matt2ace

.........and if the slide of the G22 had not cracked right through the recoil rod hole, I would probably still be using that sight.

+1.....Great thread. I did not see any mention of 'new shooters clinics' in this thread. Most of us agree, it about getting a new shooter to that first match and making it fun. At that point the hook is nearly set. In many cases, it's early skills building that will keep the shooter coming back. A number of posters to this thread have already outlined the downside to some input new shooters get early on. New shooters clinics offer a way to give people new to this sport a path to learning HOW to shoot and WHAT to use when just starting out. You don't need M or GM shooters to hold a clinic.......but you do need a couple of good A-level or even high-B shooters who are willing and capable (that is key) of teaching others basic IPSC (or IDPA) shooting skills. These clinics help greatly in retaining shooters and taking away some of the misinformation and opinions that tend to discourage rather than encourage. This sport can be as intimidating as it is exciting, especially when you are new to it. We all need to learn to be mentors to new shooters, working to adopt them into our fraternity, not scare them away with visions of $4K open guns, $125 mags, $150 holsters.....and the list goes on.

Most of us have heard the saying "You can never miss too fast" As a C-shooter in the high-50% range, I have been working towards making "B" for a couple of years now (yea, stuck in the mid-50% for more than 2 years!). Last year a put a lot of focus on calling shots at matches, but did little in the way of practice between matches. The result was good scores and very few, if any, misses over the course of the year. However, my times were consistently slow. If I tried to go faster, it usually ended up pretty poor. It was only when I focused on practice drills at home (draw, cadence, mag changes, etc.) and live fire practice between matches did I start to see progress in speed while maintaining accuracy. As I see it......going faster is all about learning to make all of the fundamentals from draw to shot-calling an unconcious action. Brian and others on this forum have stressed these points many times before. Very few of us are natural shooters, we need to learn and train if we expect to be both accurate and fast. I also highly recommend using video of dry-fire practice (I use my still camera in video mode with a cheap tripod) to analyze your movements. It's also nice to have a good instructor to help critique your technique.

I have one JP that stopped holding zero after 4 years of use on a G22 slide. After some investigation (re-zero after each stage of a 5 stage match ) I figured out that the verticle adjust screw had become loose going out of adjustment as I shot each stage (you could see my hit point change as I moved through the stage). My solution was to put a drop of loctite on the screw after I zero'd the sight. The sight zero has not moved since. One word of caution........don't get the loctite in the area where the LED projects the dot, it will ruin the site. I used a pin to put a very small drop of loctite on the screw. The lack of locking screws, as they have on the DrDot and Burris sights, is one of the downsides to the JP and Optima sights.

Thanks Chuck.....I will keep it in mind when I try this configuration out. Should work for my JPs atleast.

I have never had a big problem with dot brightness on the 2 JPs and 1 DrDot that I use. However, brighter is better and I am going to try the 2016 battery method. As for risking a problem with the sight using 2 batteries......no worries there. The LED light sources used for these compact sights are very robust. The typical lifetime of the LED is 50,000+ hours. The increased brightness will not reduce the life of these LEDs at the voltages and currents involved.

I have 4 Taylor big-sticks.....40 cal functions perfect with 24+1, 9mm goes 28+1 I did find that the capacity was down by 1 with brand-new springs.

7.8 gr Silhouette 124gr CMJ (MGD) 1.162" OAL WSP or WSPM primers (mostly WSPM) STI (very) shorty I get similar results as posted by other user's here. ~170PF and very low SD (4-8 with same headstamp, 5-10 with mixed headstamps). No signs of pressure issues with either WSP or WSPM (magnum primers are supposed to have higher pressures)

