djcsmith

I shot a Limited for a while, in my case an original Para 16-40 made in Canada 1/ Bullet profile made the biggest difference in feeding reliability. My pistol hated truncated cone bullets, and ran perfect with traditional round-nose 180's. 2/ Load long, mine were 1.19OAL with round-nose 3/ Examine your mags for cracks behind the feed lips, on top flat side of the mag tube. 4/ Do a search on-line, and there are lots of info on feed lip dimension, and mag tuning. Remember, 1911's were never really meant to run short cartridges like the .40 S&W & 9mm In a perfect world, we would still be shooting .45 ACP, 38 Super, and 10 mm.

BTW, I have a Sharpshooter classification, not M or DM.

I left IDPA in 2013. When I renewed last Fall, all my 2011 & 2013 classifications were there on IDPA members web sight, and I kept my old membership number. David

Ben Stoeger has great material. However, Steve Anderson has great material as well: http://shop.andersonshooting.com/books/

<"I decided to take a step to get into Race gun"> Most guys I know that shoot Open, know exactly what they want, and why they want it. A Race Gun is a delicate marriage of components, to suit the owner. Even developing a reliable load to run the comp is a full time job. Just go to any local IPSC/USPSA match and see the how problematic a Race Gun can be. They look cool and are cool, but are you really ready to put yourself through the expense & leaning curve? You can have just as much fun, and save a whack of money, by shooting Classic/Single Stack or Production Division. Most learn to fly a Cessna before they buy a Learjet.

Your stock gun should eat 130PF ammo fine. However, most guys in my area run a 9 pound recoil spring. In USPSA, Major guns seem to be the norm. In IPSC, Minor guns are more common. It has to do with stage design.

I find my .40S&W 1911 prefers bullets with a rounder nose-profile. Heavily truncated bullets seem to hit the feed ramp at a bad angle, or too early in the slide travel, stopping the slide. Also, I load mine to an OAL of 1.185". Many of my friends load as long as 1.2".

Having a fully-indexing shell plate is great when you are cranking out loads, but a pain when setting up, or finishing a session. I'm thinking, I'll just keep the primer tube full, and stop the case-feeder when I'm almost finished, then feed the case drop-tube one by one until I call it quits. Emptying the powder hopper is not a big deal. I'm loving he 650, but the 550 sure was simpler; manually indexing the shell-plate gave you lots of control, and options.

Dillon, Hodgdon, and others, recommend emptying the powder funnel at the end of each reloading session, and storing the powder back in it's original container. So how do you end your reloading session?: 1/ Let the brass &/or primer feeders run out? 2/ Just stop, and manually remove brass in the shell plate? 3/ Leave the powder in the funnel, and convince yourself that returning powder to the original container recommendation is just a liability thing? 4/ ??? Having just upgrading from a 550 to a 650, this is a bit of a pain.

Thanks for the suggestions on the last two posts. Haven't had a chance to investigate those yet. It is time to d a detail strip anyways, so I check everything out. I did change to a 9 Lb recoil spring, and haven't had issues in the last 150 rounds. I would suspect the ejector before the slide-stop. I did notice that it is the ejector that prevents me from using my .22 Ciener conversion kit. The ejector can be checked easily, but I might have to wait for the next issue to test the slide-stop issue.

I see contact marks, but can't say there is wear, or peening. I am not running a shock-buff. The gun has about 1500 rounds through it.

I am not left-handed. My best guess, at the moment, is that something is causing the base of the guide-rod to drag on the slide, or the spring is binding, or both. However, the next time it happens, I will certainly examine the slide-stop position.

<"Recoil spring installed backwards?"> Just field stripped the Trojan, and the spring is not backwards. <"Wrong guide rod that doesn't fit in the frame correctly?"> I think the guide rod is stock. However, "not fitting the frame" makes me wonder if the 8Lb spring was letting the slide "bounce", causing the horseshoe-shaped base of the guide-rod to jump out of it's resting position against the frame. This is just a theory, but I noticed that after I reassembled the slide after field-stripping, the slide was sticking at first, until I cycled it once or twice.

The slide is usually smooth, and cycles perfectly. However, once in a while (approx. 250 rounds), the slide binds and stops mid-cycle. I can manually move the slide, but with heavy drag, and feels like something is binding inside. If I manually cycle the slide several times, sometimes it fixes itself, and all is well again. Other times I have to field-strip, and reassemble to correct the issue. It is not an ammo issue, as it binds even if the gun is empty. I can only think it is the recoil spring binding on it's own links, or the slide. Anyone else had this happen? My Trojan is presently running an 8 Lb recoil spring, and has a factory one-piece recoil-spring guide. I could try a 9 Lb spring, but can't see how this would make a difference.

What bullet weight does Ben use? I'm sure if you asked him, he would tell you that better time-savings are gained during transitions, reloads, and the draw. The 124 vs 147 decision will probably never loose you a match.