Habla Colt 45?

Well, I took the plunge and purchased a 45 - okay another 45 - but this time it was a Colt. A Tokyo Marui Colt 45 MkIV Model 70 - a real 45 - as opposed to those hi-capa do-hicky efforts. It's basically an updated version of the M1911A1 but with a larger safety, a slightly extended and reshaped beavertail and a slightly wider gap in the rear sight - apparently, I haven't compared it to the 1911 - it's not here yet :) 

As a skirmish gun it seems very nice. Being me, I couldn't just leave it as is and added a PDI 6.01 Palsonite barrel and an upgraded recoil spring.
I bought an M7 holster - WW2 type shoulder holster but left handed version - and to say it was a tight fit would be an understatement. Sooo... I soaked the holster in warm water, wrapped the gun in a freezer bag, forced it into the holster and left it to dry overnight. I then got out some leather cleaner, cleaned the holster with that and then applied copious amount of leather balsam (lanolin and beeswax) left it to soak in and then gave it a good polish. Perfect. Now, to most real steel shooters, my treatment would be considered holster abuse and complete overkill for a leather holster since it's supposed to do... yadda, yadda, yadda, yawn. Yeah, right. I want to get the gun out of the holster when I need it - the press stud strap can hold the gun in. As far as I'm concerned it it now works as required.  

Baofeng UV-5R Transciever

Well, the first of two radios has arrived and it looks pretty cool. It seems a sturdy little bit of kit, appears to have a considerable number of options including FM radio and LED torch on the top - disappointed by the lack of a built in toaster though...  Anyhoo, I got a programming cable and a mini-cd of software for this one and quickly fired it into the PC. After operating in stupid mode for some minutes I quickly figured out that my 64-bit notebook would probably work better with the 64-bit USB driver than the 32-bit one. I manually typed in all the channels I wanted - FRS/GMRS and PMR446 - and proceeded to plug in the radio. It wouldn't connect; kept giving me an 8020 error. After much head scratching and searching of the web I found the latest version of Baofeng's software, downloaded that and run it. Same problem. I then spent an interesting(ish) hour perusing ham radio forums tracking down a solution. I downloaded a little program called CHIRP and proceeded to use this. It's actually a fantastic little piece of code and the radio was up and working in next to no time. Some folks might not bother with the hassle of programming the radio, and by hand it's a daunting task, but certain things can only be done via the PC (like putting names to the channels) so getting the USB cable and downloading the CHIRP software is a no brainer. I've set all the FRS and PMR channels to low power as standard with the GMRS left on high power and used all the default names from CHIRP.

The CHIRP software is updated daily (!) so here's a link to the files http://trac.chirp.danplanet.com/chirp_daily/   just find the latest file and use the download enclosed.

Oh, the fishing reel bags arrived and look ideal for the headsets but I'll need to remove the aerials from the radios for them to fit. I've got some closed cell foam kicking about and I'm going to use that to modularise the interiors.

What we have is a failure to communicate - not anymore...

I decided it was time to consolidate all the radio based crap I have accumulated into a big box, stash it at the back of the cupboard and start afresh. Basically I wanted two radios - one for me and one for my imaginary friend. After a long search and reading various reviews I decided on the Chinese made Baofeng UV-5R. They appear to have some distinct advantages, the main one of which appears to be much cheapness for a lot of tech. They cover 400-480Mhz which I have reliably informed will cover the PMR466 band and the US GMRS/FRS bands - although, to be fair, the 'reliably informed' is via an airsoft forum so could as easily be 'a wild guess'. Time will tell, since they've still actually to get here. The radios look, at least IMHO, pretty tactical without resembling the half bricks that are actual service radios. Of course, real military radios would be really cool and gucci but since they operate on different frequencies, comms with anybody other than my imaginary friend would be somewhat curtailed. Apparently, these little Chinese toys can listen to two channels at the same time and can be programmed from your PC via a USB cable. They have a standard two pin Kenwood connector to attach a PTT or basic headset.  I ordered them separately from different companies on ebay mainly from the point of view of reducing the odds of being huckled for customs and handling charges. One of the orders includes the required USB programming cable. At £75(ish) for both they seem like a pretty good buy.

