Cherryriver

Yeah, that's what I'm doing now, with 25-round tube added. It's the collator I'm after, and there's one looking at me...

Thank you for your suggestion, but I decline to sell the miserable thing to an innocent. We have several 550s and an SDB to go with the 650 I'm trying to bulletfeed. They all have a place and work to do.

In a match? Been years. With a tenderloin? I'll take it.

Yeah, I was planning to butcher the casefeeder collator. I guess I was just hoping to find someone else had done it first and gotten the mistakes out of the way. I am doodling around with the tuber ones but that dang casefeeder is just sitting there across the room snerking and my revenge would be to put it to good use. I mean, it's got a motor for heavens' sake.

" you could make her sandwiches " She's a chef. Of nearly 30 years' experience. I don't make much food. I just make the coffee, wash dishes and get out of the way. I can be described as "unusually well-fed". Tenderloin filet tacos on flame-blackened tortillas with grilled asparagus... for a throw-together lunch. So you can see why I want to improve my loading speed. To get back upstairs to dinner. This may be veering off-topic.

Perhaps I need to explain more completely: it's she who is the sponsored, hotshot shooter with the fancy jersey and spiffy Canyon Creek guns, not me. I am but a cog in the wheel of USPSA life. I know my place.

" Maybe sell the case feeder and use that money towards a bullet feeder " I long ago decided not to sell the infernal thing to anyone not deserving of punishment. "Simple solution: Have the "Missus" load ammo. " Which would remove a lot of other obligations for me. Like breathing.

Okay, I will submit possibly the dumbest inquiry of the week. I have a 550 casefeeder that I just plain parked on a shelf and moved on from. I also have a nice 650 that needs a bulletfeeder. Yes, the Mr. Bulletfeeder is excellent and I should get one. But Mr. Accountant says no Mr. Bulletfeeder for me. I can goof together a bullet dropper but the power collator is more than I feel like fabricating. Then, what did my wandering eye espy but the dust-collecting 550 casefeeder. Say, that's a collator there. Can it be modified to feed bullets into a dropper? So: has anyone been nutty enough to do this? Or has suggestions on how to do so? I understand there are numerous YouTube essays on how to make one from scratch, and that's all good, but if there's a shortcut, I would sure like to hear it. My old carpenter's hands just won't let me hand-seat more than about 300-400 bullets at a time without resorting to an anti-inflammatory and The Missus can empty .40 cases much more quickly than I can refill them. So, it's medical necessity. Right.

I acquired an orphaned 550 feeder and gave it a couple-three pretty serious tries. Yes, it will mostly feed cases. But really a pain and gets in the way. I actually had a misfeed, kept moving the handle, and broke off the "platform" that screws to the underside of the presses' platform. It's a $120 part but Dillon sent me a new one. I should be fairly mechanical. I owned and operated a cabinet shop with all kinds of machinery and more than a few other things, but the 550 casefeeder beat me. Here's what I learned: my actual, overall reloading speed did not change for the better. If I could manage 400 rounds per hour without it, I couldn't quite achieve that rate with the feeder, counting in the time required for setup, tuning, fixing, retuning, clearing jams, and all the rest. The clock made the call for me.

Well, this is an Internet forum, so that's inevitable. But seriously, at the IDPA matches and other get-togethers I've experienced since the announcement, the opposition is not only strong, it's loud. Pretty close to 100% of the shooters I've spoken to, in our club and other area ones, are strongly against it. In fact, I can't recall a single favorable comment at all, in a sampling of several dozen. So, I'd say the rule is unpopular, at least in the three-state area where we are.

I telephoned HQ in early February to ask and was told that the change definitely won't happen this year, and will next. But maybe not then, either. So we stayed affiliated for another year.

Went two seasons plus with 320 and got results as you describe. Very satisfactory. Then I goofed around with 310 (and 200gr SnSs) and hit on a load that has so little recoil it makes people giggle when they shoot it, and makes almost no noise. Truly weird. But excellent extreme spread on the chrono. 3.9gr gave about 835fps in our slowest barrel, 855 with a faster 5". No chrono results yet for the 6" guns.

