redmanfixit

I really like the Lee factory crimp die. It provides a consistent "pull pressure" and there is a carbide sizing ring at the mouth of the die to insure that the completed round meets at least maximum tolerance for caliber. This crimp type also reduces the issues with case deformation that an overenthusiastic roll crimp die can produce if there are variations in case length and malleability. Taper crimp dies really don't provide the consistancy as there are variations on wall thickness of cases from head stamp to head stamp. With cartridges that headspace off the case mouth I think you get a more consistent function.

My production rig from COM has a thumb screw tension adjuster which makes it easy to adjust retention. When you order your belt, pay particular attention to the waist size you order. It's a good design, but if you order too big a size, the Velcro does not line up properly to fully support the outer belt.

Just thought I'd toss in my bit. I have a Production rig (belt, mag pouches and holster) for a CZ75 from COM. I also have a holster for a Gold Cup and various single mag carriers for my carry guns. Rick is great to deal with and as mentioned above good to talk to on the phone when he has time. The quality of finish and fit on his gear is excellent. It's all built well and works. I think it's as good as you can get and only personal preference or a whim divides his from the others. I am impressed that he supports the RM300, a match here in Colorado that's growing in popularity and attendance, with great prizes. I plan to spend more money with him. SO!!....Support the guys who support the sport!!

Been tusseling with this around here too. Please notice that when there is a chrono at a major match, it's in some kind of a tunnel with an artificial light source. Lighting conditions can have a profound effect on the readings you'll get when testing ammo. As with any engineering process, if you want accurate results, eliminate variables. Your loads might be just fine as they were!

GSSF is a corporate sponsored shooting event. It is structured to protect the "deep pockets" of a corporation from an attack by lawyers. Honestly it's a little pale compared to USPSA. That said though, come shoot anyway! It's a great place to get familiar with the basic format of a pistol match. It's family oriented. It's VERY safe. (No drawing, running or IPSC athletics) A bit tame compared to a full blast USPSA match or 3 gun but ya gotta start SOMEWHERE!! It's a bit intimidating the first few times you go to a match. Many of us that have been doing this for awhile forget how overwhelming it can be trying to sort everything out that's going through a beginners head in those first few matches. Glock sure makes up for the "tameness" by offering prizes and support. What other manufacturer will supply a factory trained armorer to overhaul your gun and magazines as part of your match fee?? I help put on Glock matches in Colorado and I have to tell you I love it when I see families, (Mom, Dad and the kids) come out to shoot!! I think they're a great way to ease people into the sport! Good On Ya Glock!

Please DO NOT QUIT! Don't get discouraged by well meaning fools.

Don't forget to breathe! The fastest way to change the way you feel is to change your breath. If you attend the pattern when you're nervous, it's probably shallow and from the diaphragm. Let your shoulders down and slow and deepen your breathing pattern, it will calm you down and clear your mind.

The Lee 20# bottom pour at 240v is a good deal. It works well and at 240 uses less power than the 120v. There are "nicer" casting pots but for the money the Lee works well and I don't mind tightening screws and fiddling with gizmos. I saw the mention of a Magma system. So right, VERY nice but pricey. Search for posts on this forum (Flex, you're a God of the forum, pointer perhaps?) by J. Morris. OK THIS guy can make anything, I think. I plan to SHAMELESSLY steal his VERY cool design for an auto caster that he has posted photos of and described with the post. I would CHEERFULLY pay for drawings and a parts list (HINT HINT) should The esteem-able Mr. Morris have some means of providing same. (OK you OBVIOUSLY have a plasma cutter DUDE!) I'm thinkin' kit here. But you're probably having too much fun shooting! Your evil Texas star is wonderful, by the way! Nothing against Magma, really nice and professional but I have more time than money right now, myself and it's just a pile of steel and solenoids! Maybe a PLC or two and some oven parts. (Do not attempt this at home we are trained professionals blah blah blah) This is AMERICA we used to be able to build anything!! Walmart won't carry this stuff!

Full Quote from Buckaroo Banzai Into the Eighth Dimension "Now now don't be mean! Remember, no matter where you go....there you are"! Brian is absolutely correct!

