Rudolfo

Here is my 2¢. I've been a certified instructor for 15+ years, and have worked with a lot of women shooters, and I think the following info is generally going to be valid. Any adult female can manage a 12 ga. with light 1 oz or 7/8 oz loads. Regarding felt recoil and recoil sensitivity - Anybody having not shot before or not having shot for 6 months or more will have a little higher recoil sensitivity and be prone to some shoulder bruising - even with a "soft" recoil pad. I personally use and recommend Kick-Eez pads. Start of slow on the shooting - 25 shells at 1st outing, wait a few days, another 25. Next few outings shoot 50, etc. Within a few weeks, shooting 200 in a day will be a "no, never mind." Your physical system has to adapt and get used to the recoil impulse. Poor stock fit can cause her to get thumped in the cheek pretty good, as well as shooting with her head slightly lifted from the comb. To much cheek pressure can be equally bad. Especially if here face is thin, she may get some light bruising under her cheek bone the first few times out, and this can happen even shooting a 28 ga. (Re: 28 & .410 - .410 is an experts gun for clay target shooting - don't put a .410 in a beginners hands. 28 ga. - 28 shells are expensive new - and last nowhere near as long for reloading. You may get 4 reloads from a 28 ga hull - you'll get 10+ from 12s using light, lower pressure loads. 12s are more reloadable of all the other gauges. Stick to 12 ga (20 is OK, but you'll be better off with a 12). For maybe 80% of females, a factory "standard" stock is not going to fit too well. Because of generally longer neck and narrower checks, a factory stock will tend to cause the head to be dropped down and over to the stock (rather than stock brought up to cheek with head held somewhat upright and still during mount). The Wenig Lady model stock is a good choice as a starting point for many women. Get one 95% finished, and be prepared to file/carve/sand to get the comb height, cast, and offset correct. If you go too far, just use auto body filler (Bondo) to build it back up and re-work it again. Won't look nice raw, but the fit can be made right. Painted stocks are popular these days - lots of gun stock artists out there. We have a couple really good ones in eastern Idaho. Once painted, what's underneath doesn't matter. Note - Bondo is denser than wood. If you add a lot, the balance of the gun will move to the rear, and that may not be desirable. If your wife is on the weaker side, she will have trouble regardless of gun size and/orbweight, until she builds some shoulder, arm, and core strength. Doing practice gun mounts, then hold the mount for about 4 sec, repeat,... start with 20 reps.day and work up to 5 sets of 20, will quickly fix the issue. Regular exercise & strength training is also a good addition, if there is time in the schedule. On gun weight and barrel length - some heavier is always better for target shooting, given the number of rounds shot in a short period of time. Barrel length is only an issue for the balance and handling of the gun - no relevance for patterning performance. Generally, a little longer is better, given the balance point doesn't get to far out toward the front hand. Rule of thumb - front hand should have a little more felt weight than rear. If she is going to shoot maybe a couple flats (500) of ammo per year, most any gun that fits decent will probably be OK. Lesser expensive models generally feel clunkier in the hands and may be more prone to reliability issues. Depending on budget, I'd be inclined to look at Beretta or Benelli or Remington first. Browning (a while back) was having function reliability issues with their Gold auto models, but maybe that's fixed now. When you get into auto guns that have a new price of less than about $900 or so, use caution in choosing is the best advice I can suggest. I had a Win 1400 as a loaner gun some years ago. I didn't like it, most that shot it didn't care for it, so I sold it. No longer made, but if you can find an original Rem 11-87 Sporting Clays model (only made about three years in early 1990s), that is a nearly ideal all around gun in my opinion. That is my current loaner/spare, and almost anyone can shoot it well. Wenig makes a lady model stock for it (might be same as 1100 stock?). A used Benelli SuperSport or Berreta Teknys-type model may be out of your budget, but if you can find the extra bucks to get one, it will probably be more satisfactory, and will be a lot easier to sell if she doesn't pursue shooting, or wants to trade up to something different down the road. Women have a higher tendency of being cross-dominant - right-handed, left eye dominant, or vice versa. This needs to be assessed (properly) and get her started shooting from the correct shoulder putting barrel under dominant eye. Dominance is a dynamic visual function. Any "static" "test" has a potential to yield incorrect results. Send me a private e-mail and I can explain a simple, quite reliable test that takes just a minute to perform. I would further recommend finding a competent instructor to help her get started. Once a satisfactory gun mount is developed, the initial emphasis needs to be about 90% on maintaining focus on a small part of the leading edge of every target. Poor target focus (too much attention to the gun barrel, or "lead") is the principal cause of missing targets once the fundamental gun handling mechanical skills are developed (and those don't take much time to develop with regular practice). Query potential instructors - If the instructor does not mention the importance of target focus as one of the top 2 or 3 things needed for successful shotgunning, keep looking until you find one that does. Hope this is useful, Regards, Randy

