jeep45238

Just like shooting a rifle you want your finger about 90* to the bore when the shot breaks. Otherwise windage errors are produced.

Haven't found any gun that I can't do it on - assuming the pistol is charged using the slide stop not the sling shot method. If it's always been sling shotted, it'll depend on how well the slide stop and the slide cut are meshed.

Same here. Like the movie The Patriot - Aim small, miss small.

I like the Hornady LNL No BS Warranty Quality machining Quick n easy caliber changes Basically comparable to a Dillon 650 for a fair amount less $$$ I personally think they run smoother than Dillons or Lees That said, check out this review/comparison of all 3 - without the personal "get this" that you'll find on a web forum http://www.comrace.ca/cmfiles/dillonLeeHornadyComparison.pdf

O-H I-O

No, let's be honest about it - it's a short sight radius'd firearm floating in mid air. There may be some improvement, but nothing worth that amount of time and loss of brain function.

I wouldn't reccomend it. I just busted the handle off of my second one yesterday resizing lead boolits that are .001" too large. Full resizing wouldn't be quite as much force, but the cast zinc handle just isn't up to serious use. Look at an O frame press with a steel handle. Lee, Lyman, RCBS, Redding, and Hornady all make some nice units for about $100-$130.

Is it the spring that keeps the shells in place that's jamming it up?

Whatever axle grease is in my grease gun.

Ez-ject here

Sorry, amended.

Outside of the front strap/back strap (or full 360* frame stippling), are there any places that you prefer to stipple/checker/grip tape/roughen up on the frames of your guns? How about smoothing out? If so, where, and why? I've seen checkering on the bottom of trigger guards, and under the support thumb with thumbs-forward grips, but haven't had a chance to try any guns with these on the range. Just looking for more inputs on gear modification in addition to shooter technique

I had this on station 1. The female bushing of the press was too hard, and broke the locking lugs. Hornady sent me 5 replacements for free, no problems since. My powder drop does occasionally loosen, a quick snug with pliars and it doesn't happen again.

Most folks have to change calibers eventually, and it only adds on 1 minute (max) to your caliber change - versus constantly replacing a spring. Besides, every tinkerer has a dremel and polish of some sort, and a felt bob costs $1

I've seen quite a few folks complain about breaking the garter spring that retains the case springs. Some folks have them last 1000 rounds, then start breaking them at a few hundred, etc. I've loaded about 3,000 and haven't broken one yet - I do have 5 spares just in case though. The trick is to pop off the shell plate, and look at the groove where the spring rides down into the head, located right before station 1 where the brass is inserted. Take a dremel with a felt bob and load it up with polishing compound for hard metals. Fire it up and go to town on that groove, front to back, and down through station 5 where the cartridge is ejected. This will remove any burrs and smooth sharp areas that will catch the spring and ultimately cause it's breakage. The bob will likely destroy itself from hitting sharp edges, so be aware that you will have a limited amount of time to work. This is no problem, it doesn't take much. Hope this helps those that are having issues with this.

To those using these units, how many are using lead? Any issues with the unit gumming up from the lube? If so, how often do you need to clean the assembly?

Any chance of you taking some photos of the install/setup process?

Looks like I've got another tidbit to buy now. Guess I'll just have to step up and buy that, and another powder dump when I start doing rifles

That's more of a powder/lube issue than anything else. What combo are you using?

If you're looking for 17 round 9mm mags, this guy has a pretty good deal on them. $25 per delivered, 4+ qty. $27 per delivered, 1-3 qty. http://mp-pistol.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=24374 Not as cheap as Botach, but I can't morally give Botach any of my business due to how they handle things on their ends.

While it's certainly a pain to learn lessons the hard way, I bet you won't make that mistake again

You can add if you want, but I'm pretty strapped for cash and can't play metallurgist (but I do play one for school and work - along with statistician and ME). That said, there's 2 ways to increase or decrease the hardness - change composition, or heat treat. Zinc wheel weights are pure zinc, and will not melt at the low temp that the wheel weights melt at - pick 'em out. Stick on weights usually run 100% lead. The way I started off to tell the difference between zinc and lead was to give a squeeze with a pair of dikes, zinc is drastically harder than lead. You really don't want zinc in your mix. Clip on wheel weights run about 4% antimony - on the whole, wheel weights are a great alloy to make boolits with. You can add a small amount of tin, under 4%, and really crank up the hardness if you want on wheel weight alloys. These are just plinking, heck, even competition projectiles out of a pistol. Short sight radius, floating in the air, without a stock - it's unreasonable to expect rifle-like accuracy on paper out of a pistol, and therefore I believe it's unreasonable to try to perfect an alloy - it will be different each time, unless you buy your raw material from a major company that pours a few hundred plus pounds at a time. Generally those folks are equipped to check on the alloy content prior to the pour, and will modify the melt prior to the pour until it reaches their consistency. I water quench mine right out of the mold, and can get them hard enough that my finger nail doesn't do anything to them assuming I cast at a hot enough temp and work my hands fast enough. With the antimony in the alloy, water quenching will harden up the slug. You can take it further and heat treat them in an oven (that's not used for food, please) and quench with water after the fact for a much better heat treat that can chuck up to 30 on the Bn scale. I'm just getting into the world of casting with about a year of experience under my belt, but http://castboolits.gunloads.com/ has been very helpful. I deal with nickle superalloys on the heat treatments, and lead is a totally different ballgame from that and steel (which I did for a while at school).

New or used wheel weights ? It's pretty cost prohibitive to buy wheel weights new to melt them down. They cost about a buck/oz at the local parts store. 246 pounds of used ones cost me 50 bucks. A good fluxing takes care of any/all junk in the melt. I flux, cast into ignots, fill, flux, cast, etc. - then do bullets from the ignots, with a cautionary fluxing to catch anything that was missed in the first melting, or that found it's way into the pot between meltings.

This latest batch of wheel weights cost me $50, and should give a yield of about 9,000 125 grain 9mmcx19 bullets. Finances is why I do it

Working on getting some loaner 9x19mm dies (next week looks likely) - soon as I have a load dialed up I'll send in an app and some funds.