CocoBolo

I've probably loaded over 200k rounds of 9,40,45, 223 rem on my LNL. The key to seating primers is too simple. If brute force isn't working you are just are not using enough. My up storke is a jab and it knocks the primer all the way in. I do keep a flat washer under the primer punch to make sure I get all the travel possible. Small are easier than large primers, but again "If brute force isn't working you are just are not using enough". CCI, MagTech, Rem, Federal they all work equally well when driven in with adequate force. I had 2 Dillion 650's I got rid of one and kept the LNL, easier to operate, adjust, and is more reliable than the 650, the 650 wins the rounds per hour race by just a few rounds, but at the end of the day the pile by LNL is larger, since the Dillon broke something during the day.

Weaver generally makes good stuff, I've shot several truck loads of deer using a Weaver 4x from the 1960's on a 30-06. One of my 3 gun rifles has their 1x3 and it won a 3-Gun match on Saturday and on Sunday in the first stage the lens came lose, it went back and it has been rock solid for 3 years. Next up on the Akdal is the EO Tech, I just need to take it off my Rifle put the new Burris MTAC on the Rifle. I know you need good stuff, just need to save up some money and do the right thing.

Time to Mount the Burris MTAC I bought a year ago and go shooting. I read last year a couple posts on how to Zero this scope for multi Gun. I have a 20" rifle and will be shooting my 69gr Sierra Match King reloads. I'll probably start out on a combo 25 yard and 100 yard range, so any tips will help. The most common match I shoot has paper out to 25 yards and flagging steel out to 200 yards. I do have the instructions that came with the scope, but I read something about using the top and bottom of the big dot but don't recall what the tip said about that.

I just blew up another Red Dot on my MKA 1919 I think this one is a third generation. We were shooting clays and I took the opportunity to put the MKA thru its paces. First off I have 4 10rd factory mags and the gun performed flawlessly with1255 FPS Shur Shot Rem. I just kept pulling the trigger and it kept going bang. Next up the 5rd factory mags, on ran fine the other one produced failures to feed as well as light hammer strikes. To this I say GO FIGURE. To say it is an odd beast is correct. Now finding a Red Dot that is tough enough to hang on it is another issue. Barska 50 mm tube red dot lasted 5 rounds, the Weaver Mini Red dot well, it lasted about 25 rounds then went to shutting its self off and finally the true death. Life time warranty its going back to them, till they get sick of fixing it and buy it from me.

Dang and I just shot 50,000 rounds to get over it. I'm just tongue tied.

The dot should track up and down, this isn't a function of pf, it is more related to how well you grip the gun, more balanced that brute force, however I have found that side ways motion can also vary from one powder to the next, mine does a little sideways zig zag with AutoComp, but tracks straight up and down with Silhouette or HS6. Your recoil spring has a lot to do with how well you shoot, the most popular is the 9#, I run a 10#, because the timer says I'm faster with a 10#. It takes a good while shooting open to get your eyes fast enough to track the dot and even longer for you brain to comprehend it. Personally I hate the holes, but from shooting the same gun with and without the holes, I'm DTD down to drill, it takes a lot of the flip off at the beginning of recoil, David Rea has a great post here a couple years ago about his Brazos with and without holes. The TrueBore in particular is under comped, so it needs that little bit of help IMHO, and that fat overweight slide need to be whacked down to fighting weight, then it is as good as anything out there..

I loaded a lot of ammo for major matches for my SIL shooting my 226 with Zero JHP 125gr and to be sure it made crono every time 4.3gr of TiteGroup. My suggestion is get off the plated and get jacketed bullets Montana Gold, Zero, Hornady. I've never had trouble metering anything in the LNL, maybe you need to go down to the auto parts start get a can of brake cleaner and remove all lubricant from all parts of the powder measure and drop tube, inside and out. Loaded 100k's with absolutely no lube of any kind on mine, never bridges. Put a washer under the primer seater, and remember rule one, if brute force isn't working you are just not using enough, a good hardy jab seats primers all the way.