My 650 is set up for standing. 40" Bench top + 650 Strong mount (plan to post a couple pics soon). Comfortable handle operating range without reaching or bending when stroking the operating handle. I can easily see into pistol cases. I do have a tall "drafting" stool, but very seldom use it. I also run a Ponsness-Warren 800 Plus shotshell press. Run it standing (always), and bench height is about 38" if I recall. I try to limit non-stop loading of anything to about an hour. Then I'll take a break for 10 minutes to move around, etc. That's what works for me. Randy

I bought an M&P9 standard full size back in June. Based on S#, I think it is older production - maybe 2008 vintage? I have tried lots of different ammo. It shoots all the 115 gn ball ammo OK, but not great. I would say average is 3-4" groups at 25 yds. Any 124 or 147 (factory and various reloads) causes the group to open up to maybe twice that size. Fed American Eagle 124 gn also shifted about 5 to 6" lower - that was a surprise. The barrel probably has about 2K rounds through it so far. I am preparing to send it back to S&W for "inspection" and hopeful bbl replacement. Other posters that have done this say the replacement factory barrel allowed most all ammo to be shot with decent accuracy. I take that to mean something like sub-3" groups at 25 yds. After shooting a match with it over last weekend, I was preparing to clean it and strip out all the Apex parts in preparation for returning it to S&W. I happened to take a closer look at the muzzle end of the barrel. I noticed that the bullet rub marks in the grooves near the muzzle was highly uneven. That is, on one side the marks covered almost the complete width of the groove, whereas 180 deg. away (opposite side of bore) the marks touched maybe only 30% of the width of the groove. The contact width progressively got wider in the other grooves as you went from the low contact width to the large contact width side. I've looked at the inside of a lot of barrels, and this seems very unusual to me. It sort of suggests that the rifling depth is quite uneven. I haven't slugged/cast the barrel bore to measure it yet, but plan to do so to measure the groove depths before sending it back to S&W. I am curious if that is the cause of poor accuracy with the heavier bullets - seems plausible. I'll post an update once I have the measurements. Has anyone on the forum observed anything like this, or have any comments or opinions? I'd be interested to hear. Rudolfo I'll post an update once I get that information

I have an earlier production M&P 9 std. bought new this past June. It now has the full Apex Competition trigger parts kit in it. Nice 3# pull, not much creep. Best accuracy of 8 or 9 factory types in this particular gun is Rem UMC 115 plated RN bullets. Pretty cheap at Wal-Mart here - 250 mega pak for about $55 I think. The WWB 115 is similar in accuracy. I think I tried some MTG 115 FMJ at about 1075 fps, and they shot about the same as the factory 115s. I'm getting about 3" 5-shot groups in the 25 yd range with the 115 UMC ammo. I have tried 124 and 147 Fed American Eagle, Blazer 124, some other Win I think. I have now also tried 5 or 6 different combinations at a couple velocities with MTG 124 JHP and Berry 124 FPHB plated as well (so far). I have a box of MTG 147 CMJs, but haven't done anything with them yet. This gun/barrel doesn't seem to want to shoot any of the 124s worth crap. 6+" groups at 25 yds. in any I have tried. Different days, different ammo on the same day - all not good. The American Eagle 147s were not as bad as the various 124s, but still in the 4 - 5" range. I am really hoping to find a 124 or 147 load that comfortably makes minor PF that will shoot in the factory bbl, but I'm not holding my breath. I am on about 10 waiting lists for a new M&P9 Pro 5". If I can round one up, maybe it will shoot better with the heavier bullets. Might have to go to one of the aftermarket bbls, but they're about $175!!! Regards, R