If you're going to process scrap (I do all the time) you should think about moving outdoors to do it. LOTS of smoke and nasty crap to deal with that comes off the melt while you get it cleaned up. I use a camp chef outdoor 2 burner stove for heat. You can easily use the burner for a turkey fryer to do the same thing. I found a cheap dutch oven at a local ranch supply. Works nice because it'll hold about 100# of alloy. That's a magic number for me as it makes adding hardeners and wetting agents fairly simple. (Tin and antimony). DO NOT BREATHE the fumes that come off this. I use a box fan like you might use in the summer to ventilate your house to push the smoke away from where I'm working and a dust mask (a good one) to make sure I'm not getting that stuff in my lungs. You'll need some kind of flux to get the junk to separate from the metal. I'm a bee keeper so I'm tripping over beeswax. Makes a wonderful flux and it smells nice too! I have a strainer spoon made of stainless steel to stir the pot and help dip debris out. A small 6 cavity ingot mold and a ladle. All that ever gets into my casting area are clean ingots that go into my Lee bottom pour casting pot. I set up my casting area with a "fart fan" and duct work to exhaust the fumes from the casting pot directly outdoors. You can use 2 melt pots when you're casting to really run some bullets out. One to melt alloy and hold it at temperature and one bottom pour pot to cast from. Lee makes good quality accessories (thermometers, molds, hardness testers) that are not horribly expensive. Take the admonishments seriously about clean up and ventilation. If you don't, you can easily lower your IQ to the range of your shoe size! The dross from all this processing is poisonous!! PLEASE dispose of it properly. If you can find a metal recycler, take it there and you won't be dumping a no shit serious toxin into a landfill! Lead oxides and heavy metal byproducts are reproductive and central nervous system poisons!

When I'm doing operations to any rifle cases, I prep most cases on a single stage press for decap and size. Lanolin is what the "OLD GUYS" say is the best lube for sizing. I think that's whats in Dillons spray sizing lube, it cleans off easily. The care you need to show in preping rifle brass over pistol is related to the pressure they work at. You won't be able to get the same number of reloads out of brass for a gas gun as you will for a bolt gun. You'll be better off to take your time on case prep so you are more likely to spot bad cases and thus avoid separations because of the way brass flows. Once you re-size, trim and ream or swage primer pockets, loading them up on a progressive is simple. Nuthin' like a separated case in your AR to really slow you down in the middle of a stage! (.308 OR .223) Or even an M1A1! You either pay time or you pay money.

It's gorgeous!! I put a techwell on my match gun. (1911) I really liked the way the grip surface eliminated the need for skate board tape. Very little modification to the frame to make mags slip into it like a dream and there are 3 sizes of well. I found the carry size to be exactly what I needed. Looks REALLY clean. I personally like an arched mainspring housing too and I also shoot Glocks. I got a 21sf because I do not have the hand size for most larger caliber double stack guns. The sf fits well. I find that the grip angle with an arched housing and the "European" grip angle of the Glock send the recoil shock wave in a more columnar direction down my radius and ulna. It also feels like there is less battering on my Metacarpals as I think they are stacked more ergonomically at that angle. I really notice this after running an bunch of rounds through in practice or some of the higher round count matches. I carry a commander size gun with Novak fiber optics on it and for quickness the large size of the front dot pulls the eye right to it. I prefer a yellow color fiber for the front because I'm older and even if I'm not in the exact spot in my bifocal to get it sharp I can hit the A zone very reliably. Yellow green transmits through an older crystalline lens with less scatter than other colors and the retina is in peak sensitivity in that color band. The lens system in the human eye focuses those colors optimally. Details details. Looks like a keeper to me!!

