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QPR’S SWITCH-GUN SIXGUN WRITTEN BY JOHN TAFFIN

 

In the heyday of television westerns in the late 1950s, the most successful programs had a gimmick; it may have been the location, the character, or the firearms used. Johnny Ringo (Don Durant) carried a nine-shot LeMat in a spring clip holster from which he could always outdraw the bad guys. Josh Randall (Steve McQueen) carried the Mare’s Leg, a cut down Model 92 Winchester made to look like it used .45-70 rounds, and he was faster with this little rifle than anyone with a Single Action. Hoby Gilman (Robert Culp) had a real gimmick, he carried a Smith & Wesson New Model No. 3 instead of a Colt. Shotgun Slade (Scott Brady), of course, carried his namesake; and Lucas McCain (Chuck Connors) also went with a long gun instead of a sixgun, with his rapid firing, largeloop Model 92.

The greatest gimmick of all was used by John Payne as Vint Bonner in The Restless Gun. He could not decide if his gimmick was to be a sixgun or a long gun so he had one that was easily transformed one way or the other. His basic firearm was a short-barreled Colt SA. However, when he wanted to make a long shot he used what we call today a Buntline Special, complete with wire stock. Now none of this is amazing except for how he made the transition. He would reach into his saddlebags and pull out a long barrel, unscrew the short barrel of his sixgun, by hand no less, and then replace it with the longer barrel, all accomplished quick enough to make the necessary long shot. Anything is possible in the movies.

 

Try, Try Again

 

I vaguely remember another outfit, Centaur Systems in Northern Idaho I believe, at least planned to offer interchangeable barrels and cylinders on a Ruger New Model Blackhawk, however I don’t think they ever got very far. What they could not do Milt Morrison of Qualite Pistol and Revolver (QPR) is now doing.

Milt Morrison is one of the premier sixgunsmiths in the country. At one time he was the armorer for the California Highway Patrol, so he certainly knows his way around S&W revolvers, and he is also one of the few ’smiths capable of working on the Colt New Service and Texas Longhorn Arms revolvers. He is also well known for some of most beautiful bluing jobs this side of Smith & Wesson’s Bright Blue and Colt’s Royal Blue, both of which are long-gone history.

 

Success Achieved

 

The latest from Milt is something he has been working on for several years and is now ready to market. He calls it “The Chameleon,” a name his wife picked out and one he doesn’t particularly like, so we will see who wins the contest. At least for now, The Chameleon is built on a customer’s Ruger Blackhawk and consists of interchangeable cylinders and easily removable and replaceable barrels, which allow the shooter to switch calibers in just a few minutes. A full-blown Chameleon is made up of four cylinders chambered in .357, .41 and .44 Magnums as well as .45 Colt.

The prototype test Chameleon consists of four combinations. The .357 Magnum is represented by a 53⁄4″ Shilen barrel and matching cylinder; .41 Magnum, 5″ Shilen barrel and cylinder; .44 Magnum, 7″ Apex barrel and cylinder; and finally a 71⁄2″ .45 Colt Douglas barrel and corresponding cylinder. All barrels are marked on the barrel ring for caliber and each cylinder is marked on the rim end of the cylinder. Later Chameleons will have the caliber markings etched with bold numbers on the barrels and on two sides of the cylinders.

With the Chameleon, tolerances are such that it is impossible to match a large caliber cylinder with a small caliber barrel. By controlling the length of the cylinder as well as how far the barrel protrudes inside the frame window, they simply will not fit together. Going the other direction it’s possible for someone who is not paying attention to match a small caliber cylinder with a large caliber barrel, however if this happens, shooting a .357 down a .44 barrel only results in terrible accuracy.

 

What Makes It Work?

