cardiackid

Awesome to see someone from Fort Harmar on here. I've only shot there once, but it was my first introduction to action shooting about 6 years ago. My friend Anthony took me up there to shoot a sub-gun/shotgun/pistol match and the rest, they say, is history. Kind of humbling to watch Ken Hackathorn do what he does best (and have no idea who he was at the time). Anyway - on to your topic. You'll love the H/T/R-1s. I went from shooting an ML3 to an H-1 a while back and the first thing you'll notice is the major weight savings. A lot of people tend to think it's harder to get a good sight picture in the -1s with the smaller lens before they try it, but I found it to be the exact opposite. Because there is a lot less obstructing your view on top of the rifle, the -1s tend to blend with your dominant eye while still allowing your non-dominant a clear field of view. There's no better way for me to describe it, but it really becomes second nature to maintain both eyes on the target while bringing the red dot over your dominant eye and somehow not even noticing the rest of the optic. To top it all off, the sights are pretty much bombproof and the LaRue mounts make a perfect combo (as usual) with them.

The JP Recoil Eliminator, or "the tank brake" is only allowed in open the last I checked. The JP Tactical however is allowed in any. I have one of those and there's only a hint of recoil as well (especially coming from a 14.5" carbine length with an A2 flashider).

Yep - I'm positive I had the trigger spring cocked sideways in it. Basically replicated the same feel messing around with it yesterday. Good to go and one more troubleshooting step to add to the inventory for the future. Thanks guys.

Yep - I just started reading more about that (I guess I got confused with how 9mm major played into it without realizing that all 9mm in production, which I will be shooting for now anyway, are scored in minor). Is there a highly recommended bullet grain to velocity combo for your average match or does each shooter settle in on their own flavor? I know I'm going to have to load heavier than 115gr 9mm as factory ammo isn't doing the trick against most of the steel here. I haven't chrono'd any factory ammo (win white box 115gr for instance) but I'm sure it's probably a higher velocity than needed to make PF. I might as well maintain the same load for both the few IDPA club matches I'll be able to get in before I move to Columbus and start shooting USPSA since it will allow me to maintain a constant feel for my personal gun.

Another +1 for the Lee. I've decapped probably a thousand rounds of LC since I purchased it with no issues. Prvi Prtizan or however you spell it tends to be even more of a PITA during decapping. That red primer sealant they used can keep things really tight some times, but it was nothing more than lowering the pin just a hair more to make sure it handles the PPU headstamp.

I'm thinking that was the cause as well. Maybe when I dropped it in I had it kinked to one side while installing the trigger bar. I think it's one of the only things that could have caused the odd feel.

I fixed the problem, but I'm trying to identify what I did wrong in the first place... Stock G17 - This pistol is still relatively new to me (I used to shoot my G19) and I haven't fired more than a hundred rounds with it prior to the match, so at first I attributed it to just not being used to the feel of a new gun/new trigger but by the end of the match I knew something was up as it felt so much different than my 19. During the IDPA match this past weekend (of course right during the first stage) I noticed that my trigger needed a little extra "oomph" to break and the perceived reset was fairly short and not as pronounced. When I say extra oomph, I mean a noticeably higher amount of pressure to break (safety, take-up, etc. was fine - it was just right as it was about to break.) I detail stripped the weapon tonight, cleaned it, looked for anything out of place or abnormal abrasions on any contact surfaces, etc. and did not find anything. I reassembled it and voila - everything was back to normal. Anyone have any ideas what I may have assembled wrong when I put it back together in the first place? It wasn't anything grossly out of place - somehow putting something in backward, etc. as the gun functioned fine throughout the whole match with the exception of the odd trigger break and reset. My guess is that I somehow had some portion of the trigger group slightly off center or jammed up against something, but I have virtually no idea how this is possible. Just looking for any thoughts from those of you who have sent a hundred times more rounds down range with glocks than I have.

Yep - I'll be stationed at Benning (and most likely living in Phenix City) for about 6 months. Thanks for the heads up on Shooters. It's been 4 years or so since I've been down at Benning and I wasn't into shooting or reloading back then so I probably didn't even notice if they carried anything. A couple buddies and I found EAGC on the net and planned on shooting as many of their matches as we can while we're there. It's good to know there's several other clubs as well. It looks like I can't go wrong with any of the bayou 9mm choices - I'll probably just pick one and roll with it until I need to reorder, lol.

