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I'm shooting them out of Glocks...and so far I've tried MG 124 CMJ and PD 124 FMJ...and not noticed any difference between the two in velocity or accuracy. I'm only pushing them about 1060fps from a G17. It seems like MG is the easiest to get...they're the only ones that seem to generally be in stock. Shooters Connection seems to be back ordered on all the zero's I've looked at. Anyone know how long the wait from them is? Even though the MG were apparently tumbled, they still feel like they have some kind of lube on them.

I'm getting close to the end of my first case of Montana Gold 124gr CMJ and would like to try some JHP next. Are Zero 125gr JHP worth the extra $8.50 per 1k vs MG 124gr JHP? BTW...now that I'm getting close to the bottom of the case, I've noticed MG must tumble their bullets. There's what appears to be fine ground corn cob in bottom of the bag.

Do zero jhps expand or are they jhp just for better accuracy?

I've bookmarked Shooters Connection for when I need more .45. For 9mm 124-125gr, how do Zero and MG compare?

If all your brass isn't your own purchased brass (either you bought it new, or bought it as ammo), I think it makes sense to sort it regardless of caliber. Particularly in .45 and 9mm, you have the possibility of crimped primer pockets, berdan primed brass, odd primer size (some .45 brass uses SP primers), crap brass (AMERC) you probably wouldn't reload by choice, etc. This also gives you a chance to look for other issues with the brass.

I have 124gr FMJ from PD and 124gr CMJ from MG. I just measured a couple of each and depending on how the bullet was turned, got .3545 or .355 consistenly with either. i.e. no difference I could see.

Are you using it on a trim mate?

Are you sure about that link? That appears to be the wrong tool. Wouldn't this be the right tool for removing military crimp? http://www.midwayusa.com/viewproduct/?productnumber=574821 I'm still debating buying the RCBS trim mate case prep center or the Dillon SS600. The RCBS will do more things than the Dillon...but I don't know if I want to cut vs swage, and the RCBS crimp removal tool has mixed reviews with some saying the tool dulls quickly and becomes unusable.

I wonder why Dillon doesn't do that with all the presses? I guess because the stock handle on the lower end ones is the ball head and rotation isn't an issue with that...but how much more work would it be to drill and tap and then include the screw with the roller handle?

I had this problem too, but found at least with the 9mm loading I've been doing, if the brass is lubed, I don't have to pull hard enough to rotate the handle.

Well, the 2 rings worked to a point. After my first stage, it didn't take long to find all my brass. After the second stage, I found most of them. After the last stage, I found some of them. The rings made it possible to identify the brass...but as the size of the haystack grew, the needles stood out less.

If you have to ask, you're not going to notice any better accuracy with an aftermarket barrel. The downside to them, is they're pretty much all going to sacrifice reliability and may even change POI. Most aftermarket barrels (any claiming to be match barrels) will have a tighter chamber. Tighter chamber = more likely to jam as the brass gets wider or the chamber gets dirtier. I had a Federal Arms Glock 19 barrel at one point (younger and dumber) and with factory IMI ammo, it would jam (failing to get into battery) after just a few shots. It worked fine with Blazer.

Isn't storing the primers and powder in sealed steel cans a no-no? OTOH, a .30cal ammo can will hold a pretty good amount of loose loaded ammo.

I finally got around to taking the primer system apart. I'm a little confused by step one. "Polish the frame, wherever priming slide touches it, with green scotch brite. By frame, do you mean the press or the primer housing shield (20263)? Part 14015 (primer track bearing) sits between the press and the priming slide, and appears to be painted black. There's a bit of wear through the paint on it from the slide...but I kind of had the feeling if I hit that part with the scotch brite, I'd remove all the paint. There was quite a bit of black gunk (not sure if it was built up powdered paint or spent primer residue...guessing the latter. It seems like the most contact is between the priming slide and the track bearing. my track bearing even has a few rough points on it...almost like a little grain of something got into the paint when it was wet. Should this part be scotch brited til smooth...regardless of what that does to the coat of paint? After thoroughly cleaning the slide and bearing with alcohol, things are smoother, but when operating the press, the primer slide still has just a bit of jerkiness to its movement. The part of the operating rod that goes into the operating rod bracket was black with "gunk". Is that area meant to be lubed, or was this also primer residue?

