snow patrol

I'm loading Berry's plated to 1.160 with 4.7 grains of Solo out of a 5" barrel and just touched major.

Usually this is an indication I forgot to push the handle all the way forward and seat a primer. It's amazing how a fine ball powder like TAC can dribble out of the flash hole and get into every nook and cranny of the press.

I've had good results with Remington 5 1/2, CCI, and WSP

And if he's got it in stock, he ships it right away!

Well my Burris XTR arrived on wednesday. First impression was that it's a nice little scope with some heft to it. It dropped into my LaRue LT104-30 mount with no issues. I loaded up 100 rounds of 69gr SMK over 24.0gr of TAC and headed out to my shooting spot to zero the scope. Set the target at 50 yards to make sure I was getting hits on paper. Loaded up a mag a 55gr Hornady FMJBT generic plinking rounds and fired ten rounds off... What do ya know? Scope was more or less dead on right out of the box (how often does that happen). I moved the target stand out to 100 yards and started zipping out 10 shot groups of the SMK loads. I only had to make a minor elevation and windage adjustment, and I'm getting a nice, consistent 1.5-2.0" group. With just a "dot" in the center of the reticle (no fine crosshairs), and only 4X magnification, getting an exact repeatable aiming point through the scope wasn't possible. But 1.5" groups at 100 yards is good enough for me. The glass was plenty enough clear and bright for me, and overall, I'm extremely pleased and satisfied with my purchase. Most likely will be adding a MGM Switchview. Great little scope for less than $1K! Here's the scope on the NST. BTW, the Geissele DMR is perfect in this rifle.

Redding sells handgun die sets for progressive machines. Knowing that the flare is done by the powder measure station, they omit the expander die, and you get a sizing die, seating die, and taper crimp die.

Just curious, what is the twist on the bbl you use the 69 SMK's on? I have a 20" 1:9 AR and I keep reading that it's too slow for the heavy's...>69g? I'd like to shoot 600yds with a handloaded 5.56 in that AR. So far, I haven't had any probs with 200yds with PPU 69g match HPBT (factory) but wonder about destabilization out around 600yds. If you're shooting 69gr out to 200 yards and haven't seen any signs of "keyholing" in the target (round entering target sideways due to losing stability in flight from insufficient twist), then you most likely will be okay at longer distances. You just need to try it to find out. All three of my Noveske rifles are 1/7 twist (2 18" 1 16"), and while more than capable of stabilizing a 77gr SMK, seem to prefer the 69gr SMK better. I can get really good accuracy out of the 77gr with the 18" barreled rifles, but it requires a bit more attention to working up a good load for them. My one 1/9 twist M&P-15 will stabilize a 69gr SMK just fine, but keyholes the 77gr badly. It has a 16" barrel though. Your 20" 1/9 might have enough rifling to get the 77 to stabilize. Or not. Load up a box and try 'em.

Honestly, there was a lot of "let's not piss off the wife" factor going into this decision. I figured the Burris would give me enough bang for the buck. I'd really like to get a SN-4 and would REALLLLY like to get a Z6i BRT even more. But with nearly 2K into the NST rifle, and an XL650 this past fall, she'd go into hyper ballistic orbit if I shelled out another $1K+ on a scope right now. It shipped today, and I should be out on the range by this weekend!

Solo 1000 has become my go to backup powder when I can't get my hands on N-320. I really like the Solo!

Thanks for posting that. It's Good to know you can go that long. what kind of bullets gave you problems at shorter OAL? my m&p40 (full sized and compact) have never had a feeding problem of any kind with factory ammo or my reloads of berrys, zero and mg 165 grain TC bullets. I've always loaded to 1.125 or slightly above. Berry's 180 plated. Gave my M&P fits (feeding jams) at the SAAMI OAL. Started way out at 1.180 and fed fine. Started shortening the OAL by 0.005" increments. At 1.140 feed issues came back. Chose the happy medium of 1.160 and not an issue with the Berry's since. I have stopped buying the Berry's and have ordered MG 180s.

I had Redding dies before buying my 650, so all of my tool heads are filled with Redding carbide dies (.40 S&W, .223, and .357 Mag). I've never had any die related problems loading with them. I did however have to buy a few 5-packs of Dillon lock rings for the Redding die sets. Nowhere near enough room to tighten up the Redding lock rings with the dies in the Dillon tool head. You'll run into the same lock ring issue with the RCBS dies.

Well, I "pulled the trigger" tonight and went with neither a Z6i or the SN-4. I decided to go with a Burris XTR 1-4. I really couldn't find anyone with anything bad (here on brianenos or much anywhere else) to say about it. Daylight illumination was important to me. Warranty looked great, and it's less than $1K, so why not?

FWIW, I have to load a little long for my M&P 40L to cycle reliably with my reloads. Found that 1.160-1.165 works best, which gives me a bit more case volume over the SAAMI OAL, and a bit of a safety margin to load to major with N320.

