Skywalker

Hondaman, you might want to tell us if you're going to reload pistol or rifle rounds, and which calibers. I load 9mm, .40"SW and .45" ACP on a 650. Question no.1: I never bothered about pocket primer cleanliness. Brass is lost or cracked well before the pocket becomes so fouled that the primer doesn't seat correctly. I have used Lyman's red and green polishing media, as well as rice and corncob rodent's litter in my tumbler: the eventual grain stuck in the flash hole has always been dispensed by the decapping pin flawlessly, so, no I don't bother to check for them. Question no.2: it depends on the caliber you shoot. In my case, with most common pistol brass (even .357" M) I have never had the need for trimming the brass. Again, it is usually lost or cracked well before they extend beyond max case lenght. OTOH, I acknowledge that for rifle cases it might be a different story, but I have never loaded them. Hope this helps.

Well, it looks like the forum news (i.e. new posts) this time proved to be even funnier ... ... this one cracked me up.

Info on pylons, and their development: Red Bull Air Race website, under "About the race / Air gates".

True, they only get those accelerations for a very short time (few seconds) compared to fighter pilots, but they don't even wear a G-suit ...

Red Bull Air Race is ranked high on my list of races that I will eventually see live ...

To further expand what DogmaDog has correctly stated about the theoretical stuff on springs. Spring constant is independent of spring lenght. Thus, the total force needed to compress the spring is related to the spring lenght. if you cut a couple of coils from the spring (i.e. shorten it), the total force needed to compress it will lower. Gun springs are usually rated in terms of force needed to compress them. I.e. a 15# spring means a 15 pounds force is needed to completely compress (pack) the spring. It doesn't mean the spring has a constant of 15 pounds/foot.

You're not really supposed to pay attention to what journalists (can we still call them such?) say ... This morning I was listening (my bad, I know) to the news, informing us that since a local government measure to try and keep gasoline prices low has expired, and it can't be renewed until the new government settles in, we'll be most likely getting a 2c increase on the fuel price per liter by the end of the week, which will end up in a 12 euros increase per filling. I happen to be able to do some basic math ... 0.02 x liter ... 12 euros per filling / 0.02 = 600 liters one filling ...

Chie, I'm afraid you'll be straining your eyes without even noticing you're shooting if you concentrate on seeing the front sight lift. The more you concentrate on trying to see something, the more you'll probably see something else or nothing at all. You don't need to concentrate, meaning narrowing down your vision to an almost tunnel-like one, excluding anything else from your perception, just to be able to see what you want to see. This is detrimental. What you need to do is to open up your vision, pretending you're not the guy who's actually firing the gun, but just a spectator that wants to see the whole show. Start shooting rounds downrange, without a target to aim on. Just firing rounds into the backstop, one round per second or slower. You would want to be a spectator of your own shooting, you're not concentrating on anything. Somebody is pressing the trigger, and you just happen to notice what goes on. Don't even try to be consciously pressing the trigger, let it go by itself. When doing this, without putting ANY expectation on the shot that you're breaking, you will eventually be able to see the front sight lifting, the slide cycling, the brass being ejected, dirt dusting up where the round impacted the backstop, the front sight landing back into the notch, etc. The trick is that you shall not force yourself to see anything, you just have to relax and watch what goes on.

Rus, all Tanfoglio OFM mags for Stock II will hold 17 rounds. I know becasue I have 4 of them.

Now that's definitely more entertaining than car racing, being it MotoGP or SuperBikes ...

Merlin, this is, well, I'd say comparing apples and oranges. .45" ACP is still .45" ACP (same brass dimensions), being it either classic .45" ACP or NT version. The latter has a different primer sized hole, ok, but the overall brass is exactly the same. The 9mm variants you listed are all different when it comes to brass sizes: they're nominally (and physically) different calibers that are not supposed to be shot in a gun with a different chamber from the one of the same caliber. .45" ACP NT rounds are meant to be shot in exactly the same guns that fire normal .45" rounds. I agree with anybody else, NT brass sucks, and should prove the wrongest marketing idea on the planet, but you can't really blame a vendor for selling .45" NT brass as .45" ACP.

1911 AUTO GRIP SPACER PLATES at Brownells.

Happy belated birthday Brian. I can't even start to thank you for everything you do for shooters ... all I can do is wish you had a wonderful celebration, with many, many more to come.

Guess you made a bit of confusion here ... Fiat is a popular cars brand, Ferrari is a sports car brand (and you wont find a finer one, IMHO). And ... yes ... we too use to say something to the effect of "Fix It Again, Tony" about FIAT (at least I do).

