119er said:
Does anyone advocate full moons? I like the idea and the HKS speedloaders I have seem clunky. If so, who should perform the work?
Moons work best with short fat rounds such as .45ACP & .40S&W, and less so with long skinny rounds like .38spl, and moreso .357mag. Think pushing spaghetti. Yeah, they'll certainly work, and you won't have to screw around with speedloaders, but you won't likely get .45-like reload speed.
Also, moons or not, the
real secret to fast reloads is a
bunch of practice at home with dummy rounds. Ditching those twist-type HKS loaders would help to. Push-type, such as Safarilands, are faster. Safariland CompIIIs or Jetloaders are the fastest. Get good with these, and your reloads will be faster than most people with moons.
Since you now have a pair of 686s, though, it might be fun to have one machined to accept moons for the added versatility. The best place I know of is
TKCustom. You'd only have to send them the cylinder. Do a little research into moonclip compatibility with different brands of brass, though. IIRC, some clips and some brass don't get alone. TKCustom may be able to answer your questions.
119er said:
Can anyone tell me what the purpose of the pivoting firing pin on the earlier model is for? It pivots upward as if being guided by the frame as it finishes its travel forward. Is this typical function?
Yes, it's normal. Since it travels in the same arc as the hammer, it has to pivot at the end of it's travel to hit the primer straight on.