Hannu

+1 If you use 185gr or lighter, Clays actually fills case up pretty good. Not so much with 200-230gr.

My favourite load : Brass Remington (sorted out), primer Fed 205gm, powder Varget 24.2 gr, Berger VLD 70gr, col 2.290" and MV 2950 fps. Velocity deviation is less than 10 fps with 10 shots, pretty accurate load out to 600 yd. I can get little more velocity with some powders (748, BL-C2, 2520) but accuracy is not as good as with Varget if I am pushing it over 3000 fps. Chamber has a lot to do with the fact how fast you can push a certain bullet, and specially what powders you can use and maintain good accuracy. Barrels are different for sure, but you may not be able to reach that velocity with Wylde or Nato chamber no matter what you do. Also, many bullets do not shoot good if jump to the lands is excessive and specially if you are pushing them fast and with high pressure. I have found this to be specially true with VLD´s, they need to be seated .01" from the lands to get the best accuracy. You could try to change powder, N140 is sooo bulky you just can not get enough inside to reach higher velocities.

WSF is allright for Opengun, but for minor I would use something different... Clays is my favourite, but TG is probably the easiest to start with. My favourite minor load for STI 2011 5" : Brass Magtech, Federal 100 primer, Clays 3.6gr, bullet Speer 124gr TMJ, col 1.170" and PF 129

That is very true; if we forget very short or very long barrels, what powder gives you the highest MV does not depend on barrel length. Often when progressive rifle powder is used, the powder does not burn 100% inside the bore. What this means ? Pretty much nothing unless you are using a silencer, if you do then it means little. The same works with handguns too. For example .45 ACP : my bowling pin load gives 1020 fps with 230gr XTP from my 5" SS gun. The same load from 3" carry gun gives 885 fps. If I use (for example) Clays, there is no way I could safely meet 885 fps from 5" gun with 230gr bullet.

Possible ? Yes. Sensible ? Well that is another question... You could try Norma URP or Hodgdon H414 to get there. If you can longer than 2.80" you can push 175gr MK 2600 fps out from 18" barrel with safe pressure level. I have seen 165gr factory load clock 2780 fps from 16" barrel. However, usually you do not get reasonable accuracy with hot loads. Better idea might be to stick with Varget and accept you are not getting .300 win mag velocities from 18" .308 Or, change barrel to 24" - easy way to immediately get 150 fps more without creating higher pressure

Try 70gr VLD, it works fine from a good magazine allowing uyou to load at ~2.30" (like H&K 416 mag). I have not been able to find better (magazine fed) ballistics out to 600 yd for .223, than 70gr VLD loaded to 2950 fps. That is from Krieger 20" barrel, 9" twist with .223 Rem chamber, Remington brass, Varget and Federal 205GM loaded .01" from the lands. Average group @300 is 1.9"

After adjusting your powder measure, you could throw 2-3 charges before weighing them. As people earlier suggested, weigh 10 throws and take average. I have noticed, that my Dillons may throw couple first charges pretty far away when I have adjusted the powder measure. After that, TG gives less variance than my Dillon D-Terminator can tell. Berrys are not very high quality stuff... So that col variance is pretty normal with them. It depends on your gun if variance in col is gonna cause problems or not. If your mags can take say 1.15" you are certainly good to go.

