pmspaul

What kind of prep are you doing for yours? With the Hornady press I had just been wet tumbling and then running single pass from there. I’m considering going to wet tumble and roll size, but interested to hear what others processes are.

How long did you run the Apex 10 manually before going automated? I'm expecting my Apex 10 to arrive in the next week or so and can definitely see going the automated route sometime next year.

I have this one from jsondag: There’s a link to print or buy from him on thingiverse. I opted to buy and support him, he includes all the hardware needed. I am using his case feeder with a collator my son designed and printed. I never used it with the gravity feed setup, so I can’t speak to that. But, I’ve got 30k+ rounds this year on his case feeder with no issues.

Did you wind up getting the Apex 10? I’m looking at doing the same upgrade from my Hornady LnL AP to the Apex 10. I’m sitting at about 30k rounds for the year on the Hornady and I’d love to move this volume to something that will handle it better.

I’ve removed sheared optics screws twice on different guns. One came out with just the force of the left handed drill bit. The other it didn’t work, so I drilled and then tapped a torx bit into the drilled hole to get more bite and it turned right out. As someone else mentioned, heat to loosen the loctite makes a huge difference.

My current go to load is 4.3gr HP38 with a Summit 124gr RN at 1.125" which puts me at ~1100fps out of my X5. This load will shoot under 4" offhand at 25yds for me out of my X5 and Rival. I guess you need to decide what constitutes good enough for you? If the load will shoot minute of head offhand at 25yds for me, that's good enough (for me). There's also a cost component. You mentioned being broke right now. The difference between 4.6gr and 4.3gr is about 100 rounds/pound of powder. And premium bullets will set you back even more, so there's that. I'm shooting minor, so I just make power factor plus some wiggle room and if it shoots reasonably accurate, I don't worry about making benchrest level adjustments (.001' to seating or 0.1gr charge) to a round I reload in large quantities where my acceptable tolerances are greater than that to begin with. I'm reloading for 4 shooters in my family so my priorities may be a little different. But if you want to go faster, I wouldn't get too hung up on getting an inch better group at 25yds through load development. I don't think that will be what holds you back.

If you like the blue bullets, I'd try this. I have 4 shooters in my family shooting USPSA right now. I tried the 125gr RN .355 blue bullets and got poor accuracy out of our Caniks, Sigs and a friend's CZ. None of them shot as tight as they did with the Summit bullets that are .356. Same load on both, both making about 135pf. My plan was to go back and try the .356 Blue Bullets at some point, since they're the exact same price. But Blue bullets had a price increase and Summit had a decrease and I get the 14% discount on only 2 cases. So, we've been shooting Summit all year and have been happy with them.

I've had no issues with running a seat/crimp die for my 9mm reloading. I spot check cartridges and on average they're +/- 0.004 max, which is good enough for me for 9mm. I try to visually check each case before the bullet feeder station, but I use a DAA powder check as my primary powder check.

Nice review! I think this will be worth a try.

I know this is a bit of a necro post, but I wanted to say thanks to @kmc and @JasonAA. I was having the same issues with my DAA powder check (it did take me a while to figure out where the powder was coming from) and I used JasonAA’s straw method to fix it. I went from cleaning up 3-5grs of powder every couple hundred rounds to almost zero powder splash at all now. Thanks guys!

Falkor, English Setter, our newest/youngest of 3. Our other 2 elder dogs. 13 year old Aussie, Foster and mixed breed dog that’s at least 11, Snickers.

Squirrel Daddy is what I ordered to replace my bent decapping pin.

I like the look and features of the Kore belts. It seems like a good choice to replace my old EDC belt.

It would never replace the 320 as a platform for me. I really like my Macro, but I much prefer the way my 320's shoot. But when it comes time to carry, the Macro or the 365x are what I take with me.

It would at least be interesting to see if those changes made a difference. My load using HP38 that produces nearly identical performance to this Zip load gives me much better ES & SD numbers. But I was able to get a bunch of Zip powder at a great price, so for practice and plinking, it serves a purpose for me.