dave33

Most of the shotgun powders burn pretty cool. I have found e3, WST, Clay dot, and solo 1000 to be cooler burning. N320 would be a good one too.

Before I switched to using coated lead I had plenty of luck using a lee 3 die set. Their seat/crimp die is pretty easy to adjust and works good. I separate the steps now though.

The large drums in the kit can be converted to small drums with supplied inserts.

Try it, you'll like it... And if you dont you sure arent out much, heck I would probably buy it from you. I have never used a Dillon before but I think it would have a few advantages. It costs about half or less of a Dillon measure. Installation on a press takes litterally a few seconds, simply screw it into a lee powder through expanding die. If you dont have a powder through expanding die, that only takes seconds to screw in and adjust for flair. You can buy sets of the metering drum inserts, they are pretty cheap, and swap them out in seconds instead of buying a dedicated powder measure per tool head which is pretty popular among Dillon reloaders. It doesnt leak powder at all and the way its designed I dont believe it can. It may be more accurate, mine is scary accurate even with larger flake powders that have given me problems before with my other measure. Im not talking bad about the Dillon measure, Im sure its great, I even researched how to rig one up to work on my lee press but never went through with it. Lee just seems to be on to something pretty cool here. Im going to be putting it through its paces in the next few weeks, hopefully it works as well as I think it will.

It was $44.99 shipped to my door in two days from Titan reloading. If you dont have a lee powder through expanding die you would need of those.

Got a chance to play with the new auto drum last night for a few minutes. Didnt load any ammo, just wanted to get a feel for how this new powder measure was going to work. Currently I use the pro auto disks and a modified adjustable charge bar and they generally work fine but they leak some powder and dont meter larger flake powder worth a crap in small charge weights. Setup of the auto drum is straightforward, unscrew the auto disk measure and screw in the auto drum to the powder charge/case flair die. No adjustment was needed, ran a piece of brass up into the measure and it activated the drum and flaired the brass exactly as the auto disk was adjusted to. I removed the safety reset feature for now while I am evaluating and will probably leave it off as I dont think of it as a necessary safety item, I ALWAYS look in every case before placing a bullet, but will decide later on that after loading with it some. For test powders I used titegroup, e3, and Accurate #2 as this gives me a broad range of physical size to try. The auto drum was exceptionally consistent with all three powders and NEVER SPILLED A SINGLE KERNAL OF POWDER. I believe there is a very small "break in" period needed to get all the inside parts, especially the elastomer wiper, well coated with graphite powder residue but once thats done it is scary consistent. I started with titegroup figuring it is pretty dirty stuff, should coat the inside well, plus it meters good. I got +/- .2 gr variance for the first few pulls, and as it started to tighten up I started weighing 10 throws to get an average. The weights slowly crept up a few tenths of a grain for the 10 pull average until it leveled off after 4 or 5 of these, and from that point on I got within a +/- .3 grain variance for 10 pulls. I thought that was pretty good until I started messing with the e3. It only got better. I got a +/- .1gr variance on 10 pulls several times. Okay, thats great but how does it meter small charges, thats the part Im mainly concerned with. I got the same +/- .1gr 10 pull variance all the way down to 2.5gr of e3, in my book thats pretty awesome. For the leak test I used Accurate #2, if you are not familiar with this powder its about as fine as powdered sugar, if anything is going to leak it should. But it didnt, not one single kernal could I find anywhere. I believe the auto drum is a much superior metering design for larger flake powder for one main reason. The pro auto disks are a constant depth and change volume by having much smaller or larger diameter holes. The auto drum has a much larger diameter fixed hole and change volume by depth thereby making powder bridging much less likely. The cavity also slants verses being perfectly vertical like the disks, an Im sure that helps as well. If this thing will hold up and stay consistent you may see it on top of a lot more than just lee presses. Its super easy to set up, adjust, and take down, and its pretty cheap, right now I like it a lot. We will see how the long haul goes. Edit to add: *Let me clarify one point, when doing 10 pulls to get an average I wasnt weighing each separage charge, I dumped 10 into the pan and weighed them all together, and was getting .1 and .2 gr variances for the 10 together. Another words if the charge weight was 3.3 for a single charge, I would weigh 10 and come up with 33.4, 33.3, 33.4, over several tries. This was also verified with two different scales. To me thats awfully consistent.*

I just chrono'ed some Bayou 135's yesterday over 3.3gr Titegroup, got an average 131 PF. This is out of my XDM 5.25. Shot pretty soft and fairly accurate.

I go a minimum of .001 over but always go .002 over if its a posibility. My barrel slugs .3555 and always order .357 coated lead unless its not an option offered by the company Im ordering from.

If you are running a stock striker spring then you have one of two problems. Either the primers are not seated deeply enough or more likely your striker chanel is in need of a good cleaning. I have had mine gum up to the point of not working so that is now part of my routine maintenance.

I think the HK match trigger is one of the best triggers I have used, put that in the hammer fired P30 and fix it up with the rest of the competition goodies and that would make a sweet platform. Or they could just make more 9mm Experts.