Even .22 lr gun can have sharp and fast recoil, if the gun is set up for that. For example, bone stock STI Trubor Open gun works perfectly with 11.7 oz slide, but feels horrible to shoot - when you take 1.5 oz or more off from the slide, it becomes much easier to shoot fast. And I am not talking about lightening overall mass, but mass of moving parts. Open guns with light slides usually have pretty fast and sharp recoil, even it is by no means heavy. When you lighten pistol slide, you increase slide speed but reduce "slide power factor" - which makes originally soft recoil sharper and faster, but lighter at the same time. It is true, that if you just have gun X and want it to get sharper recoil without setting up the gun itself, you just change Clays or N320 to AA #7 or N105... However, that is not the way to make the gun fast to shoot in our sport. Smaller powder charge weight = less recoil and less gas pressure + gas flow on the muzzle = less recoil, if bullet weight and all of the other things are kept the same. Easiest way to do it, is to pick up a powder you can use as small amount as possible without blowing your pistol up. More powder = bigger progressivity of powder = more recoil based on charge weight + muzzle blast. Then take some weight off from the slide, fine tune with springs and fp stop plate - you have flat shooting gun with light and sharp recoil at the same time It seems to be hard for some shooters to follow the front sight or dot moving faster, but I think it is just a matter of how fast you can see = practice. I can imagine that if your gun is set up certain way, bigger powder charge and greater recoil may perhaps make it feel better. Specially many factory guns set up for factory ammo, may feel weird if you do not set up your gun different way. The difference may not be huge, but it can be enough to get you up to 1st and 100.0%, or leave you 3rd with 98.90% Open GM, but not really collecting classifications... Well Single Stack GM might be nice however, as there are not very many yet Let it be margaritas then... Sinnsyk is teaching me to drink margaritas anyway

Jaredr has a point. By looking your photos, you definitely have headspace problem. Some photos look like bullet is little offset, but that is not usually a real reliability problem. It may cause you accuracy problems but that is a different thing. You told you are using Dillon reloading machine, but not Dillon dies ? Many resizing dies are designed to work with single stage press, those usually have noticeable thinner shellholder than Dillon. Not all dies are gonna work even they have shellholder of the same brand - if you are using mixed tools the problem is often even worse. It is pretty common, that you have to mill either shellholder or bottom of resizing die to be able to resize for a new barrel/bolt. If you wanna do it good, buy this set : http://www.forsterproducts.com/store.asp?pid=26979 If min. gauge does not go in, you have too short headspace. Remember to clean chamber and bolt before measuring headspace ! If some gauge is going into your chamber, check what gauge it is, take .002"-.003" shorter gauge and adjust your sizing die with that gauge (remove expanding/decapping rod first). Then you can be sure you do not have headspace problems.

When did I mention .40 heavy bullets ? I did not, so if you do not mind, please do not put words into my mouth If you use heavier than 180gr, differences between powders become smaller, maximum pressure level becomes lower with heavier bullets etc. Many IPSC shooters are known to be so fast they are breaking laws of physics, but you my friend are so far the only one telling me you are getting less recoil (which I understand to be softer recoil) with heavier powder charge and higher muzzle pressure. How would you describe difference between Clays and N320 in .40 ? Me myself, I hate "soft" recoil, it makes me shoot slow. I want my loads to give sharp and fast but light recoil impulse, like .22 lr with lightweight aluminium slide or 9mm Major with 9.5 oz slide. Not a single Limited M or GM shooter I have talked with (and who pays for his own powder), is using N320 or other V-V powder. There are more than a few, who say they do not like the recoil of N320. The most popular amongst them seems to be Clays. The competitive edge may not be huge, but why pay more money for something you get disadvantage with ? Sadly, those shooters are not sharing their knowledge here. They may be training right now and will kick my ass badly in my next match I do not feel bad to in minority and not to belong into "the big mass", in fact I think it is a priviledge G-ManBart, to call you rude never crossed my mind. I hope you do not think myself as a bad guy, so we can go for beer together if we see each other sometime What I would like to do, is to shoot a few rounds through pressure barrel and see what it is telling. Rule of thumb; if a load is safe in a pressure barrel it is safe by some margin in every IPSC pistol. There are few different methods developed to find out the exact pressure in regular gun based on pressure reading, but that info is the property of my earlier employee and it is pretty long story so I will not share it here. Unfortunately, primers can not be always considered as reliable pressure signs. For example, slightly long headspace or loose chamber rear end can make primers look like the pressure would be 2x than what it actually is. If you have longer brass it can look ok, but as soon as you switch to short brass you get high pressure signs. .005" difference in brass length can make a noticeable difference on how the primer looks. For regular handloader, case head expansion seems to be the most reliable. Yes, brass expands more in looser chamber (even on unsupported area), but you should keep in mind that the looser the chamber is, the lower pressure you can safely use. Just keep in mind, do not reload the same brass again and again if you are testing different powders. For example, pick up a box of brand new brass and use every one only once for testing purposes to maintain comparability. In some cases where you know your own gun and what kind of habits it has, know that headspace is right etc. you can see differences in pressure levels from a primer when you test powders with quite similar degressivity or progressivity. If powder is "fast" or "slow" in theory, it does not tell how it actually performs without knowing other specification of the powder. If you look (for example) burning rate chart found at www.hodgdon.com, you can see some weird things about burning rates when you compare them to real life. There are several important things QL can not take into account, one major thing being changes in powder lots. It is problem specially with companies that produce powder in small quantities, like V-V civilian powders. Other things being freebore dimensions, case capacity, primer type etc. For example, freebore dimensions have very big effect in how the powder is gonna work. Effect of the freebore is much bigger with uncoated pistol powders than with typical rifle powders/chambers. I could write a book about this topic, so if somebody is really interested we should probably continue this in separate thread.

