Robley

I am still running the holster and mag holders that came with the gun, and think that I would like to upgrade. A teklok belt loop would be one of the features I want. What would you guys suggest?

Is there a .22 conversion yet? I see the M&P guys get a .22 version /whine

I hate waiting for the mythical sub $1000, ready to 3 gun out of the box shotgun.

My mossberg 590 came with a heat shield, and I have fielded a couple disparaging questions about it, but it is very functional esp as I strong hand reload.

You want a shotgun that has chokes. I shoot a 590 and the IC is a real problem. Not getting enough pellets on target with a sticky texas star, or a poorly adjusted popper sucks. You end up trying to make up for it with bigger pellets and heavier dram equivilant loads, but what you really need, is a choke.

Yes I am setting the die at the top of the ram's stroke. It just seems to want to have the die sunk way down in the toolhead to be at a point where it moves the .330 gageline at all. I see that you are in fact sizing the neck after that, I like that better. I have to decap in station 1 though,so have a universal decapper set there. I wonder if I couldnt just remove the decapping pin from my sizing die and thus be able to place it after the trimmer/sizer. Would the neck expander ball still slip in decently without having the lead/slope of the decapping pin? I will have to look at that after work.

I am setting up a xl650 toolhead to process .223 brass. I am setting the trimmers sizing die to bump the shoulder a couple thousandths and find that puts the sizing die way down in the toolhead. The locking ring is clear up in the area where only a partial diameter of threads are available because of the chip clearance windows in the die. That makes getting the locking ring tight fairly difficult. Is this how yours ended up set? Another question I have is that if you decap and size in station 1 and then run it through the sizer/trimmer arent you tightening the neck again, and wont that make seating the bullet more difficult? It seems like it would work better to run a die with a neck expander after the casetrimmer/sizer.

Where do you find a chart of the reticle subtensions? I have looked but cant find it.

yes I was looking at objects inside 20 yards, and now that you mention it I see that the magnification effect appears less at greater distances. But what is the "chart" you refered to? And is 50 yards some standard of measurement for magnification? I had simply assumed that a 1x would look like any other reflex sight, ie NO magnification visible at close range.

Mine just showed up a half hour or so ago. Initial impressions are favorable, but it is NOT a true 1X. I would guess 1.1-1.2. You can still shoot it both eyes open though. Its an overcast day here, but max illumination seems very bright.

No, the JP has a 1.5" high centerline as well.

Ok I was looking at buying one of these to put on my Smith & Wesson MP-15 (the one with the magpul furniture). The problem I am seeing is that most of the mounts I have looked at have a 1.5" centerline (of scope) height over the rail which doesnt clear the mbus rear sight that came with the rifle and are a little less expensive (say a hundred). The only option I am seeing is the LaRue Lt 135 with a 1.93 centerline. For a gaming gun I dont NEED back up sights, but I would like to have them available. Would I be better off to spent that extra hundred dollars (plus or minus some) to get another back up sight (assuming I can figure out one that fits under a 1.5" scope center line), go without back up sights and just run a 1.5 " (and cheaper, say the armalite) mount, or just go ahead and get the LaRue? How are you guys mounting yours, and are they working with a backup sight setup? Yes mincing arround over $100 is stupid, but I dont want to have to purchase things twice and I want the setup to work right the first time.

Thanks guys. I suspected that the answer would be something like BPiatt gave (though I appreciate all of your comments). The other rifle thing I saw I needed to work on is field shooting / position shooting, and I know for sure the answer is the same. Thanks again, Robley

This last weekends Inland Empire 3 gun match showed me a whole list of things I needed to change or do differently. One of the things I was having trouble with was point of impact vs point of aim at short ranges due to scope height over bore. Close range upper panel hits required a guestimate hold over that I never felt very confident about. What is the best way to deal with that 1.5" or more offset? A couple guys said something about different zero's where the bullet trajectory was 0 (on the way up) at either 25 or 50 yards and back on again at about 220 (on the way down), but that still leaves you dealing with the scope offset over bore at close range and I dont see how any zero could change that. So what is the answer, an angle offset set of sights like the Jp's? Thanks in advance, Robley

I wont pretend to know much about this subject, but I did recently read something linking high glycemic index foods and obesity. That falls right in with the meats, and unprocessed foods direction of this discussion, but I did hear several references to potatoes in this discussion, and they have a very high glycemic index.

What BB's are you shooting? I would suspect your BB's first for accuracy problems. Cheap stuff shoots poorly.

