Aimtech APM-11 scope mount for the S&W 422

The Smith & Wesson 422 is an accurate, reliable, fun to shoot pistol, with many of the features that make the more expensive Model 41 so good. You can almost think of the 422 (and its stainless companion, the 622) as an entry level Model 41- in fact, they share the same magazine. They both have a very low bore axis, just above the grip. The ejection port is at the top of the grip, and the entire slide is actually above the bore and the port. That low bore axis means that recoil is almost straight back- there's very little rotation of the gun when fired. 

The 422 came in two versions, one with fixed sights (which I have) and a nicer one with adjustable sights and wooden grips. You can't just swap sights, either, as you can with many pistols. While the rear sight on the fixed model is simply dovetailed into the slide, on the adjustable model, the slide is actually milled longitudinally for the sight. I thought about fitting a a sight from another gun onto my 422, but that leaves the problem of the front sight, which I think is an integral part of the alloy frame, and can't be replaced. You'd have to solder or epoxy some sort of extension on. 

That led me to think about putting a dot sight on it. There's no provision in the pistol for mounting a scope, though some have milled slots into the upper part of the frame, just behind the front sight, or mounted a short rail there. The simpler solution is to get an APM-11 mount from Aimtech, who make scope mounts for all sorts of difficult to scope pistols. This will cost you around $65-68 with postage, depending on where you order it. I paid $68 from Optics Planet, as while there were cheaper listings out there, they were all from shops I'd never heard of, and I'd done business with Optics Planet and trusted them. 

As you can see from the photo at the top of this article, the APM-11 mounts by replacing the right hand side grip. It's a very secure mount, similar to Aimtech's mount for the Colt 1911. The mount itself is made of thick, anodized, aluminum that doesn't flex at all. It's a very high mount, that leaves plenty of room between the gun and scope- enough to use the stock sights, if you like:

although it does help make the gun more top heavy. The scope and mount add enough weight that the combined  assembly is a lot harder to shoot bullseye style than the gun alone. I spent a few hours this afternoon shooting 3 foot-pound Aguila Colibri rounds into my basement pellet trap to get a feel for how it handles, and had a real preference for two-handed shooting with this setup. I may try it with a smaller, lighter dot sight. 

One thing that did strike me was the finish on this piece- it's rough. Take a look:

This isn't just an unpolished finish. It's as if part of their anodization preparation involves tumbling parts with  nuts, bolts and old metal roller skates. In fact, it got me to wondering if perhaps Optics Planet hadn't sent me a used unit, so I sent them a note asking about this. They replied with an apology, and an offer to send it back or accept an $18 price adjustment. I took the price adjustment. 

Overall, I'm impressed with the accuracy of the machining (and less so for the finishing) and how well it fits the gun. On the minus side, it's a bullseye sight mount that's not really a bullseye grip, though a clever gunsmith or shooter could screw or epoxy half a wood grip to it, I suppose. I can't imagine using it for anything other than bullseye or other target shooting at known distances, given how high the mount is above the bore axis. 

The Chiappa Little Badger, part 1

I am a great fan of .22s, miniatures, curious and unusual arms, and guns that cry out for customization, so it was only a matter of time before I found my way to buying a Chiappa Little Badger. My local FFL (Paragon Arms in Berkley, MI) quoted me a better price than any of the stores or on-line discounters, and a few days later I had the little box seen above in my hands. 

Inside, as you can see, there's a backpack case (with a large printed logo-not very low key!) and the gun itself in folded configuration. I loaded up an fired a few Aguila Colibris (a primer-only round with a muzzle energy of 3 foot-pounds) and discovered that the gun has an excellent, trigger, and that the sights are almost unusable for me- either my head is too big, or they're too low. No matter. The gun does come with enough Picatinny rails to please the most ardent fan of the Tacticool style.

However... these rails are made of HDPE, not metal. That's fine for attaching flashlights and hand grips but suboptimal for optics. Luckily you can get an anodized aluminum replacement from Long Shot Manufacturing (longshotmfg.com), which is what I did.

Here's the new rail seen next to the stock rails:

And here it is installed. You can see it looks identical to the HDPE side plates, but it's a lot more rigid. I used LocTite on the screws to make sure they stayed in place. 

Another interesting feature of the gun is the threaded muzzle- another increasingly popular feature on firearms these days:

I have no plans to buy a moderator for it, but I did think the supplied plastic thread protector was a bit tacky, so I bought this sharp looking steel muzzle brake on eBay for about $15:

The sights were too low for me to comfortably use, as well as being made of plastic, so off they came:

I tried a few different optics on the Badger and decided that the best choice was either a Millet dot sight:

or possibly this compact Burris 4x20:

...which is a bit too close to the hammer. I could use higher mounts, but a better solution would probably be a hammer side extension. Chiappa offers one for $15, and there are several others available from Uncle Mike's and other vendors.

