OK, as promised I've finally had a chance to build up enough range time and get some photos to have enough to write up a review of my new Alpha Project 9mm revolver.
As you likely know by now the current AP line of revolvers is being imported into Canada. And the first dealer to offer them for sale is Rusty Wood Trading here in BC.
For years I've been saying that "what the world needs is a nice 9mm full moonclip revolver". So when one showed up I pretty much was stuck with having to put my money where my mouth had been for so long....
From this picture we can see that the frame is regular length and the cylinder is short. So much of the extra .2 to .25 inch we need for Canada is "hidden" inside the long reach of the forcing cone. This means that from the outer dimensions that we now have what equates to a 4 inch barrel. Just how close? Check out the next picture showing a K frame S&W Model 66 that has been extended to make it a Restricted.
You can see by the skewers lined up how the AP size compares to the S&W K frame.
As an added bonus I checked my 9mm and the chamber spacing in the cylinder matches the chamber spacing in my S&W. So those of you with the .357Mag version of the AP SHOULD be able to make use of the K frame speedloaders.
It's also no surprise that my new AP revolver fits nicely into the same holsters I've got for my K frame S&W's.
I also picked up the first of the test run of reduced power hammer springs. I shot my first session with the gun in stock form. As it came right from the case in fact. Between the first and second sessions I swapped the spring.
The stock spring produced a DA pull of something up around 20 lbs. I have to guess as my spring pull scale only goes to 15 lbs. It continues to what I guess is around 18lbs and it took a little more than that to set off the trigger in DA with the stock spring.
With the Rusty Wood spring I got some mixed DA pull readings. If I draw back slowly it finally travels and breaks at a hair over 11lbs. But if I pull faster with about a half second pressure build such as if I was pulling the trigger myself it snaps off at around 9'ish lbs. Certainly well under 10 but at 8.5 or a little more. Things happen pretty quick so that's as close as I can nail it down.
This seemed a little odd so I checked a couple of my S&W's for this sort of variation. The two I checked DID have some but not as much. So perhaps there's some tightness in the action yet that will wear and burnish in or there's a little polishing that might help.
The SA pull went from around 8.75 lbs with the stock spring to a nice crisp 3.7lbs. And that one is consistent regardless of slow or fast on the pressure build.
The Rusty Wood spring comes with a couple of extra shim washers. In the instructions it says to use these to up the spring pressure if you run into any light strikes. To give it a good test I went with only the stock washer and didn't use either of the two shim washers. Around 150 rounds later all went off just fine. And the hammer still feels like it's got a little more pressure than a couple of my Wolff sprung S&W K frame guns. So I don't expect I'll need either of the shims. But it's a nice touch that they come with the kit.
Rimfire guns are notorious for needing a very firm hit. So perhaps the shims will really come into their own when used on the rimfire Alpha Project guns.
While the side cover was off I took some pictures of the action. The sparkles on the parts in the pictures surprised me. It's just the OEM oil you're seeing. The parts don't have measles... Fit and finish was good by any normal production standard. But there is room for some smithing to smoothen the action. But as it comes out of the box the trigger does pull much like a Ruger or S&W in stock form. And at significantly lower cost. I also saw a couple of points where I'm looking at going back in and polishing a little to smoothen up the trigger even more than it is in stock form. That'll be the topic of a follow up on this review.
OK, let's get to the real meat, the shooting results.
This first target was shot at 20 yards indoors using a rolled pad as a wrist rest. The shots were done in Single Action with the STOCK hammer spring. Group size from outside to outside is 4.75 inch. Oddly enough I can shoot about the same from free standing. I've come to realize that shooting rested is a skill as much as any other. In THIS case my free standing group was up around 6'ish inches when shot with this stock spring and in SA mode. So I didn't post that one....
This next pair of targets was shot outside just this Friday in conditions with snow falling around us. I shot the AP on the right and the 66 shown above on the left. I did this for a sort of "control conditions" since I was shivering so much I needed something to act as a basis for comparison. Distance as reported on the target was 15'ish yards as paced out.
In this case all 12 shots on each side were shot in DA using a moderate fire rate. I didn't stage the trigger, just pulled through cleanly at a moderate pace of around 1 shot per second. The group size for the AP is 4 3/8 inch with the two low "flyers" included. It shrinks by a full inch when only the upper group is considered.
As you can see the two groups are pretty similar. And the AP is actually tighter if we toss out the two lower "flyers". In better conditions I can typically group about 1/2 that size with the S&W when shot at this pace and distance. But the cold was messing with me.... at least that's my story.... But clearly by comparison the AP is no slouch even with the "flyers" included. I'll report back later with how it works out in the warmth of the indoor range.
