

 

[flatsticks]

Glad you got to spend your half day at the range .

Poor day of shooting is better than work .

At least you had one winner out of the group , congrats .

Thanks for the range report .

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

Glad you got to spend your half day at the range .

Poor day of shooting is better than work .

At least you had one winner out of the group , congrats .

Thanks for the range report .

Oh, except for the stupid cartridge adapters and the jammed-up Stevens everything went great.

 

[JTHunter]

Take the buttstock off of that Stevens carefully as you MIGHT find something in the area of the hammers has slipped out of place and gotten wedged into a tight spot.
Could you still open the action? Did it jamb after the first or second barrel was fired?
Years ago, my 311 did the same thing and I found a small screw had dropped out of the action and jammed the action.
Good luck !

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

Take the buttstock off of that Stevens carefully as you MIGHT find something in the area of the hammers has slipped out of place and gotten wedged into a tight spot.
Could you still open the action? Did it jamb after the first or second barrel was fired?
Years ago, my 311 did the same thing and I found a small screw had dropped out of the action and jammed the action.
Good luck !

Didn't try to open it until after the 2nd shot. The action would open a tiny bit, but the shells weren't budging from the chambers, so Im assuming the auto extractor was preventing the action from opening any further.

 

[JTHunter]

Remove the fore-end and see if you can open the action. IIRC, the extractor has to push against the fore-end as the action opens to push the shells out. If that works, put the barrels back on WITHOUT the fore-end, close the action and reopen it - if you can.
If so, close and dry fire both barrels and see if you can reopen the action again. If you can't reopen after dry firing it without the fore-end on, there is something more serious that is beyond my abilities.

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

Remove the fore-end and see if you can open the action. IIRC, the extractor has to push against the fore-end as the action opens to push the shells out. If that works, put the barrels back on WITHOUT the fore-end, close the action and reopen it - if you can.
If so, close and dry fire both barrels and see if you can reopen the action again. If you can't reopen after dry firing it without the fore-end on, there is something more serious that is beyond my abilities.

We did actually pull the forend on the bench, didn't see anything obviously wrong, but it still wouldn't open. He took it home to do some more digging. It seems like a tough, no-nonsense double and he certainly isn't t asking much for it, so hopefully its nothing catastrophic.

 

[bannockburn]

NIGHTLORD40K

Oh, except for the stupid cartridge adapters and the jammed-up Stevens everything went great.

Well at least you know that the cartridge adapters don't work. I know of several gun owners who would buy something like those adapters and never try them out. They would just get them and assume they work okay.

And you have a couple of winners in the Glock and the Colt. A Win/Win!

 

[bangswitch]

We did actually pull the forend on the bench, didn't see anything obviously wrong, but it still wouldn't open. He took it home to do some more digging. It seems like a tough, no-nonsense double and he certainly isn't t asking much for it, so hopefully its nothing catastrophic.

It may be that one of the firing pin retaining screws has backed out and has jammed the action, but removing the butt stock should quickly display what is wrong. The 311 action is rather simple. Here's what it looks like from the left rear with the buttstock off. The screw you see is the right firing pin retaining screw, left side is identical; the spring you see is the latch spring, the hammer springs are forward of the hammer bases inside the receiver and not visible The center gizmo is the cocking lever, it cocks the hammers when the gun is opened. The right hammer is in full cock position, left hammer is down in the picture. Second picture shows the trigger sears, third picture is a parts breakdown from Numrich.

The issue with repairing one of these guns is parts availability if one is lost or broken. I had to replace a worn right barrel firing pin and eventually had a hammer break. Luckily you can cross-reference the Fox Model B for parts, depending on the age of the guns, because there were a few changes made, but the actions of the two are almost identical. If you can find parts, these are great field grade guns and are pretty durable. Generally, the right barrel parts wear out first, these guns are choked full on the right and modified on the left and the right barrel gets used a lot more.


The cartridge adapter is rather interesting. I assume there is no bullet to barrel contact with shooting the .38 from a 16 gauge gun, so there goes your accuracy. Even a .44 caliber bullet wouldn't make contact in a 16 gauge, or even a 20 gauge and an adapter would have to be precision machined to even get close to giving any kind of group. A .41 magnum will chamber in a .410 bore shotgun, but I wouldn't shoot it that way because the end of the choked barrel is less than .410" diameter and the chamber is too deep for the cartridge, posing an issue with the bullet striking the throat. A .410 slug is a max of .408".

