Also check out his blog, AsianGiant.  Every so often, he posts some exclusive content as an insider at Falken Tire.

No replacement for displacement: 9, 40, 45, 223/5.56

See the Motons?

Anyways, I’ve had some reliability issues (occasional failure-to-feeds & failure-to-ejects) with my Kimber that I wanted resolved.  I dropped off my Kimber with Jim for a reliability package.  Basically, he checks the tolerances on gun, machines anything out of tolerance, and polishes some of the parts for better feeding and ejecting.  He quoted me 2 weeks for the job and finished it in 1.5 weeks.  A lot of top 1911 pistolsmiths are backed up months, some years, and others aren’t even taken on more work until they finish their backlog.  So to be quoted 2 weeks by a renouned 1911 specialist and finish in less than that is a godsend.

Here are some up close pictures of what he did.  According to him, the barrel was over hanging the feed ramp.  See how now the barrel is no longer hanging over the feed ramp?  That millimeter of gap between the barrel and feed ramp is supposed ot be there.   He also polished the feed ramp and throat for better feeding of the rounds.

He also said I had no extractor tension.  See that claw thingie?  That’s the extractor.  It pulls/extracts the shells after the bullet is shot out of the barrel.  The breechface wasn’t straight.  He straightened it out and polished it for better feeding.

I haven’t tried out the gun yet so I can’t really comment if the reliability packaged worked.  It will probably be a several months of heavy shooting (~1000 rounds) before I can really come to that conclusion.  Anyways, I was pretty impressed with Jim Hoag’s work.  I’ve seen a lot of hack jobs when it comes to 1911 throat jobs and polishing.  As you can tell from the pictures, it looks like factory craftsmanship and work.  I guess that might not be a good comparison since I’m not that impressed with Kimber’s factory work.

This is an extension of AB962, which already passed. Effective next year, AB962 is forcing retailers to keep records of ammo sales and require ammo to be sold face-to-face.  This effectively bans California from purchasing ammo online.

I’m confident (or at least hope) that the courts will find AB962 unconstitutional because it interferes with interstate commerce.  By banning California from purchasing ammo online, you’re interfering with interstate commerce.  Remember in history and government classes in high school, the US Constitution stops states from fucking with business across state lines?  Unfortunately, it’s going to take years for the courts to [hopefully] agree with that. In the mean time, it’s just going to substantially inconvenience us, waste our money, and waste the state’s money.  We do have the NRA and Calguns Foundation already challenging AB962.

How does AB2358 and AB962 affect you? Well, if you own guns or even like shooting rental guns at the range, it’s going to drive the cost of ammo up.  How much?  I don’t know.  However, it’s a reasonable assumption that many retailers (i.e. Walmart, Big 5, etc…) are going to stop selling ammo because they don’t want to deal with the headache of keeping and submitting fingerprints.  When supply shrinks and demand stays the same (or probably increases because of the rising popularity of recreational shooting), cost is going to increase.  AB2358 and AB962 will inconvenience you and cost you more to shoot your own gun or shoot a rental gun.

Anyways, if this topic concerns you, I suggest you contact your California state senator and urge them to oppose AB2358.  If you’re looking for more information on gun rights, you can find more information at the NRA or Calguns.net.  The NRA tends to focus on gun rights on a national level while the Calguns Foundation focuses on gun rights in California.