trodrig

2.1.09 I love live fire weekends! Started with draws to different distances (5, 15, and 25 yards). Then I worked on target transitions with targets at 5, 15, and 25 yards. 4 strings starting on the 5 yard target and 4 strings starting on the 25 yard target. First time I shot this drill and this is much more fun than shooting at just one or two targets!! Next I did a little more work on reloads. Then I burned up a good bit of ammo on the '20-Alpha' drill. Never quite made it to 20 A's but got close. Finally I shot a couple of strings of the El Presidente. It was a great session! On the 20 Alpha drill I really was able to notice how subtle changes in my grip and my overall tension impacted the dot movement. I saw this as well on El Pres. If I tensed up, the dot was not tracking straight up and down and tended to not return but rather dip down somewhat as the slide closed. When I was more relaxed the dot tracked much better! I felt like I was very aware of things like this throughout the session. Thomas

I changed over to 19 to be with more Production shooters! Hey! I'm on 19! Look forward to meeting you!! Thomas

I'll voice another vote for 200gr SWC's and Clays. I was able to make major in my Kimber with only 4.0 grains and Lasercast SWC's. The Precision moly coated bullets required a bit more powder to get to major. Thomas

1.28.09 Worked on some new dry fire drills tonight. 2-reload-2 and bill reload drill from Steve Anderson's book. Basically just trying to establish some par times for these drills as I've never run them before. I'll work on them again tomorrow night and Friday and then hopefully get a chance to run'em in live fire over the weekend. Thomas

Thanks for the info guys! I'll try starting at 10. It takes about 10.4 of N105 to make major with the same bullet in my gun. Should take a touch less with 3n38 right? Thomas

I've got a pound of this on the way with the rest of my order. But, I'll be using 115 MG JHP's. Based on the above data in a Trubore, do ya'll think I should start at around 9.5 to 9.8 and work up from there in my Trubore? Should I start lower? Higher? Thanks! Thomas

1.26.09 Shot a local match this past weekend. I made several mental errors which cost me pretty bad. Not sure what the problem was, just felt kind of distracted. My biggest blunder was on the third stage where I completely forgot to engage one target and engaged another one twice! Trying to keep a positive tone here, I feel that the best thing I did throughout the match was put that dismal stage behind me and not even think about it going into the next stage. Not that I smoked the next stage, but I didn't let my previous error affect me and just focused on shooting the targets at hand. Next match I really want to work more at visualizing the stage and shooting my plan. Thomas

1.22.09 Did some dry fire yesterday. Mostly just draws. Today I ditched out of work at 1pm and went out for some live fire! Shot about 200 rounds. Worked on draws and reloads at 10 and 15 yards. Draw to left target, fire two shots, reload shoot right target. Then reverse directions. This was the first time I really practiced reloads and recorded some good baseline times. I need to work on speeding things up while also keeping the accuracy up! My main goal for this session was to see what I could do and record baselines. Now I can work on getting it down. Ended with some Bill Drills to work on relaxation and not getting trigger freeze. Really started seeing some improvement after a few iterations. I did this at 10 yards and my accuracy was ok, only down 2 points for my fastest run which yielded a slightly better HF than my best -0 run. I want to work on some dry fire reloads to try and get some improvement in that area. Thomas

I load on a 650 that's still in the garage and have recently loaded on a pretty cold day (for Central Texas ~45) without issue. All components except powder and primers are kept in the garage. I'm not quite sure I understand though. You mentioned that the primers are a little harder to punch out but, how does this cause powder to jump out of the cases when at the time you're punching out the primer all of the rounds are up inside the dies? Maybe I'm just not understanding the sequence of events? As for the other issue can you post a pic of it? Thomas

1.20.09 Dry fired for about 45 minutes. Just worked on 10 yard draws, turning draws, and Burkett Reloads. I felt really good tonight initially but kinda ran out of steam while doing the reload drills. I'm starting to feel more comfortable with the turning draws and plan on incorporating them into some live fire practice at the next available opportunity! I still need to get off my arse and do some jogging! Thomas

I'm pretty sure they were clean. The malfunction happened near the beginning of my practice session so I don't think they had a whole lot of crude in them. I'll take'em apart tomorrow though and confirm. Sounds like it's time for new springs though! One more question, with the ISMI springs, do I still need to trim them as indicated in the instructions with the Dawson followers? Thanks! Thomas

Sorry, I meant to post this under Open Gun Technical. Is there a way to move it? Thanks, Thomas