BE-86 makes excellent clone loads (of self-defense loads) in 9x19 and .38 Super, but hasn't given a good gamer .40 load for us. Referring to .38, my very old Commander with a slow barrel (DPX 125s only go 1280fps) will put out SnS 125 RNs close to 1300fps with a full charge of BE-86 (6.6gr, if memory serves).

Using the fast stuff is about recoil management. Try it side-by-side. It can be eye-opening.

"Seems like some people on here just want to kill having fun. (ie shooting PCC)" I run two large USPSA programs, and put in an easy 300+ hours a years doing so, not even counting working majors, other disciplines, events, and club Board duties that may be related. I am indeed skeptical of PCC Division, and have yet to be convinced it's a good idea, yes. Accuse me of anything you like, but wanting to kill having fun probably won't be a sustainable charge.

I hesitate to participate in this any more, but I am hereby going to offer the opinion of one of the most experienced match producers in the southern Great Lakes area, who also wishes to remain anonymous for obvious reasons. This is what he has to say: "Here's my take on all this PCC stuff. The multigun and 3-gun guys got themselves in a bind, because now their matches are so popular that they take forever. Nobody wants to be stuck on the range for 10-12 hours. So they look over at the fast-running, very efficient pistol matches running just as many guys but getting done hours sooner and they want to bring their ARs to those matches instead so they can get out sooner. So now they want to come in on our pistol matches and screw them up with their long guns, so that pretty soon the pistol matches will run as slow as the 3-gun matches." That's a legitimate opinion of a guy who puts in enormous amounts of time into USPSA match-making. It bears consideration.

In the evolution of things around here... Went to WST for .40 a few years back. It had been my basic .45 Auto powder as a slightly cleaner replacement for Bullseye. I had never thought of using anything so fast in .40 before, but, then, I'm not a .40 shooter- the Boss is and I'm privileged to work on her ammo. The WST was the suggestion of Ryan Stinar of SnS and frankly, it worked superbly. When we transitioned to the 200gr round-nose I was going 1.200" and about 3.9gr WST. Nice and quiet- WST is actually advertised to have "low report". Then the same mountain of VV320 the gentleman above mentioned came our way, also, so I changed to that, mostly for less temperature sensitivity and more cleanliness. Then I got on a Red Dot bug for a year or so because I scored a mountain of it. The charge weight goes slightly less than 320 and so maybe it has slightly less recoil, too. But I've been feeding my .45s 310 for some time now, hoarding it mostly for majors. Still the best thing I've ever put in a .45 case. So I got the notion to give that a try in .40 USPSA loads with the 200s. My first impression after the first two range test sessions is: where's the recoil? Where's the blast? I started with 3.5gr and it sent the 200s at about 795fps. I went up to a shy 3.7gr- really worried about hitting a pressure spike with the stuff- and on a freezing day, it started out with readings around 830fps but soon fell down to about 810 as the ammo in the box cold-soaked on the range table. No overpressure signs were observed and function was perfect in her Canyon Creek Custom special. Got to keep working this, see if I can get a cold-weather load that makes 172pf without scaring myself.

So far, the (fair number of) people at my club expressing a desire to shoot PCC are all equipped with 9mm ARs of one sort or another. My stance is: everybody should shoot everything. That means you, too, Seehawer. But what goes on at USPSA pistol matches might be a different thing. Again, I will wait to see the rules, then run tests of actual matches to see what the real-life results are. I've run quite a lot of 3-gun and multigun matches, along with tac rifle and others. My direct experience in them suggests slowing things down. That's where my primary concern is. My personal opinion about the validity of the division isn't in play. The consensus opinion of my hard-working volunteers is. So after we test the running, assuming the division is actually introduced, I will be influenced by that more than anything.

AR shooters will indeed come in droves. They are already swamping the 3-gun and multigun matches in this region. Another issue: about 1/4 to 1/3 of classifier stages won't work well with PCC. Either they get modified, tossed, or we can't use them in matches with PCC Division for classifiers.