Thanks for the input. I also have a Tanfoglio/EAA Ltd Pro. I narrowed the front sight to about 0.095" and cut serrations in the face, and am planning to widen the rear notch some. I am still working on the trigger, so haven't shot it much. I'll take it out next time and shoot it a little for comparison. I seem to do better in general with the FO front than the factory plain post so far. I can accept the out-of-focus on target and rear sight, but you might imagine how you perceive the front of the shotgun barrel when shooting clays. That is how much the rear sight tends to "go away" when I'm shooting the pistols. I think it is hurting my accuracy on mid-range targets. I squint my left eye closed on 20+ yd targets and get good hits. Shooting both eyes open on 8 - 20 yd targets my groups open up quite a bit. My sight alignment "index" is usually good. If I do a full speed draw and present with my eyes closed, the front sight is usually within the rear notch when I open my eyes (90+% of the time, and really close all the time). I think that is how I am shooting the targets at present - front sight over target and relying on proper grip on draw to align the rear - I really am not seeing the rear most of the time when I am shooting at speed. Static steel targets (plates, poppers) are still being a problem for some reason, even though the sight/target contrast is high. I know my problem on moving steel and moving paper - I revert to semi-shotgun mode I think. 100% target focus and point the pistol like it is a shotgun... results not good! Just needs lots more range time so my visual perception learns what to pay attention to when shooting pistol vs. shotgun. Thanks for the input. I'll keep at it. Maybe Brian will weigh in on this one.... Regards, Rudolfo

I've been shooting clay target games since 1990. I've been an NSCA- certified instructor since 1996, and shoot in A-class for Sporting Clays these days. I think an IC choke will generally be OK for sporting clays, 5-Stand, Skeet, and Trap singles. What choke you shoot/need depends on what you want out of your sporting clays/clay target shooting. If strictly for fun, use the IC and any shells you have, and have fun. Here is what you can expect for reliable hits using an IC choke, with 1 oz 12 ga #7½ shot: -Most any target presentation - out to 35 yds. Maybe subtract 5 yds from that distance when shooting #8 shot. -Face or belly presentations (chondelle, teal, and crow-type targets, and battue targets) - 40-45 yds using #8 shot Each 3000' of elevation increase above sea level - add 5 yds to those distances. That will likely cover over 90% of sporting targets you will see. For sporting clays and 5-Stand, optimal choke selection and need for multiple chokes sort of depends on how the sporting targets are usually set where you shoot. Smart sporting range managers/target setters do not usually set long targets (more than one or two anyway) on their "recreational" courses. Keeping the customers hitting targets keeps them coming back. If you are leaning towards being little more serious about skill improvement or what score you shoot, I'd be getting at least one more choke, and probably 2 or 3 more. For one more, I'd probably pick a Mod (0.020" in 12 ga) or Light ImpMod (0.025"). If you can swing 2 more, I'd choose a Light Mod (0.015") and something around LIMod or IMod (0.025-0.030"). For a 3rd one, it never hurts to have a Full in case you get into an Annie Oakley shoot or some other "long target" game. Final comment - Extended chokes make changing them easier. I have seen no evidence (and I've shot hundreds of patterns with different choke types, brands, and in many different guns) that extended chokes statistically improve patterning performance in general.The less-costly chokes generally seem to be just as good as the spendy ones. Do not waste your money on ported chokes, or titanium chokes. The key is looking at the internal finish of the choke bore, and the fit where the transition from the barrel bore into the choke tube occurs. Better fit and more polished = less plastic build-up and easier to clean. You can hand-polish your choke bores if they are not real smooth. The Carlsons chokes seem to be pretty good and fairly inexpensive. Briley's regular and plain extended chokes are good but $$. Don't pay for all the color bands, ports, or titanium models - not necessary. I'd avoid the really long, ported, extended chokes made by various companies that are generally quite expensive (unless you are trying to impress your friends with the appearance of you shotgun). My $6 worth. Of course, YMMV. Rudolfo

