jmaass

Just a note about Springield's customer service. The pre-paid FedEx label that they provided for me to use in shipping the .40 EMP back for work was for overrnight service, so FedEx delivered it to them yesterday (6/11) around Noon. Just now (6/12 Noone EST)) I had a phone call from Brad, the 'smith working on my gun, asking a clarification to the letter I included with the gun. That is, they are *already* working on it! Not having a backlog is a wonderful thing (from the customer point-of-view)! Kudos to Springfield Armory for nicely managing their warrenty work!

A Nobelsport powder we can't get here in the US anymore. A *Wonderful* Nobelsport powder for Open guns. My all-time favorite in my 9x21 guns. I can get some by walking to my powder storage closet (for a while longer now). I stockpiled a bunch of it a while ago. Yes supposingly there is no better one gas pressure wise for 9 Major. Not sure if there is really no better one but there are official gas pressure measurements that give you a PF 170+ below maximum pressure for the 9 Luger. As we make major with PF 160 here you can even shoot 9 Major out of a Glock without problem. Did not know that its not sold in the US anymore That was my experience with it - very effective loads for the compensator and a non-violent recoil. My guns prefer the old power factor (175), and my preferred load is 115gr JHP running at 182 power factor. This is in custom 9x21 open handguns built by Matt McLearn. IIRC, it was imported by Tanfolio USA initially, and then there was a short break in availability, and then Graf & Sons imported a large quantity in 1999 or 2000. I'm not sure if anyone else picked it up after that. I'm not sure if the events of 9/11 might have made import more difficult, or whether the relatively small niche market for Vectan SP2 keeps the big dealers from importing it.

Baby wipes often contain skin softeners and other additives that are not ideal for lenses. I use premoistened lens wipes available from your local drugstore. The ones I use are from CVS, and are effective at cleaning and keeping the lens streak-free. I've been using them on my eyeglasses and computer displays for a long while, too. CVS Lens Wipe I carry six or seven of these in my pants pockets all the time to clean my eyeglasses. I discovered (the hard way) that they have sufficient foil in the lining of the packet to set off the metal detactors at airports, so don't forget to put them in the little plastic tray when traveling!

My .40 EMP headed back to Springfield today for more warrenty work. Following that, it slides over to the Springfield Custom Shop for checkering of the frontstrap (why wasn't that part of each one sold originally?). Springfield estimates that the checkering will be completed in 6 to 8 weeks. Then it goes to my gunsmith to perform his magic. The 9mm EMP is still running 100% reliable with every kind of commerical ammunition I've been able to find.

A Nobelsport powder we can't get here in the US anymore. A *Wonderful* Nobelsport powder for Open guns. My all-time favorite in my 9x21 guns. I can get some by walking to my powder storage closet (for a while longer now). I stockpiled a bunch of it a while ago.

You can find some load ideas on the ".40 S&W IPSC Loads List" at: IPSC Loads Lists

"How does the bullet know which hole to come out?" - Kate Holmes, Upon viewing an 11-port racegun "Our verdict is...the automatic pistol without the double-action-first-shot 'self-commencing' feature will be as far behind the times, after the war, as the Model T 'crank-it-yourself' Ford!" - American Rifleman, May 1945 (discussing the obsolescence of the single-action handgun). "I still miss my ex-husband, but my aim is improving." - Debbie Marsh, happy Glock owner, in her email tagline. "Women often ask, 'What do men really want, deep in their souls?' The best answer - based on in-depth analysis of the complex and subtle interplay of thought, instinct and emotion that constitutes the male psyche - is that deep in their souls, men want to watch stuff go 'bang'." - Dave Berrry, in his column "Get Ready, Get Set, Go Bang!" "If you don't see the cardboard in the scope, you're probably not going to hit it." - Ted Kavage, after a miss. "The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the minute you get up in the morning and does not stop until the timer beeps." - Paraphrasing poet Robert Frost "Loading and unloading are not speed events!" - Range Officer at Ashland Invitational 1994 "God does not deduct from a person's lifetime the time spent shooting." - Corrected from an old fishing adage "When you aren't practicing, somewhere someone is, and when you meet him, he will win." - Seen on a T-shirt in GunGames Magazine "A famous athlete once said that he tried to go on the 'B' of 'BEEP', and not the 'P'. This does not mean that he anticipates the buzzer, but that the beep lasts 0.3 seconds which is plenty of time to start at the beginning and not at the end." - From the British magazine Guns and Shooting, October 1994, p 40. "Losing sucks." - Jerry Barnhart, August 14, 1994 "A golf course is a willful and deliberate misuse of a perfectly good rifle range." - Bill O'Connor More Quotes From My Old Site

