Foxbat

I wonder where would you position the SVI IMM - it is kinda a factory gun, but it is fully custom in the sense that you select the options you want out of very, very long list. And YOUR gun starts as a block of metal with your name on it. In fact, I would invite anyone curious to go to their web site and try their Gunbuilder - an interesting exercise. To be fair, I never had a truly factory open gun, but I had many built by qualified master gunsmiths, as well as the SVI "factory custom" (my term) and either one can give you total satisfaction. The level of perfection will be reflected in the price, so you have many fine choices. Once you define your budget, then your question becomes a more focused one.

Agreed. I have a full ChargeMaster (big one) and also just the scale, that comes with it. I have been quite happy with them.

I strongly prefer the flat.

Let me put it this way - when I go to a match, possible gun malfunctions are nowhere on my mind. I think of misses, of forgetting the targets, but not about my gun. It is just not a part of the equation. Take it out of the bag... shoot it... pack it. I really don't know where you are seeing all those problems... I shoot with other open guys all the time, and I do see issues... but quite rarely.

The original question sounds a lot like: "I would like to buy a car, but have reliability concerns" Heck... isn't everything in life like that?

Well, like I said, that was the SVI's recommendation for their guns, and it was spot on. It works exceptionally well, I can shoot close to 1000 rounds of pretty dirty HS-6 before the gun starts slowing down.

Most of my open guns were totally happy with just common motor oil, but the tightly fit SVI's refused to work, until I did what the company recommended - switched to Slide Glide. Then they became 100% reliable. Failures... yes, two weeks ago a round refused to go off. It had no primer. Fell out due to brass fatigue.

Oriental Motors 5IK90GU, with electronic brake (important) and with 60:1 gear head 5GU60KA. They also have the KB gear head, but it has smaller diameter shaft - I prefer the fatter one.

I like the Lee dies the best, then the Lyman, Dillon I don't like. In some cases the spring there was not strong enough to push out the primer, I ended up smacking it with a hammer to make that happen. In my experience the Lee sizing dies produce the lowest effort. All with the same lube.

That is correct, another working gun is never too much. Seriously, I bought the second one not as a backup, but because I wanted more than one gun in that category. Also, since the two are so darn close to each other, I often put the bulk of my practice on the backup gun, thus saving wear and tear to the match gun. For instance, today I shot my main one 30% of the time. I consider it my primary gun because it is younger, and has later revision comp, and I like it maybe 3% better.

Not really trying to be argumentative, but what minor issues with top end might crop there?

In my many years of shooting open I had two malfunctions: broken Aftek extractor and dead red dot. I am just not sure why would I need to take the spring with rod out at a match? I carry a backup gun, which is a near carbon copy of the main one. So far I had to use once, but it was nice - level 3 match with 3 stages remaining. Seriously - why?

Depends on the gun, I presume. I shoot BB in practice, but at least in my match gun their accuracy truly sucks. Last time I sighted my gun it was spot on with JHP's, but the 125gr Blues shot about 3" off - at just 50 feet. They shot low and to the left. Too much for some tight match shots. I guess I could have sighted the gun for them, but I was reluctant to do so. Other than that, no other issues observed in IMM's with two holes.

When discussing such things, to me the repeatability is less important - they ARE repeatable, at least until next batch of powder, when you most likely have to make adjustment. When I started buying them, I created tables and charts of weight versus setting for several powders - so I could quickly dial in the weight I need, and also be able to return to previous setting. For instance, I sometimes use the same powder for regular 9mm and 9mm Major, and from time to time switch between them. In most cases the micrometer allows you to get very close to desired setting. Small adjustments are still needed. This is where the micrometer beats the single turn dials like Armanov. Yes, I know, you can also count the turns, but there is more room for error.

Dillon is good, but it suffers one serious drawback - emptying it produces very wide stream of stuff, much of which is bound to end up all over the place. For this reason I modified mine - I cut a 4" hole in the cover, and glued in a 45 degree PVC elbow, creating a nice spout. Now emptying it is easy and clean.

Some time ago there was a change to the transfer bar - not sure if that's what you mean. The bar used to have the same cross-section along its length, but now it is reduced over 1/2 of it.

How do you see its value? Are you using it?

Smell.

Yes, the spring. I had it break a couple of times.

I run the air line from the garage to my workshop in the basement, it is pretty long, but supplies enough air for medium-consumption tools.

First - advice, based on my personal experience: sell it and buy Mr. Bulletfeeder. I hated my Hornady bullet feeder with passion. First - it was incredibly noisy. So I made a sound-proof cover, and it helped some. Then it was very inefficient. While Mr. Bulletfeeder "uses" every bullet, flipping the upside-down ones, the Hornady simply rejects them, slowing it down. I also had to add the switch to it, so it would not run continuously, making all that noise. Here are some pictures of my installation... before getting rid of it.

Could you post a picture? 7.3gr is on the high side - are you sure you need it? But I have shot many thousands of 7.2gr of WAC with no issues, using WIN pistol primers.

I honestly tried! It's double or nothing!

You can certainly make the speed be controlled by the pedal, but I personally don't see any value in that. Dead Man pedal has more utility, but only on those machines that do not stop gracefully. I am not sure how jmorris senses overload, but in my case the machine is very delicate, I set the limit just above what is required for normal operation. So it may stop on some difficult cases, no big deal. Problem with that pedal is that you are chained to the machine. With soft overload you can be doing other things in the meantime - loading primer tubes, boxing the ammo, etc.

Both are respected, I prefer the round dot, and today the RTS2's seem to be very reliable. I have two and am quite happy with them.