Gunsmithing on TriggerMeister.com

Shooting Chrony Remote Control

Sun, 31 Jan 2021 15:15:17 -0500

Salvaged from Web Archive. Shooting Chrony is out of business and the noplab website that published this article with a copy right of 2003-2014 has been shut down as well.

Shooting Chrony offers remote controls for their line of chronographs. The single button model sells for $16 and the 2 button model for $19. If you happen to have the parts available you can make your own remote control for almost nothing.

Shooting Chrony PC Serial Interface

Sun, 31 Jan 2021 15:09:22 -0500

Salvaged from Web Archive

Shooting Chrony sells a PC interface cable for use with the Chrony for around $23. If the parts to build the interface are not readily available or constructing a board with surface mount parts is an issue then buying the Chrony interface cable is a good choice.

The Chrony uses a 3.5mm (1/8") stereo jack as the serial port connector. This connector is also used for the remote button interface. The following diagram shows the signal locations on the plug. The signals are 5V digital I/O and need to be translated to RS-232 levels before being connected to a PC. The signals are named from the Chrony's perspective; e.g. after level shifting the TX signal is connected to the PC's RX line.

Shooting Chrony PC Protocol

Sun, 31 Jan 2021 14:54:07 -0500

Salvaged from the web archive.

The serial port settings are 4800bps, 8 data bits, no parity and 1 stop bit.

Each line of a response includes a carriage return (0x0D) and line feed (0x0A), the initiating command does not. A serial terminal emulator application, Hyperterm on Windows or Minicom on OS X and Linux, can be used to manually interact with the Chrony. Chrony PC interface commands:

SYSX	Enter PC control mode
X.END	Terminate PC control mode
X.ALO	Ping Chrony
X.GEE	Get shot data
X.QRY	Get system information
X.CPY	Copy string data
X.INC	Increment string number
X.DEC	Decrement string number
X.GRM	Get string data
X.HXB	Hex dump EEPROM page with page decrement
X.HXF	Hex dump EEPROM page with page increment
X.HXD	Hex dump EEPROM page
X.RUN	Modify system parameter

Getting in and out of PC control mode:

Sarco 1911 Parts Kit with Barrel review

Tue, 26 Nov 2013 04:15:26 -0500

I was looking into building a 2011 on the cheap and in my hunt for parts I found this Sarco kit that often gets negative reviews. In fact for all the bad reviews I found, I only found one positive one on Youtube. Surprisingly, these kits are hardly ever in stock and so when I checked their website and it said "available" I whipped out my credit card to try this kit out myself.

The Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting...and guns are not the cause of violence.

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 00:51:05 -0500

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Why do anti-gun politicians always reference hunting and wanting to protect that? We know that they've probably neither shot a gun in their life nor ever experienced the joy of hunting. The reason is because "Divide and Conquer" is their strategy. Over the years they have recognized that hunting is such an integral part of American life that they have made the choice of only attacking guns that have a military style look and are leaving the wooden grandpa guns alone. However, if they could take all of your guns they would, regardless if the gun has a composite stock or wooden stock. Therefore, you have a choice to a make; either you are pro-gun or you are not. This means that you either need to protect all guns or you are not protecting any. The moment you say take that gun, but not the one your father gave you, you have already lost your right and with it the second amendment. We, as gun owners, need to stand together regardless of our political views.

The Super-Sized Bullet trap

Sun, 23 Dec 2012 03:08:42 -0500

One of the things that I've wanted for a long time was a Bullet Trap which is generally a small box that catches the bullets. You can find an example of a bullet trap on Amazon.com. Here is a pic of the "Champion Heavy Duty Metal Trap"

I, however, wanted something bigger. Much bigger. So here is the shopping list for my trap. I figured out the basic design and called the local scrap yard to check if they had some 1/4" steel plate in stock. Most scrap yards don't have the ability to cut the large plates for you, so you may have to alter your design based on what is available. I got lucky and they had a sheet that was 44" by 60". Then I headed down there to see what they had for the frame. This is what I ended up with:

Sig-Sauer Mosquito: Hammer Spring Replacement

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 16:52:36 -0500

So you are ready to lighten up the double action on the trigger? Here we go. We are going to use a hammer spring from Wolff and since they don't have any for the mosquito, we are going to use one for the P226 and similar *WITH* plastic hammer spring base insert. Note there is nothing plastic on the spring, so don't be confused. The lightest I recommend is 17#. Anything less will produce light strikes. First, take apart the gun according to my previous post.

Light Strikes: CMMG AR-15 22lr barrel

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 02:31:24 -0400

I recently built my first dedicated .22lr AR-15. Since I already owned a CMMG .22lr conversion kit, I decided to just order the .22lr barrel from MidwayUSAcom with the barrel adapter. As soon as I had it all installed I noticed light strikes on the .22's. So I reached out to CMMG. They had no advice, so I consulted some forums and found that others were experiencing similar issues.

Long story short, I disassembled the entire gun and found the problem when I inserted a dummy 22lr cartridge (blue). Essentially, the collar that came with the barrel had a ramp that prevented the cartridge from seating properly. So I removed the adapter and used a round file to reshape the adapter until the cartridge, seated flush with the breech-face. Don't be timid, since there is quite a bit of extra material and just go slow, little at a time. In fact on some of these there is so much "extra" feed ramp that you think that "can't be right". Take a little off at a time and when you can remove the collar without pulling the dummy bullet out of the chamber you are done! At that point you should polish the feed ramp to remove any tool marks and give it a nice mirror shine. That solved all my light strike problems. Hope this helps someone!

Advantage Arms Glock 17 Gen4 Conversion Kit

Thu, 10 May 2012 03:44:46 -0400

Despite my not so favorable review about the AA customer service, I did end up buying another AA conversion kit and when one looks at the features they still have the best conversion kits on the market. I bought this kit last Fall, so this a post is actually about an issues I had with my new kit.

First off, I want to say THANKS to the tech that helped me out in getting the conversion kit locking back on the last round again. Whoever you may be, hiding behind the 22kits@adavantagearms.com, you are my friend. My 22kits tech helped me get the replacement parts and figured out the issue that was causing excessive wear. If you stumbled across this post because you are having a similar issue, here is a picture of what went wrong:

Sig-Sauer Mosquito: Hot & sexy?... nope sorry, she's a tease

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 02:45:14 -0400

Why did Sig Sauer name their gun the Mosquito?.... because it is the gun that stings your pocketbook twice!

The story starts about 2 1/2 years ago. I walked into Al & Bob's Sport's Shop and picked out the very hot handgun, NRA's gun of the year: "The Springfield XDm". With me were my wife and kids and as we were wrapping up the paperwork, a nice little pink Sig Sauer caught my wife's eye. Still on the shopping high, I said: "Yeah, go ahead and get it!" The ride home was great, my wife was so happy and she was taking pictures of the pink little beauty and tweeting it to her friends. The gun was pink, hot, and sexy IMWHO (In My Wife's Humble Opinion).