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Coco, there are some strange opinions here. You are 75 and don't want to do the brass chicken dance after every match. I didn't either. That's why I went 9 major. Once you rebarrel, you will never shoot 38SC again, unless you have a little left over. Buy a one piece barrel/comp from Brazos and have a good smith fit it to your existing slide. It will last longer than you and you'll never have to re-Loctite a comp. As far as 9mm being hard on the gun, I see no evidence of that. My major load was 10.8gr SWMP under a 115 JHP for 175 PF. I have no idea how many I've shot, but it is a lot. Just recently I ran out and substituted AA7. I had none left from last year, so I hurriedly loaded some up with 10.8gr. After two matches I'm wondering why the dot is jumping so much. I chrono's and found the 115 JHPs were going 1600fps, 184 PF. No damage to the gun at all. I'll be pulling the remainder and loading softer. I buy fully processed, once fired, roll sixed, resized, swaged, polished same HS brass for 5.5 cents each. I generally buy 6k at a time. I was down to 5k primers and had the opportunity to buy 5k new Win+P HS brass primed with lead free primers for 14.4 cents each delivered. My SDs for 10 and 20 round strings are always less the 6. There is absolutely no reason to use mixed HS, range pickup brass for major. I'll admit I do just that for 132 PF minor and 100 PF sub-minor.

Yeah, HAPs are notorious for that. I used to clean them out with the equivalent of a dental pick. Later I found it did not affect accuracy, so I quit. The Zero clones of that bullet do not have the problem. Nor do Everglades or PD.

I don't buy the price argument against painting. Steel Target paint has gone up in price, but $65 per case/12 is not exorbitant. We go through an average of 3 cans per stage for a 70 gun shoot. The club I shoot most often at charges $20 for the first gun and $10 for the second. They have enough money to buy new targets, make new bays, improve the grounds, host the State match and still have enough left over to award $3000 in cash prizes at the end of the season. BTW, if you shake it well, Steel Target paint works when it is 22 deg.

If you want to ream or throat nitrided barrels you need a carbide reamer. They are expensive. You can rent them. I'm told you can do it with a tool steel reamer, but it will be dull when finished.

Every club I shoot SCSA steel challenge at paints between EVERY shooter. None allow a two gun shooter to shoot back to back (LI). Nobody gripes. Even on squads of 5 shooters/ten guns everything gets painted and things move along. Non-SCSA matches like falling steel, outlaw and the like rarely paint at all. Best case they paint for the next squad.

I use 115 JHPs under 10.8gr AA7 Powder at 1.161" OAL. Case is mostly full, but powder doesn't spill out when the shell plate turns.

I've completely given up on Aftec types. Now I use only EGW HD extractors. They run 100% and last seemingly forever. I will not that for 9mm I have them custom milled so the are 9mm specific, not 9/40.

Precision Delta. Rogers PC coated bullets are 21 Brinell. Most are between 15 and 18, still hard. Even Berry's uses 15 Brinell lead for their plated bullets. I agree with you on the Precision coated. Slick and more accurate than most. I use them in 40 and 45. Unfortunately, they are gone and I only have 2k left.

You are going to have to experiment. A lot of gas will be shooting up from those ports. That will bleed off velocity. With too slow a powder you may drive the muzzle down. I'd start in the middle of the range using a 124 JHP over a middle load of AutoComp. See what that does to the muzzle, and what the PF is. Adjust powder charge up or down to fine tune. If you are making too much gas with AutoComp, drop down to AA2. It is a little faster. My 132 PF load is 124 JHP over 4.5gr AA2. It shoots soft and flat. I only have two poppels. You have seven. So you won't reach 132 with my load. Before I went to a slower powder for more gas than AutoComp, I'd try 115gr JHPs.

All coated bullets smell when fired. HiTech is the worst. Coated bullets start life as hard cast lead bullets. Diameters vary. Coating thickness varies. Some brands are infamous for leading the barrel. They are less accurate than good plated of jacketed. If you shoot them at steel they break up into larger chunks than plated or jacketed, and they fly father. Good cast lead/coated bullets are expensive. Same with plated. The majority of the makers of really good coated and plated bullets went out of business. If you are going to be paying 9 or 10 cents each for bullets, why not use all JHPs. They don't foul comps and poppels. They don't lead your bore. They don't smoke. They don't smell. They are super accurate. I buy JHPs in bulk for 9.5 cents each, delivered. Berry's plated on sale, or inexpensive coated are going to be between 9 and 10 cents after tax and shipping. Why bother?

You can have Bob use a bald slide for the short block and make your own lightening cuts.

Not a bad place to be.

Do you make short blocks?

I do not believe JEM Guns currently makes short blocks. I sent a barrel to him so he could make me a short block. His short block requires additional fitting. Additionally, his marching, especially inside the dust cover leaves something to be desired. I have worked with three Brazos Open short blocks. One was all STI parts. The next two were Brazos slide and frame with his Barsto Open barrel. Absolutely zero fitting required with either. Side note: Brazos now machined his frames for Cheely's e2 grip. If you want a plastic grip, you will have to fight mightily to get it on. The frame will likely require modification.

I suspect it would only show up in SDs. I did shoot a bunch of the minor ammo loaded with the Lee at an outlaw action/steel match. Some of them were bound to be +/- .005". I did not notice anything. I was concentrating on the targets. I'll measure some more and shoot them to see if they feel any different. I'm not sure that will tell anything. There are going to be pressure differences in all the same OAL ammo, because of the relatively large variation in case capacity.