MemphisMechanic

Back when I shot IDPA, I'd load all my mags to 10. When the time came for the "6, slidelock load, 6" strings, I'd eject the mag in the gun and strip it down to 5 rounds on the spot. Then there's no question you're at 6. Not 5. And not 8...

A 9mm edge is a 3-gunner's handgun, really.

Thanks for further convincing me that I'm going to have the front of my budget Tanfo cut for a Novak dovetail, and use Dawson's perfect impact guarantee to get my "1911" perfectly sighted in by returning the first one for free.

Thats not a PD phenomenon either. I have a pair of before & after EGD Medium springs that look like that from 2,000 rounds of live fire... and two heavy months of dryfire practice.

Fixed.

Definitely. I'd suggest loading a few rounds with the press(es?) C-clamped to the bench in order to test your spacing and layout out. At a minimum I'd want 6-10" of space on the left eside of a 650, and the 18" or so I want on the right could easily be the sum distance between it and the 550. I find I enjoy space on the right side of the press more than the left. All I personally keep on the left of my 650 is a box of bullets which are placed directly below the bullet tray on my strong mount. Tools, bins in which to catch loaded ammo, scale, primer tubes, etc? I personally place all that stuff to it's right side.

A light, proper crimp wont hurt anything. For certain. Most new reloaders take "crimp" literally and they go too far and encounter all kinds of feeding or accuracy issues. Not knowing your experience level, I gave the usual advice.

Case mouth tension is what holds semi-auto bullets in place in the case. The crimp doesn't serve that role. Load a round into a properly sized case and crimp until the walls are barely straight... and see how hard it is to make the Bullet budge. Hint: I've loaded my match ammo like that for 10 years without a single issue.

Do the transition in the thighs. Try to rotate your *pelvis* using your legs. They're strong enough to both snap a transition and stop on a dime. Using your arms to move the gun or abs (twisting your waist) to rotate? You'll either be slow, or you will overshoot. Doing it right: (mute the audio so you can focus on what his body is doing. Sound makes you focus on the gun.)

Blade Tech is the most popular, as you know. I've had at least 4 or 5 each in comp tac and bladetech. Switch to a dual-layer holster body like RedHill and others make, and you won't want to go back. Nothing like a 1/4" thick holster to prevent flexing. They're molded to the Tanfoglio guns better too - no amount of massaging or heat gun work on my bladetech body would keep it from binding if you didn't draw perfectly vertically. They're also a forum vendor/sponsor, unlike the bigger companies you're pushing him toward. A BOSS hanger from the Ben Stoeger shop and a Red Hill holster body drilled to match it? Ideal production setup. Edit: And for mag pouches, I prefer Ghost 360s.

Spend an extra $30 or so on some pivotheads.

@Broski what striker spring are you running?

I've never had an issue filming another shooter: if you know what route they're taking through the maze in order to reach the cheese at the end, it's pretty simple to stay well behind the RO and well away from the muzzle. I always urge someone holding my phone and recording to stay further back and get a wider field of view away. Analyzing footwork means seeing the feet, after all.

If there's any kind of check done at a major, they'll eyeball your rig from behind to see if the back of the grip (basically the backside of the magwell opening) is above the top edge of your belt. I set my BOSS hanger up so that this spot is about 1/2" above the belt to make sure it wasn't a judgement call, and it has worked just fine.

There's a lot of evidence - including a statement from one of the companies which I beleive was CCI - that magnum pistol and rifle primers are often pretty much the same thing in different packages, too.

I run CCI #550 (magnum small pistol) fairly often. Simply because they're always in stock when everything else is long gone. As long as you run enough striker/hammer spring to set them off and you do your chrono work to ensure you aren't unknowingly shooting beyond safe limits? Using rifle or magnum primers works just fine.

Aggressively crimping coated or lead bullets can result in your press undersizing them, and result in loss of accuracy. Given that the "crimp" in 9mm has little to no effect on avoiding setback or the like, there is no benefit to a visible or heavy crimp on a 9mm load. Straighten the walls or bend then inward .001 and call it good. On the FCD: I like it. A lot. The FCD will resize the brass during the final reloading step, and when you do things like load a really long 147gr for a gun like a CZ/XD/M&P that requires very short ammo... oftentimes older brass will bulge outward in the process. (Much moreso than if you load longer.) If used in a hamfisted fashion the FCD can correct this. If simply cranked down all the way, you're back to swaying bullets and crappy accuracy. Most guys who tried one and didn't like it ... don't know how to set it. You can run the center crimp adjustment all the way down then thread the die body inward to set your crimp, and you have a traditional crimp die. Or you can thread the body down more and more and get more of a sizing die effect. They're very flexible dies and I find them valuable. I used to run a mix of premium dies in 9mm (Redding, etc) but find an ordinary Lee die set with an FCD at the end makes ammo that's just as consistent and accurate, and it's got noticeably fewer defects.

How many rounds are through the gun with the new barrel at this point? If it's less than 500, I'd run more rounds through it. IMO the biggest gain in accuracy is the additional pad that rests on top of the locking block. The one which wedges the slide upward when the gun is closed, and which delays the barrel unlocking from the slide when the gun fires. The hood length fit isn't as crucial to accuracy in my opinion and if you're sure that's the problem, fittzing the hood length is definitely where I'd go first. Also when you have a gun that's stuck shut, you can usually show clear by gripping the slide hard in an overhand grip with the weak hand and smacking the back of the grip with the heel of your strong palm really hard. Don't try to retract the slide in the traditional fashion. Lock the slide in place and drive the grip forward. That'll allow you to produce far more force, and do so using a sudden impact which actually knocks things loose.

A trigger under 2.5 or so is lighter than I want to go, personally. For exactly the reasons you mentioned.

What caliber is the gun? I don't think I'd worry about it until I found that it happens with several different flavors of factory ammunition, certainly not until I had at least a thousand rounds downrange.

Made a massive difference. I just found a really small triangular file and drew lines on it with a fine sharpie, then slowly cut into it. Not perfect, but once I cerakoted it? Looked just fine. Honestly I like the PD palmswells enough, though, that I'll probably sell my scales soon.

Use a small triangular file and hand checker them. works incredibly well.

My gun killed Winchester primers seated .005-.008" flawlessly with the short-stroked DA you get from an unmodified Bolo. And a 13lb PD spring. Try removing the block entirely next time you head to the range, if you think it could be part of your problem. In my opinion you shouldn't have a FPB installed in your gun until it's finished being setup and you have a thousand or so trouble-free rounds downrange. I shot locals and practice for months without it, which gave me one less variable to chase when figuring out why my gun wasn't working.