What did you find, and where did you find it? Share with the class.

I have the kwa running on a lipo battery and am fairly pleased with it. The only thing I havent liked about it is that I had to adjust the rear site to an extreme in windage to get poi right, but I have a dot site (eotech clone)on it now so the sights issue no longer matters.

what is the idea behind the targets sloped backwards(sloped away from the shooter rather than vertical)?

I just bought a KWA m4 and it seems pretty decent. I got it and 1 lipo battery for $358 with tax. I like that it came lipo ready and had a "tight bore" barrel factory oem. I didnt like, that I had to adjust my front sight all the way down, rear sight most of the way up, and windage left max to get sighted with the stock sights. I am going to have to take it back and see if they can adjust poi for me so I can run the sights closer to centered. It hasn't done anything else wrong though. Pretty solid.

My current load is something like (this is off the top of my head so dont quote me) mixed brass 155 montana gold jhp with a c.o.l. of 1.135 7.1 grains of silhoutte about any small pistol primer I can lay hands on fired from either my or my buddies xdm 40's

I tried the Lee factory crimp die in the xl650 tonight. I replaced the Dillon taper crimp die with it. There was a definate improvement in the overall quantity of "glocked" brass (this from the same batch of mixed once fired), but some of the worst offenders would still be slightly oversized. It was enough better that it took me a little while to find any that didnt drop right into the chamber (had barrel removed from gun). I had previously been finding brass as large as .430 at the base. Max is something like .423 (from memory dont quote me). I now have a smaller overall percentage of over sized base ends, and the ones that are oversized are closer to tolerance (say .427), and while they wouldn't drop freely into the chamber they would at least cycle through the gun (xdm 40). I am not satisfied with this result but am still unwilling to add an outside process such as roll forming or the push through die. I think I will look at grinding the die down to get the sizing ring closer to the shellplate.

I found primers at the local gunshow, prices were $29-45 per thousand. Purchased some oooold cci primers from an individual (30 per thousand)before I had even looked arround(later found 400 of the 2000 missing, grrrr), and 3 boxes of winchester from somebody with a table(40 per thousand). There was a lot of PMC available as well from 29-45 per thousand. I took the availability, even at higher prices, to be a good sign. Robley

I own an AWB era Bushmaster 16" "V match" that gave me a ton of trouble in my first 3 gun match in many years. I have owned the rifle for quite a while, used it fairly lightly, and have had very few problems with it. However, durring the match it failed to feed repeatedly. It appeared that bullets were hanging up on the feed ramp/barrel extension. I was shooting federal 50 gr. JHP, and there would be dents in the HP area, and the bullet would be stuffed back into the case. Gun had been clean, but had approximately 30 rounds or so fired through it the week before when I tested mags. these were used usgi 20 rounders. I put 5 in each and fired them (slowfire) both to check zero and verify feeding (4 mags). Right before the match I ran a rag arround the action and lightly wiped the bolt with break free. After the match, I was told by one of the other competitors that I had run the gun too dry, and that the bolt should have been "dripping wet". So far my thoughts are to first run the same mags and same ammo with the bolt "dripping wet" (this just seems wrong to me), try some new mags, get the gun looked at. In that order, untill I find a condition in which the gun will cycle like shit through a goose. Having to run the gun super wet seems wrong to me, I dont feel any major friction cycling the action by hand, and dont see any evidence of anything dragging or galling anywhere. Is that really what an ar needs? I also took a look at the feed ramps while considering the problem, something I really hadn't done before. I couldnt believe how small, angular and edgy, and unpolished they looked. Is feed ramp work a common "upgrade" for an ar? I'm frustrated. I hate a gun that won't run reliably, and have enough to work on with my own mechanics without having to worry about the equiptment's. Thanks in advance Robley

I am thinking exactly the same thing but for the 650. Lee Factory Crimp Die, with the top/ guts removed in the last station (move seating station forward one into the slot that is normally open). The bullet should help with feeding and alignment, and I think it would slow the rounds per minute less than the uncertain feeding of a U die in the first station. I don't want to add an extra process and want my once fired brass to have a better success rate. Gaging should catch the rare problem, with the process turning out a high percentage of "good" reloads, not the 20-30 % "Glocked" I am now finding. Has anyone tried this? Are the results good and does it keep your rate of manufacture up? I want to try but haven't seen any Lee FCD in stock yet, all backorder. I suspect even that Redding die that is meant as a push through would work as well.