Dave, you do not want to load exactly to 160 PF, I loaded between 164 and 166 in Europe. USPSA major PF floor is 165 why many shooters load to PF 170-172. Here is one load I used : Brass Magtech, primer Federal 205, bullet H&N 125gr KS, col 29.85mm, 3N38 8.4gr and PF 165. Please start your testing lower (like 7.9gr) as V-V powder lots tend to vary somewhat. Please note, that even small change in bullet length and/or col have significant effect on PF. Gun used STI 2011, Barrel STI Trubor 5" 3Nxx powders have quite heavy coating (3N38 has more than 3N37), you want to use small pistol magnum or small rifle primer to get best consistency. I do not recommend 3N37 or N350 for major loads, unless you really know what you are doing. I have seen too many cracked slides

So, you wanna guess what is N320 main content I would expect somewhat better knowledge from commercial reloader... Could you please read my post first before putting words into my mouth ? .40 S&W major is quite different kind of a thing and we should probably discuss about it in different thread ? Just to mention, case head separation is due to improper reloading process and/or too loose chamber for the pressure level used. For certain reasons, .40 S&W is more prone to case failure when compared to for example 9x19. According to pressure gun data, Clays has very straight pressure curve to the point when you compress it enough. Any powder will give you unpredictable pressure spikes when you squeeze it enough, however Clays allows you to compress it slightly without giving very high pressures. Of course, when you have no idea if you are compressing the powder or not you may get "interesting" results... If you have erratic pressure spikes with a pistol, you should check your reloading procedure and how much you are compressing powder. Many shooters think there is something wrong with the powder, when they get pressure spikes due to crushed powder. Partly because of grain shape, N320 pressure curve turns way high almost immediately when you begin compressing it, being also pretty linear to that point, but not as linear as (for example) Clays, specially when pressure is low. That is the same reason to many cracked Opengun slides with Vihtavuori powders, where compressed loads are more common with V-V powders. My point and concern in this thread : when you load 9x19 with heavy bullets and N320, start carefully. N310 is not suitable for IPSC pistol loads and generally should not be used. You can use it in loads like .45 ACP 230gr pretty safely, but only if you really know what you are doing. Btw; what type of pressure gun (SAAMI or CIP) you have used to determine unpredicateble high pressures and different kind of high pressure signs ? Most popular where ? Within Brian Enos forum users ? In Finland definitely yes, where nothing else is reliably available because of Finnish regulations. I do not go to movies... The way I see it as a shooter; for the same price I can buy 1000 9mm bullets if I buy (for example) TG instead of N320.