Interesting topic. No one seems to have looked at industrial food though. The classic American farm is down the road. It's about agribusiness and cost/profit ratios. Our foods are loaded with antibiotics, toxins of incredible sorts and hormones to accelerate growth. I have posted "rants" here about biofilms which I wonder if anyone can even conceptualize as regards the effect they have on our nervous systems. We consume enormous quantities of simple sugars (corn sweeteners) and artificial sweeteners that have been shown in the lab to have toxic effects on our nervous systems. These food components feed the flora (microorganisms) we carry around with us, selectively. Sadly what we are feeding are the toxin producing ones, not the most beneficial ones. We are reliving the lost lessons of Sinclair Lewis in "The Jungle" brought into the future by regulatory agencies that are essentially run by the corporations they were instituted to regulate. You are literally what you eat. If you eat CRAP all the time what do you think will happen in the long run??? Feed your children clean food, clean water and simple healthy snacks. All dis-ease is traceable to imbalance on one or another of the continua of the experience of existence. Activity vs inactivity. flexibility vs strength, on and on and on. DO not eat packaged convenience foods! Learn to cook. Garden. Most of the really functional pharmacopoeia we have in inventory of tools for health care is rooted in traditional herbal remedies and STILL works perfectly AND YOU CAN UNDERSTAND how to use it if you make the effort to educate yourself. Industrial medicine is about sickness, not health and wellness. Quit giving your power away to institutions that treat you the way a parasite would. To them you and your family and all your hopes and dreams are "cash flow". Use the technology if you have to but get away from it as fast as you can. If you are stupid, too bad nothing can be done. Tragic but there is no remedy. If you are ignorant, especially by choice or thru allowing yourself to be manipulated by fear....then you have exactly what you deserve! We live in a quantum universe..no s**t! The implications are staggering. We have been given free will. Such a simple gift. If we figure out what to do with it we have the entire universe as a toy. If not we die. America's top model ....bullshit! Collectively, we are making all this up. A physicist once said to me " There is an uncertain relationship between the manifestation of physical reality and consciousness". Think it over!

OOOHH! I like Commanders. Bet this one is gonna be nice. PICTURES....definitely Pictures!

Cha-Lee San! I think you should take MarkCO up on the offer of the X-rays! If indeed there are inclusions in the slide from which the crack is propagating, I can't imagine that what little fiddling you've done with your gun would cause them to void the warranty. Particularly since you would likely be able to count on support from both James and Henning as regards you NOT being an idiot. I think Tanfo wants to be a brand in USPSA and I also think if they found out a little about the drive you have shown in becoming a top shooter, they'd want someone like you running one of their guns!! Both you and James are careful hand loaders ( James, I've been around when you've been testing ammo ya know) and as far as I can tell all you guys do is shoot A LOT and really fast!! Gun oughtta hold up to that, I'd think!! I'd make sure that copies of the films were included with your request for consideration of a warranty. In stressed parts especially, manufacturing engineers are constantly trying to eliminate defects of that sort. Ya never know!! There are other companies that have figured out how to make high quality STRONG investment castings, I would expect them to be very interested in failure analysis to improve the product!! If they're NOT I would certainly like to know, as after shooting yours I thought I wanted one! Just my 2 cents worth, and quite possibly worth EXACTLY what you paid for it too!

Teaching is a Noble pursuit! Especially if you work diligently to be good at it. I think that good teachers develop a positive balance in the Karma Bank and Trust and are awarded bonus points when "The Light" goes on in a students eyes!! Keep after it and you'll very likely keep posting Giddy threads that indicate you appreciate your wife and like Sushi too!

It may not be at all conciliatory, but lately I've been handling the revos I used to shoot way back before there was USPSA! Jeff Cooper was still alive as was Jack Weaver, Bianchi was still a small shop. Heck I even shot it at a side match last weekend! AND I remembered how to run it after a few rounds!!!! Probably it's an Alien mind ray or sumpthin'! Time for the Tinfoil hat!!

I really don't understand why you all would be surprised about a question like that!?? Look at the top shows on the good ol tube. America's Top Model. (Form, totally devoid of substance) The Bachelor (Seems to me every one of these "happy" couples are divorced now.) Any " Reality" show. ( C'mon, TRIBES, again??) Same theater as in the Colosseum while Rome went down the tubes. This is MUCH improved though. You don't have to go out, it comes right into your living room! This is the mental equivalent of of having a steady diet of "Agri-food" " Oh yeah, I'll have 5 or 7 more of them Pop Tarts". I'm surprised she didn't ask if he gets Botox!! Kevin C WHERE do you FIND stuff like that?? That is hysterical!