I wish PD had customer service like that. I found around 1.5% of their bullets had split jackets. I emailed them about it and included macro closeup pictures of several examples. They told me they had trouble opening the pictures and they'd get back to me. They never did. I haven't ordered from them again.

I bent one early on by trying to decap a case that had a spent primer inside it. As happens on the RL550B, sometimes spent primers don't end up in the spent primer cup...and this one time, one landed in the empty case bin and found its way inside a case waiting to be loaded. Now I've made a habit of turning every case up side down before it goes into station 1. I haven't found another primer that way...yet.

I thought about using red, but it didn't seem like it'd give good contrast against brass, especially in poor lighting (indoor range). I ended up doing parallel rings of black around the lower 1/3 of the case, hoping the zebra striped brass will stand out.

That's pretty much what I was thinking of doing. I just "easter egged" about 200 rounds. I'll see how that works next time.

In my experience, that's usually the outdoor ones (where separating the brass from the dirt/grass is a bit of a PITA). Indoors, where it's easy to sweep it up, they probably consider it a revenue stream. I've even been to indoor ranges where they really didn't want you picking up your brass but would let you if you insisted.

I thought about that...but I figure the range probably considers the brass left behind theirs...and I don't want it to seem like I'm taking "their brass". I'd just like to leave with approximately what I arrived with. I think I'll try marking them better first...and if that doesn't work, just try picking up the number of brass I've shot and see if anyone complains. Virtually nobody else seemed to be concerned with picking up brass...and I know there were a few other reloaders there.

I read somewhere about using a sharpie to mark brass, and it's worked great for identifying my brass when I practice alone or in small groups. I just paint a stripe across the head/primer...and when picking up the brass, it's easy to see which is mine. I shot an indoor IDPA-like match the other night, and thought I'd go a step further and put a stripe of black sharpie on the side of the brass as well. When the match was over, there was probably about 1000 empty cases on the floor, and I only happened to find a couple of mine...didn't want to resort to digging through it all to sift out the rest of mine. Does anyone else do this sort of thing...and if so, has it worked for you? I think the problems were, 1) marking the head is useless when there's a ton of brass laying on their sides on the floor and you want to be able to cherry pick yours from 6' up, 2) the side marks I did didn't go all the way around the brass, so more often than not, the side marks weren't facing up. I'm thinking a ring of sharpie all the way around the bottom 1/3 of the case may work a whole lot better. Or...do you just shoot your least favorite brass at matches and figure it's going to be lost? edited out weird past-o...how the heck did that get in there?

I just had my first sideways primer in my RL550B. The end of the upstroke just didn't feel right at all...so I stopped and tried to pull the case out of station 1 to check primer seating (I do this occasionally, even when things don't feel wrong). I found I couldn't get the case out. After a bit of head scratching, it occurred to me, "raise the shell plate, and whatever's causing it to stick will probably let go". Pulled the handle down just a bit, and that worked. The primer is "seated" 90* off how it should be. Is there a safe way to deprime the case, or should I just toss it in the trash? I'm guessing I'm to blame for the sideways primer. Based on my stock of primers, I've loaded 3900 rounds of 9mm since getting and setting up the press (got it new via BE). I've cleaned the exposed areas and lubricated the piston once. I haven't touched the primer magazine or primer bar since setting it up (other than to load primers). I ran it dry of primers tonight, with the intention of tearing it apart for a good cleaning when I have more time. How often should that be done (cleaning the primer magazine and bar)? BTW...I'd noticed recently that the primer bar doesn't always move smoothly, but rather sticks and jumps...and wonder if that could have something to do with it.

Overlubing factor into the slide cracking? Well.... No...I didn't mean to say it did. Was just saying...the lube looked a little wide spread and thick. Glocks don't need much lube.

Maybe it's just the magnification, but it looks to me like you were way overlubing that Glock.

Because with out it I get jams weak handed. Stove pipes, similiar to these events. Edit, quoted wrong person. How old (many rounds) was the original recoil spring when that started?