More fun with the trommel magazine

[spacecoast]

After displaying my ignorance with the proper insertion of a Luger magazine more than a month ago, I went to the range today with more knowledge and, as expected, more success.

But... not all was easy by any means. Before leaving home, I loaded 20 rounds into my GT-tuned repro snail drum. At the range, with the toggle open, the drum readily inserted into the designated slot on my Artillery Luger, but I had considerable trouble getting the first round to load as it just didn't want to strip off the top of the magazine. I removed and reinserted the drum a few times, fiddled with retracting the toggle just a bit more and finally got a round to chamber successfully. In between, I shot a regular magazine just to make sure all was well with my Luger.

On the first few shots, I noticed the gun was having a little difficulty going into battery on the new round. I helped it a bit, and finally things were working well.

I shot a total of about 75 rounds, loading the snail drum three times total. On each magazine, capturing and chambering the first round gave me some trouble, but after that things went smoothly. My thoughts at the moment are that these drums work better the more you use them and they have a chance to self-polish the snail path just a bit more. I haven't done anything yet to supplement or change the red grease, but will look at that when I've had a chance to examine the drum's interior once again.