Chillywig

I'd like to see the rest of this slide???

That is awesome! something I would have never thought of doing. I wonder how many production shooters he still beat despite having a major malfunction...

Shot a major match last weekend so I have official chrono results from my silhouette and my friends auto comp loads. Silhouette PF 169 Autocomp PF 176 Both these are 124 MG HP loads @ 1.140 and I can not tell any difference between these loads when shooting them mixed in the same mag. It is interesting that it seems bullet weight might have the most to do with perceived recoil. I assume the comps on these guns are very efficient and various loads can yield similar performance in gun/dot/scope movement...

I went to the range today to compare my 7.2gr silhouette loads to my friends 7.1gr autocomp 9mm Major loads. Both using 124 MG HP @ 1.140 I did a quick chrono average. The Silhouette PF was 171 and Autocomp load was 180 out of my pistol. Then I stacked a mag with 2 rounds of mine and 2 rounds of his reloads and ran thru a few double tap drills. I could not tell the difference in felt recoil or see any noticeable difference in the tracking of the dot. The PIO was different but my from my POV that was the only noticeable difference. I was quiet surprised needless to say. For now I think I will stick with the Silhouette as I am getting low on powder. Next time I need bullets I will give the lighter 115's a shot

Andrew, I have always operated under the assumption "burn rate" correlates the charge weight required to achieve a given velocity, i.e.: a larger charge of a slower powder results in the same velocity as a smaller charge of a faster powder. I don't know how Hodgdon calculates "burn rate" nor how closely my concept of burn rate correlates with theirs, but previous editions of their chart agreed with my real world data perfectly. Unfortunately their latest revision places HS6 on the faster side of the other popular 9 major powders which doesn't jive with my concept of burn rate nor my data. In my mind I group 9 major powders as fast, medium and slow: Fast (7ish grains for major with a 115): CFE Pistol Autocomp Silhouette Medium (8ish grains for major with a 115): HS6 Longshot Slow (9ish grains for major with a 115): SP2 3N38 These are just powders I've tested, but don't include: 3N37, N350, AA#5, AA#7, True Blue, etc. I never knew what fast vs slow really meant but your explanation makes sense I got my fist open gun about 10 years ago, a Trubor in 38 super - my first major load I developed for it used VVN350. After not being able to find the N350 anywhere it was suggested to look at a burn rate chart and use something close. I picked HS7 which worked fine and I really could not tell much if any difference - then they quit making the HS7. Around this same time I picked up a new Limited gun and just focused on shooting it and rarely got the open gun out. I still have a half pounder of VV350 and some HS7, plus a friend gave me some of his WAC loads. Maybe I need to just do a side by side comparison and see how everything feels.

https://www.hodgdon.com/PDF/Burn%20Rates%20-%202015-2016.pdf I have a hard time telling what's better looking at different burn rate lists when they are all so close. Anyone have real data how one preforms over another?

you are correct MG 124hp

I'm sure this has been beaten to death in various places but thought I do it again. I am new to 9mm major and started with Silhouette because I had some on hand. I need to get more powder and thinking about trying something else. I know the Vihtavouri powders are supposed to be really good but are also more expensive and harder to find. Everyone talks about how dirty HS6 is. Any reason I should move away from Silhouette since I have a good load that seems to be working just fine. 9mm major MG 124hp 7.2gr Silhouette 1.140 OAL 172 PF dot stays in the glass when shooting and does not seem ridiculously loud

What have others experienced as far as battery life between the RTS2 and slide ride? C-more specs say 300 to 1500 hours for both sights I was shooting a 3 gun match this past weekend and forgot to turn the RTS2 on for one stage. After that I left it on the rest of the day.

I also have the CK Thunder in 9mm I am loading 124hp MG's with 7.2 of Silhouette @1.140 PF 172 Some where around 1.143 is where I stopped having plunk fails. I shoot with a guy that has a custom built open gun also with the KKM barrel and he is also loading short. The KKM barrel seems to have a very tight short chamber. I use my barrel to chamber check everything I load. Many rounds fail to chamber correctly and I pile them separately. I have rechecked these fails that have some minor brass bulge ect and 80% + pass the Dillon case gauge. Once you find your load you'll find the accuracy very good. My CK has been 100% since getting my load dialed in

Well that stinks!

Are the 356 MGs undersized about like the Zero 356ers at ~.3555? http://montanagoldbullet.com/index.php/9mm-130gr-super-fmj-183.html

Which zero bullets are you using? .355 or .356 The zero 38 super bullets are a little skinny. My zero 121 for 38 super measure .3555 or less. I do not have any to measure but think the MG are closer to the .356

My 38 super had a bit less POI shift. I zeroed the CK arms 9mm major RTS2 at 20 yards. It shoots 1-2" low at the closer targets and about 6-8" high at 100 yards. The 38 super seems to hit pretty close to the same PIO no matter the distance inside of 100 yards - but the groups were bigger. The KKM barrel groups a ragged one holer at 20 yards and the STI 38 super barrel shoots closer to 2". All this is subjective however...