I've got an 18" NST rifle that needs a scope. I'm a big Nightforce fan, and have two of their precision rifle scopes. Nightforce makes an awesome scope, but after trying the 1-4 NSX with a FC-2 reticle for a few weeks, the reticle just doesn't work for me. No doubt the Z6i is the hot ticket right right now, and I've been seriously considering getting one. Then I was looking at a post about the SN-4 with the Lund (US Optics is now calling it a HPDT) reticle. I really like the look/size of the scope, the Lund reticle, the green illumination, and the warranty. Plus, it's about 1K cheaper than the Swarovski. Knowing what the scope will be used for (3 gun) and that it'l get tossed into barrels and knocked around on barricades and such, the SN-4 is the scope I'm leaning towards. Having a 6X isn't really a must have for me. So for those of you who do have a SN-4 with a Lund/HPDT reticle, what can you tell me about it? Good, bad, or otherwise? Also I have a LaRue LT104-30 mount I was planning on using. How well would it work with the SN-4?

I certainly hope so, though I'm not sure S&W made enough of the 40Ls to meet the production number requirements. I'd really like to know just how many of the "L" pistols were made, it just seems not a lot of people have them. It was just dumb luck that I found mine NIB at a gun store. It would be nice if NROI would consider the fact that the 40L is, for all intents and purposes, is the same gun as a 5" 40 Pro and just include the L in with the approval of the Pro. Even if that never happens, I've got a sweet Limited Division gun!

Ahhh! OK, that's makes sense.

Oh, there it is - thanks. It was put together some time in July 2010. Does anyone happen to know when the update occurred? Not super sure when they started changing the sear springs, but on the box for my M&P40L the manufacture date says 1027 - so January 27, 2011, and mine still had the older, smaller size sear spring and plunger. I can say that within 250 rounds of installing an Apex FSS trigger kit (and ignoring the instructions recommendation to use an updated sear housing block), I started getting a dead trigger - right in the middle of a match. Talked to Randy at Apex and after telling him the problem, his first question was, "Are you using the older style sear spring?" Ummm.... Yeah. He diagnosed it as sear flutter. I ordered a new style sear housing block (amazingly I was able to find one in stock), and haven't a problem many 1000s of round later. You can send your sear block to Apex and they'll drill out the sear spring hole and install the larger spring and plunger and ship it back.

I'm about to run the last 500 rounds of Berry's plated through the 650 and be done with plated. I'm not sure what the true accuracy of my gun is because these bullets are so inconsistent. I get decent groups, but not what I'd call ideal. So, I'm looking to order a case of MG bullets. 180 grain for my M&P40L Limited gun. What's the main difference between Conical Metal Jacket (CMJ) and Full Metal Jacket (FMJ), and which would be the better bullet for my gun? I use N-320 and Solo 1000 for powders and load to major PF if that matters.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ That little "emoticon" you've got is awesome!

As far as the 205M Federal primers, I've loaded about 1000K of them with 69gr SMK bullets and Varget. Never had a problem. They ignite very reliably and consistently. But they have softer cups than other brands and are more sensitive to impact. You may see flattened primers that are not from excessive pressures, but from that soft metal cup. You also have to handle them a little more cautiously especially when loading your primer tubes and when actually seating the primers. Try using IMR 8208 XBR powder instead of Varget, especially if you're loading on a progressive. The extruded granules are much shorter than Varget's, and it will meter better through a measure. I'm really liking Ramshot TAC too, it's a powder which has really surprised me, and it meters like silk. Hodgdon has their new CFE223 powder too.

I had this problem when I first got my XL650 too. I was crunching one or two primers out of every ten or so rounds. Two things I did (which I found after searching around on this site) was: Found out I had the shell plate bolt WAY too tight. Because of this, the shell plate wouldn't center over the detent ball underneath it, and the alignment of the primer seating punch and a case was all off. Backed off the bolt a bit and made sure the shell plate rotated smoothly and indexed properly at each station. Second thing (also found on this site) was to only tighten the two bolts holding the primer assembly to the press finger tight. No wrenches, just snug with my fingers. My guess is that it allows the holes in the primer feedplate to self-center over the primer seating punch. Since doing this, I've solved about 95% of my priming issues.

OP, I'm in the same boat. Running Berry's 180gr plated with Solo 1000, mainly just because I have a bunch of them around the house. Love the Solo 1000 for the recoil feel, and most importantly, COST over N320. But talk about accuracy issues... As soon as I burn up what plated bullets I do have, Montana Gold is gonna be getting an order from me.

I do mass decapping runs through my 650 because I'm one of those stainless steel tumbling wierdos. Lots of crimped .223 and regular .40. The Redding decapping die works phenomenally on a single stage press - and that's about it. First time I used it on a 650, it broke in less than 30 cases! I've badly bent the decap pin and entire stem of a Dillon decap die (something was going up in the press when it should have been going down). Now I keep extra stems and pins on hand. It's either the case not being fully seated into the shellplate and me not paying attention, or there's a rock or 9mm case stuck inside the 40 case. Case goes up, pin hits rock/9mm case, and blammo! Good to have spares around.

And if you're using a sight pusher like the MGW, you have to cut off the "handle" part of the plastic tool and just slip the dovetailed piece of plastic into the rear sight groove to hold the parts in place as you insert the slide into the pusher. I'm glad Apex includes this handy little piece of plastic with their kits. Of course I've now got 4-5 of them laying around.

How do you go about adjusting the Dillon size/trim die for the RT1200 so that it only trims, but does not size?