 

The heart of The Chameleon system is the patent-pending QPR barrel ring, which makes the quick-change process possible. The barrel ring on each barrel is forward of the threads and butts up against the mainframe as the barrel is screwed into place. This ring has two holes, one to accept the base pin and the other the ejector rod. To put everything together properly, The Chameleon comes with a barrel wrench with an adjustable stop and a sleeve that goes into the ejector rod hole. It is this sleeve and the base pin, which keeps the barrel in the proper position after it has been screwed into the frame with the proper torque.

The barrel wrench has an adjustable stop to prevent over-torquing. On the outside of the adjustment screw bracket there’s an Allen locking screw allowing the wrench to be adjusted. QPR has found, as expected, different people apply different pressure on the wrench, so it has been made adjustable so anyone can use it, by adding torque or lessening torque depending on the person and the adjustment. How important this is can be illustrated by the fact factory produced single-action revolvers from Colt and Ruger often have grip panels cracked on the inside simply because too much torque was applied to the screw when they were tightened.

Milt speaks to the versatility of his creation in saying his conversion system allows the shooter to change calibers on the same gun, and it is designed to exchange barrel and cylinder with ease in the field. This allows the trigger pull and general feel of the gun to remain the same of the activity.

 

Even Taffin Can Do It!

 

I have the soul of an artist not a mechanic or engineer so when it comes to computers and things mechanical I am definitely challenged. I know what I need to know when it comes to computers and having them work for me and I can totally strip and reassemble any single-action sixgun, even New Model Rugers, normally without needing a third hand; and thanks to a lot of good books I can do the same with many other firearms. However, I really admire those who can just look at anything mechanical and easily figure out how everything works. My handicap has its downside, of course, but for every down there is an up and the up in this case is if I can do it, anyone can, and when it comes to using this system, I can.

To assemble one particular caliber the barrel is screwed on hand tight, and then the barrel wrench is used to tighten the barrel until the stop on the wrench touches the frame. Over-tightening and applying too much torque will do for the barrel threads what-over tightening grip panels will do. Something has to give and the barrel threads can be pulled or stretched. This is how it’s possible to attach a 3rd Generation Colt barrel to a 2nd Generation Colt even though the threads are different as enough pressure allows them to conform to each other; even metal can be moved with enough pressure.

With The Chameleon it’s possible to see and feel the barrel ring line up properly with the frame. The check on proper alignment is whether or not the base pin can be inserted easily. If it will not, the barrel and mainframe alignment needs to be adjusted. If the pin enters freely, the second check is whether or not the extractor rod sleeve easily enters its hole in the frame. If both the sleeve and the base pin are easily inserted, alignment is correct. All this takes not only more time to explain than it does to accomplish, it is also not as complicated as it may sound.

Once the alignment is correct the cylinder is installed with the base pin, and using the provided combination cleaning rod and base pin extractor, screw the extractor sleeve onto the rod, seat it into the ejector rod housing hole, and remove the tool leaving the sleeve in the receiver. Install the ejector rod housing, ejector rod and spring as one unit into the ejector rod hole and secure with the ejector rod housing screw.

All of this sounds much more complicated than it really is and my all-thumbs turned into nimble fingers with a few practice runs. The use of plastic tape on the threads as used on water fittings helps to ensure a tight fit.

QPR says: “We have pre-set the barrel wrench and torqued the barrel to QPR Specifications however as each person has different upper-body strength we have made the barrel wrench adjustable to compensate for this.”

The Chameleon, including all barrels, cylinders and the mainframe are beautifully bright-blued as we have mentioned only QPR can do. This beautiful bluing is matched up with one of QPR’s brass grip frames fitted with black micarta grip panels, and the brass, blue and black micarta look really good together. QPR can also personalize any sixgun with the shooter’s name inscribed in fancy script and inlaid with gold if desired. The hammer is a modified Bisley-style that looks like it belongs on the standard Blackhawk frame. All barrels have black ramp-style front sights, with two barrels having green inserts resulting all in all in an extremely goodlooking sixgun.