My new 9mm EMP is still working great - not a hitch with several more kinds of 9mm ammunition and another 150 rounds. I have noticed (for the record) that Springfield is assigning serial numbers on 9mm and 40mm EMPs that are indistinguishable. Both of my EMPs s/n are of the form "EMP8xxx".

There are many, many USB-to-serial converters available. Google is Your Friend. Or, go to any local computer store, and tell them what you need. The Belkin is good. I expect all will work for this application.

I'm happy for you that yours is working well! I got to the range today, and mine still has some feed issues (10 occurances in 80 rounds). With Remington UMC 180gr ball: Rounds nosing-down in the magazine, and not feeding (this was with new magazines, which may be contributing). Extraction OK, but chamber empty; Not locking-back on last round; It fed 100% with the three original magazines and 180gr Gold Dot JHP, although it doesn't lock back on them, either. I suspect that it's short-cycling a bit with the non-premium ammunition. I've heard that the short-barreled guns are a bit finicky about ammunition, and the recoil spring is very strong in this gun. I'm not going to bother sending it back to Springfield again. I've been planning to send it off to my gunsmith Matt McLearn for work anyway, and he'll settle-out any reliability issues in short order. (Since I am sending off this gun for work, I needed to get a substitute carry gun for the month+ it will be gone. I bought a 9mm EMP yesterday, and it ran 100% with three different ammunitions today. A disappointing 6+ pound trigger, and a very rough slide operation, but it did what it was supposed to do on each trigger pull. I'll see how it is after 300+ rounds, and maybe it will go to Matt, too, after the .40 gets back!)

My EMP 40 is back from Springfield for it's warrenty work. I haven't taken it to the range yet, but the service invoice lists the following as being done: Reassembled guide rod, reamed Barrel, Polished barrel ramp Tuned extractor, tuned ejector Tested. Just from visual check, it no longer scores the case of the top cartridge in the magazine like it did before. I'm going to shoot it for a while and make sure it's reliable, and then it's off to the 'smith for some enhancements.

...Until they stop making it or importing it! (Down to 8 pounds of Vectan SP2 in the closet....)

I like the ability to use a simple bent paperclip for my Open guns. I can always find one - in fact there are probably 30 of them at various places in my shooting bag, stuck in my carpet, etc. My new carry gun is frustrating. It's a Springfield Armory EMP in .40 S&W (a size-reduced 1911 with 3-inch barrel), and the guide rod has no hole in it. The diameter of the rod is probably too small to allow a useful hole without weakening the part, and they provide a little plastic piece to use. It's a half-cylinder, with the inside diameter the same as the outside diameter of the guide rod, and it snaps into place over the guide rod when the spring is compressed. My problem is that they provide only one of these 5-cent "tools". If I lose it, I'm pretty much screwed! Is there a standard "field expedient" method for guns like this, should the little plastic tool get lost? I suspect that other small 1911-variants have similar spring arangements? (Yes, I'm contacting Springfield to order a pile of these plastic doo-dahs.)