Check out the CCF website. They sell magwells now......~$60

This is not the first comment I have seen on residues with Silhouette. I am shooting it now at 7.8gr to make a 170PF in 9mm and, atleast with my gun, I don't have any signs of residue buildup in the gun. Maybe the configuration of my gun has something to do with the lack of residue. The powder is very nice to laod with, the higher density keeps the cases ~3.4 full which works better with my 550 (less spillage). The powder also exhibits some of the most consistent, low standard deviation numbers, even with mixed, once-fired cases. I usually get an SD between 5-8 with this powder

This is my first year shooting a 1911 style (STI) open gun, I have been shooting a GLOCK in open for the previous 4 years. My first match with the gun was a DQ on the th stage due to an AD (impact 9ft from my feet). I was taking off the safety as I drew the gun......finger indexed to the trigger too quickly and BANG! Not only did I have to relearn (I shoot L10 with a 1911 for several years) to disengage the safety on draw, but I also had to relearn WHEN to disengage. The safety now comes off as I am extending the gun towards the target. I preceive no other difference than the added safety of having the gun pointed in a safe direction before the safety comes off. I am sure that there are shooters who safely disengage the safety on the draw......but there really is no advantage and its not as safe.

I now have GLOCKWORX triggers installed (G35 limited gun, G24 9mm open gun) and found these triggers to be comparable to the Vanek trigger I used in my 40 open gun. Charlie's trigger has more pre-travel, though he does include the pre-screw which I have not played with. Trigger pull is comparable in the 2.25-2.75lb range. I would recommend either trigger without hesitation.

Just curious to know: here in Italy common price for N320 is about €30 per 1/2 kg (1.1 lbs) keg. If you buy it by weight, from gunshops who buy 25Kg kegs, then you might be able to get near half that price, but (AFAIK) there's only one such source here. Last time I bought 4Kg and paid €120. Can the US market price be more insane than this? Dutch market is worse: €44 per 1/2kg for N3xx Strange, I pay €110 for 2kg N320? Wow! 30euro = ~$45US for 1.1lb.......in the US N3xx powders run around $23/lb.....~$25 per 1/2kg ........and we thought VV powders were expensive in the US! Many of the US made powders quoted here run in the $50-60 range for 4lb (+ hazmat shipping charge).

Broke 2 Glock 24 40-cal barrels in using my CCF frame. First time, I thought it was a defect. Stormlake replaced the barrel and the locking lug broke off clean after firing 7 rounds on the second barrel using the CCF frame. I was then told that you MUST fit all aftermarket barrels to CCF frames. The frame works fine with stock barrels.....I am currently using my CCF frame with a G35 with the stock barrel (IPSC limited gun). I also used this CCF frame with a G22 Open slide (5-port hybrid barrel) without needing any barrel fitting.......however, the slide cracked just recently across the recoil spring hole. This is a weak point in the slide when it is cut for a hybrid barrel. I suspect this crack is due to the added stress of running it on the CCF frame, but I could not fully verify that suspicion.

The density of this powder got my attention because of case volume in the 9mm vs 38super. I know from searching this forum that a lot of the powders used for 9mm major end up with compressed loads and longer OAL that can, in some cases, make feeding in the gun more troublesome. Silhouette is a higher density powder making a compressed load unlikely atleast at the 7.8-8gr range running 1.165-1.170 OAL I heard very little if any concern with over-pressure under those conditions either, atleast in this post. Cost is nice too, at around $60-65 for 4lb.

One thing I like about Silhouette from a reloading prespective is that it does not fill the case too the top (2/3 - 3/4 full at 7.8gr) when compared to some of the other powders I have read about. It does not appear that the load is compressed in 9mm major. This powder is much denser than many other powders which definitely helps limit any spillage in a progressive press (I have heard and read complaints about this problem from a number of 9mm major shooters).