Those truebores are hole deffficent, drill a couple #3 holes in it and crank it up to 175 pf and they work pretty good. My 9 major has crooned at 189 pf, hasn't cranked anything yet.. Mostly I run around 175 pf it just shoots better at that level, 7.7gr of Silhouette if I drop the load to 7.4 I make major but it is bouncey, I guess I need to drill it!

If you go to precisions web site on the FAQ it plainly says not to use TiteGroup. There is a reason for this, it melts the assend of the bullet off before it can get out the barrel, leaving a trail like a sea gull flew thru it. What you save on the powder you will use in flitz cleaning the barrel. That said Precision and Bayou bullets take about the same charge, @3.0 for your application. Both Precision and Bayou bullets are excellent. Also look at that FAQ on the precision site, and if you are using the Lee FCD, don't, it undersizes the bullet and causes it to wobble down the barrel leaving a trail of moly and lead, for you to clean up. OAL and charge while related are apples and peaches, you vary the OAL based on how it fits and works in your gun, like the man said find the size that is accurate, well that comes after you get it to fit and feed. Loading Manuels are a good guide, but unless they have the exact same bullet you are loading you have to make intelligent adjustments, which you did by starting low, now you just need to work it up to where you want to be, and in that realm my rule of big toe is to make it as long as will work in the gun, no shorter, as longer is always safer when it comes to pressure. I load 9 major I live dangerous every time I pull the trigger, my loads are way off the charts. WST, N320, W231, will work without the melt down of TiteGroup, and produce better results.

Few years back I got some of those blemished pulled bullets from MidWay USA, and the problem was they kept lighting the targets and range on fire. Yep, a few tracers mixed up in those 9 mm pills. Other than that my results were mediocre due to my less than stellar skill at the time, not sure its that much better now.

I had a shade tree gun smith stieppel my grips, I call it the cactus pattern cause it sticks to you hand no matter what, but if it is either grip tape or bare standard STI I would go for the grip tape. I went to the local sporting goods store and got enough sticky sand paper, aka skate board tape for $3.00 at the local Academy to cover every gun I own 5 times.

I tumble my mags on a regular basis, it gets the inside good and clean, and you can feel the difference when loading them. yes, I use an Arrrendondo brush every time they hit the ground but powder residue I think builds up in them towards the top. My old mags rust don't have any new ones, but the tumbler takes care of that.

If you are using the Lee FCD that could be contributing to your accuracy issue as it under sizes the bullet. However, with the measurements you have I seriously don't see much chance there is any consistency velocity or accuracy and would speculate that gasses escaping around the smaller diameter bullets would cause premature barrel failure, negating any potential savings.

5.6 with AutoComp @115 is a good load use 5.2 with a 124. For self defense buy factory ammo, any Attorney will tell you that. But for me I go 7gr of AutoComp. Homemade Zombie Max. OAL depends on the bullet and the chambering of the gun, my CZ75 Compact will eat 1.145 RN or CMJ, but other bullets may require a shorter OAL, you have to fit it to the gun.

You got a lose nut on the loader! Yeah, seriously, every time you put primers in make sure that the fail safe nut has not backed off, or do like I did double nut it so it don't back off. If you can get one that powder check is a good investment, I quit using it since I load mostly 9 major and it makes a mess, but I had one for a year laying around one day I decided to try it, amazingly I was loading faster, since I did not have to look into the cases, and it caught a variance of +- .3gr. Compared to blowing up a gun the powder check is dirt cheap.

The MTG bullets are about .0005 smaller in diameter than the Zeros. I'm using Dillon dies on one press and Hornady on another one and I have no clue what brass I am using what ever I get, it all works fine. I loath me a U-Die makes my arm hurt and cuts my speed in half, I started off with Lee dies, I got a lot smarter since then, and sold them all off. Hornady or Dillon, and RCBS for rifle. But I seen a few locals have to buy another die when there bullet were falling to the bottom of the case! And they seem to be about every brand sold. Check all 9 mm brass with a magnet if it stick ditch it.