This is where there are great benefits to the social aspect of this sport. I notice that every club I shoot at has present, a core group from that area. Rarely do you find core groups in this sport (in my experience) so "cliquish" that you feel unwelcome. There a bit of reserve present though, till a person gets to be known. Given the potential consequences of mistakes by inattentive or poorly trained shooters, this is PERFECTLY reasonable. In most of the clubs in my area, a total stranger is encouraged to attend the safety briefing, perhaps a little more strongly than someone that comes in with a well known participant that might say " I shoot with this person all the time at ______ and they are doing well, I talked them into coming to this match today". Everyone finally must do the safety class but benefit of the doubt goes a long way to communicate openness. We let them know the safety rules. Firmly. Detail explanation of the policy and the admonishment that there is nothing personal involved in the DQ even if the RO is "adamant" in the force of the range commands. Usually a little humor since several of the "executives" in our area clubs are Purple Heart recipiants, and they'll inevitably pipe up and say "I been shot a couple times, and it hurts! Besides we shoot back!" or something like that. After the DQ, when it happens, everyone is kind of "watching" the reaction. I know there have been times when we see a new shooter that makes everyone so uncomfortable that several of the "senior executives" ( many times LE ) will escort the unfortunate person the the gate hand them their gear and say " Bye now, don't come back", it can happen, but that's pretty rare. Nobody shoots on the clock or for score on the first visit to clubs in this area and they shoot free. So perhaps that's the "ice cream"! Show up with a good attitude, willing to learn the sport and what happens is you overhear conversations offering consolation and offers for some coaching or suggestions on better technique. One thing about this sport that makes me so proud of being a member of it, is how inclusive it is and how willing people are to help get someone a good start! I've seen few sports where high level competitors are so available to just BS with, when you get squaded with them. This creates a right use of peer pressure, I think. It is so cool when you see someone "get the bug". Often, they initially show up with who knows what kind of ideas about what they'll find, jittery as a junebug, and a couple matches later they've made new friends, they're well on the way to becomming safe responsible competitors. You watch them just blossem out. I think it's this aspect of IDPA and USPSA that's making them grow, as much as the fact is that it's fun! Sooner or later everybody is going to DQ, the important thing is everyone goes home safe and with a good story to tell!

You'll like it here! This place is wide and deep. Have a blast!

Thank You. Be safe as you can. Come home whole. Thank You.

Thiamine, which is in the B family of vitamins is a natural bug repellent that happens to be good for you. Makes you taste nasty to the biters! Most of us are B-vit deficient anyway. Remember that the military has bug net overwear for really bad insect environments. Now think that through a little. Given the kinds of things you get exposed to in the Military and the mostly casual response to those exposures too much deet is TOO much deet! If you look around you can get them as a kit with a supply of the Uber-Deet you treat them with. Hell, it'll even take the finish off guns! The idea of having sacrificial clothing is a good one! Cotton over garments (at least deet won't eat cotton right away!) can be soaked with deet and taken out of some insoluble container and put on over your outer wear. Keeps the bugs off and the deet off your skin. There are insect repellent garments you can get. The bug juice is infused into the clothing and apparently won't wash out. Stuff like that makes me a little nervous but at least the chemical isn't on your skin. Travel Smith and Banana Republic used to sell them. Both those outlets may be gone , here in the FUTURE, but I bet the wonders of Google will get you through. Personally I use the combo of Deet sprayed on my outerwear and Thiamine. I'm a red head and bugs think I'm a real sweetie. This works so well that when I go fishin' with my redneck pals they end up asking me why the bugs aren't bugging me. Sometimes I tell them about it!

There's a bunch of excellent information on this topic in Richard Lee's latest edition of Modern Reloading as well.

Thanks for the reminder. I'm thinking that a great deal of the reason we are where we are, at present in our homeland, is too much forgetting. A real test of how a country is actually doing is how many people want to go live there. It is because of people like the ones pictured above, that this is true. I hope I can live up to that standard!

A long time ago, I owned a Ruger single six in .357 Mag that came from the factory with a spare cylinder chambered for 9mm. Thing shot great. I'm kinda sorry I swapped it off but I was young and not too smart! From that experience I don't see why it wouldn't work!