Of course, radios need headsets - yes they do - and the new Ztactical Evo III headset in Olive Drab looked ideal. You can swap the mike around to either side and they have a standard military plug to connect to a PTT. I've not really been a fan of throat mikes although I have three or four kicking about and I have an combined in-ear headset/mike which is quite clever but it doesn't fit particularly well in my ear. I also have the the older fixed mike Cavalvy version of the one pictured and like it but at that point it came with combined PTT. The new one plugs into a separate PTT allowing you to leave the radio attached to your gear when taking it off without almost strangling yourself trying to disengage yourself from your headset. The picture is a butchered version of the one on the Ebairsoft.com site where I bought two of them as well as a couple of separate PTT units. Having bought this lot I figured I could do with somewhere to store them so again a trawl though ebay brought up the idea of using a couple of smallish green zipped padded bags intended for storing fishing reels. They look like they'll hold the radio, headset and PTT and for a mere £3.20  each I figure they're worth a punt. 

A Hi-Capa or four

Here's a selection of the handguns I have - four Tokyo Marui Hi-Capas. The top three are fitted with Tanyo-Koba grips - which allow the 5.1s to fit a Blackhawk 1911 CQB SERPA holster. Unfortunately, the 4.1 doesn't fit due to the extended dust cover frame. The two black guns have PDI 6.01 Raven inner barrels and the silver guns have PDI 6.01 stainless inner barrels. All the guns have Nine Ball hop rubber and valve routers. The black 5.1 has a black kryloned barrel, black trigger, hammer and recoil rod fitted. It was going to have a Night Warrior slide but alas it needs the Night Warrior sights - supplies of these appear to have vanished off the face of the planet. The silver 5.1 has a TM 5.1 Match slide and an alloy trigger. The black 4.3 has a dual safety fitted and the silver 4.3 has an alloy outer barrel. The original plan was to uber-pimp all of these with alloy slides and barrels but given the so-so results I've had with these guns and being unimpressed with my efforts with my Desert Eagle and a Zeke kit I've decided that the grief ratio, not to mention the cash spent, isn't worth it. I've stripped out the alloy slides and, except for the silver 4.3, the alloy/steel barrels and resorted to the high speed moving bits the designer intended. I'll stick to minor tweeks and and performance upgrades from now on, Probably... 

The backdrop is a piece of Auscam fabric I picked up from ebay. The plan is to take a Halfords five drawer plus lid section metal tool box  put some thin foam in the bottom, use some neoprene tape to make rough shapes for the guns then line the drawers with the fabric in a similar fashion (hopefully) to some of the recent Tokyo Marui handgun boxes. Should allow storage of 20 handguns with space in the top for a  silenced KSC Mac11 and a KWA MP9 - I think I need to make a wheeled base for it! 

Acquisitions

Recent acquisitions include a Tokyo Marui 4.3 Hi-Capa and a DBoys SCAR-H. A Biohazard M9 - the all-metal TM clone - is winging its way from Hong Kong as I write as is a PDI Raven barrel for the 4.3 Hi-Capa and a short stock motor for the spare UMG gearbox.

I also bought a number of bits off of Mike at the Elite Shooting Centre; mainly original TM part he had left over from building custom guns. A Hi-Capa Match slide, a Night Warrior slide and two 5.1 barrels as well as a complete chrome frame and slide for a Desert Eagle - all original TM, brand new and £70 all in. I also added the Nine Ball Hop Rubber and Nine Ball Gas Router which I will fit into the 4.3 when the barrel arrives. Of course, I forgot to order a dual-safety for the 4.3.