Now that bayou bullets is back up and taking orders (and since my 550 is en route from BE) I wanted to ask you guys that have shot them for a while a couple of questions. I'm currently shooting club match IDPA ssp with a factory Glock 17. I've been shooting winchester white box 115gr FMJ for as long as I've shot pistol. At the club matches, there's always a steel stage that generally gives the WWB 115grs a lot of trouble unless I sweet spot the targets. I am also about to move to the Columbus, GA area and I understand that USPSA is much more popular down there (as well as 3-gun). I'm not a classified shooter and while understanding what power factors are and how they're calculated, I don't know enough about the USPSA divisions and the sport in general to know if I should aim to meet major or minor, etc. Is there a good "default" weight in bayou bullets to go with much like a 55gr FMJ for AR platforms in your average local matches? I'll be looking to purchase a thousand rounds and just want to make sure I select what will work as a good starter/new to USPSA load. Also, any issues with fouling build-up in the glock barrels? I clean my gun after every match/practice session so I won't be shooting 500+ rounds without seeing what's going on in the barrel, but my major concern is whether or not I should plan on purchasing an aftermarket barrel to use with them right off the bat. Thanks for the help

Glad you got a full day in - morning was good when I was out and late evening would have been even better, however intermittent thunderstorms throughout the rest of the day and the winds were causing havoc as usual (especially this nice little circular flow we get in the low ground at around 350-500). I finally settled in a pretty good .308 load and got rid of the fliers I had last time. 5 rounds at 100m, but not as tight as yours. I can't believe you can see a pastie at 200 - I'd be shooting blind, lol.

Smokin: I have the PRS on an 18" SS barrel/15" JP Handguard upper and I think it balances out enough for me. While the stock is heavy, it's still not as heavy as the front end. I don't have any issues with it being too bulky for the stages, nor for my build, but I'm a bigger frame guy at 6'2" 210.

Anyone happen to know if FB is doing another match late in 2011? I saw they did what looks to be a March 2011 one but I don't know enough about it to know if they only do it once per year. I may actually be down there to shoot it for once if they have one between July and Jan some time.

I was only joking about the MOA stuff - You'd be astonished how many people I work with on a daily basis in the Army that have never heard of it or understand the concept Then again 90% of them will never shoot beyond 300m so from their standpoint it's ignorance is bliss as long as the target falls down (even though the shooter grazed it on a shoulder.) The graphs I posted were pulled off a google images search - for some reason it paints the picture of trajectory in a much better explanation than a spreadsheet that shows the rise and drop over sight line. Explaining to someone how a 2 or 4 MOA red dot optic works over distances and why they need to zero their lasers a certain way is like pulling hair out most of the time. Then again, I'm sure an NCO was saying the same thing when I was learning

George what do you mean? I had an inch group at 25 so that has to mean it will be an inch at 200 right? What do they mean minutes of angle... time is not involved in zeroing is it?

You're looking at a 25/300 zero vs a 40 or 50/200 zero. 40-50/200 is flatter out to just past 200 but drops more after that. 25/300 has much more rise at the 150-200 range. 25/300 zero:

Keep in mind your close shots are going to have a lower POI than POA because of the sightline/boreline offset at the close in ranges. If you're using a standard front sight base with a flip up rear or similar, I believe it is 2.25" offset at the muzzle (but don't quote me). It's a much flatter trajectory out to the 225ish range, but with a 16" bbl at around 3000fps your 250yd drop is appx. 3.7" and the 300yd drop is appx. 9". Will depend on barrel length, muzzle velocity, etc. Basically you'll hit A/0 zone from 0-250 as long as your POA is good at the center of the zone/ring but will have to creep up to the top of the A/0 zone or throat area for the longer shots. If they are known distance targets I'd do into it with that mentality, but I'd rather aim a little high and still chance the B/1 shot than waste time ranging it if it's not known between 225-300.

Just like the others said - if you're going Sierra get a heavier grain where their stuff really shines. 55gr is a dime a dozen with the blunter-nosed Winchester being the cheapest, but ugliest and the bulk Hornady 55gr FMJBTs on the higher end cost vs. quality wise (maybe 2-3 bucks more per hundred - even less with the larger packages).

I just started doing this for .308 as well. I went the cheap route - my rig cost all of $40 to get the job done. I bought a BernzOMatic propane tank/torch combo at Home Depot for $12, a Black & Decker cordless screw driver for $20 and a 13mm deep well socket. I use a metronome on my iPod to count off 6 seconds and then drop the case into a bin. There's a good thread on SnipersHide that discusses various methods from the way I'm doing it to the fully automated setups and there's also some links to other good articles in there: http://www.snipershide.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1269188#Post1269188