 I also decided that the stock and the rest of the plastic Picatinny rails needed some improvement. The cartridge holder is cheap looking and has sharp edges, and should be removed. Maybe I could make  a walnut forearm and butt- but that will have to wait until my next post.

1980 High Standard Supermatic Citation, Part III: Mounting the LSP barrel

In my last post on this pistol, I noted that the new Lebanon Screw Products barrel I purchased for it wouldn't fit, as the frame was out of spec and the barrel that it came with had been somewhat crudely filed to fit. But then three weeks ago I stumbled across the premises of a really excellent custom gunsmith, just a mile from my home. Jason, at Atlas Custom Firearms in Berkley, Michigan, specializes in highly customized 1911s and ARs but he's very skilled in all manner of gunsmithing. He did an extremely precise job of milling a few thousandths of an inch off the LSP barrel, and now it fits on the frame like the two were made together. You can't even see evidence of where he milled it on the breech.  

The Smith & Wesson 422

I'd been reading about the now-discontinued Smith & Wesson 442 and its relatives (622, 2013, 2206) in one of my favorite rimfire forums, and that encouraged me to go looking for one. After a  few weeks of searching I managed to find a relatively inexpensive 422 with fixed sights.

The various versions of this pistol could be had with aluminum, steel, or stainless steel frames, with 4" or 6" barrels, and with fixed or adjustable sights. The 422 is one of the least expensive variants, with an aluminum frame and fixed sights. That would seem to relegate it to the role of inexpensive plinker, but that isn't actually the case- as we'll see shortly.

























The muzzle reveals an interesting detail of the construction of the 422: A threaded barrel held in place by a nut:

This system of attachment holds the barrel in tension, which is a good way to achieve accuracy in a short, light, barrel. The Dan Wesson revolvers made in the 80s used this system, and my Dan Wesson .44 was one of the most accurate center fire revolvers I've owned. It has a secondary benefit as well: Threaded adapters that replace the barrel nut are available from a few gunsmiths and class III dealers that allow a silencer to be attached.

Pulling back on the slide (which locks open on an empty magazine) we see what looks like the breech opening on top of the gun- but a close look indicates that's not the case:

This can be a bit puzzling to first time 422 handlers until they remember that the magazine is located in the grip, and look there:

Note that the barrel is located very low in the receiver- just above the trigger, in fact. That's a common characteristic of high end target pistols and it produces straight-line recoil and minimizes barrel lift, something thats very important in timed and rapid fire stages, when you're trying to get back on target as soon as possible after each shot. It also minimizes the perception of recoil. 

A lot of people don't like the magazine release, which is right smack in the middle of the grip frame:

I like it. I found it easy to release, and not at all prone to accidental release.

Those familiar with the S&W 41 may note a strong resemblance, and that's because design of the 422 and related guns is a simplified version of S&W's high-end Model 41 target pistol, with lighter materials and a nonadjustable trigger. The similarity is such that the 422 takes exactly the same magazines as the 41, which means there are plenty of new and used magazines available. 

Being mainly aluminum, the 422 is pretty lightweight- the 6" version weighs only 23.5 ounces, compared to the 42 ounces of a Ruger Mk-III Target- and you'd think that would mean it's not as accurate or easy to shoot as a heavier gun. That may be true, but this is  very easy to shoot, and very accurate gun all things considered. I took it to my club and set up a few targets at 50'. My first two shots went right where I was aiming:

That's  lot better than I usually shoot, and that's with iron sights. The fixed sights were dead on at 50' and I'm guessing that should be pretty close at 25 yards. Back in the 1950s you could probably have been a competitive shooter with this gun. I'd been thinking about mounting a dot sight, but I think I'm going to leave it exactly as is. Given the light weight and great accuracy, it's a great gun to pack afield. Of course now that my appetite has been whetted for these guns I'm looking for more variations, starting with an adjustable sight 2206, and maybe even a Model 41. 

1980 High Standard Supermatic Citation Military, Part II: Mounting a new barrel

In a previous post I discussed the 1980 High Standard Supermatic Citation I recently purchased. It's by far the best target pistol I've ever owned, and to take full advantage of it I decided I needed to install a dot sight. The barrel on my gun isn't tapped like current guns are, so rather than have it drilled I decided to order a new barrel that came drilled and tapped. There are four good options out there: The new High Standard in Texas, Volquartsen, Connecticut Presiusion Chambering, and Lebanon Screw Products. All four are said to produce exceptional work. I decided on LSP as they also offer a scope mount, and ordered both barrel and mount from Brownell's.