Akula, are you sure your ammo is headspaced correctly ? If you chamber resized brass without bullet, does the problem go away ? If it does, you have a problem with col and/or bullet seating (maybe little offset). If it does not, you need to resize your brass more. All shellholder/resizing die combinations will not push .223 shoulders back far enough when you have new barrel with tight headspace. You may need to mill (for example) .01" off from top of the shellholder or sizing die. Wylde chamber is loose freebore wise and mag length loaded ammo does not cause trouble often. However, 52gr MK has very long bearing surface as 52gr bullet so you should first determine rifle contact col with 52gr MK.

I shot N320 maybe ~20k rounds with production, military reservist etc. 9mm guns. Then I found TG and noticed lower pressure with slightly less powder when I was getting the same PF. I tried N320 in .45 ACP (works ok with heavy bullets, not very good) and .40 S&W (heavy recoil). I do not like to use it at all with 9mm and light bullets, in my opinion 125gr + N320 I can not shoot as fast as compared to (for example) Clays. I do not know how clean TG is, but my production CZ worked 10.800 shots without cleaning. Load used was S&B brass, Federal 100 primer, TG 3.1gr and H&N 145gr HP loaded to 1.11" V-V powder lots tend to vary somewhat... I would be rather safe than sorry if you do not have the same lot of powder - start with low charge and work it up. If you wanna pay close to $200 for 8 lbs of powder, that is your choice and I will respect it I just do not agree that N320 would be "the perfect" or even good powder for many IPSC pistol loads. It is pretty "easy" for .40, but here in US there are so many others too for almost half the price and some (like Clays) that give you a small competitive advantage over N320. Just be careful when loading long bullets short with 9mm... You end up with pressure level 40.000+ PSI very easily if you fo not know 110% what you are doing.

Mark, I have tested ~20 JP factory installed triggers (in JP factory rifles), not a single one of them has been what I myself would call "nice". You can make them nice, but often you compromise durability and have to tune them again after every 4000-5000 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 4000-5000 end_of_the_skype_highlighting shots. People have different thoughts and some shooters are completely satisfied with something other shooters do not want to use at all

I am getting that from 9x19 pressure gun data we shot a few years ago in Finland. Certainly you have to be careful with col all the time, but with some powders (specially with compressed loads) you have to be much more careful than with some other powders. If powder is "fast" (I assume you mean more degressive) that is one thing affecting how it works, but there are also several others. Where you are getting your opinion, that N320 would be "perfect to what we do" ? My opinion is, I am very happy to be able to use cheap US powders nowadays instead of Vihtavuori If your load/barrel/chamber are all in good shape both TG and N320 have very small temperature sensitivity. Many shooters seem to think that every variation is because of powder is temp sensitive TG is about 1.5x more expensive than N320 over there... So we might be able to negotiate some kind of a deal

That is because that Vihtavuori data was developed a looong time ago, when nobody knew what "IPSC" stands for Other thing is, N#20 is not very dense and 9mm + long/heavy bullet + N320 you end up very easily with compressed load - not a good idea with N320... When you start compressing that kind of powder, things start to change fast. It is little more sensitive to compression when compared (for example) to Clays, because of powder grain shape. Many US powders are (like Titegroup) are so much easier, do not have to worry about col variance, pressure peaks etc. Nowadays shooters in Finland are begging to get some Titegroup If you start with 3.3 gr and col is 1.17" or greater, you are perfectly safe with MG 147gr CMJ + N320. If you have to load short... I would choose another powder.

