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BJinPass

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About BJinPass

  • Birthday 11/15/1954

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  • Location
    Pass Christian, MS
  • Real Name
    Bill Jackson

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  1. I just installed one of these this week and was VERY pleasantly surprised by how well it was designed and how well it works. It's as simple as it gets. Hopefully, your routine is to aways check the powder level every time you refill primers, but this is a nice backup. I am using it on a Mark 7 Apex-10 but it would work on any press that has transparent powder hoppers. I highly recommend this device. It is definitely worth the money. It won't connect to any automated drive systems, but then, its just $45.
  2. I have the same issue with my 650 which HAD (but no longer does) a Mark 7 Autodrive. I was reloading 9mm Major on this for many years, and the issue was infrequent with the 9s. It seemed to come and go. It would occasionally get in a mode where it would crunch 9mm cases in station 1 on a regular basis. I'd play with adjustments and tell it how much I loved it and it would go back to working well. I could always see the case and die were not on parallel planes, though. The resize/decap die is a Dillon 38 Super die. I recently switched to 38 Supercomp and the problem became unmanageable. Ruining a brand new Starline 38SC case when the case wouldn't go into the resize die was annoying beyond belief. There was no setting torque on the Mark 7 setting that would NOT crunch a mis-aligned case but still power through the entire stroke, so if the case didn't "tilt" inwards as shown in the excellent videos in this thread by itself, it got crunched and ruined. No amount of realignment was able to cure this, so I finally uninstalled the Autodrive. I had to relearn manual operation of the 650 but at least I am not wasted expensive cases now. I still need to stop the stroke and help the case in once and a while, but I can actually make ammo at a reasonable pace and not ruin any cases in the process. I want to emphasize the Autodrive wasn't the cause of the problem, but it made it unbearable because it ruined expensive cases. When a 9 got crunched, it wasn't a loss at all, but the 38SC are just too expensive to ruin before getting to shoot them at least a few times. The 38SC cases are about 2.5mm longer than a 9, so the misalignment tends to get exaggerated a bit which seems to make the problem worse. On my press, when the shell plate snaps into the new position after indexing, there is an audible click which frequently causes the case in station 1 to move out away from the center just a bit. This occurs as the platform is moving up right after the indexer ring comes off the indexer cam. I have tried in vain to come up with a shell plate mod that would ever so slightly clamp the empty case in as far as it could go on the cutout, but nothing I have rigged up has worked. As of now, I can make 38SC ammo as fast or faster by hand as the Mark 7 Autodrive could, even when accounting for the now infrequent case that doesn't find it's way into the dies properly. But it's still annoying to have to stop and nudge the case in when it occurs. I have ordered a new Jofer toolhead to see if there might be an issue with the current toolhead being misdrilled. I may try a new shell plate as well. I am currently using the recommended .223 shell plate with the 38SC cases. I also tried the 9 shell plate with the 38SC cases and it didn't help the problem.
  3. I believe these are a step in the right direction. They are really just small field courses, and as such, better represent the required skills of a real match. I hope more come soon. Having said that, the actual drawings and construction notes leave a bit to be desired. The issues are somewhat minor but as an example in 19-02 it says "NS are 'point to point' at the A zone letter." What exactly does point to point mean? If you line up some of the corners (points?) of the IPSC targets, the A zone perf marking is completely covered and then some. The 18-XX classifiers did a great job as showing exactly how to create partials both with hard cover and no-shoots. I Miss That Kind Of Clarity (aka 18-09). Sorry, i couldn't resist! But, thank you for the new classifers, USPSA!
  4. Rule 4.1.3 specifically disallows a no-shoot to have a hole through which another target must be engaged. You have to have a non-scoring border on any paper no-shoot target (4.2.2.1). It would be legal to build a window out of multiple no-shoot targets to provide the same effect but it would require 4 no-shoot targets to be completely legal. If you cut one no-shoot down the middle and make two pieces, you still have edges that don't have a non-scoring border, so use 4 to be legal.