Some favorite loads were run through each of the four Chameleon combinations. For five shots at 20 yards my best group with any of the calibers was BPR’s 187-grain gas-checked bullet over 13.0 grain of WW296 for right at 1,050 fps, and all shots in one ragged hole at 20 yards. Cast Performance Bullet Co.’s 187 grain gas checked LBT over 14.0 grains of H110 moves the muzzle velocity up to 1,230 fps and a most satisfying 11⁄8″ group.

In the .41 Magnum, Lyman’s #410459KT clocked out at 1,343 fps over 19.0 grains of #2400 and resulted in a 2″ group, while Cor-Bon’s 210 JHP at the same muzzle velocity grouped into 1 1/2″. My everyday workin’ load for the .44 Magnum is 10.0 grains of Unique or Universal. This time around with Hodgdon’s Universal, BRP’s 250-grain Keith-style gas check over 10.0 grains gave 1,175 fps and their 295 grain Keith-style over the same powder charge, 1,120 fps. Both loads put five shots into 11⁄4″ or less.

The Chameleon has several advantages. For traveling, everything fits into a standard-sized pistol case, and allows the use of four separate revolvers with a minimum of weight. When the gun limit beast rears its ugly head, as it’s won’t to do in some areas, The Chameleon allows you to have four revolvers counting as only one. Finally for the guy who has everything, now there is something completely different, giving pride of ownership in a quality conversion kit from a top gunsmith. It’s not just show — it’s also go.

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Josey Wales River Crossing

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All About Guns Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad

Jeff Davis Milton by Skeeter Skelton

Everyone has heard of Hickok, Earp, Masterson, Tilghman, and others who gained fame as Western peace officers, but not as well known is the name of perhaps the most efficient, most successful, and longest-lived officer of them all, Jeff Davis Milton. He was a fearless officer and a master of firearms whose long and colorful career as a lawman spanned more than half a century in the troubled times of the Southwest.

THE FAIRBANK SHOOTOUT” « Tom Rizzo

Milton was born in Sylvania, Florida, November 7, 1861, the son of the Confederate governor of the state, General John Milton. After the end of the Civil War, he grew up on the remnant of the once-proud family estate, then under the thumb of an oppressive carpetbagger government.

At age 15, he moved to Texas, working for a while in a relative’s mercantile store and trying his hand at cowboying in the old Fort Griffin buffalo country. On July 27, 1880, he appeared at the Texas Ranger headquarters in Austin, armed with a couple of letters of recommendation from prominent citizens. By adding three years to his real age, he became the requisite 21 and was sworn in as a Ranger private.

Rangers in those days were required to furnish their own firearms, usually choosing a Colt .45 single action and an 1873 .44 Winchester carbine. The state magnanimously supplied them with 100 cartridges, adding 12 rifle and six revolver cartridges per month, which was considered ample.

Jeff was quite proud of a then-new nickel Colt Frontier model in .44-40 caliber, the same as his rifle. But in its first firing, the cylinder jammed tight and the young Ranger found this happened with every shot, due to the primers flowing back and tying up the firing pin. He promptly swapped it to a gambler for an ornate .45.

The .45 single action was his handgun for the rest of his life, and during most of his later years, he carried a second gun, a cut-down .45 (probably a rare Sheriff’s Model) in a shoulder holster under his shirt. This second gun was destined to get him out of many tight places.

 Jeff spent three years in the Rangers, and after thousands of horseback miles, he came to know the sprawling state like the back of his hand. Much of his duty was discharged in the desolate Trans Pecos and Big Bend areas as the Southern Pacific railroad laid new track into El Paso, always with boisterous tent cities of gamblers, outlaws, and soiled doves following the construction work to keep things interesting for a teenage Ranger.

In Mitchell County, a belligerent cowman shot up the town and drew on Milton and two fellow officers when they arrested him. The cowman was shot down, and the three young lawmen were charged with homicide in an atmosphere highly heated by threats from the rancher’s friends.