I would assume the slide slamming back and forth creates more vibrations that just sitting around on a mount on an open gun - but the other dot makers have figured it out. Maybe C-more has too with this last revision.

I have to admit compared to the slide ride I do really like RTS2. I have had more than half a dozen slide rides and outside of dead batteries have never had a problem with one. Since C-more did the open gun upgrades to the RTS2 and about 1500 rounds later I have not had any issues with the sight. The RTS2 seems about one notch brighter than the slide ride. I definitely like the way the slide ride power switch works better than the buttons on the RTS2 and it is kind of a PITA to turn on and off. The glass on the RTS2 seems to cause a little less image distortion but I do see a some bluing in the glass at the very top of the sight. My eye sees the dots about the same. I have a stigmatism so the dot has a bit of flaring around it. Even though the RTS2 sits higher than the slide ride I have not had any problems finding the dot. When I first started shooting open this was a big problem with the regular STI mount - switching to the 90 degree mount cured that problem. Here you can see the difference in DOT heights

Thought I should do a comparison between the RTS2 and slide ride and my experiences. When purchasing my new open gun I was told all the problems had been worked out of the RTS2 and the V3 sight had a capacitor built into the circuitry where if the sight lost contact with the battery it would have enough juice to finish a stage of fire. On my second trip to the range this happened. https://youtu.be/rDYvwNMmVTw Almost every time I fired the gun the sight would turn off and then it would take up to a minute before it would allow me to power it back on. After this happened several times the sight just quit powering on. I came home called C-more and described the problem. They asked if the sight was on an open gun and wanted to know if it was slide mounted or on a mount that did not move. I told them it was on a new CK Arms 9mm major on a CK mount. They said if the RTS2 sight is on an open gun they do an additional hardware modifications to the circuit board, some additional potting and a different battery tray. I asked them if I could look at the sight and tell if it was a V3 with the capacitor and the answer was even if it was a V3 they do additional mods specifically for open guns. I shoulf have asked if this was sold to CK Arms shouldn't C-more understand the sight was going to get mounted on an open gun? but didn't ask... So I removed the sight from the gun and sent it to them at my cost - they did manage to turned it around in less that a week. They sent and invoice and they work preformed was called Item# 12070012 RTS2 repair - circuit board update v3-2C-BTFP-RS-P. Anyone know what that means? I was told the one visual difference I could see was the battery tray

I messed with this a good bit over the weekend moving in .001 at a time to see where plunk passed. I need to be at or less than 1.142 to plunk with the 124 MG’s I loaded up 7.2gr at 1.140 AV 1394 ES 13 SD 5 PF 172.8 Flat and no excessive pressure signs - 35 degrees when I was testing I shot a match over the weekend and the gun ran flawless. Another shooter has a custom built open 9mm gun that also had a KKM barrel. He was using MG124s and had the same seating depth. He was using WAC powder so we didn’t get to compare charge weights.

What hit the ceiling? Do you know what caused the blast?

I loaded up some more test rounds and had a few issues today. I droped my powder charges to 7.0 and 7.2 and moved the seating depth in to 1.145. My chrono battery was dead and my back up battery died shortly after starting so my chrono data isn't from a very large sample. Looks like the 7.0 gave me 166PF and 7.2 grains was a 170. The majority of the rounds I loaded were the 7.0 charge. The ejection seemed a bit weak. I also had a few times were I experience a dead trigger. Turned out the gun was not going into battery - the slide was just barely out of battery. I brought a few of these failed to chamber rounds home and they pass the dillon case gauge but not the plunk test. I rechecked OAL and they are good - So I started messing around and some rounds at 1.145 pass the plunk test and some don't. I started easing the bullet in a little deeper and it seems they will all pass at about 1.140. So I am thinking about shortening up to 1.135. I think when I was loaded longer the rounds were going into battery because the slide was definitely full stroking with a 180 PF and today the weak ejection makes me think the slide was not going its full rear ward travel. Is there any dis advantage to shooing a bullet at 1.135?

Which one? The one in your pic on this thread. I may have built it, don't know for sure. I think I miss interpreted which gun Nox was referring to. You meant the CK?? I know. I know. This is what unemployment, free time and beer in the evening does to a guy...

That's not too bad. I use a dillon case gauge to check my reloads. In 40 cal I would have at least that many that did not make it past the case gauge. I would guess around 5 per 100 do not pass the gauge from my pile of range picked up/ once fired brass. I am shooting these reloads in a STI edge. Typically I will save all these fails and shoot them at the end of a practice session. They will all nearly chamber perfectly in this gun and they normally all go bang like there was nothing abnormal about these rounds. I have a 9mm open gun with a KKM barrel. If these fail the case gauge I just throw them away. Major power factor and if they fail the case gauge they do not chamber in this gun. I am sure everyone's guns will react differently to a round that has failed the case gauge.

So the reloads do or do not chamber correctly?

I just changed my 9mm load. The JHP I was using looked a lot like a wad cutter so I change to that side of the seater and experienced the problem you are now having. Once I went back to the round nose side my problem went away. I'd think you want to hit the rounded part or ogive to seat the bullet the straightest

Pic #2