Austin Hemphill

I had this happen to me about 8 years ago or so in a g22. It looked like the breech face, for the lack of a better term, tore out of the slide. It started at the top of the breech face and continued until a little disc of the breech face popped out. I was shocked to say the least but at the time there were a couple of other cases mentioned on the net at a number of different sites. Glock did replace the slide FOC and did mention after I pushed a bit that this kind of thing happens from time to time but did not elaborate.

In my 4 port hybrid 8.5 behind a zero 125 got me around 170 pf. Shot ok, but a bit inconsistant velocity wise. The powder is very dense and the charge weights are pretty consistant.

Buddy, I think about 5.2-5.4 worked for me with the 180gr. Masterblasters. 5.7 worked for the 180 Zero JHP both at about 1.170 with a WSR primer.

The only thing I had to adjust on my holster was to make sure the gun did not rotate around the ball bearing when locked. The same adjustments worked for both my open and limited guns and I think I ended up in a similar setting to yours. Just make sure that the gun is solidly locked in and you should be fine.

He has had some serious health issues of late that have prevented him doing much of this kind of work.

I second Front Man's recommendation about Powder Valley, they were the ones that always seemed to have it when others did not. But buy all you can because this seems to be the first powder to sell out and the last to restock at all of the dealers I have looked at. I love it in my gun, but had to go to 3n37 because I could not afford to buy enough at one time to keep me shooting through the dry spells. It is the only problem I ever had with this powder.

Rich, I sent an e-mail to Don last week and got a reply in 2 days. He seems to be ok from what I can tell. He built my open gun which I am sending in for a tuneup before I bring it down here. When he was building it he was hard to get a hold of but usually replied to my e-mails within a week or two. He did have a spam filter that seemed to stop e-mails from one of my accounts, but my work e-mails have always gotten through. Maybe something similar is happening here?

Just to add my 2 cents, if you like n340 try IMR SR-7625. I use 5.0 with a 124/125 for a minor 9x19 load. It burns relatively cleanly and is very consistent over the chrony. This is with WSR primers at about 1.140". In my experience this powder needs a little compression which I get with most bullets I have tried. It also worked well for my 38sc open loads, but gave me some annoying pressure issues when the temp climbed above 100F. I have found that VV powders are nothing if not consistent. If you are willing to tolerate a little filth, there the Accurate Arms powders are great in my experience. I really liked AA#2 in 40, and AA#7 is great in open if you can take the black sand residue. Personally, I really like 3n37 but it leaves a little unburned granules and burns a little hot, but I love the fact that it performs the same for me regardless of temperature and lot.

I have a bit of a problem. Recently I noticed that my open gun would not hold zero, and I though I had found and fixed the problem by tightening the one loose screw I found on the mount. However, I noticed yesterday that the head of another screw had broken off, with the shank flush with the frame on both sides. The mound I have been using is a CPMI for aimpoint, with three 6-40 x 1/4" screws in the C-more pattern. The other two screws came out easily, and it appears that the locktite had given way. My question is how do I remove the small shank remaining in the frame with out damaging the thin dustcover or hole? I have been thinking about putting a small drill bit in the dremel and trying to spin it out like I did with a 1911 gripscrew that broke in the bushing. In that case it spun right out without any problems. Is this reasonable, or should I just send it to a pro? Thanks, Austin

Thanks Harmon, I think I'll give them a try then.

Harmon, How are those precision deltas working out in your hybrid? I tried another brand, and got some metal spitting out of the ports. I have heard that the exposed base could expand and catch a port causing this. Any thing like this showing up? Thanks, Austin

7.6 gr IMR 7625, 125 gr. Zero 0.355 JHP, Armscor 38S rimless brass, WSR primer, 1.245" OAL. This is through a 5" 4 port hybrid with a 4 chamber comp 4 up, 2 side ports. So far, this load has beat all challengers I have tried in my gun. Is pretty soft, not all that flat, but tracks straight up and down, and I can buy powder just about everywhere. The biggest disadvantage I can see with it is that it flattens primers a bit, but what doesn't? It shoots pretty accurately too, all A's on turtle targets at 50 yds consistantly. It has little if any flash, and very little concussion in comparison to most other powders. The number two load for me is 3n38, but it is becoming a more distant second the more I shoot this load.

I dug up my data, and it looks like the longest I could load in my AET fitted by SV and TiN coated is 1.185" with the Zero 180gr JHP, but 1.150" felt smoother in feeding. So far this is the second AET that SV put in my gun, the first sheared off the lower lugs and SV warranteed it with a new one. The first barrel was about 20fps slower than the second, and the second shot cast much better than the first. Also, the second barrel has deeper chamber flutes than the first, and I had to change from Ramshot Competition to of all things Accurate #2 to prevent extraction problems. N320 also worked ok, but I prefer the feel of the other powders. Neither barrel liked the 200grain Montana Gold FMJ. I found that on the whole, the AET barrels seem to shoot about 30-50 fps faster than either my KKM or Schuemann regular barrels. So, if I were to guess, you will be pretty close velocity wise.

I got a hybrid 38 supercomp myself in April, and have played with a lot of the powders out there. I agree 3n38 can be a bit much, but really liked how it felt. One powder that felt similar to me in my gun with the 125s was IMR 4756. Plus it is cheaper and more available. But it is pretty bulky and fills the case almost to the brim. The powder I finally decided on was IMR 7625. I found that for me, I shot better scores, and could call the shot more consistantly. I noticed a slight downward impulse at the beginning of the recoil with 3n38, as well as more circular movement in the dot. With 7625 and 4756 the dot tracked more vertically. To me, 4756 just didn't feel right, and was a little more difficult to load than 7625, and I used less 7625 to make the same power factor. Also, with any of these three powders you will see very small standard deviations of velocity, and are also pretty clean. I don't know about you, but I have heard of a number of guns that ran pretty reasonable volumes of all of these powders with 115, 121, and 125 grain bullets with pretty reasonable wear so I stopped worrying about it, picked a load, and started shooting.

You might be having some problems with your powder bar, unless competition works consistantly with the montana golds. I remember that one of my powder measures had enough slop in it that AA#2 would not meter worth a damn, but all of the extruded powders would work fine. I tacked it down to powder working its way out around the charge bar when the bar moved to the drop position. It was hard to spot since the powder was being dropped off of the bar on the far side of the measure. But even then I only saw a 0.2-0.3 grain disparity, and #2 is a much finer powder. When I switched measures, I could never measure a difference worth mentioning between charges. And I never had any static problems with Competition here or in Montana that I can remember.