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Ammo for shooting limited at Majors


CrashDodson

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Just wanted to gauge what others are doing.  For those reloading and shooting limited, i suppose its a valid question for anyone not shooting factory ammo, do you do anything different when preparing for a major match?

 

Shooting limited you deal with glocked brass and all that crap.  Any of you using new brass for majors or are you comfortable with your used brass?  It seems silly to risk a malfunction when paying a lot of money for travel and match fees.  

 

Yes I gauge my ammo but you still run into the occasional problem.  

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100% of my brass is range pick-up.  First it is cleaned, then run through a CasePro and then sized & deprimed.  Most bad brass is caught in this process.  Finally when I load, every round is gauged in a Shockbottle hundo gauge which is tighter than my chamber.  My ammo runs 100%.

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3 hours ago, CrashDodson said:

Chamber checking with the barrel is probably a good play. 

 

I have to disagree    :huh:

 

Not "a good play" ....

 

Essential    :bow:

 

I never barrel check rounds for practice or for local matches, BUT ALWAYS

check every round for larger matches.    :) 

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Range brass.  I have a Kart barrel with broken feet I use to chamber check my major match ammo.  Rowdyb is correct, it turns out there are usually 3 or 4 rounds that do not drop free.  I set those aside for practice or local matches.  No sense in taking a chance at a major match.

 

This is true even though I load on a 1050 with an Undersize die in station 2.

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100% of my brass is range pick-up.  First it is cleaned, then run through a CasePro and then sized & deprimed.  Most bad brass is caught in this process.  Finally when I load, every round is gauged in a Shockbottle hundo gauge which is tighter than my chamber.  My ammo runs 100%.


This. Word by word!
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My major match load uses 100% 1x fired brass from Glocks.  I use an EGW U-die to resize, and use a Dillon case gauge to check every single round, one at a time.  Develop a system and case gauging goes pretty quick.  Also can do it watching TV.  Out of the 500 I just loaded I found 2-3 that were questionable and pulled those out. 

 

Also important to load to 172-176 pf if shooting major.  My match load of 4.9 grains of N320 with a 180 gr. .40 HAP chronoed 174.0 before I left home.  But thats at sea level, high humidity and 80 degrees.  At the chrono station of Area 1 it went 170.2.  Still major, but it went a lot slower than I thought it would.  My guess was 172-173 pf.

 

5.1 grains of N320 got me 176.7 pf at A2 a few weeks ago.  Bottom line; the chrono is VOODOO.  Load to around 10pf points higher than the minimum you are looking for.  135-137 pf for minor, 172-176pf for major. 

 

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I push my brass through a Redding GRX full-length sizing die with a bottle on top to catch them.  I don't do that step all the time, but when perfection is needed, that is one of my extra steps.

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I buy my 40sw brass.  It is mixed range brass that has been wet cleaned with SS media.  The combination of the Hornady sizing die and the Lee Factory Carbide Crimp die completely solves the Glock'd brass problem for me.  The rounds come out shiny and new looking, and every one chambers in both of my pistols.  That being said, I chamber check every round in a Shockbottle XL.  I fill it, lift it, and look to see that every round sits below the surface.  Somewhere between 1 and 3 rounds will have the rim, or part of the rim above the surface.  Even though these chamber in the gun, I remove them and use them for practice.  I do this for every round I reload so I don't have to worry about which is practice or match ammo.  It's all match ammo.

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I drop test 100% of all my ammo.  Drop testing is also a good time to pick up on the odd high primer by running my thumb over them.  For a major match I load a batch of about 500 rounds. I chrono that batch of ammo and check the POI.

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On 4/4/2017 at 2:39 AM, 36873687 said:

I use a hundo for every round I load, as some one said don't have to worry about if its match ammo. I might start the barrel test for majors

 

why barrel test unless your barrel is tighter than a hundo gauge? I used to barrel-test, then I bought a case gauge. Now I reject *more* rounds and have more confidence that everything will work. If it fits in the gauge, it is definitely 100% fitting in my barrel.

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why barrel test unless your barrel is tighter than a hundo gauge? I used to barrel-test, then I bought a case gauge. Now I reject *more* rounds and have more confidence that everything will work. If it fits in the gauge, it is definitely 100% fitting in my barrel.


Same here! My chambers are BIG, and my Hundo is TIGHT... so no issues at all!
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4 minutes ago, CrashDodson said:

I chickened out and bought new starline brass for Area 6.  Having 600 rounds all case gauge was a welcome change.

there's no substitute for peace of mind, but I figure practice is the place to find out what works, and if i find what works, i don't want to change the process for a major. If you case-gauge your practice rounds, and your gun runds 100% in practice, with thousands of rounds between failures, it seems reasonable that the same process should work for majors.

 

I think one thing to be careful of, if you *don't* gauge your practice ammo, be wary of ascribing a failure in practice to a brass/ammo problem that a case gauge would have prevented. It is probably more likely to be something else, so if you have gun problems of any kind, case gauge your practice ammo so that you know if the gun chokes in practice, you have some real homework to do to find the problem and fix it (or buy a new gun that runs).

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3 hours ago, motosapiens said:

 

why barrel test unless your barrel is tighter than a hundo gauge? I used to barrel-test, then I bought a case gauge. Now I reject *more* rounds and have more confidence that everything will work. If it fits in the gauge, it is definitely 100% fitting in my barrel.

I agree an never have no problems. I guess OCD 

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i sold all of my reloading equipment a while back due to plans of getting new stuff....I know this was stupid..

 

do yall have experience with freedom munitions? they are apparently pretty local to me, and i can buy in bulk...im shooting carry optics, so i don't need to worry about power factors..

 

the bench

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49 minutes ago, benchmstr said:

do yall have experience with freedom munitions? they are apparently pretty local to me, and i can buy in bulk...im shooting carry optics, so i don't need to worry about power factors..

If you don't want to go sub minor you certainly do need to worry about power factor ;)

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9 minutes ago, Southpaw said:

If you don't want to go sub minor you certainly do need to worry about power factor ;)

I really don't...with my barrel, even the cheapest of factory crap makes at least minor when checked..never had a factory load that didnt

 

the bench

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