A bit more live-fire testing showed an occasional failure-to-feed problem. So it was back to the bench for some more work. The round (Black Bullets 200gr SWC) would hang up on the ramp or at the chamber.

Looking at it on the bench, I saw that the barrel throat overhung the frame ramp by a tiny amount. I was nervous, but did a little light work with a fine stone wheel on a Dremel to bring the throat back towards the chamber slightly. After polishing with some Cratex on the Dremel, it looks good. But that didn’t solve the problem.

Double checking the space between the extractor hook and the breach face showed it at the minimum dimension of .075” so I filed the inside of the hook and re-contoured it. That fixed the problem and I haven’t seen it since.

After some final blending and touch up with files, I dropped it off with my local gunsmith to have it Cerakoted. And it came back looking pretty good, good enough to name it Black Cat.

If you’ve started partway into this series, you can find the beginning here. This is the last article in the series. At least for now.