MemphisMechanic

For several years a 9mm Tanfo was impossible to find in the USA, because the company that imports them is... not so great. So guys like @waktasz bought 40s to shoot in Production.

Try bullets that arent plated. They’re rather notorious for mediocre accuray. Go load a batch of FMJ or coated and see what happens. That said, pull a bullet and check for over-crimping before you write them off... You crimp die should be considered a flare removal die, and remove all belling from the case. And no more than that. Pull a bullet. If there is more than a very faint line where the case mouth was resting on the bullet, you are crimping them too much and likely swaging the bullet down to a smaller diameter. You should not be able to feel the ridge in the side of the bullet with your fingernail. (Note: digital calipers are usually accurate to +/- .001” and not accurate enough to check for this. Do it by feel.)

You might want to take a look at the caption on the second image

So you custom-sanded your factory grips to fit your hands, and want someone to form that shape out of metal? I’d suggest sanding the entire grip down an even 1/8” and then giving it the epoxy / silicon carbide treatment. The even coat of JBWeld will take care of any chipping, and the grip becomes coarse sandpaper with incredible traction.

The Q5 has a lightened slide and is optics-ready. Mounting plates for all the major dots are included with the gun. I run a deltapoint pro on mine in CO when I’m not shooting production. I mostly prefer the platform to M&P (which I shot for 8 years and still love) because of superior ergonomics, control placement, and trigger. Anyone who tells you a Glock or M&P or Tanfo or Walther will make a difference your scores is incorrect. I have shot each of those for a year or more in USPSA. Find a gun you love and practice with it. He who practices, wins. Coley and Vogel stomp with Glocks. Hwansik Kim cleans up with a Walther. Stoeger and Gutt rock Tanfos. And... Er... someone does okay with an M&P, I guess... The gun doesn’t matter. Shoot what YOU love.

Easy. No issues myself at all. 23+1 with a TTI basepad and a Grams spring/ follower for the P320. Trigger doesn’t need any work at all so I saved money on APEX parts. I run mine bone stock at a shockingly crisp 4.9 pounds. If you want a 3lb trigger you simply replace the trigger spring - Walther’s innovative way of tripping the sear makes them cleaner than an M&P or Glock will ever be. Red Hill Tactical does a sick holster for it. Add a Dawson front sight and grip tape, and you’re done with the gun.

Out of those 4, the Walther Q5 match would be your best choice. Signed, former M&P addict who sold them all.

Think of it as a “flare removal die” and not crimping. You’re trying to return the case walls to being dead straight, not flared outward even slightly, and not crushed inward.

This. And listen to LGH about the sharpie and plunk & spin. I should have gone into more detail - that’s the best way to check.

Make sure you have sufficient crimp, as stated above. There should be absolutely zero outward flareto the mouth of the case remaining. Remove all trace of belling but crimp as little as possible: you can swage a lead or coated bullet to a smaller diameter with excessive crimp. I pull a bullet and look for the smallest hint of a ring on it where the case mouth sat. Just barely visible and pretty much impossible to feel in the coating with your fingernail. Then conduct a plunk and spin test will long ammo, and back it down until your dummies will just barely drop into the chamber and spin freely. If you’re right at that’s the 1.125-1.127” neighborhood? Ensure that your longest ammo is 1.120” and you should be good to go. When discussing coated bullets, 147s tend to have wide, rounded shoulders and these catch in the rifling at a shorter OAL than some other bullets. It all depends on the profile of the round. The pointy 125gr offerings from Black Bullets will feed in a Glock well past 1.150” for example.

This is why working on guns happens on my kitchen table. Armor it with sheets of cardboard and sweep the floor before you begin. If you lose anything, sweep the floor again and it’ll be waiting for you in the dust pan. I’ve rescued many a microscopic part that way. My garage is my metalworking shop. I grind and weld in there. No way I’ll ever find tiny parts if they get lost.

You really expect to notice half a pound of pull weight and a little more or less stacking in a match? You won’t. If their reset travel is similar and they break in the same place, that’s all the similarity you need between two of your guns.

