bwit

Yup, it's fairly common and it's handy if you have short dies, like Lee. Most times there's not enough thread left on top to really tighten the size/ deprime die so you gots to put the nut down below.

Jim T, I suppose at the time it was horrifying and you felt bad but I need a real good laugh. Got any photos ??????????

Correct, no messing with the barrel. If you screw up do you want to buy a new barrel or new extractor ??? Bob Londrigan of Brazos has articles on his website and in Front Site mag about extractor fitting [and a lot of other good stuff]. Read it you want details but in any event you have to have no contact with the barrel - - grinding job !

Score tied: Anubis 1, Jointer 1. NO REMATCHES ! ! ! After I started reading the thread I was really curious as to how you were and how bad the injury was. Glad you sent pics, looks like it's doing well, healing well and no infection. You know, it coulda been much worse. Should be pretty ok once it's all healed. Meanwhile enjoy the drugs, my best wishes AND kick ass cabinet you did as a crip. I am truly impressed - - nice work.

Late 2006 thru Feb 2007, I bought Precision Delta .40 cal 180 gr and afterward had many cartridges that I was having trouble with. They shot ok if they'd chamber but many would not even chamber. It turned out that the bullets being oversized was the problem. They miked from .400 up to .40175 diameter and would not fit the tight STI chamber. My house gun, a Para, doesn't care tho and eats them like candy.

I ran into some 9mm Largo cartridges, Starline, in my range pickups. They measure [fired] the same as 38 Super except for the rim, which is between 38 S and Supercomp. I haven't checked in a loading book yet to see the similarities but they look to be the same. These were hugely popular starting in the late 1800 and early 1900, mostly in Europe, as the Spanish and others made many different guns in this caliber and in large volume. If I remember correctly, even the Nazis used the Largo when they took over Spanish gun factories in WW II and issued these to their troops.

+2 on Full Race's die suggestions, the best way to go, Redding Pro Competition seating die, A Lee U-die (Undersize), Lee FCD (Factory Crimp Die) You can buy the Redding Pro [no Competition in the name] seating die for about $22. It is the same die internally but without the micrometer on top - - saves you about $50. AND if you decide later you want it then you add the micrometer top. If you look for this make sure you are getting the right item as the distributors have a lot of confusion over the names.

I, like some of you above, use both. I use regular 38S because I get a lot of range pickups. If I had to buy it Supercomp makes more sense. My gun seems to shoot both ok. What I am wondering is how some of you using both load it. On a progressive press [650] it'd be great if I didn't have to sort the two types and load them separately. I tried them mixed and the main pain is that each brass has a different diameter and therefore in the shellholder the center is in a different place, making priming a royal PITA. The shellholder difference itself has not been an issue. Of course I could sell/trade off one, but is there a way to load both?? Does anyone do the super and supercomp together or have any ideas/tricks for this?

964, I don't know if you are aware of this but for your own safety, standard procedure for each loading session should be to zero your balance beam [recheck it and adjust it to read zero with an empty pan] or if it is moved or bumped. Then and only then do you KNOW it reads correctly. Moving the scale, temperature changes, its level and lots of other things will change it's readings. You could also, after you zero it, make a small copper or aluminum wire check weight. You can make it any weight you wish but ideally it should be in the neighborhood of the load weights you are using. Example: 6.0 gr of powder, a 10 gr check weight is ok. Then rather than zeroing the scale you can weigh your check weight to verify the scale reading, since you know what it really weighs after the scale was zeroed. Of course, if the check weight does not read properly you'll have to zero the scale anyway. Another advantage is that if the scale at some point gets damaged or dropped or ??? by you or unbeknown to you, you have any easy way to determine if it is working properly with your check weight. I'd write the check weights value on it with marker or engrave it, both of which are easier if you can flatten part of it with a hammer, just enough to write on. I bend it into a small circle with a handle so it stays within the confines of the scale pan. Lots of luck and happy reloading.

Hipower, I've been shooting a .38 super open with open base bullets and I can't find any residue in my comp except a bit of powder

Nobody mentioned barrel leading--sometimes due to the higher speed of the bullet, powder melting the bullet end, roughness of the barrel [or crappy luck] the bullets will leave streaks of lead in the barrel rifling, which need to be cleaned out periodically. My favorite and easy way to clean it out is by shooting jacketed bullets, but it doesn't always work well. Depends on the gun. Then it's pain to clean it out. Also as mentioned above, it is a lot easier to reload with jacketed and less messy.

Flex, I am thinking I agree with you. The point shooting is something I 'developed' over the last year or so. I guess everyone is saying to keep working on your skills to use the sights under these conditions and I think occasionally I do that. It's funny how I came at this idea backwards, pointing first, looking at sights later. At least it is evolutionary and I am moving forward. Thanks for your comments.

