Shibby

I went to a 13# spring because I was getting some FTE's out of my Pro, haven't had an FTE since. I got the new guide rod because it was cheap and non-captive, so I can change recoil springs easily. The only advantage I see to changing the guide rod and keeping the same spring weight is it is easier to change the recoil spring when you need to. If your gun runs fine with the stock springs, I would say leave it alone.

Solo 1000 is great for lead bullets. But if your unsure go ahead and buy a pound and try it out. If you get leading and don't like it plenty of people will be willing to take the powder off your hands.

Your a better man than me

That sucks man, glad your OK

What weight bullet are you using and what kind of muzzle velocities are you getting with it?

Where I shoot, it's very well known who tapes targets and who doesn't. So the tapers get on one squad and those who don't get on one squad. We finish the match an 30 mins to an hour before the other squad. They get to socialize and goof off more between shooters without people yelling at them. Everyone leaves happy .

Full disclosure, I'm mainly an IDPA shooter that will shoot USPSA on occasion. I think the above scenario makes since for your area, but not everywhere. In the area I shoot in there are just as many IDPA matches as USPSA matches so the above logic wouldn't work. I think IDPA is more beginner friendly and here are a few reasons why, most people that like to shoot have a Glock or some other polymer pistol and a few mags. All they need to start IDPA is a holster and magazine carrier, which many have said can be borrowed at match time. IDPA tells you exactly what to do to shoot the stage, and the stages are shorter, leaving less to remember. As a beginner its much easier to comprehend go to P1 shoot 3 targets got to P2 shoot 5 targets. Than "shoot the 16 targets of this stage as they become visible while remembering where all the targets are and when to reload your gun 3 times" . It's just more intimidating for a new shooter. But I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, and I think that USPSA match directors can use it as an advantage. If you want to grow match attendance, go to your IDPA match. Shoot the match, don't judge or belittle them for shooting IDPA, become friends with the shooters, then invite them to your match. You'll get new USPSA shooters who have competition experience who will be less likely to do something unsafe and will be less intimidated by the stages. And I'm only talking of my experiences of shooting in my area, I think it all boils down to the specifics of your area. The quality of the MDs who run the matches, the quality of the stages of each type of match, the shooters skill levels and the shooters choice of equipment. For example in my area the MD of the local USPSA match is an Open shooter, so every stage at the match is 27-32 rounds. Not that anything's wrong with that, he is an open shooter so he's going to tailor the stages to be the most fun for him. And the stages are great, he is a great MD who puts in a lot of work. But he is lucky if he gets more than 1 production shooter to show up. Which is more than likely where a new shooter will start. So a new shooter will come with their Glock or whatever, watch all the Open and Limited guys tear up a stage, while they stumble through it with their production gun. They leave thinking, I can't compete with these guys using my Glock, I'm going to go where everyone is using production guns. Again this is just my opinion of what's going on in my area. I'm actually trying to talk some of my IDPA friends to start shooting USPSA with me .

I have a Pro too and love it. But I have serious gun lust for a 1911 9mm for ESP, they are so much fun to shoot. So if it was me I'd go with a 1911 in 9mm like a STI Trojan. You sound like a buddy that I shoot with. LOL I am Expert in both hopefully getting the bump in both in the next month or 2. Being a SSP Master and ESP Expert is not that big of a deal when you look at the classifier times for ESP. As long as you stay up on your classifiers, and don't rely just on match bumps to move up, I think it's alright. But most people don't stay up on their classifiers.

As I am shooting production, I agree!

Same here

No procedural or FTDR. IMO it's a bad stage design and wouldn't make it in a major match.

Does it need to be mandated in the description? Stage designers can offer a reward for doing a tac load or rwr if they want to test it. For example, have a stage where shots 8-12 can be shot on the move, but if you run out of ammo in the open you have to retreat to cover. So if you can do a tac load or rwr relatively fast, top off your gun before leaving cover and blast the targets on the move. If not you take the shots from cover and load as normal.

I vote wait for Dan or try to contact Accurate Iron. It took me a while to get up with Dan but, when I sent him my gun the turnaround time was super fast. And the results were well worth the wait. One of my shooting buddies sent his into the Performance Center for work and my trigger blew his away.

I've heard other people have done this as well. What is better about the compact basepads?

I'd like to subscribe to individual forums via RSS. There are a lot of forums I don't ever check (Other Shooting Sports, Clays, Open Pistols, etc) if I could subscribe, via RSS, to the forums I do check a lot it would speed my forum checking process up . Any thoughts?

I have chronoed it, I just don't trust my chrono. I'm going to shoot it over another chrono next week. So I guess I'll see first hand if there are any truths to the "fast jug", "slow jug" rumor.

Thread drift here, but is there any truth to the "slow jug" and "fast jug" Solo 1000 rumblings? My 3.2 load was right at PF if not a little below, but it should be well under PF compared to Sarge's load.

Try a lighter recoil spring. I have a 13 pound recoil spring in my Pro and it will run fine with 3.2 gr of solo under a 147 BBI at 1.120.

There are several things you can do without a gun. 1. Work on entering exiting positions. Since you don't have a gun you can focus entirely on footwork. 2. Work on strange start positions, getting out of a bed or chair to go grab your "gun" on the desk. (hotel remote control) 3. Work on footspeed and general fitness. 4. Eye exercises This got me thinking of when I pitched in college. I'm a big guy (6'5 210) and I was terribly slow off the mound to field bunts. Until I had arm surgery that meant I couldn't throw a baseball for 9 months. So I worked on fielding bunts for 9 months (without throwing the ball), my trouble getting off the mound went away and I was a better pitcher without throwing a pitch for almost a year. You might not be able to practice shooting but there is a lot more to the sport than shooting.

I don't think a progressive press for a beginner is such a bad idea. As long as you have a healthy respect for whats going on you should be fine. You can also run your progressive in "single stage mode" with just 1 round on the shell plate at a time. Then when you become comfortable with the process go in full progressive mode. As others have said find out who the reloaders are in your club and ask them all kinds of questions. Experience goes a long way in fixing problems that you'll encounter. One thing that's not on the bare minimums list but will make your life easier is an electronic powder scale. The balance beam type scales can be hard to use and calibrate. Especially starting out, your gonna try all kinds of powders and will be leaning heavily on your scale so it makes sense to get a good one .

Why don't you try both and see what is more accurate in your gun. Pick the most accurate and stick with it. Once you shoot a couple of hundred rounds with either bullet and get used to the timing of the gun, you'll be able to shoot just as fast with either bullet. Edit To Add: I'm talking about picking between 124 and 147, not 115 as mentioned in the OP. SORRY...

Your such a tease...

No, if you are behind cover enough to shoot, you are behind cover enough to reload.

I was in your exact situation about 3 months ago. I read a lot about the FCD and taper crimp dies. I finally decided that the FCD didn't give me any real advantage if my other dies were set up correctly. And the cost of a new crimp die would quickly be paid for by cost savings of lead bullets. So I bought a taper crimp die and haven't looked back

Exactly!! Stage designers design stages to make the paying customer (shooters) happy. If revolver shooters want more revolver friendly stages then they need more revolver shooters at matches. But I think most revovler shooters understand this.