jumbopanda

Those are done simultaneously...the RT1200 die is a sizing die, except that it doesn't have a neck expander.

Recently I picked up a Dillon 1050 with Ammobot, and I'm trying to load large quantities of reasonably accurate 5.56 ammo with it. For several range trips, I was frustrated to discover that I couldn't get my reloads to reliably shoot better than 2.5-4 MOA from my LMT MRP. Now I realize that this isn't a match rifle, but I do think it should be able to do 1.5 MOA on average. My first thought was that my brass was the culprit; I had been using a bunch of old mixed brass with varying headstamps and number of times loaded. I eventually bought some virgin brass (RUAG brand if it matters) and found that it was extremely consistent in weight, length, and headspace. The case mouths were even nicely chamfered. I reloaded it right out of the bag without doing any kind of processing, except for slightly flaring the case mouth with a Lyman M die for ease of bullet seating. These rounds were loaded on the 1050 autodrive with the same die setup as my previous loads. After tinkering with a few bullets and powders, I noticed a significant accuracy improvement, and some loads would shoot 1.25-1.5 MOA. Thinking that having new, consistent brass solved my problems, I gathered up the once fired RUAG brass and processed them using my usual setup which is as follows: 1. Decap 2. Dillon RT1200 trim and size 3. Neck expand to .223" with a Sinclair carbide expander stem 4. Corn cob tumble to remove lube I then loaded this brass again with the same loads that performed well during the previous range trip. Much to my surprise, I was not able to replicate the same group sizes. In fact, this ammo only seemed marginally more accurate than the mixed brass bulk loads that I had started out with. I would say 2.5 MOA was about average. This past weekend, I went out again and shot more groups using ammo loaded in once and twice fired RUAG brass. The accuracy was crappy. But then I brought out a few rounds that had been loaded in virgin brass, and accuracy immediately improved. After seeing numerous ~2.5 MOA groups all morning, I immediately shot four groups in a row that ranged from 1.15 to 1.5 MOA. So this leads me to believe that there's something very wrong with my brass processing procedure. I checked many samples of my processed brass and didn't notice any that were improperly headspaced or had noticeably severe neck runout, at least based on a rudimentary check spinning the rounds in between the slots of my mini mill's table with a test indicator. What else could the problem be?

Awesome, thanks.

Does anyone know what the max OAL for .40 S&W is for a large frame Witness?

I'm not quite that OCD, but I'm also not a fan of any kind of spray-on coating. In the end, it's all just paint. Relatively durable paint, yes, but not nearly as durable as DLC, Melonite, chrome, etc.

The EAA website says that the regular Stock III has polygonal rifling as well.

How does the regular Stock III compare to the Xtreme version? Is the Xtreme worth the additional expense? I'm looking to get one in .40 S&W.

Yeah I wanted to, but the one I got from Dawson a while back had a pin hole that didn't align with my grip. I emailed them about it, and they said that it was the STI's grip that had bad hole placement, not their mainspring housing. They did give me a refund though. In any case, I might contact Dawson again to see if they'd be willing to sell me a housing without the hole drilled, so I can drill the hole myself and make sure it fits my grip.

This is definitely a possibility. I find that when shooting Glocks, it feels better to extend my arms out more and hunch my shoulders a bit. With 1911/2011 guns and anything with a less angled grip, I tend to have my elbows slightly bent and shoulders more relaxed. I'll have to experiment a little more.

Lately I've been shooting my STI 2011 4.0 Tactical in .40 S&W more than any other gun that I own. I'm not a competitive shooter of any kind; I just go blasting at the local indoor range. Today I decided to bring my Glock 27 and 35 along with the STI, since I had loaded a lot of .40 ammo. I hadn't fired either of the Glocks in a very long time, so I felt it would be interesting to do a side-by-side comparison between the Glocks and the STI. I was extremely surprised to find out that the Glocks felt much smoother than the STI. There seemed to be a little bit more muzzle rise, but the sights would drop back down on target every time with minimal effort. With the STI, the gun seemed to want to jerk a little more, and my follow up shots were not very accurate because the sights would get misaligned. I had to make a very deliberate effort to re-align the sights after each shot, or the subsequent shot would be off. I thought that perhaps this had something to do with the Recoil Master (heavy) spring system that comes in the STI 4.0, which one Youtuber had described as "bouncy." But I'm fairly certain that the Recoil Master still uses lighter springs (at least it feels easier to rack) than the Glock 35, which I have a Wolff 18lb spring installed in (slightly heavier than factory standard). Considering that STI 2011s are so popular among competitive shooters who require very quick follow up shots, I found these results to be very bizarre. Can anyone offer some input as to why the Glocks were so much easier to shoot rapidly than the STI? And is there anything I can do to improve the performance of the STI?

My gun came with a .198" diameter slide stop. I tried putting in a .200" diameter slide stop and the gun felt a bit tight going into battery. What is the proper way to fit the slide stop? Should the pin diameter be reduced or the lower barrel lugs filed slightly?

I have a STI 2011 4.0 Tactical that occasionally locks the slide back with rounds still in the magazine. I am using an all-stock magazine (except with a Wolff XP spring as of the last range trip). This issue has occurred four times in 990 rounds, so it doesn't happen all the time, but still happens more often than I am comfortable with. After it happened the third time, I put a light dimple in the slide stop, but today at the range, I fired 220 rounds and had one premature lock-back. I came home and made the dimple slightly deeper, but much to my dismay, the gun will no longer lock back on an empty magazine. Do you guys have any suggestions on what I should try next?