Externally, the Tactical 4.3 is looking the business - black slide and receiver, with olive drab Tanio Koba grip and dual safety. I left the original black hammer spring housing which I think looks better. The black 5.1 is getting the metal slide and barrel replaced with an original TM Night Warrior slide and barrel. Unfortunately, original TM barrels for the 5.1 are chrome so I've sprayed one black and it looks fine. If it develops a couple of scuffs it will still look okay since it's got the chrome underneath the Krylon. It's currently sporting a single sided safety but I'll get a dual safety off Mike soon.- I'm sure the Nine Ball ones are very nice but are over double the price of a TM original. I did discover that a 4.3 Hi-Capa, even with a Tanio Koba grip won't fit a Serpa without some serious Dremel-Fu. So its house is currently a UTG belt holster off of ebay.

The Dboys is very nice for the money. For £219.99 it's fine. Landwarrior were the only ones who had it in stock and I wanted a look at it first so I took a trip over at the weekend. There were a coule of niggles, the front barrel assembly was loose so I tightened it up but in the process noticed that the front allen bolt was just turning in the slot. When I managed to dig it out I discovered that it was stripped - no big deal but annoying. The fire selecter is a bit ropey with very indistinct selection but I've got a mod in mind to fix that. The battery is in the folding stock and power transfer is clever if somewhat agricultural but does solve the problem of wires showing - basically the hinge uses metal shims to transfer the power. through to the gearbox. The wire quality seems pretty poor but I'm looking to fit an AWS Stealth mosfet anyway - I would have preferred an AWS Raptor mosfet but I've got the rear-wired Stealth kicking about that was originally destined for the Dboys SPR. I'll renew the wires when I do that.  

Colt .25 ACP mods

I bought an HFC Colt .25 off of a chap on one of the forums. Bit dear but I'd always fancied one. It looked quite nice (from a distance) but was pants. Nothing to do with the seller though! Now most people would have put it down to experience and foisted it off on some other unsuspecting forum chairsofter. Not I, I promptly dismantled it - just to have a look at how it worked of course. This required a cunning plan, which I didn't have, but brute force and a lot less cunning seemed to suffice and it was soon down to its component parts. By jove they were sh*t.

Some polishing of the internals, a bit of dremelling and it was 'tuned'. Or at least working to a more satisfactory level. Put back together it was much smoother and fired pretty well but now looked distincly scruffy. Of course, I couldn't leave it that way. Not forever anyway.

I bought some lead strip (for weighting golf clubs apparently) with the idea of adding some heft and some Milliput to fill some of the original gaps in the seams but mainly the ones I'd caused getting it appart. After dismantling it I put as much of the lead strip inside as I could. It only added around 30 grams but did take it up to 190g all in. So happy with that. I may have been able to get another gram or so in but it just wasn't worth the effort. The gas resevoir was leaking but that was quicky solved with some silicon grease and teflon tape. More polishing of the internals has led to a much smoother action that I'm now quite delighted with. It's quite grin enducing. Externally though the gun is now down to a black and orange surface waiting to be filled, filled and painted. When I can be bothered.   

Detonics Serpa

I needed a holster for my Detonics and seen a DeSantis ITP holster that appeared quite good. It was cheap(ish) and arrived quite promptly from the USA - a distinct but pleasant surprise since most things I order from the States seem to have delivery times based on phases of the moon or planetary alignment. Anyhoo, it worked great looked the dogs and was as uncomfortable as feck. NEXT!!!

Que a Blackhawk CQB. I've got one and the Detonics fitted fine but the holster was a tad big for the size of the gun. I debated chopping it up but since it's a real left handed model opted to order one of the cheaper Sportster ones. Also left handed. It arrived as per normal USesque delivery times but worked fine and has now been dremelled down to Detonics size. I could probably take just about another centimetre off the length of the holster but this would take it past the reinforcing point and it may end up too flexible. I'm still thinking about it though and since I have some fibreglass kicking about somewhere I may use that to support  around the end.

In the mean time the holster works a treat. Now I  need something for these two spare mags...