Last weekend I was shooting some drills and I had a feeding failure. Basically, the slide ran over the next round in the magazine. It stopped about 1/2 way up the case with the nose of the bullet just about 1/2 way up the feed ramp. Seems like the round wasn't up high enough to get stripped off by the slide. I was about 1/2 way through the magazine when it happened. I'm thinking maybe this was due to a weak magazine spring? What do ya'll think? I made a note of which mag it was but it did happen again the rest of the day. Specifics on the gun and load are below: STI Trubore 38SC New Starline Brass MG 115 JHP at 1.240" 10.4gr N105 Dawson Tuned 140mm STI tube with Dawson follower and +1 basepad. Mags and springs probably about a year and a half old but I've only shot about 6k through them over that period of time. Thanks, Thomas

MAN...life gets in the way and shooting practice suffers!! Had grand plans of getting some live fire practice in Saturday morning and then going to a club match Sunday morning. Neither happened...but, I was able to get out and do some live fire practice Sunday afternoon! First, sighted in the Cmore. After my last live fire session I noticed it was shooting a bit to the left. Shot some groups at 20 yards, slow fire, freestyle. Got a good 2.75" group at 20 yards but I know I can do better with more practice and focus! Worked again on calling shots. I'm getting a little better at recognizing the sight picture for low, right, left, high. I need more practice on differentiating between A's, C's, D's and Mikes though. Worked on reaction to the beep. Starting with gun aimed on a target, waiting for the B in beep, I didn't have any over 0.25. 4 out of 7 shots were in the 0.15 - 0.16 range! Next I worked on drawing and firing one shot on targets at 20, 15, and 10 yards. Consistency needs improvement. At 20 yards I'd have a 1.17 A followed by a 1.49 C!! Spent some of the last bit of my time with 10 yard, 6-shot bill drills to compare how the gun felt with 3 different powders, Longshot, N105, and N350. I started with the gun aimed at the target. N105 felt pretty good but N350 might actually be a bit softer. I'm going to have to shoot some drills with target transitions a bit to see which I prefer. Longshot seemed to have the worst dot tracking. All in all it was a good session. I would've liked to shoot more but I found myself getting hungry and figured I'd save the ammo. Felt as though I was losing focus towards the end and felt a little rushed/distracted the whole time due to all of my plans to get out earlier being screwed up. Goals for the coming week are dry fire EVERY night and start exercising at least 2 nights a week. Thomas

The new models have a dimmer knob built into the control box. The paper that came with mine indicated that new control boxes were available to upgrade older models if desired. Mine's been working pretty good but it's gotta be on the slowest setting for WSR primers. I've had no flips in about 500 rounds so far. Thomas

Hmm...the 'not for lead' thing kinda sucks. Also, it's hard to tell from the picture in that pdf but it looks like the tube from the collator to the tool head is a rigid pipe. Looks like you'd have to do some mods to it in order to use on the 1050. Can anyone that's seen one in person confirm if it's a rigid pipe?? Thomas

gm_iprod, Agreed that not expanding so much is the best way to achieve tension on the bullet. I use the U-die and only expand enough to just allow the bullet to stay on the case when it comes out from the KISS feeder. I might be able to back the powder funnel off just a touch more to expand a little less but, I'll wait to see if I have problems with the loaded rounds 'growing' first. Thanks! Thomas

1.13.09 No practice last night. Work had me down.... 1.14.09 Work still got me down...but I did about an hour of dry fire practice anyway! Great therapy to forget about work, layoffs, economy, etc! I included 10 yard turn and draw this time. Towards the end I started feeling a bit more comfortable with the snap of my head to the target and the turn. I'll need to post video at some point to get feedback on the position of my feet, head snap, etc. On my draws facing downrange I'm finding that I'm missing my grip more with hands at sides than with hands above shoulders. Seems kind of counter intuitive but I intend on working on both draws so I feel comfortable with both of them. Thomas

So, I'm assuming that some powders are easier to compress than others. Do you have any record of which powders seem to be more prone to backing the bullet out? I'm using N105 in this case. Thanks, Thomas

Very cool instructions! Glad you bumped the thread up! Thanks!! Thomas

Congratulations!! Thomas

I use the U-die, do you think that will help by holding more tension on the bullet? I'll measure after having the rounds in the truck for awhile as well. Thanks, Thomas

I notice that with a compressed charge (10.2gr N105), I have to crank the seater die down more to get the same average OAL as with an uncompressed charge (8.4gr of N350). This is with new Starline 38SC brass and MG 115 JHPs'. Has anyone else noticed this? I rationalized it as being expected due to the increased pressure required to compress the powder column. Just wondering if anyone else has ever run into this issue when developing loads with different powders. Thanks, Thomas

1.12.09: Did about 45 minutes of dry fire tonight. Worked on 10 yard draws both hands at sides and surrender. Then worked on some Burkett Reloads. I felt as though I was doing pretty good reacting to the B in beep. Had many reloads where I really saw the mag well and the tip of the mag just appeared in the right spot. That felt really good! Next dry fire session I need to add some turning draws into the mix! Thomas

D'oh! Bob beat me to it...and with more details too! Thomas