I literally just loaded up a few of these last night from a sample pack from bayou. I loaded mine from 1.035-1.04 range to shoot out of my XDM 5.25. No idea if this is good or not, but where I'm starting. For reference my typical steel load is a 100gr SWC from Ibejihead, loaded to about the same OAL.

When you change over from something with a small primer to something with large primer do you have to readjust the swage station? For that matter when you change calibers that share the same primer size, 9mm to 40 for example, would you have to adjust the swage station for something like that? If you have to adjust it, is that very time consuming or difficult?

Im using a 3 MOA Burris Fast Fire 3. Im not really doing the run and gun USPSA thing, mine is more for precision type shooting, namely NRA Action pistol/Bianchi cup type matches. If I was doing the run and gun I would have gone with the 8 MOA.

There is a pretty in depth review of the Pro Chucker 5, which is the 5 station version of the 7, on AR15.com. It seems to be a great press in about every way except for the primer slider design. It seems to be designed to fail and breaks a lot. Other than that I really like many of the features on it. The big downside is they dont have a casefeeder for it right now, Im sure they will, but at what price? The Pro Chuckers are already pretty expensive.

Hi Adam, good for you getting picked up by HK. What HK pistol do you shoot, and what kind of matches do you shoot? The most accurate pistol I own is an HK USP Expert in 45, I've shot some one hole 25yd groups with it. That being said, do you have any experience with the Expert in 9mm, is it as accurate as the 45 cal? I love super accurate plastic guns and was thinging of picking one up. Hopefully you can breath a little life into the HK section here, it sadly doesnt get much activity except for the occational VP9 question.

Use cast lead load data, after all that is what you are shooting, cast lead with a thin layer of lube all around it instead of a groove full of it. Coated lead usually runs just a tick slower than straight lead so sometimes you need an extra tenth of a grain of powder to get the same velocity of straight lead. You load them just like cast lead, a little extra bell on the case mouth so you dont shave the coating, no crimp, just remove the flair. The coated lead with lube grooves is simply a case of the bullet manufacturer using a mold designed for traditional lube, it doesnt really affect anything load wise. The newer designs that dont have a groove are really to benefit the guys doing the coating. They have less angles to work around and are therefore easier to coat. I use both groove and groove-less designs, both with excellant results.

I talked to Jim Stinar of SNS Casting this weekend, and he said a couple well known builders have told him their 140 gr in .40 is the most accurate bullet they've ever seen. I run 165s in my P-09 (Production .40 minor) and it's fine, but now I'm intrigued to see if I can get a comfortable load with 140s that isn't too snappy. I have not done exhausive testing but my most accurate load with the 140's has been 4.9gr titegroup over 140 Bayou or Ibejihead coated FP. They make about 150PF and will shoot about 1.5" at 25yds. I have also recently tried the 140 Bayou over 4.6gr of WST, almost as accurate, makes about 144 PF, definately a little softer. Will have to get some of the SNS 140's to try out.

In my 40 cal P 09 the most accurate load Ive shot so far has been with a light 140gr bullet. I have shot other accurate, slower moving loads but the fast movers do seem the most accurate. Im guessing the CZ barrels have a slower twist rate.

I agree with the above that you need less powder to get to the same velocity, and in many cases they are more accurate. I also like coated more because most manufactures have a sizing option available. Makes it easier to slug your barrel and order the appropriate size. Probably what makes them more accurate.

I would be curios to know that. From what I've seen so far the P09 supposedly doesn't have the room necessary to co-witness. At least with a FF3.

I have shot a ton of the 100gr SWC from Ibejihead out of my XDM 5.25. They feed and function perfectly in that gun. I have also used the Missouri Bullet company 125gr SWC, and have used the Bayou Bullets 150gr SWC, they all function fine out of my XDM as well. I love the big nice hole they punch in cardboard. The most accurate bullet I shoot out of my XDM is a Precision Delta or Hornady HAP 124gr JHP. Next would probably be the SWC's but 147gr FP style bullets shoot very well also. I have never shot a 9mm 1911 so cant tell you about the reliability there.

Just guessing, but add it to (higher) shipping and u bet it equals out They may have some kind of volume discount worked out with the shippers. I just ordered 5k S&B primers on a free shipping weekend and was charged a $20 hazmat. Even before I put the free shipping code in, shipping was only $12 and change.

Did you loctite the fore/aft set screws as well as the actual mounting screws? No, they are coated and don't need it. At least I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere. Anyway, I didn't and have had no problem holding zero.

I'm using a springer precision mount on my P 09, it's the one for the CZ75, not the shadow, that works. It's loose going in but the mount comes with loctite and set screws. Mine hasn't budged and it's taking a beating being a .40.

I loaded a few up to see if they would go bang with a light hammer spring. In my CZ P 09 with an 11.5 lb hammer spring they all went bang, although I only loaded 25. Didn't want to load a bunch up and have no luck at all. Cajun Gun Works, where I got my spring and extended firing pin recommends a 15 lb hammer spring, and a 13lb if only using federal primers, so the fact they went bang with the 11.5 gives me some confidence in them. Now I'll load a bunch up and give them a real test. One observation I had when loading, it seemed like it takes less force to seat the S&B's verses CCI or Winchesters. They aren't as easy as federals but close.