I am thinking seriously of buying a 9mm revolver! the AP seems to be a good price. I am thinking of the stainless model with a 6" barrel. I know I can buy a S&W for thee times the price, but not that interested! does anyone know much about this gun..Are there other models out there for same price that might be better for close to the same price?
Alpha Projest 9mm
- Thread starter ed.griffin123
- Start date
Couple of things.....firstly it is "Alfa" or "Alfa Proj" not "Alpha Project". There are several threads about them here over the last year and one that's active today. Try using the search function at the upper right of the page using "Alfa"
FWIW I have the 9251C (fluted cylinder, 4.5", blued finish) and am quite pleased with the gun in terms of the price/value quotient. The fit/finish and especially the trigger isn't a S&W but as you point out, neither is the price. I'd say it's a decent choice for casual range use/plinking etc. As for other models I'm not aware of other Canadian legal 9mm DA revolvers on the market right now.
Note....the above really only applies to the 9mm IMHO. If I was looking for a 38/357 I think I'd go the used S&W route.
FWIW I have the 9251C (fluted cylinder, 4.5", blued finish) and am quite pleased with the gun in terms of the price/value quotient. The fit/finish and especially the trigger isn't a S&W but as you point out, neither is the price. I'd say it's a decent choice for casual range use/plinking etc. As for other models I'm not aware of other Canadian legal 9mm DA revolvers on the market right now.
Note....the above really only applies to the 9mm IMHO. If I was looking for a 38/357 I think I'd go the used S&W route.
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- Location
- West Quebec
If I were looking for a 9mm revolver it would be this:
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That point is almost moot, 38 special is quite cheap to buy if you know where to look.
I have a friend and fellow CGN'er that knows a Police Training re-loader. I get 38 special for 30 cents a round.
And then, you know, for the times you really want to get things snappy, you can load in magnum rounds whenever you like.
lejarretnoir
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- 162km from Connaught
The days of finding .38 Special brass cheap and plentiful are over. You can buy a .38 Spl PPC revolver cheap these days. Nobody is shooting it anymore at our club.
Trap shooting died and Target Rifle is going slowly. Too expensive. Even getting reloading components are getting expensive and difficult to find.
9mm? Yep and free range brass lying around. Most are shooting M&P 9mm or CZ. Lots of Norc's too.
Most of the rifles I see are SKS or the odd AR-15.
Yes we can. But it's slow to reload because without the moonclip in place each casing has to be picked out by hand with fingernails. Now that's fine for slower paced target plinking. But useless for any sort of faster paced shooting.
Edgriffin, the only other revolver currently out there is the Charter Arms gun. Up to fairly recently this appeared to be a brand best carried a lot and shot little. Supposedly this has been changed around with new owners as of a couple of years ago. You can read about it with a couple of google searches and at the same time do a search on "charter arms review" or "charter arms reliability" and get a feel for how well this has worked out.
One thing to keep in mind is that you would be going into a buy on the Alfa Project gun knowing that it's a company with a short history of revolver making. So over the longer term parts could become an issue if they were to go away any time soon. But that is balanced by the low price. It just depends on if you're OK with gambling on that amount.
The 9mm gun itself is lovely to shoot and from the things I saw inside when I installed the Rusty Wood spring kit it's neatly made with a good design. As delivered the main spring is overly heavy and I heartily recommend the RWT spring. With the new spring the trigger pull changes to something similar to a S&W that has had a Wolf spring installed. And that is just fine.
Size wise it's a relatively compact gun and pretty much the same size in all respects as a K frame S&W. The short barrel 9mm AP I have holsters just fine in the leather duty style holsters I have for my K frame S&W.
All in all I'm more than happy about buying the gun. It's a good shooter and the moonclip setup gives it a whole different experience from a .38Spl or .357Mag rimmed gun to handle. And it is the ideal revolver to add to a collection that has a 9mm or two and no other revolvers for cutting down on the ammo supply issues.
I do agree with that. Looking at the Alfa moon clips I'd say they should be more like $25 or $30 a dozen rather than 9-12 dollars each.
Yeh, a gun that costs a couple of grand is nice....
Hey roughly how much would it cost to go to a tool and die maker and have them make a bunch of moon clips?
A LOT more than the $9 each they are charging for the OEM ones. I suspect a good T&D guy is making in the upper $20's to lower/mid $30's per hour. It's easily going to take them well over an hour to make some up. Individually or with the time to make up some jigs thrown in first. It's simply not a viable option.
Even as a home shop hobbyist I'd laugh at you if you offered me $6 each to make them. I'd be working for about $2 an hour at best.
Nope, the only viable way is to make lots and use production methods and production processes for heat treating the clips.
There's been a few folks that have suggested a group project. So far nothing has come out of any of them. But a group deal would be the way to go. The moonclips need to be made to a high degree of flatness than hardened and spring tempered to achieve any realistic life span in actual use. And likely surface ground following that heat treating to give them the required final flatness.
Another possible process would be starting with spring tempered flat stock and EDM machining. That way there's no punching or other cutting stresses and no need for post process handling other than perhaps cleaning and bluing. But as I understand EDM it requires a very accurately made moon clip shaped "punch" as the electrode for the EDM process. And the making of such a cutting punch is not easy or cheap.