 

[BreechFace]

..

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

It may be that one of the firing pin retaining screws has backed out and has jammed the action, but removing the butt stock should quickly display what is wrong. The 311 action is rather simple. Here's what it looks like from the left rear with the buttstock off. The screw you see is the right firing pin retaining screw, left side is identical; the spring you see is the latch spring, the hammer springs are forward of the hammer bases inside the receiver and not visible The center gizmo is the cocking lever, it cocks the hammers when the gun is opened. The right hammer is in full cock position, left hammer is down in the picture. Second picture shows the trigger sears, third picture is a parts breakdown from Numrich.

The issue with repairing one of these guns is parts availability if one is lost or broken. I had to replace a worn right barrel firing pin and eventually had a hammer break. Luckily you can cross-reference the Fox Model B for parts, depending on the age of the guns, because there were a few changes made, but the actions of the two are almost identical. If you can find parts, these are great field grade guns and are pretty durable. Generally, the right barrel parts wear out first, these guns are choked full on the right and modified on the left and the right barrel gets used a lot more.
View attachment 1178267View attachment 1178268View attachment 1178269

The cartridge adapter is rather interesting. I assume there is no bullet to barrel contact with shooting the .38 from a 16 gauge gun, so there goes your accuracy. Even a .44 caliber bullet wouldn't make contact in a 16 gauge, or even a 20 gauge and an adapter would have to be precision machined to even get close to giving any kind of group. A .41 magnum will chamber in a .410 bore shotgun, but I wouldn't shoot it that way because the end of the choked barrel is less than .410" diameter and the chamber is too deep for the cartridge, posing an issue with the bullet striking the throat. A .410 slug is a max of .408".

The adapters do have about an inch of rifling at the bore end, and they fit very snugly in the chamber. I actually let the cement dry overnight with the sleeves in the the gun, hoping that would encourage them to self-center as they cured. Oh well, worth a shot, lol.

I also bought a couple Little Skeeters.410 to 16 adapters, but the rims are a hair too thick to chamber in my gun. Ill have to file them down a bit for next time.

 

[Riomouse911]

Trigger time is fun time, I am glad to see the handguns shot well for you.

Looks like the inserts weren’t the best shooting combo today, but the buckshot certainly looks good. I won’t be surprised if you are able to get them to work a bit better with a bit more tinkering.

Stay safe.

 

[PzGren]

I have a Lothar Walther 12g to .38 Special conversion that shoots pretty well, most importantly POI of the .38 is the same as in 12 gauge. It's easy to keep the rounds in a fist to hand sized group at 25yards with a Remington 870 with rifle sights but Lothar Walther conversions have never been cheap.

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

I have a Lothar Walther 12g to .38 Special conversion that shoots pretty well, most importantly POI of the .38 is the same as in 12 gauge. It's easy to keep the rounds in a fist to hand sized group at 25yards with a Remington 870 with rifle sights but Lothar Walther conversions have never been cheap.

Is the rod just for cleaning and knocking out empties, or does it serve some other purpose?
The Shooters Box converters are essentially the same idea, but they don't make any in 16GA, so I had to nest them inside the 20-16 sleeves. I give them kudos for offering some interesting adapters, such as .303 and 7.92 to .32ACP, but the quality of the rifling machining is pretty poor.
Unfortunately, most of the other manufacturers that list rifled 16GA adapters, such as Chazel, are perpetually out of stock.
There are quite a few more options out there for 12GA, naturally.
The Little Skeeters smoothbore adapters are well made. Hopefully Ill get some decent results with .410 slugs from them once I trim them a bit.

 

[PzGren]

Nightlord,

the rod is indeed to push out the empty shells. Lothar Walther has long discontinued the shotgun conversions but barrel inserts have always been in demand in Germany and Krieghoff made very nice ones that cost half a fortune.

This is the fun part of our hobby; to play around with odd things and figure out how to make them work.

 

[Mark_Mark]

Those Flyers! perfect shooting then FLYING

Everyone should get 1 flyer every 10 rounds

 

[drobs]

I'm not surprised by those cartridge inserts.

A few 7 years ago, after watching all these guys on youtube rave about how great those flare gun conversions to 410/45 Colt were, I had to try one. What waste of $$$. It kicked like mule and I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with it.

I was able to sell the surplus 26.5mm German flare gun for what I had into it and the inserts.