At the examining trial, the three unarmed defendants were escorted before the Justice of the Peace, each “guarded” by a brother Ranger wearing not one but two revolvers – one convenient to the gun hand of the accused. The would-be lynching party sized up the situation and retreated to the nearest bar for some beer-muttering. After a long, three-year legal process, Milton and his partners were acquitted. During the wait, they continued to serve as Rangers.

But change is a young man’s lifeblood, and Jeff left the service, heading for New Mexico, where he homesteaded a small ranch. His reputation led him to deputy sheriff’s jobs in various counties, as well as to positions as a cattle detective. For a while, he carried a special commission from the governor of New Mexico. His efficiency at rounding up cattle thieves, as well as his mild and friendly manner) except when crossed), gained him many New Mexico friends.

He worked briefly as a deputy to the long-haired mankiller, Commodore Owens, in the mountain settlement of St. Johns, Arizona. This alliance didn’t last long, and in early 1877, he was employed by Collector of Customs Joseph Magoffin of El Paso. His new duties were to ride alone with a packhorse from Nogales across the desert wastes clear to the Gulf of California. His job was to prevent smuggling – one man covering hundreds of miles.

At the time Jeff entered this strenuous service, the almost waterless stretch from El Paso to the Gulf of California was patrolled by a company of only 11 men. And men they had to be, facing the unrelenting desert, catching often-dangerous smugglers, and collecting U.S. Customs duties. Jeff’s guns came into play more than once during his comparatively long tenure with Customs, which ended when political forces caused the discharge of the entire service in 1889.

For a while, Milton reverted to deputy sheriffing, horsetrading, and prospecting. During his Customs patrolling and subsequent batting about southern Arizona, Jeff made lifelong friends among the Papago Indians, friends who more than once aided him with difficult arrests and dangerous passages through the desert.

Horsetrading waned, and Milton recovering from a broken ankle, took up the unlikely position of conductor of a Pullman car on a Southern Pacific run from El Paso to Mexico City. Passengers on this route sometimes were inclined to be a bit rowdy until they discovered the identity of their well-known host, who always carried his sixshooter in his waistband. On one occasion, after being falsely accused of throwing a passenger to his death from the observation platform, Jeff was forced to disguise himself as a Mexican, stash his .45 out of sight, and make his way back to the U.S. incognito.

In the meantime, El Paso had become a wide-open town. It was a railroad town and  an anything-goes gambler’s paradise. Booze, bunco, bordellos, and just plain murder and robbery were the order of the day. Distraught city councilmen racked their brains for a lawdog who could cool off the hotbed of their city. They decided on Jeff Milton. To Jeff, whose job of collecting fares was becoming a bit mundane, the idea of being El Paso’s Chief of Police was interesting. He signed on in August 1894. Whether they wanted it or not, El Paso was about to be reformed.

Jeff started by crossing John Selman, the crooked constable and well know outlaw. After some blustering, Selman backed down in fear. With a new local ordinance against gambling behind him, Jeff started a mass transport of gamblers out of El Paso. This system was not without its confrontations, but Jeff’s quick sixhooter stopped trouble before it started.

During this period, the infamous John Wesley Hardin made an appearance. He had only shortly before been released after serving 15 years at the state pen at Huntsville for one of his innumberable murders. Having studied law in the joint, he planned to hang out his barrister’s shingle in the woolly border town.

Jeff met Hardin and his party as they hit town, armed with sixguns and rifles. Milton had prepared for war by leaving several automatic shotguns hidden in strategic places, but they weren’t needed. When the Chief located and informed the stone-faced Hardin that he wouldn’t permit the carrying of arms on the streets of El Paso, there was a brief silence, then the guns were surrendered to the nearest bartender.

