dave33

I have tried all of those you mentioned except for the BBI's, and they all are great products sold by great people. Never a problem ordering and have always had fast shipping. I'm currently using the ibejiheads, but you can realistically pick your favorite color, or if one company offers a profile or weight you prefer, go with it, you won't be disappointed.

3.4 gr of 7625 under a lucky13 cast lead RN averages 887 FPS out of my 5.25 XDM, is a little dirty, but very accurate and super soft. I load mine to 1.145 OAL.

I have had great luck with Bayou and Ibejiheads 135gr bullets. Same accuracy as the other bullet weights I have tried. 3.4gr Titegroup under a 135 Ibejihead or Bayou at 1.135OAL out of my 5.25 XDM makes 133PF all day long and is very accurate. I like mine sized at .357, perhaps that helps.

I really like the ibejiheads coated bullets, I've used their 135gr in my 5.25 XDM at 1.135-1.138 OAL. That over 3.4 grains of titegroup is soft, accurate, clean and a consistent 133 PF.

Im sure 18lb is the correct factory spring weight. If you want to experiment with others, Wolff has spring kit that ships with either extra power or reduced power springs. The reduced power kit comes with 14, 16, and factory 18lb springs, the extra power ships with 18lb, 20, and 22lb springs. I personally run a 14lb spring in my 5.25 9mm and like it the best.

The 135gr Bayou over either 3.4gr titegroup or 3.4gr e3 feels like shooting a .22 out of my XDM 5.25. Both make about a 134PF too, not that that is needed of course.

There are 3 options I can think of. The first is the adjustable charge bar, unfortunately it doesnt work at all with smaller charges. The design is so bad the powder hopper hole doesnt line up with the opening for the charge bar until it is opened up a fair amount. I have only been able to use it with fine ball powders starting around 5 grains before it gets consistent. If you are handy there are a number of ways to modify it, effectively moving the cavity back so it lines up with the powder hopper hole better. If you are loading large charge weights it does work well for fine tuning those. You could get another set of auto disks and modify them in a couple of ways. Some folks have taken the smaller cavities and drilled them out slightly to increase volume. Another way is to tap the holes with fine threaded screws, effectively making each cavity adjustable by turning the screw in to lower volume. Lastly, and most expen$ively you could get a RCBS or Hornady powder thrower. I believe they are basically the same design, and they have the reputation of being one of if not the best case activated powder measures available. However, once you buy the powder hopper, case activated linkage, and various bits and pieces for case belling and powder drums for pistol/rifle etc. you will have spent more than you did on your entire turret press. I know of a guy running the Hornady on a Lee press and he couldnt be happier with the result, but he spent around $150+ for all the parts. Cost is the only thing holding me back from putting one of these on my lee pro1000. So far I have been pretty fortunate with the disks getting my loads where I like them enough.

Warpdrv, by all means add all the info you want. Glad u got the app running on your phone. The folks at Battenfield said they have had connectivity issues with some android (or non apple devices) on occasion since there are so many different ones out there running different software versions, maybe they will have an update that will enable u to use your tablet. As mentioned before if u can't get it to work call Battenfield, they will help you. I agree about being able to set up the shot string info before you get to the range, that would be a useful update.

I found an alternative - plugging in the light bars, then toggling the power on and off will get a reading. Not sure it should, but it does. Have the phone able to connect, but still working on the tablet. Good tip on the flashlight, though, as the data from the IR light toggling on and off is truly random/all over the place, be nice to see something more consistent like 10-20FSP, but confirmed I can at least get data from the chrono to my phone. Glad to hear it seems to be working. It's kind of neat to run the flashlight over it at different speeds and let the chrono do the math for you, let's you get use to the functions. I'm looking forward to hearing how consistent the Caldwell is compared to your other chrono.

I have an iPhone so not familiar with the android version. The chrono needs access to the phone mic to transfer data and on an iPhone 4s you have to go into privacy settings to turn it on, that was my problem all along. I only got the basic kit as I already had a tripod and figured I would only ever use it outside so didn't see a need for the light kit. The chrono can pick up as little as 5 FPS I think. A good way to test the chrono is to take off the shades so nothing is over the chrono, get a flashlight and run it over the sensors, front to back. No need for any special lights in the room to do this, just run the flashlight over the sensors and you should get a reading, I usually got 10 or 11 FPS, depending on how quickly I moved my hand. If you can't get it to work call Battenfield, their number is listed above in an earlier post. Those guys are great and really want to help you.

As it turns out I just got it sorted out Tuesday evening and had a chance to shoot it yesterday, and it was the microphone setting that had to be manually turned on. I did contact Battenfield and spoke to a product engineer who I went back and forth with for a few days trying different things, and I must say Battenfield was absolutely great to work with. You could tell the guy helping me was genuinely concerned with solving my problem. Now that I have full connectivity I must say this is a pretty slick setup. Setup the chrono, attach the cord to the phone, and start shooting. You can put load data in, run a string and the app does all the math for you. From there you can keep your data stored and/or email it to yourself. The chrono and phone were connected for over an hour continually yesterday, and it had little effect on battery life so no problems there. I must say I am completely satisfied with my Caldwell chrono. What do you mean by put load data in? Meaning it lets you separate/track strings, calculated ES, SD, Lo, Hi, shot count in string, and then has spaces to add your projectile/wt, charge, OAL, etc. ?...or something else? That's exactly what I mean. In the app you can select "new group". From there you can add as many notes as you want such as powder charge, projectile info, whatever you want, then hit the big green START button. Fire as many rounds as you want in your string, when done hit the big red END button and all your data is done for you. One side of the screen gives all your string shots individually in FPS or MPS, the other side of the screen displays all your math including hi, low, extreme spread, average, standard deviation, and true MV. It even stores, date, time, temperature and barometric pressure. It also has a place for distance to chrono, ballistic coefficient, and group size if you are accuracy testing at the same time. It will store as much data as your device can hold, and/or you can email the results to yourself. I'm telling you this thing is slick. If I wasn't on the mobile version of this forum I would post some screen shots of my saved groups to give you some visual aids. Maybe I can put some pics up Monday when I have access to a desktop.