Great ideas and input by all. I too will be using some of these ideas and I am sure with practice they will help tremendously. On the original subject of point shooting, I find that I also can point shoot well up to about 10-12 yards. It is much faster for me than sighting each target and each shot. I seem to be doing it differently than anyone else I read, if I understood them properly. In learning to shoot this sport, we all have learned to draw and index the pistol to the target with the sights aligned properly or very close to it. This has become one of those muscle memory training things we strive for and I guess as we continue to do it more and more it gets better and better, i.e., we align the sights more perfectly with more practice. This is how I point shoot. I index the pistol to the target and shoot without ever looking at or seeing the sights. In fact, I actually look at and concentrate on the center of the target rather than how you normally concentrate on the sights, while seeing the target with your peripheral [if that is the right word to use when it is straight ahead, not to the side] vision.

Great product. Lay on one in the store. I have had one for 4 years. Holy #&@#% was it expensive, but worth every penny for the best support and sleep you get. I just hope it lasts as long as I think it should considering the cost. If you like the mattress, consider getting a pillow of the same material but check Costco or Sam's as they periodically have them for about a third of what the mattress store gets. May God help your mover when he carries the mattress, they weigh a ton . . . or so.

Merlin, so what is the nice deal from the NRA ??????????????

Let us know how they worked. The pecan shells are soft but the hickory might be closer to the hardness of the walnut. Do you have a way to grind/crush them?

I saw a great one at the mile across crater in AZ. I get a drink from the Subway there and there's this little bitty woman with a big voice waiting on me. I couldn't take my eyes off her chest . . . no, they were small and it's a good thing because she needed the room for the huge three-masted sailing ship tattooed there. I was ...........ah, ..... astounded. Sorry this was slightly off the subject since it was about tattos.

It'll probably get like the bank where they CHARGE YOU for EVERYTHING, like some of the idiot banks in downtown Chicago that charge you to deposit YOUR money if you use a real person to do it. I've been hearing lately that the gas stations make a miniscule amount on gas, like a penny a gallon or less. The oil companies and refiners keep all the profits for themselves. That is why every gas station now has a store of some kind in it so that they can survive.

Ditto on all the marking yourself as a target. Plus the less the neighbors know the better. I always have subscribed to the theory that a person's I.Q. is inversely proportional to the number of bumper stickers

I guess this is on the subject, what are your experiences with the Aftec extractor. I have one and never did get it to work right [45acp], yet I know people who swear by them and a couple who put it in their gun and never looked back. Of course, it worked for them. I since then, of necessity, learned how to tune the regular extractors to work properly. I'm back looking at the Aftec again for an open gun. But I'd like a consensus of our shooters experiences.

I love AA #2. Shot it for a while when I was using 45acp. Really fast burning, clean and you only use a little of it [ a pound loads a lot of cartridges]. Gun handled well with it because of its easy, fast recoil. Need to retry it for some of the other calibers I reload.

The VV powder burn chart seems IMHO to have a number of serious inconsistencies in it according to other powder burn charts and my experience with some of the powders. Some of the powders are in the wrong order with regard to their burning speed. It also is missing some important powders of the competitor's lines. If you print out a few of the others' charts and compare you'll see what I mean. Of all I have I thought it was the least valuable and do not use it. My opinion, but I did spend some time evaluating them all.

I'd call one of the guys at Millenium Custom, who owns Aftec. [www.mcguns.com/] . Get the info 'straight from the horse's mouth.' If they can't tell you, I am sure they could recommend who to talk to at Aftec And give you the number, since it is not available.

Yes, I agree with Shred. If you watch his slow, slow, slow motion video you can see that the MOST movement of the gun is when the slide bottoms out to change direction. You can change the action here from a hard bottoming jerk to a softer, slower but longer pull by increasing the weight of your recoil spring. It's all a trade off though because no matter what weight spring you use, you still have to dissipate the same amount of energy. Great contribution Shred. I watched this I don't know how many times, each few times changing my focus to a different part of the gun and its action / reaction. e.g. the twist and wiggle of the C-More and its mount, muzzle rise, slide action and so forth.

For all of you who wonder, as I did, what"s the problem getting SVI mags. I spoke with one of the Strayers who told me that " they are a small manufacturer and the demand far exceeds what they can supply. They setup machines for gun production and then have to tear them down and setup for mag production. They make what they can and then they have to go back to making gun parts again." They even weld their own mag tubing. Leave a message. They will call you back and are very polite and concerned about you as a customer, but I gather they can only make so much. I suppose they could farm it out but then as we all know you lose control and quality control. Place an order at the factory and you'll get it.