saibot
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Posts posted by saibot
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Thanks all for the great info. I think I have everything I need and will call Brian tomorrow.
Thanks again!
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Experts, I have a Dillon 650XL that I've been using to build 9mm and I would like to start reloading .223/5.56. What do I need to buy? I know I want a new shell plate so I don't disturb my 9mm setup.
1. Which dies? I was looking at either the Lee Pacesetter 3 die set or the Dillon 3 die set (or the Dillon 2 die set and the Lee FCD).
2. Do I need to buy a different expander/powder filler die?
3. Anything else I need to order? I have all of the reaming/sizing non-press items. Anything I'm missing for the press?
Thanks in advance!
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Well that sounds like a pain in the ass. Have you called RRA? They might just do it for you for free.
Ya, it kind of is. I sent them an email but have yet to hear back. I'll probably have to call them if I want a response. May be quicker to attempt it myself.
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The piece to alter is easy to find.
Look at your magazine and see where the hole is on the side (aluminum mags)
That is where the mag catch goes into the magazine and holds it into the gun.
Take off the top end of your AR15 and then insert the mag. Look and see where the piece is that is inside the magazine well and holds your magazine in.
If you take that part out, you file down the top part of it just a little, then try to insert your mag again after you reinstall the part.
You want to take only a little off at a time. If you take off too much, the bullets won't feed and you will have to buy a new part.
Randy
Ahh. OK, I see. I'll give it a shot. Thanks!
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If its not the mag
Then its an error or tolerance stack up
If so, it can be corrected by milling the top edge of the mag catch...just where the catch fits into the mag
This will drop the mag lower in the well... as little as .005 to .010 can cause this.
Jim
I tried a few different mags (metal and pmags) and all seemed to do this.
Any chance you have an image of the part/place to alter?
Thanks, Jim!
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Hi experts. I have a RRA AR15 than I cannot get to accept a magazine while the bolt is closed. If the mag only has a couple of rounds and I hammer it in sometimes it'll take it.
1. Is this normal behavior?
2. If not normal, what can I do about it?
Thanks!
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From what I have been told, there is an easy way to adjust the eyepiece. You need to be looking at a white ceiling or wall, or a clear blue sky. Mount the rifle exactly like you will when shooting. As soon as you look through the scope the reticle should be clear and sharp. If you spend any time there, your eye will adjust to an out of focus reticle.
Adjust the eyepiece until the reticle is sharp almost instantly. It usually take big turns to get there, not fine 1/8 turns. At least I hope that is the correct way. It has worked for me many years.
Great advice! I will try this as soon as I can get back out to the range.
Thanks again!
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Duane-
I do tend to hold my breath, so I'll work on that.
Chris-
I have played with it and wasn't sure if I should focus it on the crosshairs or on the target. Good to know I should put it on the crosshairs.
MarkCO-
"If the scope focus is off, your eye will be able to adjust, then tire and lose foucs"
That really makes sense and will be the first thing I work on. (and the breathing)
Kevin c-
Wow, you have a lot of contacts! I'm 36 and have always had really good vision, so no corrective lens...yet. I mounted this scope myself to what seemed to be the right distance, but who knows if it's correct. I really don't know how far it should be from my eye so there may be a problem there, too.
Thank you all for your help with this! I'll play with the ocular focus on my scope next time I get to the range and let you know how it goes.
Thanks again!
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That's clever. I haven't heard of that one before. But it does confirm right eye dominance for me.
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Have you ever ascertained which is your dominant eye? Sounds like you might be left eye dominant.
When I make a little hole with my hands, look off into the distance at something and pull my hands back to my face I am looking through the hole with my right eye. So I guess I'm right eye dominant.
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I was thinking about entering some of my gun club's rimfire matches so I just picked up a Savage FVXP and put my Bushnell 2 - 7 on it and started plinking away. A couple things I've noticed is that my (right) eye has a hard time looking through my scope for very long. The crosshairs get fuzzy and I can barely focus on them. I can look away for a while and get off a shot or two before it starts up again. Then I can't get the target AND the crosshairs sharp. I have to focus on one or the other. And then my vision is not right for a while after shooting. Is this normal eye fatigue and par for the course? Any tips? I've always shot iron sights so this is all new to me.
Thanks, all!
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Thanks you guys for the responses!
I know ultimately I'll need to chrono them (but I don't have access to one) and was hoping for some cool rule of thumb or mathematical trick I didn't know about to figure it out.
Oh well. I will set to 3.8 and crank out a test batch and beer-bribe someone with a chrono.
Thanks again everyone!
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I've been shooting Precision Bullets 9mm 125g bullets for a while and bought BBI 130g when I wasn't able to get the PBs. I was using 3.9g of AA Solo1000 and now I need to know what you all think about adjustments with the new heavier bullet. Would I need to reduce the powder to maintain PF? If so, how much?
Thanks!
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I like this one myself:
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whatmeworry-
Thanks for the tip about the small screw locktite. You are right in assuming that if those were loose the others may be too; they were. I found the manual on BE's Dillon pages and read them last night so I had a pretty good idea that something was out of whack because there really isn't any adjustment in that area. Tearing the whole thing apart gave me an opportunity to get more familiar with how everything works as well as clean, lube, and tighten everything. It's clipping right along now.
Rolex-
Ya, I noticed the S&B were tight. Before my buddy loaned me this Dillon I was using a Lee single stage press and had plenty of time to get to know how each brand felt when I hand primed it. I could have told you which brand I had just primed with the lights out! I have a boatload of S&B which always scared me to prime since it seemed like it might go off while priming it. My hand still hurts from that Lee hand primer!
I'll have to check if the one case that didn't prime right was a S&B. Good catch.