1 stage : Jard 1.5 lbs adjustable 2 stage : AR Gold You can make JP nice too, if you adjust sear engagement way tighter than what JP instructions say. Of course, "nice" trigger may be completely different thing to different shooters

I do not care about the price if the scope is good. Anyway it is only a fraction of my annual ammo/bullet/primer/powder cost. I agree, if you want to use ranging reticel with CQB scope, it is nice to have it on 1st focal plane - does not disturb FOV so much at low power but useable at high. However, I can not understand why I would want to have illuminated dot on 1st focal plane. When it is on 2nd, it is big with low power - easy and fast to find when shooting close & fast but at the same time makes fast&accurate midrange shots possible. S&B has the right design, if the actual product would in the same level as Swarovski Z6i I would have 2x S&B already IMHO if Leupold would have red dot on 2nd focal plane, it would be better than S&B. Btw; in Europe S&B PMII 1-8x24 has hitted the market some time ago.

Why could anyone want that kind of system... Okay, I say no more

To be honest, ballistic coefficient has very little to nothing to do with IPSC pistol accuracy out to 50 yd. What has a big effect on accuracy, is how uniform shape bullets have. Specially important part is bullets rear end. Like G.man told, method of making JHP or FMJ is different, specially rear end of the bullet is formed different way. To put it simply, with JHP bullet jacket rear end can be formed with much higher pressure than FMJ bullets rear end, resulting more uniform bullet rear ends and thus better accuracy. At least 9mm 115gr / 124gr CMJ´s are not very uniform from rear end, Montana Gold JHP´s being much better - JHP´s tend to group noticeably better and different groups are close to each other in my guns. Lets put it this way : JHP bullet is cheaper to make as accurate as FMJ/CMJ. There are some high quality FMJ´s for both rifle and pistol, however nowadays accurate rifle FMJ bullets tend to be as rare as chickens teeth.

But why they made it with 1st focal plane red dot... Argh

N340 will definitely make major easily, no doubt. How good powder it is to shoot, I would say not very... Here is one training load I used years ago : Brass S&B, primer CCI 500, bullet 180gr plated, col 1.16" N340 5,9 gr PF 178 Firearm used STI 2011 .40 S&W (not factory built). Vihtavuori powder lots vary alot, you may need to adjust your charge. Closest comparison amongst US powders might be Unique.

I use Clays for everything that does not have a comp. I like it alot, but you just can not use it with attitude : "I pick a load from powder companys manual and stick with it." WST might be my second choice and Titegroup third, specially for 9mm 147gr loads. I only shoot jacketed/plated so no experience here if some powder smokes more or less with cast bullets. Yeah, it is scary to see : "NEVER ever exceed our maximum loads!!!" but often they are as far from reality than moon is from earth. Specially with .40 S&W, where most people load their match ammo at least 1.17" long it makes a huge difference. Pressure barrels are usually chambered to meet minimum spec, which is something very different compared to IPSC pistols etc. What you do not want to do with Clays, is to develop a load where powder is noticeably compressed. That may be the reason why Hodgdon lists 3,5gr as a maximum load with 180gr XTP and col 1.125" - depending on brass, it is just on the edge. When you begin to compress hard that kind of uncoated flake powder, things start to change very fast. Easy way is to load your ammo longer. For example, (again depending little on brass) MG 180gr JHP + Clays 4,6gr col 1.21" is again very close to 100% fill ratio. With Clays, jacketed 180gr bullet and non-compression load, a good rule of thumb is that .04" shorter oal raises pressure about 6000 psi if nothing else changes. If you use compression load, pressure change is 1.5-3x higher depending on compression level.

With thumb rest, you can keep your thumbs directed downrange if you want. It is just a matter where you put it or how you adjust it. First I had CR Speed thumb rest for years, then switched to DAA adjustable because it was new and cool thing... FAIL I could not mount it backwards enough and the screw kept loseging all the time, then went back to CR Speed. I have always had to grind a little bit off from bottom of Thumb rest to be able to remove slide stop. I think you can not install scope mount high that you would not have to grind CR Speed thumb rest. Removing the thumb rest every time you clean the gun is NOT an option. I have had enough trouble with loosening C-more mount bolts already... I am remembering, you can get CR Speed thumb rest left handed too ? Can anybody confirm this ?