Just wanted to throw a quick follow up in this thread versus starting a new one with pretty much the same topic. Let me start off by saying I'm a regular weekend hobbyist - I'm not a competitive long gun shooter (maybe someday), nor am I a paid endorser of RCBS, and all of my bolt action stuff is for silhouette steel at 800-900m. I shoot a factory barrel/action Remington 700P with an unruly amount of chamber slop by custom build standards. I spend a lot of time over on SnipersHide.com reading/learning in the precision reloading forum and almost got caught by the bug of "the most expensive dies, etc. are always the best." That may be so, but I have definitely found my "good enough" and I didn't need to look any farther than the RCBS stuff I had sitting in front of me. Fortunately I purchased a concentricity gauge and a set of comparators and headspace/shoulder gauges to check my existing stuff prior to buying new dies and equipment and in the long run, these tools saved me a decent chunk of change and are useful for just about any caliber. I learned a ton about my rifle, my reloads, and some interesting stuff about my equipment with them: 1) The RCBS competition die set for .308 (at least the one I have currently in my rockchucker) produces some very good and repeatable ammunition regarding full length resizing and bullet seating. Once I got the FL sizer set to just bump the shoulder where I wanted it, it has yet to drift. Now...who knows what may happen as the indoor temperature gets warmer, I don't give JoeBoo his rum, and whatever other voodoo the BR and 1000yd junkies do but as of right now over the course of 2 months I have yet to see any variation in my shoulder measurements after resizing. 2) The micrometer bullet seater has been fairly consistent as well. While I do need to a bit of fine tuning here and there, in general the ogive measurements have been within .002" of each other without dialing each round. I do seat just a hair long and fine tune each ogive to a consistent depth, although this has nothing to do with jamming/jumping for my rifle. Rather, I keep the ogives at a consistent depth that will still allow me to magazine feed, thus making my COALs usually between 2.808" to 2.811" 3) Case, neck and bullet runout: All of these so far have been within .003" when measured with the RCBS case master. For resizing and bullet seating, I run the ram up and down once, rotate the case 180 degrees or so and then run it up again. I do realize that this does work the brass a little more rather than one trip up the die, but it has worked so far so I'll continue to do it. I use Winchester brass so far fired anywhere between 0 and 3 times. I haven't annealed any yet, although I just figured out how to do this and will probably be doing it every 3-4 firings or so as I have noticed that resizing and bullet seating has been noticeably stiffer on the 3x fired cases. 4) Case trimming: The RCBS Trim Pro with a .30cal 3-way cutter adapter appears to cut a square, uniform mouth every time. The variance in case length isn't more than .0005 (as I'll get the occasional superscript 5 since my calipers only measure to the thousandth). My only wish is that it had a slightly steeper angle on the chamfer as I usually touch these up with the VLD chamfer tool. Good enough for me and not enough to justify the additional $180 or so for the Wilson/Sinclair model that is designed to guarantee a square cut. I also do not process enough .308 to justify a giraud or gracey trimmer and will most likely only purchase an RT1200 for .223 because that's for a semi auto and I load 4-5 times as much .223 as .308. I use TresMon's guide to brass prep found in a series of threads over on SnipersHide and do everything but neck turning. At this point, I'm fairly confident my ability as a shooter would not notice the accuracy difference gained by this and my chamber's tolerances are wide enough that it doesn't require it. And quite frankly, I'm usually tired of reloading at this point and just want to shoot. Bottom line - while I was all gung ho about purchasing X brand this or that based off what a lot of the high power and BR guys recommend, I found that the ammo I produce is within the recommended tolerances for precision shooting and produces repeatable results. Maybe the manufacturer's QA/QC isn't quite as exacting as others, but I have not noticed it with the various pieces of equipment I have. I have read some stories about guys receiving resizing/decapping dies that were off center, etc. but my experience with RCBS's customer service is that they'll make sure you're taken care of. As long as I do my part reloading with the equipment I currently have, I can't blame anything on the ammo it produces. It may or may not produce the exact same assembled cartridge 100% of the time without feeling the need to QA/QC a couple of rounds from each batch here and there, but it produces results that are consistent enough for and well beyond my shooting ability. The best part about this is that the money I saved by not purchasing new, more expensive dies, trimmers, etc. based off of "what the big guys recommend" without checking what I already have is that I was able to allocate it to the RL550B I purchased from BE this afternoon! I am planning on using that set up for 3-gun .223 and 9mm right now, but I'm interested in getting a .308 conversion kit and using it for my long gun rounds as well. A handful of precision loaders swaer the 550's quality is just as good as the single stages for this work as well although it takes the same amount of effort to check each cartridge so the speed gained is negligible. From what I've seen on Dillons so far I don't doubt them.

Worst case scenario you could always just sell the brass to anyone who reloads .300 whisper/blackout since they'll have to neck down and trim anyway.

For what it's worth I've found that the very small metal punches work great for popping media out of the flash hole of .223s as well (I was using the Lyman Corn Cob stuff before I turned to stainless). I forget the size of mine, but I want to say it's 1/16" or 1/32" - just small enough to fit into the flash hole and force the media out. I got mine from sears for putting in roll pins and when I snapped it a while back I found this other use for it.

Thanks CocoBolo - explains the slight flattening I saw shooting my .308 reloads last week and they were nowhere near hot. First time shooting Fed 210Ms versus the Remington I always shot before. Part of me was concerned but the logical side of me was saying "there's no way - has to be the primers." Everything else on the casing looked clean.

I case gauge every round as well. I bought a JP .223 Wylde gauge (even though I shoot a standard chamber) and every round goes through it. I've loaded about 1200 rounds of .223 so far on a single stage and haven't had a single round not pass gauging, however it's just one of those checks I'll continue to make.

Haha - and there we have a perfect example of the *almost* impossible... yet entirely possible. I've heard of the missing the roll pin slot entirely, but I actually saw one gun where the owner/assembler/someone had actually drilled another hole in the tube for the roll pin because "it didn't line up correctly with the other hole" and proceeded to install it that way. Needless to say it didn't work.

Let me know how much you're selling it for. I'd love to buy a "broken 650" for a good price. Was going to get a 550B but if you've got a deal on a 650 I might do that instead.