Tac Ray

I wanted an M4 because I love a lot of things about the gun - the way it fires, the way it looks, the quality. I know it's not the best choice for 3 gun but realistically if I shot the course with an M4 vs a better gun the difference would likely be negligible. I'd do better by practicing shotgun reloads rather than reading forum posts about why the gun's no good

For precision rifle I uniform the primer pockets, debur flash holes, clean them before reloading with a pocket cleaner, etc. But for the 3 gun rifle I shoot and all pistol I don't think there's any benefit. I've been told you can get media caught in the flash hole and having bad ignition, but never seen it that I know of.

2 weeks ago I realized I was about out of small rifle primers and 224 bullets. I was in Mace Sporting Goods here in Mebane, NC and they had a pile of CCI 400s behind the counter. I bought 2,000 for $31 per 1,000 I think. I don't think they mail order though.

Well, I found the problem tonight. Turns out the pin that holds the trigger slid out to the left a bit causing the disconnector not to catch the hammer. I pushed it back in and the problem went away. I wasn't aware that some of these pieces are surface hardened. A few thousand rounds to failure isn't that many. Even though I only polished the engagement surface I'll get replacements for my spare parts kit. Thanks for the replies all.

It is a stock trigger group. A gunsmith friend of mine did most of the trigger work. He polished but did not change the shape of any surfaces. If I recall correctly on this trigger I might have taken a little metal off to reduce the amount of creep but if I did I would have been as careful as possible not to change any shapes or to round anything off. Not that it couldn't have been done inadvertently.

I was working up loads for my AR-15 today and at the end of the day it started dropping the firing pin on the release of the trigger after a shot. Squeeze-break-bang, then as I let up on the trigger to reset it goes bang again Not exactly a double fire but I don't know what to call it. It will also do this dry firing. I'll tear it down tomorrow and see what I can find but unfortunately I'm out of town almost until a match next weekend. I thought I'd ping the forum in case you guys have seen this and have pointers that can save me some time. It's a stock DPMS AR-15 in 223 with 2-3 thousand rounds through it. I did polish the trigger to eliminate some of the grit during creep and I might have taken out a little creep too (10 years ago before almost any rounds through it, I can't remember for sure). The trigger still has some creep left where you can feel the engagement slipping along, it doesn't feel like a trigger with a sear that's barely engaged, but I also don't know AR triggers too well. I work on all of my comp guns and I'm not the type to push things to the edge, I just clean things up and let the built-in reliability take care of me for years to come. Thanks for any advice.

Any time I'm shooing I'm having fun, but I've found Cowboy Action Shooting to be the most fun competition event I've ever attended. They have been very family friendly and very welcoming to new shooters. It can be pretty expensive to get into the sport but we know that and we share guns and ammo with new shooters all the time. It may take many months before you can buy all of the guns and leather you need, in the mean time we'll loan guns and share gun carts at the match to keep you up and shooting.

Thanks guys. I'll plan to try the SA holster. This will be my first XD, it fits my hands very well.

Thanks for the detailed review. How do you think the factory holsters compare to brands such as Comptech, etc?

My take is you can go shoot a 45 ACP and have a lot of fun and place pretty well. Once you get to the point where the difference between a 45 ACP and a 9mm is a meaningful difference in your time then you'll know what it's worth to you. Shotgun reload time, rifle accuracy, gun transitions, and pistol speed all contribute significantly. You can go a long ways with a 45 ACP, and have a whole lot of fun in the process! Of course, I'm shooting a USP45 and can't wait to use the speed excuse to buy a new gun

They actually give torque values for installing the PEPR mount. It might be something like 65-100 inch pounds. Look at the paperwork with the mount. You mean read the directions? I think I can handle that! Thanks!

I've only used optics on bolt rifles so noob question here. I bought the TAC30 and the Burris PEPR mount, going on the picatinny rail on a flattop DPMS. Do I just tighten the snot out of the mount onto the rail or is there a risk of bending something? Thanks.

Thanks for the replies guys. I'll finish shooting up my 45 ACP ammo and then try to standardize on my cowboy bullets.

My experience with my USP 45 is that I can load darn near anything and the gun functions well with it. Light load, heavy load, lead, jacketed, etc. have all fed just very well and I've never had a jam. I wonder if I loaded pebbles and gummy bears if it would still fire OK Also, from what I can tell with my micrometer and Google searches, I can load 200gr 45LC (Long Colt) RNFP bullets (0.452 diameter) in my 45 ACP rounds and everything should be fine. I've only shot handgun as rapid fire so I have no feel for accuracy trade-offs. Bottom line is that I'd like to burn off my inventory of 45 ACP bullets and then standardize on the same bullets I shoot in cowboy action. Here's what I've got: 230gr RNFP 0.452 ACP lead 200gr SWC 0.452 ACP lead 200gr RNFP 0.452 LC lead (my cowboy bullets) Are there any issues with using all of these in my gun (I'll be shooting 3-gun with them all)? Thanks, Ray

I get +/- 0.1gr using Titegroup with my RL550B and a 5.0gr nominal charge. A few percent of rounds will measure 0.2gr off. As others mentioned, make sure the powder charge bar is moving all the way from one extreme to the other. Clean the whole setup and check everything out. I had inconsistent loads once because I inserted the failsafe rod from the wrong side of the bell cranks (the bar that goes from the ram to the powder measure). This caused the bar not to always move all the way one side to the other. Gave the rounds to a new shooter so I got the pleasure of a new barrel on my six shooter after he ringed it