1911Tuner
Moderator Emeritus
Yep...This is the opening stroke of another torture test. This time it'll be on a Norinco.
I gained possession of what at first appeared to be an unfired, NIB 5-inch 'Rinco last week from an individual who was good enough to buy one for me because he knew that I was on the prowl for a good one...He resold it to me for the same price, plus a little smithin' on a couple of his pistols in leiu of a finder's fee. Good deal!
On opening it up, I discovered two things that cause me to suspect that the gun had been fired. (It was misrepresented to my bud, and he bought it on good faith as NIB. No harm, no foul. Can't fault him for another man's dishonesty.) A shock buffer with signs of some use...and the fact that the sear primary angle had been "polished" with what appeared to be a felt buffing head and plenty of jeweler's rouge in a Dremel. The trigger was very smooth, but it wasn't "right"...so I replaced the sear with a Nowlin Pro-Match. That made it necessary to refit the thumb safety, which turned out to be a drawn-out process due to the sear and hammer pin hole locations being at the far end of tolerance in the wrong direction. Each one was within spec...but both together added up to a little problem. Added to the fact that the sear's safety pad was a bit oversized, it took some time to get it right.
All turned out well, though...and the thumb safety is cookin' right along like it should. This will give me the chance to Rockwell the OEM sear and compare it to ordnance specs. I'll do that later this week.
On the day that the pistol was delivered into my greedy little hands, we went to the range for a Bull & Bullet shootin' session. Of course, the Norinco went along for the ride, and even though I wasn't really comfortable with the trigger's too-light, rollout break...we shot the gun
about 300 times. Actually, Kelie did most of the shootin' with it. She wouldn't let it rest, so it got a pretty good wringin' out. She's also a little on the small side, so I'm satisfied that the gun will run with a less than "manly" grip. Bonus.
There were no malfunctions with my hardball equivalent reloads, including a few with my funky cast bullets. The slide was often too hot to hold, and several magazines were fired as fast as I could pull the trigger. It ran without a hitch, and was fully as accurate as I could expect a service-grade pistol to be...and more accurate than many that I've handled.
The pistol is nearly as tight and well-fitted in the slide/frame as a loaded Springfield, with very little side to side play...and virtually zero play in the vertical plane. Machining marks are evident, but not to the point that they concern me greatly...and nothing that can't be dressed and smoothed out.
The barrel locks up tight at the back, and has little fore and aft play when in-battery. Hood to slide clearance is pure ordnance spec...which is perfectly acceptable for a reliability freak like me. A go gauge falls just
.003 inch below the hood, which is excellent.
I'll run 5-6k of various ammo through it in the weeks to come, and will make note of anything that needs to be attended. This one won't be as intense as what I put the GI Springfield through, and will mainly focus on
rojnd count along with reasonable care as to cleaning and lubrication between sessions...which will consist of a field-strip cleaning every thousand rounds, and detail-stripping/cleaning/inspection every 2 grand.
I don't intend to be exactly gentle with it...but I'm not gonna try to destroy it either.
Stay tuned, Nork fans! This one is gonna be interesting. So far, so good,
but time and many, many grains of powder and lead will tell.
I gained possession of what at first appeared to be an unfired, NIB 5-inch 'Rinco last week from an individual who was good enough to buy one for me because he knew that I was on the prowl for a good one...He resold it to me for the same price, plus a little smithin' on a couple of his pistols in leiu of a finder's fee. Good deal!
On opening it up, I discovered two things that cause me to suspect that the gun had been fired. (It was misrepresented to my bud, and he bought it on good faith as NIB. No harm, no foul. Can't fault him for another man's dishonesty.) A shock buffer with signs of some use...and the fact that the sear primary angle had been "polished" with what appeared to be a felt buffing head and plenty of jeweler's rouge in a Dremel. The trigger was very smooth, but it wasn't "right"...so I replaced the sear with a Nowlin Pro-Match. That made it necessary to refit the thumb safety, which turned out to be a drawn-out process due to the sear and hammer pin hole locations being at the far end of tolerance in the wrong direction. Each one was within spec...but both together added up to a little problem. Added to the fact that the sear's safety pad was a bit oversized, it took some time to get it right.
All turned out well, though...and the thumb safety is cookin' right along like it should. This will give me the chance to Rockwell the OEM sear and compare it to ordnance specs. I'll do that later this week.
On the day that the pistol was delivered into my greedy little hands, we went to the range for a Bull & Bullet shootin' session. Of course, the Norinco went along for the ride, and even though I wasn't really comfortable with the trigger's too-light, rollout break...we shot the gun
about 300 times. Actually, Kelie did most of the shootin' with it. She wouldn't let it rest, so it got a pretty good wringin' out. She's also a little on the small side, so I'm satisfied that the gun will run with a less than "manly" grip. Bonus.
There were no malfunctions with my hardball equivalent reloads, including a few with my funky cast bullets. The slide was often too hot to hold, and several magazines were fired as fast as I could pull the trigger. It ran without a hitch, and was fully as accurate as I could expect a service-grade pistol to be...and more accurate than many that I've handled.
The pistol is nearly as tight and well-fitted in the slide/frame as a loaded Springfield, with very little side to side play...and virtually zero play in the vertical plane. Machining marks are evident, but not to the point that they concern me greatly...and nothing that can't be dressed and smoothed out.
The barrel locks up tight at the back, and has little fore and aft play when in-battery. Hood to slide clearance is pure ordnance spec...which is perfectly acceptable for a reliability freak like me. A go gauge falls just
.003 inch below the hood, which is excellent.
I'll run 5-6k of various ammo through it in the weeks to come, and will make note of anything that needs to be attended. This one won't be as intense as what I put the GI Springfield through, and will mainly focus on
rojnd count along with reasonable care as to cleaning and lubrication between sessions...which will consist of a field-strip cleaning every thousand rounds, and detail-stripping/cleaning/inspection every 2 grand.
I don't intend to be exactly gentle with it...but I'm not gonna try to destroy it either.
Stay tuned, Nork fans! This one is gonna be interesting. So far, so good,
but time and many, many grains of powder and lead will tell.
