njl

Bumpy pins suck.

3.7gr is I think the Min according to Hodgdon. It's nice and soft, and probably under 700fps. But if you're just shooting paper at short range, it should be fine and not require swapping out springs.

For pins, AFAIK, bullet weight is more important than velocity. You want the heaviest bullets you can get...which probably means 147gr (probably flat point or JHP), and even then, you're going to have to get perfect hits to shoot against the people using .44s and .45s. I used to shoot pins from similar tables, and went from 9mm, to .40, to .45.

It's a good feeling...but watch out for the opposite. Showing up at a match with your reloads and having multiple squibs. I still have a dillon bin full of .45acp SP primed brass and Zero 230gr JHP bullets I pulled after having 3 squibs (at two matches) from a batch of about 150. Of course, all the ones I pulled had the expected charge of Clays. I've been reluctant to load any more SP .45 brass since then, and probably won't do it with Clays. I may give those components another try using WST.

The nice thing about the Dillon is you get to do two things at once. It sizes and trims in one step. When I was in your situation, I went with the RCBS power trimmer and multiple 3-way cutters, primarily because I also needed to be able to trim both .223 and .30 carbine, and none of the trimmers that index off the case neck work with "straight walled" brass like the .30 carbine. It's not fast...but I found that by mounting the trimmer right next to the press (and using the 550 as if it were a single stage), I can be reasonably efficient by a) resize case move case to trimmer c) resize another case d) remove trimmed case from trimmer e) goto b i.e. while the trimmer is doing it's thing, I'm sizing the next case.

1) you probably just need to hit harder with the kinetic puller 2) to go shorter on OAL, you don't need to pull the bullet. Just lower the seating stem and pull the handle again.

I believe there's a group of GSSF regulars on Glocktalk who use that bullet. I tried some of their 147gr round nose and had mixed results. At around 900fps, they're softer shooting than my 124gr loads, and I've never seen a problem with them in my G17, but in my G34, I got occasional tumbling/keyholing. They're so soft that the Dillon seating die stem leaves an impression on them. They seem like with the softer recoil, I should be able to get back on target faster, but in practice, I haven't seen that I shoot any faster with them. I've more or less decided to go back to shooting 124gr jacketed...as it's a less finicky bullet to load.

Why the magnum primers? Have you chrono'd? I'd guess that load gets close to 1200fps.

I think you mean 1.145"? Have you chrono'd that? It's about 10% below Speer's and Hodgdon's minimum load. OTOH, I load that bullet much shorter (closer to 1.1") and with about 4.3-4.4gr, it does over 1100fps.

Black powder 9mm?

I just tested dropping some of the loaded rounds into the G30, G21, and 1911 barrels. In all, they dropped in, shook around, and dropped out. The cut in the coating seems to be something done by the right side of mouth of the 1911 chamber. It's far enough up the ogive that I don't think it'll be an issue as far as leading goes.

I hadn't even thought about drop checking these into the various chambers. The OAL is so much shorter than what I'd done with 230gr FMJ that I didn't think being too long was possible. I'll check that and see what I find. I don't think I can use the SWC. From what I've read, G30s and SWC don't play nice. As for the huge blow-ups...believe it or not, those are iphone4 pictures. The rings a little more than half way up the visible portions of the bullets are from the Dillon FMJ seating stem. My only other choice would be to flip it and use the SWC side, but that seemed an even worse fit.

Here are some pics I shot of the "reject" bullets and the dummies. You can see on the left dummy, the cut in the coating one of my guns gave it while chambering or extracting. Looking at them again today, I kind of wonder if I was being too critical when I set these aside as rejects. Just to clarify, these didn't get torn up loading them with insufficient bell. I noticed the surface imperfections on these when I picked each of them up from the bullet tray, and they never met a case mouth.

My Rudy Project Magsters are all setup, and I've shot one match with them, which went well. I've also been wearing them for yard work. I do like the polarized lenses for driving, but I have polarized add-ons for my regular glasses that work as well. I tried wearing the polarized RP glasses to Disney recently, and they were just a little too dark for the indoor rides. I also had a set of Bolle T800 goggles (with RX-able insert) I'd bought years ago from Botac on sale, and I had them made up, and when I put them on, it's instant fog. As well as the RP glasses worked out, the T800 was just as disappointing.

I recently bought some 200gr round nose flat point coated bullets from Precision. I loaded two dummies and 50 test rounds the other night. My first dummy round was loaded to 1.210" and after test chambering it in a G30, G21, and 1911, I noticed that something had cut apparently though the coating just above the case mouth. I then decided to go a little shorter, and loaded the rest closer to 1.200". I don't think I can go too much shorter without losing the bearing surface under the case mouth, which I'm guessing is not a good idea. While loading those 50, I came across 3 bullets that were either damaged in shipping or production, where the coating on the bearing surface was either scuffed up or just not at all smooth looking. From my 1911, those might not be a big deal, but my reason for buying these was to have bullets for my Glocks for ranges that don't allow jacketed bullets. I'm guessing if the bearing surface coating isn't perfect, I don't want to put those bullets through stock Glock barrels. Is this common with Precision, and is it as big a deal as I'm thinking it might be? My test batches, I loaded with 4.5 and 4.7gr WST. I'm hoping to get somewhere in the low to mid 800s FPS out of these.

This may depend also on the exact gun and the powder being used. I've found MG 124gr JHP's to work best from my G17 when loaded shorter, like 1.110"-1.115".

Actually, now that you mention that, does anyone know if there's much difference in the behavior of JHP vs FMJ when shooting steel (or somewhat softer hard targets...i.e. bowling pins)? Is either more or less likely to: a) fragment on contact ricochet c) send jacket fragments back at the shooters

It'll be interesting to see what Glock says when you send them that slide. I bet if you wait until it fails, they'll replace it.

Where, wikipedia? First, if you'd read further into the page, you'd see the bit about JHP designed for match/accuracy: Second, I just fixed the top bit where it gave an incorrect (and later contradicted) blanket statement about JHP being designed for expansion.

I have, but haven't loaded as many PD 124gr JHP. With MG's 124gr JHP, I've found they give more consistent accuracy when loaded shorter. My latest batch was loaded to 1.112" with 4.4gr Universal Clays, and they do 1120fps from a G17. Prior to going shorter, I was not at all happy with the MG 124gr JHPs, and was considering trying to resell them (to get rid of them).

At least the 9mm 124gr JHP I've got from PD and MG, the actual "hollow point" is so small/shallow, I wouldn't expect them to expand much if at all. OTOH, Zero .45 230gr JHP do expand (some...not as well as something like a Gold Dot) when shot into jugs of water...they also shed their jackets.

I've found with some of the SP .45 brass, it's very obviously SP, but others, I just can't tell until it's been deprimed.

Except that I don't see why/how a squib would lock the barrel and slide together. Unfortunately, I have had a little experience with both problems. The stuck issue I had was using factory IMI 9mm ammo in a Glock 19 with an aftermarket (Federal Arms) barrel with a tight chamber. One round was just a little too fat to fully chamber in that barrel.

It probably makes more sense to start by asking your reloading friend what powders he has. I've loaded soft 147gr ammo using 3.4gr Universal or 3.5-3.8gr WST (depending on how soft you want). These "soft" loads do in the neighborhood of 870-920fps.

I assume this was an out of spec round (probably would fail if you gauge it) that had not gone off because the gun never got fully into battery...and it didn't want to come out because it was stuck in the chamber.