Saturday I went to the legendary Indianapolis 1500 gun show with Roberta X and Tam.
Huck The Miniature Broadripple Biting Tiger had to stay home; he was not happy.
I was looking for a Sauer 38h, a nice little German pre-war 32-ACP pistol, and I think I got the nicest one at the show.
And there was even enough left over for an Astra 600 in 9mm Parabellum. With two of their rather eccentric magazines, yet!
So Sunday we were at the Eagle Creek range bright and early. The Astra was tested first. I checked the safety, loaded a full mag (mistake!), pointed downrange and released the slide.
"Budda-Budda-Budda!"
It loosed off three rounds then stopped. With the safety ON.
With Roberta and Tam watching carefully, I loaded a single round into the magazine, checked that the safety was ON and released the slide.
"Bang!"
We tried one more test to catch and examine the ejected casing: it had a nice symmetrical primer strike, and no signs of out-of-battery fire.
After the blogmeet Roberta disassembled the Astra. She inspected and cleaned the firing pin, spring, and follower. All appeared undamaged and in good order. She reassembled the gun and we used snap-caps with a little "dot" of "shoot'n'see" paper on the base, where the primer would be. We released the slide on this snap-cap and got a firm firing pin impression in the paper. We did it again with the same results.
So it's off to the gunsmith tomorrow.
The Sauer is a model of Teutonic order by comparison and shoots well. The single-action trigger pull feels a little light for my taste. Roberta X remarked on it, too. It feels like only about five pounds or so. But it has a stripped grip screw, so it's going to the garage, too.
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