I use to process brass on a single stage till I broke it. I do prep and loading on the Hornady Lock and Load, use the RCBS small base dies, (my third set of dies and the best ones I have found). I use the dillon swagger, but sometimes just chunk the lee primer pocket reamer in the drill press, it is faster than the swagger but the swagger does a better job. Trimming I use the WFT, chucked in the drill press, Lymann had tool for chamfer and deburr. I like one shot on the outside of the cases and the Hornady Unique in the neck, put there by rubbing some lube on fore finger and thumb then sliding the case neck over the finger. Wilson drop check, knowing how to use it means everything. I drop check cases after full sizing before loading, and again after loading. I keep the rejects in a practice bucket, a few of those have had to be slam ejected, slam the rifle down on the ground to eject them. The Hornady powder measure works great, sometimes I even use it on the XL650. Cleaning the cases after sizing, they go into Fine Walnut I bought at Harbor Freight, love that stuff, corn will get jammed in the flash hole. Load 10 drop check them, if it looks great dry cycle them thru the gun. If they are hard to eject, well you need to lower the sizing die, if it is all the way down cut it down .005, or get the small base dies. Almost forgot, I clean the sizing die as needed or about every 200 rounds. If you start to see dents in the case the die is dirty.

First lets clear the air on USPSA. The fastest Limited Gun in Texas shoots an Eagle, GM David Wears. So, the Eagle in 40 is an extremely competent gun in good hands. Another Limited GM i shoot with also shoots the Eagle and prefers it to the heavier Edge the defacto most common Limited Gun, he currently shoots Open, aging eyes. So yes Eagle rocks for a limited gun. I prefer the heavier Edge. YMMV IDPA, I don't shoot it much but every time I do, they bitch about my gun, even my USPSA legal 45 single stack, its been to the box and scales several times, legal, then I proceed to piss them off by shooting all head shots. Its a tack driver. Ok enough COCO humor. With the low round count in IDPA stages I just don't seen much advantage in downloading to minor, and there isn't enough cost savings to make any difference in cost. Shoot major forget about minor. Just start with a good load that will give you recoil similar to a 9 mm with 40. Stick to the heavy bullets 185gr Precision is my favorite or the 180gr Bayou, with 4.7gr WST or 4.5gr N320 at @ 1.185 OAL. Jacketed bullets take 5.0gr or more to get to major, and the recoil can be a bit snappy. STI Mags - In 40 I bought 4 over the counter mags, put "DAWSON" followers in them and they have run for 5 years with no tuning or modification. They don't hold as many rounds as the Grams or Bolens followers but they are 100% reliable, which is way more important than an extra round. I have 8 mags for my open guns, 9 major the hardest to make run, all are just plain stock mags with either stock guts 140's or Grams followers in the 170 mm big sticks, these run 100%. I would have more confidence in this tuning if they did it with the gun, how can a mag be assured to work if you have not tried it in the gun? Want to make the gun choke load up some short ammo @1.140 or shorter. New STI Gun: You got about a 50/50 chance it will run out of the box, if you order it from Dawson, for an extra cost you can get him to "run test it" he has a range in the shop, it will need a trigger job anyway and you will want the fiber optic sitght etc. I bought all my STI's used, except one I had built, they all run 100%. Dave Dawson is good people so is Bob Londrigen at Brazos. Reloading - In 2008 I was shooting 40 all the time, a box of 180gr 40 was $7.57 I didn't reload, shooting 2,000 rounds a month cost $300, today it would cost $800 to $1000, and that would have me sitting at home knitting. Even with todays component costs I can reload 2000 40's for $400. I load a lot of .223 and shoot them, my .25 a round compared to $1.50 a round is way cheaper, and my reload with 69gr SMK's a way better. The cost of the equipment is a wash, if you get a Dillon press reload for 10 years and sell it you will get almost all of your money back, so it was basically free. I started reloading with $1,000 best money I spent in the sport.

