jmtyndall

Thanks for the kind words. I'm having a lot of fun and feeling really motivated. I'm hard on myself and pick my shooting apart but there's clearly a lot of stuff I'm doing pretty okay at considering I'm 5% away from B class and generally beating other C-class shooters at matches. That said I know that the only way I'm going to improve is by identifying and targeting things I'm not good at.

With the move going on I haven't been able to go out to the range or get a real dry-fire session in. I was able to get out to a Tuesday night match at the range that's near my house. Overall it went okay, but I could definitely have done better. Time-wise I was 12 seconds off the production winner, and 10 seconds of that was on the first stage. I showed up a bit late and ended up being first to shoot. First stage was an unloaded table start with a large shooting area. Targets on each side and some in the middle. I loaded and shot from the start position but it became clear to me afterwards that the right stage-plan was to load while moving all the way to one side then reload, stop in the middle to engage targets before moving to the last position. Then on the classifier I rushed the transition to the last target and shot 2 mikes on a 15 yard open target. There's absolutely no reason I shouldn't have been able to shoot at least charlies on that. What should have been about a 60% classifier ended up as a zero. Overall 3rd/5th in Production. Just over 1 week until the sectional match. Won't be making any big gains but I'm going to try to work on my grip consistency during the draw and target transitions in dry fire until then.

Agreed. The proof is in the numbers. I think they've found the right recipe

For the amount you're loading you want to go progressive. If you plan on shooting multiple calibers and are price sensitive (IE, you'll only have one press), buy the 550. Caliber changes are much quicker and easier, and if you really want to be fast set-up 2 550s, one for large primer and one for small primer. Then caliber changes take just a minute or two. If you plan to have one caliber that you reload, or aren't price sensitive and will have multiple presses then go 650 for the increased production rate. Another way to use the 650 is to load in large batches. Load 3-5k of one caliber before changing to another. IMO if you're loading 300-500 at a time and changing calibers often you just waste too much time changing calibers and fiddling with the press. The Hornady LNL is also a fine press, but to me it falls under the same use-conditions as the 650. The 1050 is great, if you're made of money or shoot a TON of ammo. I don't see that I'll ever be in a position where I could shoot enough to warrant that kind of machine. The 550 is the machine for me. 1) I'm a bit cheap, 2) I have lots of control and can observe a lot of the process, 3) I don't shoot that much, and 4) I load a bit of this caliber then change and load a bit of another.

Finally got back out to the range. It's been a while, but with a new gun and a major match coming up I had to get it sighted in and dial in my loads. The good; I like the new gun and it shoots dead on. I got a load worked out. The bad; It was a cloudy day and my inability to get a sharp focus on the front sight reared it's ugly head. I shot several 10 shot groups in the 1.1-1.5" range at the 10 yard line before heading to the 25 yard line, where my inability to focus had me shooting 6-8" groups. I want to keep working on this some more and see if I can resolve the issue, but it just might be a fact that my eyes are always going to have trouble picking up a hard front sight focus. Just ordered a Vortex Venom to try out, maybe CO is a better division for me. I have my first major match in about 2 weeks so it's not the time to go trying out a whole new division, but I might bolt it on after that match and see if optics are any better for me.

Here's some loads I tested today 3.6gr N320 Xtreme 147gr 1.150" - 136PF 4.2gr N320 ACME 124gr 1.150" - 133PF 4.0gr N320 ACME 124gr 1.150" - 127PF Have a sample pack of Brazos bullets coming which I'll test in the 4.1-4.2gr range where my ACME will be loaded too

There's this gum/putty stuff you can use to put up posters. I stick that to the back of my BSPS dry-fire targets and move them around at will. Though I don't have a concrete block wall. I'm sure it won't stick as well to that as it does my painted walls.

I like to use my Spotify workout playlists on the way to the match. High-energy, gets me excited and keeps me focused.

I've not seen any accuracy difference. My Dillon sizing die doesn't size the last few thousandth's of the case. Occasionally this causes a round which will not case gauge. Those rounds get run through a FCD and then put in a separate box. I see no difference in accuracy or PF with that ammo than I do with my ammo which doesn't touch the FCD.

UM....URBAN CAMO: https://www.boombah.com/us/product.html?class=3584&item=214365 Only missing the molle though

I'm pretty new at this and don't have a ton of advice to give. The first thing I see right away is that the trigger guard is lifting up off the support hand and coming back down. Look at the screenshot I posted below. You can watch the video at 1/4 speed on YouTube to get better sense of what I'm talking about. How hard are you gripping with your support hand? The piece of advice I see thrown around is if your hand/forearm don't hurt after 15-30 minutes of dry fire, you aren't gripping hard enough. Also your support hand wrist is locked pretty well, but your strong hand wrist is moving during recoil. After the recoil the gun dips then takes a bit to settle in. Hwansik and Ben are going to be much better at diagnosing this and helping you fix the issue over at PSTG. But I think you're going to have to get a silver membership to post a video for review.

The lube groove isnt the reason. Theres a small shoulder just below the nose of the bullet so the nose shape is a smaller diameter than 0.356" The thinner nose profile probably gets the bullet past the start of your rifling

Take the barrel out of your slide. Drop the loaded round into the barrel and the round should fall all the way into the chamber making a distinct "plunk" sound. Put your finger on the back of the round and spin it. If it doesn't plunk or doesn't spin you need to go shorter because the bullet is touching the rifling (or your round is out of spec in some other dimension). Racking rounds in and out of your gun isn't going to tell you much. Too many mechanical interactions for you to know what's going on in the chamber. A round that's hard to eject from the gun is more likely brass that's too big at the base unless you see rifling marks on the bullet.

Just want to throw in that I've loaded 4.9-5.0gr under a 115 Xtreme plated. This was a moderate load, in the same ballpark as most factory ammo. With a 124gr bullet you'd be asking for trouble at 5.0gr. Use reliable sources. Youtube is not a source. In fact internet forums aren't a great source. But at least if you can find many data points from various sources all in the same ballpark you can make assumptions. Reloading manuals and powder manufacturer websites are pretty good sources. If you can't confirm a load in a manual or manufacturer's website, probably a good idea to stay clear.

Quick thought popped into my head. Do you substitute all these coated 125s over the same charge and see similar PF, or have you seen a need to adjust loads?