The package arrived a few days later, but sans the mounting screws. I sent a note to Brownells, and a package showed up two days later with the screws, so I set about mounting the new barrel to the gun- and it wouldn't fit! There was a tiny amount of interference where the barrel short have fit snugly against the frame. It was then I noticed there was a difference between the new and old barrels:

The original barrel, on the left, has been somewhat crudely been filed to fit! Either this is a bit of expedient work done on the gun when it was assembled in Hanford back in 1980, or this is a non-original barrel that was fitted later to a non-conforming frame. Either way, the new one ain't gonna fit. After some conversations with the current owner of High Standard, I saw that I had three optiuons:

1. Complain to the seller (Gander Mountain) and try to return the gun. But it did shoot well.

2. Have a local gunsmith or machinist mill .010-.015" off the new barrel so it would fit.

3. Send everything down to High Standard in Texas and have them make it right.

I'm kind of tempted to go with option #3, and I may eventually go that way, but after some more research I realized there was a fourth option: BME makes reasonably priced scope mounts for many guns, including several for the High Standard models. I called them up, ordered the HS-U model and attached it to the old barrel:

There it is, with my newly purchased Ultradot 25 mounted. I was going to mount a Millett SP-1, but as long as I'm going with a first class gun and mount, I thought, why skimp on a dot sight? I took it to the range the next day, where it exceeded all my expectations. I shoot far better with this gun than I do with either of my Rugers or my S&W 14-3. In fact, it has me thinking that maybe I should start looking for a good deal on a 10x or Victor. Time to go through the collection and sell some of the less used toys. Anyone looking for a Dramatic?

Postscript: I found a superb local gunsmith who did an excellent job of fitting the LSP barrel.

1980 High Standard Supermatic Citation Military, Part I

After playing with my newly-aquired High Standard Duramatic for a week, I was both impressed with the quality of what was sold as a budget .22 and very interested in finding one of their competition guns. Prices for the Victors and 10X guns, which were High Standard's best and most accurate,  run $800-$1,200 and more, with especially collectable models going for several thousands of dollars, but the various Supermatics are very affordable.

There were so many different High Standard models it's sometimes hard to keep track. Add to that the evolution of the designs over 30 years and it gets even more confusing, but this is an (over) simplified and incomplete list of models that probably misses number of details:

1. Top level competition guns: Victor, 10x, Olympic.

2. Competition guns: Supermatic Tournament, Supermatic Citation, and Supermatic Trophy. 

3. Fixed sight guns: Sharpshooter, Field King and Sport King

4. Budget model: Duramatic

HS produced several successive generations of guns between the 50s and the 80s, ranging from the "Letter" models, through the numbered series (101 through 104, 106, and 107) and finally the SH series, the last series made, and the basis of the contemporary High Standards. The earliest guns used a hammer action; later guns use a striker mechanism. Guns through the 105 series have a more angled grip, similar to the Ruger Mark guns. The 106, 107, and SH series guns use the so-called "Military" grip that matches the 1911 in angle. The Olympic was a Supermatic version designed for Olympic rapid fire competition that was chambered for the .22 Short cartridge and had a muzzle brake. 

This particular gun is a 107 Series, made in 1980, according to the records. It's in exceptional condition, with almost 100% of its blue and only a few nicks and scratches. The two stage trigger breaks cleanly, with just a minuscule amount of creep that could probably be eliminated by a good gunsmith or perhaps better lubrication. There's too much over travel in the trigger, too; there's a screw in the trigger to limit that, but it looks like it hasn't been adjusted by the previous owner:

One thing I like about older guns is the amount of visible hand work of the sort that's just about unaffordable these days in factory guns. Take a look at the stippling on the front of the grip:

That's done with a hammer and a punch, and it takes time. There is similar stippling on the rear of the grip. Everything about this gun tells you it was made by gunsmiths, not just machine operators.

The sights are the best iron sights on any gun I've ever owned- sharp edges, perfectly square, and sized so you get a narrow band of light either side of the front post that makes it easier to center. I took the gun to my club's indoor range, and got these results with Aguila Pistol Match shooting two handed, resting my arms on my shooting bag:

That's with the gun right out of the box, as I bought it. It probably hadn't been fired in years, from the looks of it. My offhand shooting was not quite as good ;-)

Real bullseye shooters will not be impressed, but me, I'm thrilled that I got five out of ten in the black. Besides having a pretty wide wobble, I'm obviously pulling the trigger too hard; over travel adjustment should help that. Next step is to do a proper clean and lube, and mount a red dot sight to accommodate

Update: I took it to the range again, after some air pistol practice at home, and shot much better with it, getting all my shots in the black. Surprisingly (or perhaps not) I shot it better with the stock iron sights than I shot my tuned and customized Ruger Hunter (which sports a Volquartsen trigger, Clark hammer, and Herrett target grips). I think the Ruger might go up for sale soon.