This is not directly responsive, but it's what your question triggered here. There's more than just compensator function in the picture. My open guns work much better with Major load than with Minor loads, in fact I normally ran 182+ power factor when the Major floor was 175. Those times when I shot Minor (for steel matches), switching to Minor required also replacing the spring. It would cycle with the normal spring, but the slide cycling felt like a railroad car sliding back-and-forth on a siding: slow and chunky. I spent quite a bit or time trying to find the :sweet spot" with springs and loads for Minor. I found that I shot best when I just shot everything with the same load and spring. If I tried to go Minor for a steel match or NRA Action Pistol match the week after shooting Major at a USPSA match, the timing of my shooting was off. The old adage is "You shoot as you practice", but for most of us, a major part of our practice is shooting other matches. You shoot as you shoot! So, my standard Major load (182 PF, 9x21, 115gr JHP and SP2) was standard for all shooting I did. Find a load that works with your gun set up like you want it, and stick with that!

Middle of any highway in Ohio. They are orange, but servicable!

There are 20+ loads listed for 180gr lead bullets on the .40 S&W IPSC Loads List at the address below.

It looks like I'm glad to have my RL-1050! It's always been set up for my 9x21 Open caliber. I do no rifle reloading and never expect to have that need. I am now shooting a second caliber (.40 S&W) for my carry gun, and wish I hadn't sold my second press (XL-650) a few years ago. I may fill the '650 space on the bench with a new '650 someday soon for .40 and .45. Thanks for the nice comments on the IPSC Loads Lists! I'm having passing thoughts to start gathering loads again to fill in some of the new powders and to account for the new (since my last update) power factors. I need to go through to my old backup CD-ROMs to find the most recent (5-year-old) source files, though!

I bought an RL-1050 in the 1990s, and then was away from the shooting world for seven years. I missed the introduction of the Super 1050, and don't know what the changes were. What is better/different about the Super 1050? Is my RL-1050 upgradable, and would that be generally considered worthwhile? I browsed around the Dillon site and didn't see a comparison (it may be there, but I didn't find it).

I'll add the critical "do not overbell" to the previous reply!

The Ohio concealed carry organization web site banned that video when it was posted back in November, saying it "promoted illegal acts"! Shatner is always entertaining on Boston Legal. Sorry to see it ending, when I just started watching a few months ago!

The good thing is that all these ammunition checks are done before the match, so you don't need to deal with bad ammo during a course of fire. During the match, just concentrate on getting your hits and keeping your runs safe. Speed comes quickly when you have a reliable gun/ammo to use. I spent too much of my first year with a "jam-o-matic" combination, a well-built Open .45ACP built by Clark Custom (this was 1992), and a 152 grain LSWC load that fed part of the time. When I finally tamed the ammunition problem, scores went up and stress went down.

August in Minnesota is the best time - snow is only a few inches deep, and the ice on the roads is controllable with salt. The locals wear shoes with sharp spikes to keep from slipping and falling on the sidewalk.

Doug: Today I shipped the EMP back to Springfield for warrenty work. They say 2-4 weeks to turn it around. I'll post on the results when it gets back! Meanwhile, I'm shopping for a 'smith to do the other work I want done!

Au contraire, mon frere! I have designed a lot of stages, several have been used at USPSA Area Matches of over the years, and even a few have been used at USPSA National Matches. I have designed most courses with expectation that each shooter will use his brain by reading the course description and solve the problem in the best way he sees. That's all the shooters in the above example did. If you chose to use the most restrictive solution rather than the one that best solved the problem, you lost. I've written stage descriptions that resulted in shooters doing things I didn't expect. Sometimes it trivialized the shooting problem I wanted to present, but it wsn't their fault, it was mine. Smile and learn. All of which has no impact on the case described above. It does not matter what the designer "intended"; It does not matter how any other shooter or squad shot the stage; It does not matter what your "common sense" says; What matters is what the designer put on the paper in writing (or, in this case, as verbally briefed). As the briefing was described above, placing the mandatory reload after all shots are fired is the best solution of the problem. And solving the provlem is what practical shooting is supposed to be about. Freestyle means freestyle. One fails to engage the brain before shooting at their own peril.

Jack: I don't know your experience level with USPSA competition, but if you have not already, I suggest that you take a Range Office class. It's not personal: I suggest that **everyone** should take a Range Office class! Many people I know have noted that their shooting performance and their understanding of the rules was greatly enhanced by the RO class, even if they never plan to serve as a range officer at a match.