I just finished setting up my 550 with Silhouette and loaded up 50 rounds at 7.8gr for my friends Trubor. Seems to meter very consistent for me. I checked powder weight every 10 round and it was right on at 7.8gr. I have my G24 setup for 9mm major (4-port barrel, no comp) using Power Pistol (6.4gr) and 147gr MGD (170PF). I will be shooting with it for the first time in a match on Sunday. Very soft, dot nevers leaves the optic. From my excperience, PP is not dense enough to get a load that will make major with a 124gr bullet, especially with the comp setups in most 1911 style pistols. Since I will have a Caspian by spring, I decide to try Silhouette based on posted in this forum. I don't expect to get up to VT much before March.....when I hope to pick up my gun from Scott and shoot a match with it. Matt

We might have crossed paths once or twice I thought you were using VV for your shorty, otherwise I would have send you an e-mail directly Randy. I am working up a load for a friend shooting a Tubor while a waiting for Scott to finish my Caspian shorty. Matt

Thanks Chuck..... I did try several searching for Silhouette......not sure why I did not find the threads. I will check again....probably a spelling error 40 open.....been there, done that! Crack slide on my G22 open gun moved me to 9mm major using a G24 converted to 9mm now and waiting on a Caspian 9mm from my gunsmith. I use Power pistol for the G24 right now but want to try out Silhouette based on what I have read about it on the forum. Matt

I thought it would be good to start a new thread on 9mm major specifically for Ramshot powders. I am just starting to work on a major load using Silhouette and was interested in any information from members on 9 major loads with this powder specifically. As the title says, any discussion of reloading with Ramshot powders would be welcome in this thread.

Just finished setting up a 9mm major load for my G24 (converted from 40 to 9mm) with a stormlake 4-port barrel. 6.4gr Power Pistol MGD 147gr-CMJ WSPM 1.153 OAL Pf = 170 (avg of 3 strings of 5 rounds each) SD 15-18, ES 30-40 Going to 6.6gr gave a 175PF with similar SD and ES I have used PP for 40 open for a number of years. I found it to be a very clean powder though a bit noisy. Just ask anyone who has RO'd me shooting a G22 with a 5-port hybrid barrel (some called it painful, but I never noticed ). The 9mm load felt nice a soft with the (Jpoint on slide) dot tracking up/down very consistently. OAL is definitely a lot shorter than used for 1911 style guns due to feeding issues with Glock mags. The MGD bullets have a nice round nose on them which makes them feed very nice through the gun.

Very similar to the problem I had with my open gun.....only I am using a JPoint sight on a Glock (slide mounted). Never needed a single adjustment for almost 5 years. Sights were always dead on when checking them. Suddenly, I am hitting to high and right at a local match. I adjust the sights between stages, gun shoots OK for one stage and goes high by 4-6 inches by the next stage. Turns out that the height adjustment screw on the JPoint was getting loose after 5 years (10k+ rounds) of riding the slide. JPoint has no locking screw for the adjustments so I simply put some loctite on the screw once I sighted it in and the problem has not occured since.

In my case, I have used Power Pistol exclusively for the past 5 years with 40 major and minor (180 gr) and now for 9mm major (Glock 24, 147gr). The only change I noticed was the lower SD. I have heard similar reports of pressure spikes with fast powders.

I have been working on an 9mm major load for my G24 open gun using 147 MGD and Power Pistol. With OAL at 1.14 I had no feeding problems, but was about 50-70 FPS short of major (@~6.2gr PP), but no feeding problem running 100 round through full 22 rnd extended mags. I am going to try 1.15 for the next round of loads, adding about 0.2, 0.4 gr to the current load if only to add a little more space in the case for the additional powder. All the searching I have done indicates that Glocks feed well at up to 1.155 OAL, but it is always better to verify. BTW - I can run factory OAL 9mm through my extended 28 round (TF +10/11 extensions) without any feeding problems.

I just finished some chrono work with 9mm major, 40 major and minor loads....all using WSPM. I noticed the SDs were pretty low (6-8) in the 40 when compared to my historical data (14-18) with exactly the same lot using WSP primers. The 9mm major load SDs were also quite low.