Actually, teros135 and StealthyBlagga, I believe you've described it perfectly: neither 'twixt nor 'tween. A division with no place to call home.

So we had our annual club match/program directors' meeting this morning, and the club's competition director (who's a two-division USPSA pistol master and also a big 3-gun guy) wanted to get the PCC thing discussed. I outlined my position as before, beginning most of all with the fact that we have no rulebook and don't know what the rules and protocols will be with any certainty. I was joined by one of the two assistant USPSA MDs, and he's a USPSA CRO who's worked just about every National around- no slouch in match production. He also took a generally negative view: if you want to shoot long guns, go to a long gun match (of which we have plenty). My esteemed colleague from our exceptionally busy Steel Plates program offered a fairly complete analysis in which he said his experience with having long guns in his steel matches suggests that we won't have too much trouble with the addition of long guns. But he also pointed out that that was working from the perspective of stationary, from-a-box shooting and that large field courses could present a different outcome. His assistant, on the other hand, took considerable umbrage with me over suggesting long guns might slow the match down. I was a little surprised: this fellow pretty much never shoots USPSA, staying in Steel (at which he often wins overall) and IDPA. The comp director suggested (as also noted above) that it might interest more outside non-competitors and cause them to take up action shooting. Our response was that our USPSA program, currently limited to five bays (more a-building!) is pretty well jammed up during the fair months and we frankly don't want any more than the 65-70 we're getting. That point was taken by all. The Steel program runs to 100+ shooters and it's a long day, indeed. (The multigun program is likewise heavily patronized. Getting out by dark is sometimes an issue.) Then there was another set of voices: I want to go shoot a handgun match, so that's why I go to a handgun match. I don't want to go to a rifle match, and rifle shooters should go to rifle matches. I get that, too. I formerly ran the multigun matches there, long ago, both 3-gun, 2-gun, and specialty matches like Practical Rifle and Practical Shotgun and I got away from it because it's slow-paced (to me) and way too much work. I concluded that we will wait to see the rulebook and go from there. I did not take a yay or nay position, but that I'd keep an open mind. But I did say I'd authorize and help set up a USPSA PCC Division-only match on a separate date if we decided it needed some experimentation first.

Nik, this is a very pertinent point. One thing that doesn't get mentioned much in this topic is that match officials struggle with new competitors plenty enough. Now, I'm going to put this as carefully as I can, but when MDs talk among themselves, possibly the most frequent topic is new shooters and the things they do that make MDing a sanity-shortening process. It's much worse, I regret to report, with new AR shooters. This is a phenomenon that every single 3-gun MD of my acquaintance has talked, and complained, about at great length. ARs are hugely popular, and seemingly everybody legal to own one wants to have one these days, and to shoot it fast. So they bring them to 3-gun matches in droves. At one of my clubs, the 3-gun MD has multiple stories of having to assign new competitors to squads with expert instructors available, because they arrived at the match without even knowing how to load, safe, and fire the gun. I am not making this up. Heaven help us all. And this is common. I can think of reasons why this sort of thing is so much more pronounced with ARs than any other gun, but it doesn't matter to this discussion. What does matter is that I seriously don't want people walking around the range I'm responsible for with uncased, unholstered, loose guns. Way bad things can happen way too fast, and just the problem of innocent people being forced to inspect other shooters' rifling at close range alone will give me great pause. In this forum, perhaps we're all so serious that we wouldn't have a gunhandling fail during a match, but I have to tell you, ARs and new shooters are an exceptional problem. Not just in my matches, but in every one in the region, comprising at least a half-dozen programs. So that's yet another reason I'd be disinclined to include PCC Division in my pistol matches.