FYI: Lapua (Vihtavuori manufacturer) has a reloading guide with listed loading data for all its powders. You'll find 9x19mm loading data (for handguns) on page 48.

Should work good! I use N320 for laoding 9x21mm (minor), .40" and 45". In 9x21mm, I load 4.3 grs of N320 under a 124grs FMJ bullet, @ 1.155" O.A.L., CCI small primers. The result is about 127 PF.

I recently switched from rice to Friskies Hygiene rodents litter. It's (I guess) corncob litter in bags of 2Kg (about 4.4 lbs), the same size (or slightly bigger) than Lyman green media; I buy it at the local market very cheap, and it it works great.

I have a similar SVI (i.e. .40" cal., 5", long dustcover, ICBF) but never experienced such a problem. Maybe it could be useful if you can list the main spring rating: I have been able to reliably go as low as 15# main spring coupled with an 11# recoil spring. I have always used CCI small primers. Which primers are you using? Perhaps hard, magnum or rifle ones? Could you post pictures of primers from spent brass where the round went bang, and where it didn't? Having said this, I'd advice to check the thightness of the ICBF hollow screw: if it backed out, it's possible that it's limiting the firing pin travel, resulting in light hits. On a side note, I never, ever, had to cut the firing pin spring, even though my gun has the ICBF: I've always used untouched factory springs.

Just tell me where, I'm willing to travel ...

TL, I might get it wrong, but ... isn't 50/50 bar solder 50% tin and 50% lead? If this is the case, the final alloy you got should've been harder than initial wheel weight one (which is quite soft, compared to other alloys). Let's see: Wheel weight (approx): Lead 95.5%, Tin 0.5%, Antimony 4% 9 pounds of it contain: 8.595 lbs of lead, 0.045 lbs of tin, 0.36 lbs of antimony Now add 0.5 pounds of lead and 0.5 pounds of tin: 9.095 lbs of lead, 0.545 lbs of tin, 0.36 lbs of antimony, for a total of 10 lbs. Lead: 9.095/10*100 = 90.95% Tin: 0.545/10*100 = 5.45% Antimony: 0.36/10*100 = 3.6% These are near #2 alloy percentages, whose hardness is about 15 brinell, compared to wheel weights hardness of 9.

I've been using wheel weights. Is that close to 16:1 hardness? Nope, according to this table.

Bjorn, this got my attention, since I was remembering a recent post of yours, where you stated that you were alredy scoring about 90/95% of available stage points, but were some 10/15% behind stage winners timewise. At the risk of sounding a bit stupid asking the following to an accomplished shooter, I'd say: are you sure you know what's an acceptable sight picture for the shot you're breaking, that will end up in scoring an A? Isn't it possible that you're waiting to get a perfect sight picture to break the shot, thus wasting some time? Now to your question. Lemme use a bit of math here, that will help.Let's assume you are shooting a 9mm 124 grs FMJ bullet out of your G17, and the following is the initial data of our problem: Muzzle Velocity = 1140 fps 50 yds Velocity = 1050 fps As a first hypotesis, let's suppose the bullet will travel the whole trajectory path (50yds) at a constant speed equal to the average one between muzzle and 50yds velocity, which is (1140+1050)/2= 1095 fps. Second, let's assume you are moving your gun from left to right at a constant speed of 1" per second (or, 0.083333fps), and you break the shot with your sights still moving, but at the very moment they are perfectly aligned onto the target. What happens, from a physical point of view, is that you're adding to the muzzle velocity a drift velocity to the right; this will have an effect on the impact point of the bullet, that will not land exactly where you aimed. The time the bullet takes to travel from muzzle to target, at the average speed is = 50*3/(1095), or 0.137s. In this time, the bullet (and POI) will drift to the right by 1*0.137= 0.137" As you can see, the effect of the drift velocity that you can apply to the gun by firing with the gun in movement instead of steady, is negligible @ 50 yds, and even more at closer distances. If you swing the gun really fast, say 10" per second, and you're still able to break the shot when sights are perfectly aligned onto the target, the effect of such a drift speed is still a mere 1.37" on a 50yds target.

1st test I got 2 wrong. "mispell" and "pistacchio" got me. As a partial excuse for the second, "pistacchio" is exactly how it's spelled in italian (thought it was the same ... ). E.T.A. 2nd test: 5 wrong, 3rd test 3 wrong, 4th test 3 wrong, 5th test 4 wrong. All in all 93.2% correct out of the 250 questions. Not too bad for a "spaghetti" speaking english.

Looks like you fell on your feet, as they say here in Italy ... ... or, "it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good", if this is the correct translation of another italian saying.