  5. If you have concerns about battery life with either sight, just change the battery before every match, and use that one for practice until the next match. I buy in bulk (50 at a time) from https://www.batteryjunction.com/cr2032.html for $0.65 each and always look for the frequent 10+% discount on everything to reduce the price even further. They usually come 5 to a card and you can always share with your fellow shooters when they are in need! At that price, you are only looking at the equivalent of 5 or 6 rounds of reloaded ammo. For the record, I leave my RTS2 sights on for the entire match and only turn it off at the end of the day. And, I have had issues with older RTS2 sights but the V4s seems to be OK, for me at least.
  6. Do you find the cases fall into the Frankford trays with the round holes easier than the square hole trays seen in the video? I have used the square hole trays mostly because they are free if you look in the waste bins at most any range, and the cases fall in extremely easily, when you move up one size from what you are sorting/inspecting.
  7. I am sure this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpkUnUqMo8U&t=2s) has been seen by lots of the reloaders in this forum, but for those relatively new, it is worth watching. It's not so much from the counting aspect but for the sorting process. I use two trays instead of the one with plywood described in the video but the idea is the same. For rapid manual sorting, you just can't beat this method. I start with one tray marked with a red sharpie and look in all the cases that are facing up and cull out the stepped cases. The importance of getting these cases out for those shooting 9 major was drive home recently when a stepped case slipped through the sorting and separated in the chamber (see picture). Thankfully, it was just during practice, so no harm done. The separation was so perfect, it looked like it was done on a lathe. Once I look IN the cases, I check any cases that are facing down for NATO brass and other undesirable stamps. Once I remove those, I flip the whole tray into another tray (marked in green) and do the same again. Once checked, they go into a tub for cleaned, and now sorted, brass. The green tray lets me know I have done both sides. I can do 50 pieces in about 30-60 seconds depending on how many cases get rejected. This is the best way I have found for looking at both ends of the 9mm cases before they make it into the press. Feeding your press the best possible brass will go a long way towards eliminating stoppages.
  8. Let me know if you don't get registered.
  9. Yes, the match says closed but you need to enter the code you received to access the registration page. Are you seeing the box that says to enter the registration code? Is is below the box that says Registration is closed. If you don't have a code, you can't register yet.
  10. As the Section Coordinator for Mississippi, I had the unpleasant task of telling 7 people they weren't going to get a slot in the 2018 Nationals Optics match. The demand for slots far exceeded our allocation of just four for this match. The mix of disappointed people includes some who have competed at the Nationals before along with numerous Area and Sectional matches, and some who are relatively new to the sport, who just want to see what's its like at the biggest match our sport has to offer. If you are an SC for another state and have slots that will go unused, and would be willing to donate your unused slots, we would be forever in your debt. If you can help out, send me a PM. Thanks...
  11. Interesting. I am the Section Coordinator for Mississippi and have had shooters register for all three matches successfully.
  12. I had not considered this to be a target but I'll go with that anyway. How about using black tape to mark hard cover instead? There is no penalty other than a miss if the edge of the tape is not broken. I am sure that someone will miss the port and find the wood. I want that to be a penalty at least by calling it a miss. Hard cover doesn't have to have a non-scoring border, nor does it have to be a target. The last resort is to split 2 no-shoot targets down the middle vertically and put the pieces on each side of the port with the non-scoring edge along the port side. That takes only 6 targets, instead of 12.
  13. I have been unable to find anything in the rule book that forbids the use of white duct tape to mark the edges of a port in a wall as a no shoot. The stage shown below (Level 1 match) requires shooters to engage targets from at least 4 feet behind the wall and at rather severe angles. I do not want to attach 4 no-shoot targets to each port but instead, want to line the inside and edges of each port with white duct tape and indicate in the WSB that the tape is no-shoot. Rule 4.1.3 starts by saying "No-shoots must be clearly marked or be of a single color different from scoring targets." To me, this seems to allow white tape to be used as a no-shoot. Any thoughts on legality of this?
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