Sounds like a violation of COCO rule 3. Giving away the easy A's. The D Koenig low mass hammer is my favorite, however, if your gun is running, working 100%, that violates another rule. If it ain't broke don't fix it. The timer is a tool we use for more than just matches. Maybe you need to measure your split times so you know where you are in the world of shooting. Recently at a match we had a stage started off with "Point Blank" blasting (24 near point blank shots) followed by a plate rack thru a port at 30 yards. After everones runs we started looking at split times in the burp section mine were .18 but the fastest shooter was .12 and that shooter had 4 mikies in the burp section, so I beat him in the stage and it was enough to allow me to beat him in the match, though I encountered premature empty mag because I was whaling on the trigger so fast some times I shot 3 instead of two, but a little Giving Away the easy A's took him out. Those while open gun splits were not enough to hold back a limited shooter with a VIP, he whoopped both of us with .20 splits, and had all A's. Rule 1, Nevery rush the shot, take the time you need to make the hit, but only that time. Rule 2, Nothing worse than a slow miss.

Somebody show me a broken carbon fiber tube, that wasn't stepped on by a Rhino, drove over with an 18 wheeler, or Squashed with a bob cat bucket. My daddy always said jr could break a crowbar, well I haven't managed to break the PRI yet. I have to agree Mark CO knows way more than most of us, he is running a CF tube so I must have guessed right when I got mine. I really did not know how much I liked my lite weight gun till I built a new gun because Obama said I couldn't have one, bet me buckwheat. Any how politics aside, the heavier gun, which I thought I wanted taught me how much I like my old gun! Sometimes you have to go down the wrong path to figure out you were already on the right path. Which CF tube is right for you well that may just be a matter of preference. If I get another one I'll try Marks. The only thing the heavy gun does is make shooting long range a bit easier since its harder to move. Plus with all the rails I can hang a couple flash lights, a cleaning kit, a roll of toilet paper, an a I-pad on it. Ooops that's not me that is those Tactical guys at the IDPA match. I have rails but now all I want to do is get rail covers, they might be good for something I just don't know what.

I have a PRI, what is good about it? It is carbon fiber weighs nothing, makes the gun light. When compared to my backup gun that has a Quad Rail aluminum unit, it is one fat bertha butt. Why is light weight good? Swings faster stops faster. As you might know, perverted 3-gun stage designers like making senior citizens run a 100 hards with the rifle, then take 500 yard shots with a plastic barrel for a support. One less pound adds up on the run.