Preface - I am a long-time sporting clays shooter ('90 tp present), and was a bullseye pistol and rifle shooter (one-eyed) during the 80's. I am right-eye dominant and shoot shotgun both eyes open. My visual training for shotgun is centered on sharp focus on a small part of the clay target I am engaging. I have been working on the eye muscle training to improve visual convergence back to front sight when transitioning from steel/paper target to front sight (shooting SSP and/or Production at present). It is happening faster than when I started, but still not fast enough to satisfy me. Just more eye training exercises and I think I will get there. I have Rx shooting glasses set up so my near focus distance is just back to the rear sight for both eyes (no correction left and +0.87 right). I can always get sharp focus at front sight distance. Targets, especially longer ones when the light level is low tend to be pretty fuzzy, but that is not an issue as far as I can tell. I just seriously started down this pistol shooting road this past June, but have been doing right much dryfire and am trying to shoot live fire at least once a week (Work schedule limited - I know this isn't really enough to improve rapidly, but the dryfire is helping). Here are my two issues/questions: 1. I'm using a Dawson 0.100" wide FO front (M&P 9 Std model pistol). The rear is a standard warren tactical with the wide "U" notch. The overall length of the front sight is relatively long. When I get sharp front sight focus, I am seeing the rear and left side of the front sight (as I would expect). This presents effectively a wider image of the front sight to me, and I think it is skewing my "rapid" sight picture so that shots are hitting slightly right compared to static sight zero from a rest, or slow fire freestyle group shooting. The specific sights do not appear to be the issue - plain post and rear notch sights on other pistols give the same perception to me. Does anyone have any ideas or comments about this in general, or suggestions on how to become more consistent? 2. To some extent always, but especially when the contrast between front sight, rear sight, and target is not high, my image of the rear sight sort of dissolves or washes out. I am still seeing the front well against the "correct" target image, but my reference to the rear notch is almost completely gone. It is not a dominance issue as far as I can tell. Both the right eye image of the rear (nominally aligned with front) and the "ghost" left eye image of the rear appearing to the right, are both nearly invisible. I have observed that it is not as bad when the front is elevated a bit above the rear, but once the front is dropped into the rear notch, sight alignment confidence is really low. This is the issue that is most bothering me at present. I would be grateful if somebody can shed some light on this and point me in the right direction to get it resolved. I am thinking it might be an artifact of my visual training and perception from shotgun shooting - I am seeing only what I am really focusing on, and every thing else sort of "goes away." Maybe I just need a lot of time looking at the sights to let my visual perception allow the image of the rear sight to become more apparent in the overall picture. Any thoughts or help very much appreciated. Rudolfo

I took Mike's USPSA training class (based on his book) earlier this summer. I benefited a lot from the class, and the book is very helpful, too. I was very much a beginner (practical pistol shooting) when I took the class. In my opinion, I would have benefited more from the class having had a little more experience prior to the class. I was too focused on trying to get basic techniques working, rather than being able to focus on refinements. I will definitely say, do not discount the advances possible with mental training and dry fire practice as recommended in Mike's book. A little dry fire a day goes a long way. Also, do yourself a favor and buy Lanny Basham's book "With Winning in Mind..." (it is referenced in Mike's book). I met Lanny about 5 or 6 yrs ago, and did a short seminar with him. His program almost immediately jumped me up a class (B to A) shooting sporting clays. Mike's book I can surely recommend. For me, the class (it was held at our local club) was worth the cost. Mike is planning to come back next May and do a more "advanced" class and I plan to attend that one. I am working a "short" version of his program (need more live training work), and am making good improvements. Of course, YMMV, Rudolfo

Hey Folks, Just got my 1st Dillon yesterday - a 650. Now that it's here, I got some measurements to figure the proper ergonomic height for the bench top for me (5'11"). With the "Strong Mount" the bench top height numbers I get are: Standing - 40" Sitting - 8" above chair seat. That ended up being a bit lower than the suggested "top of handle at shoulder height" I read somewhere in Brian's Forums. For me it ended up something like "top of (roller) handle at armpit height." Not sure which way I'll go. My shotgun set-up (Ponsness-Warren 850) is set for standing. I'm leaning towards a standing bench for this installation of the 650, but the set-up will allow the benchtop height to be changed pretty easily if I decide to do it. I'll post the results in the "loading benches" topic when I get done. Maybe that will help. ~~~ *** I also have extracted and organized all the threads in this topic according to titles such as "General" "Shell Plate Related" "Casefeeder" and so on. I tried to cut essentially duplicate things, and deleted things that were posted but subsequently found to be incorrect or ineffective. I did not try and keep all the poster's names or the post dates, just the "meat" of the posts, and pictures where relevant. I did this mostly for my benefit, but someone else may benefit from it. The result is about a 30 page PDF file. I am not exactly sure about forum protocol or the legality or ethics of recompiling others writings and putting them back out there. Since it is not-for-profit and "educational use," the legal part should be OK. If anyone objects, PM me back soon and I will not make it available. If I don't hear any dissenting opinions (or ones that can be resolved), I'll finish touching it up and see if Brian will put the PDF document somewhere on the forum that is easily located (maybe a pinned post with the link in the Dillon Equipment forum section. Good shooting to all. Regards, Randy Idaho Falls

