MemphisMechanic

This. Use the tail that protrudes from the end of the ruler on your digital calipers to measure primer depth. That is PRECISELY what it’s there for, it’s a precision tool, and you already own it.

I’ll be curious to see if anyone around here has experience with the 10mm guns, or not.

Lead primarily enters the body via breathing in the dust while shooting, handling brass, or loading. Following that, it’s from being absorbed through the mucus membranes (wiping eyes or mouth) … and then to a much lesser extent, through the skin itself. The best thing you can do is to do all of your brass processing outdoors in an N95 mask, or switch to wet tumbling while wearing gloves. If the dust produced by a vibratory tumbler and separator is left outdoors, then it isn’t left as a fine layer of dust on every surface in the garage. You might be careful to wear a mask and avoid touching your face as you process the brass and load, but that won’t be the case when you’re out there wrenching on your car next week.

Look for my Tanfoglio Tuning video series on youtube under the same username. Details complete teardown and reassembly of a Stock 3.

You’re going to have to delibrately go one-for-one on an array full of steel on a hard lean, just like the singlestack shooters you’ve seen. The other PCC shooters are going to have 10 rounds to spare, and attack that position as agressively as an Open shooter.

Dillon machines excel at making a lot of pretty accurate, really really quickly. Pretty accute. Not REALLY accurate. You’ll be able to dial in your loads to you guns, and thus they’ll be more accurate than factory ammo. That doesn’t mean a 550/650/750/1050 is the right machine for someone who wants ammo as accurate as they can possibly get. These machines weren’t built for that purpose. If my 650 and 1050 can crank out 2,000 rounds of handgun ammo in an evening that can hold 1.5” at 25 yards, it is exactly what I want.

@rowdyb while I agree that the new classifiers could be better, these are still lightyears ahead of the options we had years ago. At least you’re moving and entering/exiting/loading. I’m just thankful the Org is trying anything new at all.

@jejb since I’ve been in the reloading game around the early 2000s, the 1050 has always been a commerical machine and had a 1 year warranty.

This is fine blanket advice for a novice, however pushing to 11 and exiting the position while executing a slide-lock reload is a trick that should be in every veteran’s back pocket. For a novice, absolutely stick with conservative plans that never get you anywhere near going empty. Just be aware that someday you’ll grow beyond that. Sometimes shooting the gun dry is what wins a stage.

Buy some factory ammo. Run it through the gun. See what happens. Delete your reloads from the equation and see what you get.

@Drillbit I always found the short chamber of the Apex match grade barrels surprising, since they’re aimed at competition shooters. Needless to say, I’ve reamed a lot of them over the years for myself and other guys to be able to load ammo to 1.130-1.60” lengths.

Yes. It was covered above. A more agressive taper on the bullet moves the ogive back: their new bullets let you load longer and still fit them into a gun like a Gen 5 Glock or a Shadow 2.

The gun is only perhaps 10-20% of the equation. Christian Sailer didn’t win every single Area match plus Nationals last year with an SVI… because he shot an Infinity. Guys here on Enos sit around and BS about which recoil spring will give them the biggest advantage… While the guys who placed in the top three are training until their hands bleed, taping them up, and training some more. But then, you knew this already. This same discussion happens many times a year.

Does your ammo plunk and spin in the barrel on that gun? What bullet are you loading and how long are you loading it?

It’s always a good idea to back the overtravel setscrew out at least 1/2 to 3/4 turn more than the minimum required. The gun still runs when it’s filthy, and when the springs wear… and you really won’t shoot a stage any different.

We’ll see you again in 2023 when you return for your next visit.

You disliked my phrasing along the way, then agreed with the point I was actually making. I can dig it.

You’re welcome. I had a hunch.

Sweet! I didn’t know they’d procured some carbide reamers. Thanks for sharing that.

Is there an empty mag in the gun? If so, it’s holding the slide release tab up. If not, lift the slide release with your fingertip and make sure it snaps back down agressively under spring pressure. On a lot of handgun models it is easy to reassemble the gun without properly positioning that spring.

Also, sidenote: there’s another reason to shoot 124 a little faster. If your load is supersonic, the timer has a much higher chance of picking up all of your shots. At sea level, 1,125 fps is when you get the crack of a sonic boom from your ammo. That’s ~140PF with a 124, and anything over 129 with a 115gr. It’s kinda fun to load ammo that is below and above that threshold, and shoot them back to back through a quiet PCC.

Try one of the common slightly slower powders. A 115 or a 124 over something like 231 at 140ish PF will probably make you a lot happier; it’ll recoil much more like your factory ammo. There’s no reason to waste expensive powder in a gun which really likes a slightly faster snappier load. Just remember to choose a load based upon three things in order: 1. Group size at 25+ yards. 2. Dot movement. Gotta stay flat when ripping fast pairs. 3. How it feels. Snappy or soft, clunky or smooth. Most PCC shooters focus on #3 while ignoring all other factors, as you know. For a fully grown man shooting a handgun from their shoulder, it doesn’t make sense to obsess with softening something that’s already plenty controllable. If it lets you rip a bill drill into a 25yd target with 6A’s, that’s a match winner. Even if it’s a bit snappy.

The reamers and shops @lll Otto lll mentioned will do a great job on a Czechmate and all CZ-75 series guns, including an SP-01 (Shadow 1). But they the hardened barrel steel of a P-09, P10, or a Shadow 2 will destroy their reamers. The barrel is harder than the tool.

A stiffer spring is the biggest help available, honestly. If you cannot retract the slide fully with an 18-20 pound spring, I suggest you hit it with your purse to assist in driving it rearward. The tip of the ejector can be filed / reprofiled to change the trajectory of the ejected brass. It’s the combination of the ammo and the recoil spring that determine the slide speed, and the resulting velocity of the exiting brass. If you want to work on the ejector, watch the gun eject brass and determine if you need to get rid of some upward “lob” to the arc, or if it needs to go rearward. Etc. Once you think through the mechanics of the gun’s function it should be obvious what to do: The brass pivots around the claw of the extractor on it’s way out of the gun. When and were the ejector’s tip strikes the case is what determines HOW it pivots and is launched out of the weapon. Example: Filing the ejector so it becomes more of a point at just the top (you cut it from | to a / shape) will cause all of the impact to be higher, so it doesn’t get as much loft to it’s arc. That would have been caused by an impact down low on the case. The ejector is part of the sear cage, which is neither difficult to replace nor very expensive, so experimenting isn’t going to ruin your gun.

Worn magazine springs will be the very first thing to check, and the odds are pretty high that it’ll fix the problem. Mag body and rounds slide into gun. Mag slams to a stop. Weakened mag spring lets the rounds bounce back downward slgihtly, and the slide gets past the rear corner of the top round before the spring can push them back upward. If you’re the kind of guy who drives his mags in to make the gun auto-forward, then it’s even more likely that this is the issue.