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Alright, I think I have it working well now. The two key adjustments I made that made the most significant improvements were finding and tightening the two very loose bolts under the shell plate, and stretching the spring for the indexer block. These changes as well as breaking everything down and copious amounts of cleaning and relubing have this thing working well and silky smooth with no chatter. Out of 300ish rounds I only had 1 primer get jammed improperly.
Thanks to all who helped me get going in the right direction!
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Everything is clean and moving smoothly on the machine? If so check the following... with the shellplate empty, look at the priming station and see if the primer is centered with the shellplate slot for the cartridge. Looks like yours isn't. This might be the problem which is why the primers are not seating correctly. To adjust for centering the primers with the shellplate you will have to adjust the indexer block which is located on the left side of the machine (nine oclock looking down on the machine) just under the shellplate platform. The block is steel and has a 45 degree ramp on the backside of it which works in conjunction with the plastic ring indexer which is mounted to the shellplate platform and encircles the main ram shaft. Working together they cause the shellplate to rotate clockwise and stop in an adjusted position at each station.Two hex head bolts secure the block to the machine frame which can be adjusted forward or back to adjust the position of the shellplate to center it over the primer. Loosen the two bolts and adjust the block forward or back to center the shellplate over the empty slot in the shellplate. While your at it smear a bit of grease on the ramp surface of the block.
CYa,
Pat
Whatmeworry, I may be my own worst enemy. I did mess with the indexer block because it was causing a bunch of "chatter" when the two pieces touched. I lubed, cleaned and re-lubed to no avail so I played with the angle/alignment to reduce the "chatter" and that is probably what threw the primer section go out of alignment. So I guess I now have two questions:
1. How do prevent the indexer block chatter?
2. Why don't the cases enter the shell plate all the way a lot of the time?
Thanks again experts!!!
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Hello experts!
A good friend of mine loaned me a pretty much unused Dillon 650 and helped me get it setup. I am however having a couple of issues with it. I seem to be damaging quite a few primers, see poor image:
I'm not sure if something is out of adjustment or if it has to do with the case having a problem being fed all the way into the shell plate and quite often hitting the side of the resize/decap die. I've adjusted it as far as it can go so maybe I've got something else really out of spec that may cause both issues. I'm starting to get nervous that I'm going to set off a primer!
Thanks for any info you may have!
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Your description sounds exactly what I went through six month ago. I too have the MarkIII for practice! I was planning on getting the Glock until I held one. The angle was all wrong for me and their barrels don't allow for lead (cheap) bullets. I tried the XDM9 and the M&P9 and fell in love with the M&P. It has 3 different backstraps to fit your hand and just feels right (for me). I've put over 2500 rounds through it since then and it has been extremely reliable. The only issues I've had have been from a batch of bullets I made that were too long (not the gun's fault). It has ingested everything else I've put through it and is more accurate than I am!
/2 cents.
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I use the Bladetech M&P holster and double mag holder on a CR Speed belt. It works great for my FS9.
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I'm using the same bullet in my M&P with VVN320 as well as starting to use AA Solo1000. I've tried 3.8 - 4.1 and smoke is very minimal with each of these. I've recently had some bullets separate on me (OAL problem a couple threads down) and the coating was unharmed. I barley bell the case and it doesn't take it off. It appears to be a pretty tough coating.
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al503, I checked thirty of them and some are harder than others to get back out. None of them just fall out if turned upside down, even some of my old batch with the old taper die.
Can you see any groove marks on the bullets you're pulling out?
You might also want to make sure that the chamber is clean. Take a bronze brush and make sure that there isn't anything or any build up in the chamber.
al503, I kept the two bullets that came apart in the barrel and they do have a mark right at the point where the tapper ends and the .355 begins. I'm guessing that the little extra OAL I used was just enough to engage the smaller section of the barrel. I hadn't cleaned it after the last match either so there's a good chance it had plenty of gunk in it. I'm guessing that all of these things worked in concert to push the crimp over the tipping point. I'll remedy all of these things and let you know how it goes.
Thanks again!
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Thanks for all of the great advice!
Looking back through my reloading data I noticed two variables that were changed when I made this last batch of bullets. I went from the taper die to the LFCD, and I went from my usual 1.1325ish OAL to closer to 1.14ish in hopes of having a little softer load. I think I have the LFCD set correctly and will verify with my calipers, which leaves the OAL change as the likely culprit. I'll run them back through the seating die and see if that fixes the problem.
And Fullrace, I wish needed to check with all of the stations in place! I'm still cranking them out on my Lee single stage press!
Since I'm still learning (obviously) the finer points about reloading I'm just fine with going slow and focusing on one thing at a time...for the time being.
I'll buy something from Brian before too long.
Thanks again everyone!
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I keep a wordpress blog and post after each time I practice, compete, and reload. At the bottom of each post where rounds were shot I list the gun(s) that was used, how many rounds were shot, and the running totals. I like this more than just a spreadsheet because I also post details about the event. Using my iPhone I take pictures of the targets I used for practice or if it was a match, pictures of the courses and add the match results as well. It allows me to track way more than just round count and I also tag each post with a category(s) and keywords so I can search easily and only see posts about my AR or M&P. It will also allow me to see a picture of any course I've shot and correlate it to my score in the results. I especially like it for my reloading data. I can go back and see all of the details about a batch of bullets and how they performed on the chrono.
/works for me
Small base die?
in Rifle/Shotgun
Posted
Hello experts! On your advice I purchased the RCBS X-DIE to reload my once fired (mostly LC) 223/556 brass. I just noticed that someone was told to get the small base die which I did not get or use. What's the difference? Will it matter that I didn't use it?
Thanks!