I have 8# of Win Super-Lite (no longer produced as far as I know - shows up in no current loading charts) that I bought probably about 1992-3. I was using it for 12 ga. shells. I switched to Clays, and ended up with 2 ea. 4# cans left over. Both in my control since new, always stored in climate-controlled areas, still in original sealed cans. I expect the powder is still OK to use. Problem - all my old manuals from that vintage were sold or given away long ago. I wasn't shooting pistol at that time, so no old loading records in my logs to work from. Does anyone have any safe starting loads for WSL in 9 mm with 115 or 124 gr bullets they would be willing to share? If I could get a start load that was surely safe as far as pressure, I could work from that with a chronograph. I'd like to use it up. I may have some old shotshell data, so guess I could burn it up in practice shells if I had to. Unfortunately I don't own a super HD universal receiver or a piezo pressure transducer to do "from scratch" development. Any help appreciated in advance. Thanks, Randy Idaho Falls

Hey guys and gals, I used to shoot bullseye pistol 20+ years ago. Just recently started to shoot some USPSA/IDPA matches. I also shoot a lot of sporting clays. I've got BEs book, SKs first book, and a couple others. None (that I have found anyway) seem to speak to the following. Here is the question - For a typical USPSA match situation (targets from 2 to probably 40 yds, some with significant cover or no-shoots)... >>> What is the best choice for Point of Impact relative to top center of front sight (iron sights). I would suspect for inside 10 yd targets it is of little consequence - front sight aligned in A-zone - shot breaks. However, at 25+ yds, especially with a 50% diagonal or horizontal hard cover or no-shoot, it seems more significant. My inclination is to put the POI right on the top edge of front sight at 40-50 yds or so. That should put the POI a little "floated" over the front sight in the 15 to 25 yd range (not yet tested to see how much). That would mean the impact point is above the front sight on typical mid-range targets - you should have a sense of seeing where the impact will be on the target. I presume then, in my newbie-ness, this would be a good thing. If there is no cover or white above the front sight the shot should be good. Any comments appreciated. Randy

Hi guys and gals, I'm new to the forum, and new to USPSA and IDPA shooting. I used to shoot bullseye pistol back in the early 80s to early 90s. HP rifle, too. Started into shotgunning, sporting clays mostly, and drifted away from pistol and rifle by about '92. Back then, Enos and Leatham were the hot young guns. I actually built a 1911 to shoot IPSC with, but never shot in a match. All that stuff got sold off by late 90s. We had a cross-club fun shoot between our shotgun club and the practical shooting club over the hill last month. I shot a borrowed pistol and ended up with about a 50% score in limited against several A-class shooters at the top of the heap (30 shooters total). Not too bad, and had a lot of fun. Shot another USPSA match 2 wks ago (a different borrowed glock), and an IDPA match last weekend with a borrowed SIG P229. In the meantime, I was looking for a new or used pistol to call my own. After a lot of looking, I ordered an EAA Limited Pro in 9 mm. Production legal, and the local club guys said they allow it in IDPA club matches (it's a 1/4" too long). I might buy a standard length conversion kit for it in the future so it would be fully legal for IDPA. ~~~ So, the new pistol came in yesterday. General appearance is nice. Parts of the frame and slide (both stainless steel I think) that are not flat have a bead-blasted finish. Side flat surfaces have a surface ground finish. Very smooth, but not shiny or mirror-like. The laser-etched (I think that is the method used) words are pretty light. Visible if you look closely, but not really visible from a few feet away. Fit and finish overall pretty good. The front-strap and back-strap checkered "pads" are SHARP. I will need to polish at the top edge some, or I will end up with a sore middle finger - THAT SHARP. Grip checkering is also nicely pointed. Slide fit and barrel fit are good - about as expected for a mid-grade factory gun. Trigger - some failings by Tanfoglio/EAA here - at least on this particular gun. DA pull is rough, uneven, and heavy. Have not weighed it yet, but I'm betting near 14-15#. The DA break is acceptable. SA pull has a lot of creep, a slight extra weight just before break, and a weird break feel. On inspection, the SA sear engagement is uneven, and it even looks strange where hammer hooks engage. This will be seeing some immediate work to try and correct. Interestingly, the sear engagement on the half-cock hooks looks a lot better, and actually has a better feel (also accounting for the reduced mainspring pressure which makes the pull weight lighter - not just that). As listed elsewhere in this forum and by Henning Wallgren, there are a number of points in the trigger mechanism needing smoothing and polishing, and probably some spring changes as well. I will scale the trigger as is, perform some tuning, re-scale, and report back once the job is done. I'll try and get some macro-photos before and after to post. May be of some help to other EAA/Tanfo owners. Randy