As it turns out I just got it sorted out Tuesday evening and had a chance to shoot it yesterday, and it was the microphone setting that had to be manually turned on. I did contact Battenfield and spoke to a product engineer who I went back and forth with for a few days trying different things, and I must say Battenfield was absolutely great to work with. You could tell the guy helping me was genuinely concerned with solving my problem. Now that I have full connectivity I must say this is a pretty slick setup. Setup the chrono, attach the cord to the phone, and start shooting. You can put load data in, run a string and the app does all the math for you. From there you can keep your data stored and/or email it to yourself. The chrono and phone were connected for over an hour continually yesterday, and it had little effect on battery life so no problems there. I must say I am completely satisfied with my Caldwell chrono.

If you are looking for soft shooting you want a fast powder. I like titegroup and e3 for 147 gr coated lead, I have a little solo 1000 left, and it works real good too, impossible to find though.

I bet that shoots so soft it tickles.

Im down to my last pound and a half of e3 so Im probably going to load it only in .45 and switch to titegroup for 9mm, that way I wont have any load issues with my lee auto disks. What are you putting 2.7 grains under? Sounds pretty light.

Charge weights should be the same as any lead load data. Out of my XDM 5.25, 3.4gr of titegroup under a 147gr blue bullet loaded to 1.145 makes 143 power factor, is very accurate and soft shooting.

I dont have any experience with Silhouette but generally slower powders are a bit more forgiving, but they will have more recoil, so you have to figure the tradeoff for what you want. If it helps I started using titegroup recently and have a load that will shoot 2" groups all day long. 3.4gr titegroup over a 147gr blue bullet at 1.145 OAL. This runs to a 143 power factor out of my XDM 5.25.

Finally got a chrono so now I know what my reloads are up to. This was using 147gr Blue Bullets sized at .356 out of my XDM 5.25 with an OAL of 1.145. Powder charge - e3 at 3.6 grains Hi - 1002 FPS Lo - 946 FPS ave - 980.8 FPS Standard Deviation - 17.10 Power Factor - 144 This is a very accurate load that I shoot in IDPA, NRA action pistol, and steel challenge. Its soft, fairly clean and the brass looks good, no signs of excess pressure at all. With powder being hard to find e3 is a good alternative, though it doesnt meter the best in smaller charge weights, at least in a Lee pro auto disk setup. I have shot this round over 3.3gr but the accuracy is slightly better and the recoil is virtually the same so I may just stick with it. Besides, e3 meters better with larger throws for me.

Titegroup is supposedly not a very forgiving powder so if you want to go to the max or beyond I would load a few at 3.6gr, measuring each one individually to make sure of the powder charge, and check the spent brass for pressure signs. Im sure most companies figure a little leeway in the data they publish and .1 gr should not make a huge difference.

OK, confirmed all the washers are in place like they are suppose to be, still not transferring data. I can plug and unplug the cable and watch the icon turn from green to red like its suppose to, but no data is transferring. Looks like I need to call to Battenfield customer service this afternoon and go from there.

I really appreciate your help, I didnt realize you were affiliated. Of the other folks I've spoken to that have this chrono Im the only one that seems to have connection issues, I dont know if they are using 4s or 5 model iphones. I will double check the connections this evening to see if it helps. Again, thanks for your help.

Before I turned the phone off and on the icon was red, after it was green, it just wasnt transferring or recording any data. That being said, I will check for the washers but Im almost certain they were in place.

iPhone 4s running ios 7.1.

Thought I would comment on my new Caldwell Chrono. Finally got to try it out a couple days ago, mostly worked good but had one(major) problem with it. This is the chrono that comes with 15' of audio cable so you can hook it up to your smartphone (either iphone or android) with a free app that displays the shot info, records strings and does the math for you, and can store or email data from your chrono session to yourself to review later. The chrono does have a display on the front that reads in FPS or MPS so you do not have to have a smartphone hooked to it to use it but it doesnt do anything else besides display the last shot fired. The good news is the chrono worked perfectly from the first shot to the last shot, about 125 rounds, had one error message where the round was missed by one of the sensors, but that was me, I repositioned it and shot from a slight angle, so no fault of the equipment. The bad new is the chrono would not talk to my iphone. The directions dont mention any certain order to hook the two together, but I tried every combination possible and nothing worked. The app wouldnt even acknowledge the chrono was hooked to it until I turned the phone off and on again, but even after it recognized the phone was connected it wouldnt read anything. I am going to try deleting the app and reinstalling it and see if that solves the problem but it will be a couple weeks before I can shoot over it again to see if that works. Half the reason I bought the Caldwell was because of the app so hopefully it will be up and running next time. I did find out Im shooting a little hotter round in competition than I need to but I guess thats better than the alternative. I have been shooting 147gr Blue Bullets out of my XDM 5.25 over e3 and Titegroup. The e3 load at 3.6 gr makes a 144 PF and the titegroup load at 3.4 gr makes a 143 PF. They are both so soft I doubt I will change them anyway.

I installed a regular PRP drop in kit and used the blue competition springs that came with it and my trigger breaks just over 3 lbs. I didn't polish or do anything besides just dropping in the new parts. Im totally pleased after countless thousands of rounds.