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Last_Mile2002

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  1. Silly me, I thought a 1911 9mm firing pin and 45 ACP firing pins would fit into their respective caliber guns. If you have a Springfield Armory....NO. After 10K rounds through both guns, I thought I better have spare parts around. So, I ordered Wilson 9mm and a 45 ACP firing pins from Midway. To my surprise none of the parts fit into their respective guns. Not thinking clearly I ordered a genuine Springfield 9mm firing pin from Midway next. It didn't fit either. So, I took out my calipers and did what I should have done in the first place, measure the nominal tip diameters of the firing pins. Here is what I found. 9mm Springfield RO 0.062" 45 ACP Springfield TRP 0.070" Wilson 9mm FF from Midway 0.068" Springfield 9mm from Midway 0.066" Wilson 45 ACP from Midway 0.089" Results, only the factory original RO firing pin would fit into the RO. The Wilson 9mm and Springfield 9mm firing pins from Midway will fit into the Springfield 45 ACP TRP. Looks like Springfield uses 9mm firing pins on their products. The Wilson 45 ACP firing pin won't fit either the 9mm RO or the 45 ACP TRP. I called Springfield customer support and asked them how much new firing pins would cost. They asked for my serial numbers, verified my address and said the part will go out FREE of charge! I'm very impressed with the SA customer service. A few years ago they replaced the slide on a XDm for free, even after 20K rounds.
  2. I made a spring tester with scraps and cutoffs around the shop for free, similar to what sx2gl35 did. A washer, 2" x 8" piece of 3/4" plywood, a short section of 1/4" brass rod and a 2" x 12" x 3/4" piece of oak is all I needed. Drill a 1/4" hole in the center of the plywood and fit the brass rod in. Drill a 1/4" hole in the middle of the piece of oak. Put your spring over the brass rod, put the washer on the rod also and put the oak "handle" on. Put the whole assembly on a kitchen or bathroom scale, zero it, press down and note the poundage. If you mark the brass rod with the compressed spring length in your gun, you'll get a more accurate reading. The bathroom scale is within 0.5lbs and the kitchen scale will get you within 0.1 oz. I like the bathroom scale the best because nobody misses it.
  3. I got a .500 clear ammo case at Cabella's for about $3 (others may work also). Take a handful of .45 ACP brass, dump it in the ammo case and shake. The cases will usually land with the primer facing down. Now, put a piece of 1/4" plywood or cardboard over the top of the cases and flip over. You will now be able to see all of the primers and be able to identify the small primers. With a 50 or 100 round ammo case, you can sort 45 ACP cases quickly.
  4. Don't get too excited regarding the current USPSA management and start looking for a scapegoat, this may have been going on for years. Stuxnet freaked people out a couple a years ago and now Regin is freaking people out this week. Putting anything on the internet, you generally have to assume it is insecure. Unless you strongly encrypt at the source, tunnel through a VPN and decrypt at the destination, your data is not secure. Anything that is convenient, not requiring you to be an active participant, is probably compromised now or will be in the next year or two. Just be very careful. Certificate Authorities - VeriSign, DigiNotar, KPN and others hacked. OpenSSH - early versions hacked Windows 95 to present - ALL versions of windows have an "in plain site security issue". (CVE-2014-6332) There are many others. Treat your personal data just as money left on a table at a restaurant, anybody can see it, the honest people will remain honest, but you don't know after you leave. (No traces leading back to you either.)
  5. After 2 years and over 15K rounds, I noticed a crack in the slide running on the breech face from the firing pin hole down to a lower corner. I was bummed. The 5.25 is my competition gun and I run reloads through it, so I though I would be on my own to replace the slide. Since I bought most of my parts from Springer Precision, I emailed them on Saturday and asked for a cost estimate to replace my slide and transfer my modified parts off the old slide on to a new slide. (Dawson fiber optic front sight, Springer metal cocked indicator guide, polished striker, heavy duty striker roll pin, etc.) I was thinking this would cost me hundreds of dollars. Well, a day later I got an email from Scott Springer saying send my slide back to the Springfield Armory custom shop for examination. Monday after work I sent the slide back to Springfield via 2nd day UPS. Springfield got my slide Thursday morning and turned it around for the Thursday afternoon UPS pickup! The slide only spent 10 days out of my hands. Springfield didn't fix my slide, they replaced it. They took off all of my after market parts and put them on a brand new slide. Talk about customer service. My thanks go out to Scott Springer for the extra step and facilitating the return of my slide to Springfield with a specific person at Springfield waiting for my slide. Springfield also has to be commended for their outstanding and speedy turnaround of my slide. With the XDs RMAs going on, I was anticipating a 3 -4 week period and perhaps a credit card charge. Throughout this episode all of my expectations were exceeded.
  6. Just go to the Dawson or Springer site and order the front sight replacement for the factory blade. The factory front sight will not come out easy. I two pound hammer and punch will take it out in 2 seconds, if you don't want to keep it. The new sight will slide right in, with just a little bit of fitting. See the Dawson videos.
  7. The same thing happened to my XDm. What size of roll pin should I replace it with?
  8. Why not use quality skateboard tape? It comes in 12" x 24" pieces in various grits and costs $5 at the local skate shop. I used a heavy brown paper grocery bag to cut a template, traced it onto the back of the skate tape and cut it out with my wife's kitchen shears. If you clean the grip with acetone using a lint-less cloth it will stick better. I bound everything up with a couple of big rubberbands, warmed it with a hairdryer and then let it cool over night. The tape isn't coming off without some effort. If you keep gun solvents off, it seems to hold up for a season.
  9. Thanks for the info. It looks like reloading rifle is going to be a bit more involved than reloading pistol rounds. I like the idea of using the X-Die. I'm going to need a second toolhead. A second stand along single stage press may be in order. I was going to just purchase a set of Dillon dies and start cranking out rounds. Your guidance saved me from a lot of trial and error.
  10. I've been reloading pistol calibers for a couple of years on a Dillon 650 and have good results. Now, I'm starting to reload rifle rounds in .223 for my AR. From what I've gathered here, I need to tumble, size/decap on a single stage, trim to length, chamfer and then finally reload in my 650. This seems like a lot of work and I don't have a spare single stage press around. I'm proposing this sequence and I'm asking for your feedback: 1. Tumble 2. Dump into the Dillion 650 case feeder. 3. Size and decap, but remove the round when it reaches the priming station pull it out and throw into a bucket. 4. When all the brass is sized, sit down with the bucket and trim to length using Possum Hollow case trimmer chucked into a drill. The trimmer indexes off of the case shoulder, so it is very fast. (accurate?) Throw into a second bucket. 5. Chamfer / deburr with the Possum Hollow chamfer/deburring tool. 6. Deburr primer crimps. 7. Dump processed brass into case feeder and load, much like pistol rounds on the 650. Is there any fault to this process? I'm looking to reload ammo for 3-gun, not benchrest.
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