The normal method for shooting rimless cartridges in revolvers is to use moonclips. The clips hold the rounds in the rim grooves and the rounds are headspaced by the moonclip. But these AP 9mm revolvers also shoot just fine without using the moonclips. The cylinder uses a shoulder between the chamber and throat to headspace the rounds off the mouth rim of the casings. Testing the clips and empty casings showed me that the cases headspaced off whichever touched first with only a couple of thou being the difference from one way to the other.
Unlike the S&W 9mm revolver from some years ago that used little sprung fingers to catch the rim grooves the AP has no way of ejecting the empties unless you use a moonclip. With the cases held by the moonclip the whole cluster pops out clean and falls clear easily. When shooting without the clip you just need to pick or poke out the empties. It takes a couple of seconds at most.
On my gun with the short non-fluted cylinder and no rear recess picking out the empties when shooting without the moonclip is just a matter of having some sort of useable fingernails. Or a short bit of wood dowel could be used as an ejector tool. So shooting without using the clips is not only possible but very doable. In fact if I point the gun up with the cylinder open a few fall free just from gravity and a few more can be flipped out with a little down and back up jerk of the gun. Only the occasional one stays put when I tried that method.
The stock grip fit me pretty well other than for a little looseness around the upper area were the web of my hand rested. As an experiment I fitted that area with a bit of foam bicycle handlebar tape such as used on road racing bikes. It really helped me out. I've got Large to XLarge size glove hands though. So some of you may not need this. Here's a picture. The thickness was built up about 3/32 inch around the top of the grip and tapering down to blend at the lower edge of the added foam. It's working nicely enough I'm going to redo it and glue it on permanently.
The firmer fit around the upper web of my hand eliminated a little bit of slap I was getting when the fill in wasn't there. Seems that the gun could roll in the lower grip and slap the upper part at the web between the thumb and trigger finger. With the padding shown this went away and the gun now feels much like my S&W's when shooting with full power .38Spl loads.
At around 200 rounds downrange at this point I'm more than a happy camper. I'm so taken with the gun that I'm building up the "mad money" fund to buy one of the 9 shot .22 AP's.
I let a few shooting buddies try it at the last IDPA practice night. One went away saying that he was definitely going to buy one and two others were impressed enough that they are thinking strongly about it. For one of them it would be his first revolver. For the other it would be added to his S&W and Ruger collection so as to have a moonclip style revolver.
My own will soon see use in the local matches for both IDPA and Speed Steel. I'm just waiting on a supply of moonclips to arrive. I'm told that it'll be any day now.
The plan is to keep this thread updated over the next couple of months as I use the gun or do any slicking up work to it.
As you likely know by now the current AP line of revolvers is being imported into Canada. And the first dealer to offer them for sale is Rusty Wood Trading here in BC.
For years I've been saying that "what the world needs is a nice 9mm full moonclip revolver". So when one showed up I pretty much was stuck with having to put my money where my mouth had been for so long....
From this picture we can see that the frame is regular length and the cylinder is short. So much of the extra .2 to .25 inch we need for Canada is "hidden" inside the long reach of the forcing cone. This means that from the outer dimensions that we now have what equates to a 4 inch barrel. Just how close? Check out the next picture showing a K frame S&W Model 66 that has been extended to make it a Restricted.
You can see by the skewers lined up how the AP size compares to the S&W K frame.
As an added bonus I checked my 9mm and the chamber spacing in the cylinder matches the chamber spacing in my S&W. So those of you with the .357Mag version of the AP SHOULD be able to make use of the K frame speedloaders.
It's also no surprise that my new AP revolver fits nicely into the same holsters I've got for my K frame S&W's.
I also picked up the first of the test run of reduced power hammer springs. I shot my first session with the gun in stock form. As it came right from the case in fact. Between the first and second sessions I swapped the spring.
The stock spring produced a DA pull of something up around 20 lbs. I have to guess as my spring pull scale only goes to 15 lbs. It continues to what I guess is around 18lbs and it took a little more than that to set off the trigger in DA with the stock spring.
With the Rusty Wood spring I got some mixed DA pull readings. If I draw back slowly it finally travels and breaks at a hair over 11lbs. But if I pull faster with about a half second pressure build such as if I was pulling the trigger myself it snaps off at around 9'ish lbs. Certainly well under 10 but at 8.5 or a little more. Things happen pretty quick so that's as close as I can nail it down.
This seemed a little odd so I checked a couple of my S&W's for this sort of variation. The two I checked DID have some but not as much. So perhaps there's some tightness in the action yet that will wear and burnish in or there's a little polishing that might help.
The SA pull went from around 8.75 lbs with the stock spring to a nice crisp 3.7lbs. And that one is consistent regardless of slow or fast on the pressure build.
The Rusty Wood spring comes with a couple of extra shim washers. In the instructions it says to use these to up the spring pressure if you run into any light strikes. To give it a good test I went with only the stock washer and didn't use either of the two shim washers. Around 150 rounds later all went off just fine. And the hammer still feels like it's got a little more pressure than a couple of my Wolff sprung S&W K frame guns. So I don't expect I'll need either of the shims. But it's a nice touch that they come with the kit.