I was wondering the same thing. My thought is that in the context of what he was talking about ("Essential Equipment"), CocoBolo meant a case gauge. The real question I have is what are "dowas"? No disrespect intended to CocoBolo... I love it when he chimes in on a thread. I seem to always learn something new from his posts as the guy is a wealth of knowledge in everything I seem to be interested in.. but seriously what are "Extra Dowas"? Extra Dowas are things like a round counter, little twinkle lights hanging in the press, powder measure knobs, micrometer adjustment for powder measure, bullet feeder etc. I have a bullet feeder, I used it some I didn't think it was much faster, I load with a hand full of bullets, and stuff them Like Lalanie Laker stuffs a shotgun! While not necessary a primer flip tray is nice to have, but you can do it with two pieces of card board if you use win or cci primers. Hold the primers up to the card board roll it over remove the primer plastic holder place a second piece of cardboard on top and flip it again. Or get the Hornady primer flip tray, the best one out there, easier to lose on the bench than the big expensive Dillon but works better. Primer tubes, I have a bunch of Dillon tubes, basic inferior, I use just one Hornady tube and its got 100,000 of primer thru it. Load it up dump it into the press, load it again, start cranking, doing 200 at a time works well. If you use Dillon dies get decapping pins and some c-clips, you will need them, with the Hornady dies get the pins. Loading manuels, I have several like brand new, collecting dust. so I qualify as having them. I don't use them I use the reloading data from the powder mfg site and Brian Enos forum, and some times I travel out on the ragged edge and do my own thing. Don't do this at home kids. Borrow a dusty book from a friend after you get going give it back. Drop Check aka Case Guage aka Plunk Check. These definitely need a full instruction manuel. If it don't fall all the way in and fall out there is something wrong, but people stuff them in and poke them out and wonder why their gun chokes, go figure. This is time to go ISO9002 at the drop check. It will not catch everything, high primers drop check fine, an extra long round no problem. This is where those bullet case come in handy, in the case with the primers up, look at them, also if there is a long or short one it sticks up or is sunk down compared to the others. Rifle requires more stuff, primarily a trimmer, a primer pocket reamer, and a chamfer and de-bur tool. For pistol start with Jacketed Bullets! They are almost idiot proof.. Lead, Moly, and Plated bullets are harder to get right, tumbling is not right, taking a crap in the barrel isn't right and a host of other potential issues. When working up a new profile I just load a long dummy round (no primer or powder) don't crimp, I put it in the barrel (out of gun), then I take my thumb and mash it in till it bottoms. After I remove it I measure it and subtract .010. Try a new dummy at that length. Load up 10 dummys and cycle them thru the gun both fast and slow. And that is as easy as it gets. (note that they must fit in the mags). Crimp - In general when the bullet is seated measure it, after the crimp is applied is should be .002 smaller. This is a start point. Measure the OAL press it against the bench firmly with the thumb, measure it again, if it moved more crimp. Final check cycle a few rounds thru the gun, measure them again if they move more than .003-004 something ain't right. Crimp is little of the hold, it is the neck tension that holds it. Belling - just enough you don't cut the coating or jacket, you should be able to sit the bullet in the neck.

My 140's will run without the spacer but the 170's were not 100% without the spacer so I just used the spacers in all of them, except the SVI's which run 100% without the spacer. I use the plastic in the 140 and metal in the 170's. After 3 years the plastic spacers are still working fine and looking good. The steel master is a cute little toy, I shot a friends some with minor ammo and it was more bouncey than my full size open gun with major. It could just be me but I find no use for minor loads in an open gun. YMMV

I found that the main issue I had with CZ first DA was the length of the pull, so I put a CCGW (Cajun) disconnect in the gun which made the pull a lot shorter, albeit a tad stiffer. I find the shorter pull worked for me, the single action I actually went up on the main sprint to 10.5# as you couldn't tell the trigger pull from the return spring, reset is nearly as short as my open 2011s. With a good load it recoils about like an open gun, just need to be louder.

I started on a LNL great machine, reliable, simple, and easy to master. I had two Dillon 650's sold one kept the LNL. Either machine is a great machine the Dillon is more complicated and harder to master. If you load lots of calibers and I do on the LNL it is less expensive and easier to change over. If you mostly run one the Dillon 650. When you get the case feeder the cost is about equal for the set up. I'm sure that the 550 is a great machine however not being progressive offers up a good opportunity to load a double or a squib and my observation is that most that have them were on a 550 YMMV, and you can do that on any loader with no effort at all. A loader is like a gun an investment, its not like buy a car where the value plummets, in that regard Dillon holds its value better than the LNL. I could just say that I am getting nearly free use of my Dillon 650 because I can get almost all of my money back after loading a 100,000 rounds, no foolin. Essentials: Press Caliper Analogue or Digital Scale (if you only get one then get a beam, they don't go ape shit when the weather changes.) Dies Conversion Kit (for dillon on bushings for LNL). Cheap Hammer Bullet Puller. A drop check Tumbler & Media (Primers, Brass, Bullets and Powder) Not required Strong Mount Roller Handle Extra dowas like trays ets. Nice to Have Powder Check. A good solid bench I made mine from the lumber from an Emu pen I tore down, go tired of chasing the rascals when they got out.. Nice shelf with 20k of bullet and lots of brass and she is rock solid.