Put your cleats or Salomons on and go try it in your back yard. Pick a consistent marker at each end of a 15-20 foot movement and airgun a shot at each end while you film it on your phone. Review it, run faster, and review it again until actually looks fast. Most of us have never run a track meet as an adult. We actually have no idea how fast we can actually run, so movement at 50% of our honest top speed feels really zippy. It actually isn’t, but it feels that way.

I learned on a 650 with no more help than extensive reading on this forum, and chats with local shooters who one one. My first squib was actually 40,000+ round into operating that press since 2008. (It occurred this year after installing a Mr Bulletfeeder and making an obvious technical mistake with the new operating procedure.) I have never loaded a double charge. Look at the powder level in each case manually. PARTICULARLY the first 4 rounds loaded after clearing a malfunction on the press. If you have an empty or doubled case, that’s when it’ll happen. Keep a small box of deprimed and resized brass next to the press. Anytime you pitch a case because it’s damaged or a .380 snuck in there when you’re loading 9mm, replace it with a good one from your bin at station 2 then press the waiting primer into it. You won’t have primers getting jettisoned down the ski jump or waste time with stations left empty while reloading.

It doesn’t do anything that red synthetic bearing grease from the local auto parts store doesn’t do. I grease the action: the metal on metal wear points in the trigger mechanism of every gun I own. Oil elsewhere. Keep grease off the slide rails and other reciprocating parts in the cold.

Indeed: slip the offhand fingertips underneath the back corner of the slide and lift the gun enough to grip it immediately with a proper firing grip. You’ll be able to wrap your strong hand thumb around the gun this way.

Mobil1 is synthetic. No Dinos involved. Works great. Lifetime supply of gun oil is $8.

A short clean rolling break, please. My Tanfoglio was set up with a 1911-crisp trigger. Bolo and Titan hammer combinations in those guns give zero trigger movement between the wall and the break. I sold the gun after 6 months and 2,500 or so rounds. I’m back in polymer with a Walther Q5 and the factory trigger.

Sounds to me like we do the same thing different ways: I pitch the case and replace it with a fresh one so the primer doesn’t eject onto the ramp, whereas you re-use it at the end of the session. Both of which are workable options.

Standard M&P sights fit as I recall. One of the vendors of them had “fits M&P shield” listed on one model or another. I bought them. They’re terrific sights. White circle up front to draw your eye, and the blank rear disappears, in the day. Dim yellow rear dots and a seriously bright green front keep you lined up when you’ve gotta take that Tango out in the movie theatre, saving the lives of various CEOs who shower you with millions of dollars out of gratitude.

Or the case comes out of the sizing die with a torn mouth... Or a .380 snuck in there when you’re loading 9, and you feel the sizing die glide right over it without resistance... Or the casefeeder dropped an inverted one and you felt it too late, when it’s easier to pitch it back into the hopper than flip it over and stick it into station 1. It happens. No big deal. Pitch the case. Place one of your box full of deprimed & resized brass on top of the waiting primer, seat it, and return to loading.

Warren night sights Apex sear and a full polishing for a 5.0lb trigger. Smoothing it out is more important than lightening it. Stippled the gun so I can hold onto it. Pearce +0 extension (pinkie hook only) shaved down with a dremel until it’s just big enough to fit my hand, for maximum concealibility.

Buy the gear, and go shoot a match. No matter how much you practice, you’ll still finish in last place or close to it because you’re not used to the pressure. We’ve had novices who “practiced up” for a full year and ones who have only held a gun a dozen times. They both finish about the same. Embrace that, and go shoot and have fun! If you want to get better at shooting USPSA you can’t do it at home until you know what a match is like. You’re wasting opportunities to get better. And to have fun. Life is short!

1. Run a few dozen cases through station one (size and deprime) and keep them in a box under the press. Toss one into station 2 in this situation, prime it, and keep loading... and all your stations will forever be full. 2. Or: Simply lift up the little silver primer rathchet arm with your finger while the shellplate heads upward on the next stroke. No tool needed. That primer will be inserted into the next case instead of flicked down the chute into nowhere. I never, ever have a primer hit the ski jump. There’s no need for the various fixes out there.

Many of us shoot .356” coated bullets by the thousands in our 9mms.