Rimfire guns are notorious for needing a very firm hit. So perhaps the shims will really come into their own when used on the rimfire Alpha Project guns.
While the side cover was off I took some pictures of the action. The sparkles on the parts in the pictures surprised me. It's just the OEM oil you're seeing. The parts don't have measles...
Fit and finish was good by any normal production standard. But there is room for some smithing to smoothen the action. But as it comes out of the box the trigger does pull much like a Ruger or S&W in stock form. And at significantly lower cost. I also saw a couple of points where I'm looking at going back in and polishing a little to smoothen up the trigger even more than it is in stock form. That'll be the topic of a follow up on this review.
OK, let's get to the real meat, the shooting results.
This first target was shot at 20 yards indoors using a rolled pad as a wrist rest. The shots were done in Single Action with the STOCK hammer spring. Group size from outside to outside is 4.75 inch. Oddly enough I can shoot about the same from free standing. I've come to realize that shooting rested is a skill as much as any other. In THIS case my free standing group was up around 6'ish inches when shot with this stock spring and in SA mode. So I didn't post that one....
This next pair of targets was shot outside just this Friday in conditions with snow falling around us. I shot the AP on the right and the 66 shown above on the left. I did this for a sort of "control conditions" since I was shivering so much I needed something to act as a basis for comparison. Distance as reported on the target was 15'ish yards as paced out.
In this case all 12 shots on each side were shot in DA using a moderate fire rate. I didn't stage the trigger, just pulled through cleanly at a moderate pace of around 1 shot per second. The group size for the AP is 4 3/8 inch with the two low "flyers" included. It shrinks by a full inch when only the upper group is considered.
As you can see the two groups are pretty similar. And the AP is actually tighter if we toss out the two lower "flyers". In better conditions I can typically group about 1/2 that size with the S&W when shot at this pace and distance. But the cold was messing with me.... at least that's my story....
But clearly by comparison the AP is no slouch even with the "flyers" included. I'll report back later with how it works out in the warmth of the indoor range.The normal method for shooting rimless cartridges in revolvers is to use moonclips. The clips hold the rounds in the rim grooves and the rounds are headspaced by the moonclip. But these AP 9mm revolvers also shoot just fine without using the moonclips. The cylinder uses a shoulder between the chamber and throat to headspace the rounds off the mouth rim of the casings. Testing the clips and empty casings showed me that the cases headspaced off whichever touched first with only a couple of thou being the difference from one way to the other.
Unlike the S&W 9mm revolver from some years ago that used little sprung fingers to catch the rim grooves the AP has no way of ejecting the empties unless you use a moonclip. With the cases held by the moonclip the whole cluster pops out clean and falls clear easily. When shooting without the clip you just need to pick or poke out the empties. It takes a couple of seconds at most.
On my gun with the short non-fluted cylinder and no rear recess picking out the empties when shooting without the moonclip is just a matter of having some sort of useable fingernails. Or a short bit of wood dowel could be used as an ejector tool. So shooting without using the clips is not only possible but very doable. In fact if I point the gun up with the cylinder open a few fall free just from gravity and a few more can be flipped out with a little down and back up jerk of the gun. Only the occasional one stays put when I tried that method.
The stock grip fit me pretty well other than for a little looseness around the upper area were the web of my hand rested. As an experiment I fitted that area with a bit of foam bicycle handlebar tape such as used on road racing bikes. It really helped me out. I've got Large to XLarge size glove hands though. So some of you may not need this. Here's a picture. The thickness was built up about 3/32 inch around the top of the grip and tapering down to blend at the lower edge of the added foam. It's working nicely enough I'm going to redo it and glue it on permanently.
The firmer fit around the upper web of my hand eliminated a little bit of slap I was getting when the fill in wasn't there. Seems that the gun could roll in the lower grip and slap the upper part at the web between the thumb and trigger finger. With the padding shown this went away and the gun now feels much like my S&W's when shooting with full power .38Spl loads.
At around 200 rounds downrange at this point I'm more than a happy camper. I'm so taken with the gun that I'm building up the "mad money" fund to buy one of the 9 shot .22 AP's.
I let a few shooting buddies try it at the last IDPA practice night. One went away saying that he was definitely going to buy one and two others were impressed enough that they are thinking strongly about it. For one of them it would be his first revolver. For the other it would be added to his S&W and Ruger collection so as to have a moonclip style revolver.
My own will soon see use in the local matches for both IDPA and Speed Steel. I'm just waiting on a supply of moonclips to arrive. I'm told that it'll be any day now.
The plan is to keep this thread updated over the next couple of months as I use the gun or do any slicking up work to it.