El Paso’s affairs got even more peppery with the arrival of Hardin. Hardin was retained by the paramour of Martin M’Rose, a cattle thief hiding across the river in Juarez, to get U.S. charges dropped so the rustler could return to U.S. soil.

During the conduct of this business, Hardin and the M’Rose woman formed a romantic alliance of their own. At this juncture, George Scarborough, a fine officer and cattle detective and an old friend of Jeff’s, came to town. He wanted M’Rose. Several meetings of all parties involved were held in Juarez. On one occasion, Hardin slapped of a M’Rose cohort and had a gun at his breast in the same movement. Jeff Milton was present and grappled with Hardin, saving the rustler’s life.

This affair was ended when Milton and Scarborough, armed with an arrest warrant, persuaded M’Rose to cross to the Texas side of the railroad bridge. Upon seeing the lawmen, he opened fire, and Jeff shot him through the heart. M’Rose fell, rose, and fired. It required a second hit from Scarborough to stop him.

At about this time, in a questionable election, the El Paso reform party was voted out. The new politicos wanted no part of Jeff’s brand of law, and he was dismissed. He left to work as a deputy U.S. Marshal. Shortly after, old John Selman murdered Hardin by shooting him in the back of the head. Somewhat later, George Scarborough killed Selman when the old constable tried to set him up in a murder trap.

Finding the marshal’s job less than lucrative, Jeff hired on as a Wells Fargo express messenger on the Southern Pacific run from Benson, Arizona, to Guaymas, Mexico, many of its cargos being comprised of gold and silver bullion. Armed with food, sixgun, shotgun, and rifle, he escorted many valuable shipments, interspersing railway trips with horseback forays in search of border badmen. In the course of one of these posses, Jeff and his friend Scarborough, in a desperate gunfight, shot noted desperado Bronco Bill Walters and scattered his band from a mountain camp.

Lawman-turned-outlaw Burt Alvord and five confederates planned to raid the richly laden express car at Fairbank, Arizona, but took painful precautions that Jeff would be diverted and not guarding the car that day. Through chance, their ruse failed, and it was Milton who opened the car door and started passing out packages to the agent. Seeing whom they were faced with, the outlaws opened fire with high-powered rifles, shattering the bones in Jeff’s left upper arm.

Shooting one-handed with his shotgun, Jeff dropped two of his antagonists, and rapidly weakening from loss of blood, he shut the door, concealed the keys in the safe, improvised a tourniquet, and passed out. Although the holdup men continued to shoot into the car and finally searched Milton for the keys, they were foiled.

After a long recuperation, Jeff emerged with a crippled left arm. Still dead game, his efforts were later largely responsible for the capture or death of the Alvord gang.

In 1904, Jeff was appointed to the unique position of Mounted Chinese Inspector. This was a job under the Immigration Service, then part of the Department of Commerce and Labor. The Border Patrol had not yet been organized, and Milton’s commission came directly from President Theodore Roosevelt. Hordes of Chinese were being smuggled out of an antagonistic Mexico into the U.S., which prohibited their entry.

Milton’s riding job was much the same as it had been with Customs, and he covered over the many ensuing years much of the same area of southern Arizona. A healthy, horseback life kept him zestful and young. Still single, he raised a little harmless hell from time to time and “covered the ground he stood on.”

Though catching Chinese was somewhat less challenging to the veteran, he made the most of it, seasoning his days with personal combats, guiding, and prospecting. In 1919, Milton married Mildred Taitt of New York and at least went through the motions of settling down. That same year, he was assigned to assist in guarding a boatload of Russian radicals comprised of Emma Goldman and her followers on their deportation to Russia. Jeff lusted for trouble and stocked up on extra ammunition, but to his disappointment, the crossing was tranquil.

Jeff’s life in the desert with his scores of friends continued. When he turned 70, his services were still considered so valuable that he was asked to continue for two years. And a last, in 1932, a government economy move forced him into retirement at Tombstone, Arizona.