My club's competition director just came to me with this. I hadn't even heard a peep about PCC until yesterday. Since our club's annual competition program director's meeting is tomorrow, I'm having to research this as quickly as possible while polling my cohorts about their take on it. Here's what I think I've seen so far: 3-gun enthusiasts are highly enthusiastic; AR lovers are also. Ten years ago, that group was small, but now it's not. And with 3-gun getting all the ink, noise, attention, and money these days, it's a noticeable, vocal group. To the people who actually go to the club and set up matches every month, it's natural that their viewpoint tends towards splitting opinions into two groups: match attendees and match producers. Of course, I fall into the latter: I run two separate programs 60 miles apart, totaling 140+ shooters a month during the fair weather season. That's a lot of match production, and doesn't even count working majors and other clubs. That colors my (our) view, and so far, the view from this perspective tends towards (I did not say "absolutely is") being chary of including PCC division in pistol matches. First of all, as mentioned above, new rulebooks are needed, and then the workaday ROs have to learn them. Please don't pooh-pooh this item: as someone who deals with rangemaster questions almost every Sunday morning, and will tell you it's an unpleasant, unpopular, anger-generating operation, even the tiniest hole in the rulebook is a big and serious problem for MD/RMs. And they don't need any new problems. Secondly, unless and until I'm convinced otherwise, from what I can tell, adding PCC division will slow a match down. From the match producer's point of view, this is a problem too, if my thinking turns out to be true. We get out of the club late enough as it is. At the one club, where I get 80-90 shooters in six bays, heading up the driveway at 4pm is about all I can expect, having to make sure the last wisp of paster tape is picked up and the whole property is spotless so that the general membership doesn't kick the USPSA program out. I see casing, uncasing, flagging, and all the rest as adding time. Of course, anything at all "adds time", but this looks to us as a significant add. Show me I'm wrong there, and I'll recant. Finally, for many clubs, pistol stages won't really work so well as "fun" carbine stages, especially close up. I personally design an awful lot of stages so I will have to really get down in the grass and work this question out for myself. Some clubs, as noted, may not permit long guns to be handled the same as pistols. I've run up against that in my 3-gun MD days. Minor, but potentially an issue. So far, my intention is to offer two diverging answers when asked: 1) Go shoot 3-gun if you want to shoot long guns in action shooting sports. There's a lot of them, including at both of my clubs. 2) I will be happy to authorize a single-division PCC match under the USPSA auspices once the rulebook comes out, but it will be a separate weekend with a separate staff. Not burning out staff is one of the top priorities of MDs. I'm keeping an open mind until I can learn more, but for now, PCC division isn't in my USPSA pistol matches.

To the point of IDPA ignoring the wishes of the shooting members, I generally agree, but it's also true that IDPA reversed the flat-foot reload rule. They can change if the noise is loud enough. But I'm not forecasting it.

Changing the match results is not the issue, nor should it be a factor in the decision process. The results are the game part. It shouldn't the centerpoint of the discussion. The shooting is what's important. Having to slow the shooting down to where there are no -3s and very few -1s will be bad for several things: The game will be less interesting. Not every IDPA attendee is a bullseye shooter coming over the the action side and who appreciates taking speed out in favor of added, possibly excessive, accuracy. Stage designs will suffer in terms of interesting changes of cadence- speed. Currently there is a lot of benefit for speeding up the cadence of closer targets; in a "tactical sense, a closer target is a much higher priority- it can hurt you more, sooner, and with a higher degree of certainty. Taking away this urgency is contrary to the basic concept of a defensive-shooting-based sport. And, just plain, speed will go down. Again, in a self-defense-derived game, reducing (excessively) the speed component unbalances the triad of DVC too far. IDPA is already very accuracy-oriented. The existence of the 1 1/2 second time add for the -3 zone is proof: -3s are huge detriments to a good score. The balance is already weighted strongly towards accuracy. Going further will make the thing tip over. Finally, if one does indeed include self-defense proficiency as a portion of the reason to shoot IDPA, and I believe people should, then pushing shooters towards bullseye shooting timing will, as the tactical guys like to say, get someone killed. I'm not against accuracy, nor do I think it's a problem that IDPA scoring is the way it is, so strongly accuracy-oriented. But three seconds per perimeter hit is too much, and one second per near-center-mass hit is much too much.