Among U.S. Border Patrolmen today, Jeff Milton remains known as “the first Border Patrolman.” He moved to Tucson, where his old comrades of the Border Patrol surreptitiously watched over him, although he needed little of that until the end, which came May 7, 1947.

Jeff was Cremated, and his ashes were scattered over his beloved desert.

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You have to be kidding, right!?!

Trump/RFK Jr Team Up Would Betray Gun Owners by David Codrea

Just don‘t trust citizens of the REPUBLIC with guns? (Robert F. Kennedy, Jr/Facebook)

“People close to former President Trump made preliminary overtures to Robert F. Kennedy about the possibility of serving as his running mate,” the New York Post reported Saturday.

“I wouldn’t write it off by any means,” an unidentified “insider” told the Post. That assessment said to “still be alive in Trump circles,” was shared by two large donors, one of whom asserted, “Bobby can bring new people to the polls.” And no less a prominent Trump supporter than former White House strategist Steve Bannon, “who remains close to the former president, has also pushed the idea and said in August that a Trump-Kennedy ticket would produce a ‘massive landslide.’”

Judging from reader comments, many are not just open to the idea but enthusiastic about it. And there are similar favorable reader reactions at supposedly “conservative” Fox News’ favorable report on the potential.

It would be a “yuge” mistake. Knowing the truth about Kennedy’s historic support for citizen disarmament would take the fire out of a lot of gun-owning voters’ bellies.

While he’s done respectable work exposing the corruption and bad “science” behind the government/pharma Covid cartel, Kennedy’s climate extremism (“ban fossil fuels, raise taxes, and pass a Green New Deal”), his “flip-flopping” on abortion, and out-and-out socialist embrace of “reparations” are disqualifiers by themselves.

But what about his siding with Texas on the border crisis and pledging to secure it? Assuming that is allowed to happen, how about the tens of millions already here? A “path to citizenship”? Chuck Schumer couldn’t have said it any better.

As The Federalist noted:

“RFK Jr. does promote some limited government, anti-establishment policies that conservatives and libertarians strongly support, but his leftist proposals far outweigh them.”

Add his personal and political affinity for citizen disarmament, and we’re talking a hard “No.” Consider a tweet he posted in 2018 – and then deleted; it’s not unfair to assume because it could hurt him politically:

“Let’s be honest. The NRA is as responsible for the MSD child murders as if they pulled the trigger. NRA has turned 2d Amendment into a suicide pact for our children. When do we deal with NRA?”

But wait, he now says, “My position on gun control is that I’m not going to take away anybody’s guns. I’m a constitutional maximalist and the issue has been settled by the Supreme Court.”

Does anyone believe him? Especially after arguing that “gun control cannot ‘meaningfully’ reduce gun violence” and then going for the Holy Grail of gun grabs:

“Kennedy said that he would get behind a bipartisan assault weapons ban, which the overwhelming majority of Democrats support, but has little chance of getting through Capitol Hill given widespread GOP opposition. ‘If we can get a consensus on it, if Republicans and Democrats agree to it and it passes Congress, I would sign it,’ he said.”

Trump has a problematic enough (and wholly self-created) record with gun owners, and putting Bobby Jr. on the ticket would only add to a growing TINVOWOOT sentiment among Americans who see that the left won’t stop pushing as long as they can do so with personal impunity. But say for a minute that Steve Bannon proves to be more politically savvy than he is principled, and a Trump/Kennedy campaign attracts enough independents to where even election interference and cheating can’t slip it to the Democrats:

Trump is getting up there in years. He’s not in the best shape. He’s been having some pretty significant slip-ups, particularly with the Haley/Capitol Security brain f*rt that the Democrat media is having a field day with as it ignores Biden’s daily dotage.

How does it benefit gun owners to put a guy who thinks NRA members are murderers and the Second Amendment is a suicide pact for children a heartbeat away from the presidency?


About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

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