motosapiens

What if IDPA got a clue and offered a $5-10 1-day membership? Many regional motorcycle race sanctioning bodies do this, and it makes it reasonable for me to do a race in oregon or norcal if i happen to be there without having to pony up for an annual membership that I won't get to make use of.

I think you make some valid points, but for me, personally, as a shooter and also as a competitor in other sports like bicycle and motorcycle racing, I find that I get a much better impression of my improvement by looking at the overall. When the results are sorted out by division/class etc..., then maybe I just look better this week because the other 2 guys in the senior limited paraplegic womens class couldn't make it, but if last year i was in the 70th percentileout of 40 shooters in the overall, and this year i'm in the 40th percentile, chances are I got better. So I pretty much ignore the division results. If an LEO with a flashlight on his gun finished ahead of me in the division or ahead of me in the overall, I wouldn't care, and I wouldn't blame it on his equipment 'advantage'.

I personally think it's a silly and destructive policy. fortunately it appears to be largely ignored in many areas. I understand that IDPA is a business and someone has to make money off it, but I think requiring membership is a good way to turn away casual shooter who might only want to shoot a few matches a year. Maybe they concentrate on some other discipline, but occasionally have a free weekend and just want to shoot. If they just charge non-members a couple more bucks, the issue would go away imho. Admittedly, then someone from the club has to send that money to idpa eventually, but it need not be done every month.

Me, too. The conflicting reviews of the CED M2 are especially confusing. I'm wondering if they have a lot of defective units, or whether they're more difficult to set up. I'm considering this one, but (1) with the remote unit it costs as much as the CED and (2) it has the brains out in the line of fire, whereas the CED has the brains in the remote and only the sensors in the line of fire. I just got a CE prochrono. Only used it twice but it was very easy to get started and seems to give consistent and believable readings. If you think you might shoot it from 7-8' away, you need to stop worrying about a chrono and practice shooting instead. At any rate, it's not like getting married, if you get something and don't like it, the world doesn't end. A chrono costs $100-150. About the same as shooting a couple matches. Alot less than racing motorcycles, or dating younger women.

i have an m&p40 compact and a FS also. I mostly shoot minor loads in them. Both are more accurate than I am. No signs of premature unlocking either, but if there was, I'd start by putting a stronger recoil spring in. My cz75 (.40) needed a lighter spring to run creampuff minor loads and cycle reliably. With the lighter springs, it gets a little scrape on the primer when I shoot major loads. I think that's telling me to just put the stock recoil spring back in when I shoot major. I'm ok with that. That gun also shoots better than I do.

I notice there's not much 165 gr data out there, and lots of 180 gr data, but my supplier was out of 180's and had lots of 165's so I got some last year, and have stuck with them since I can't feel any difference anyway (my wife says i'm insensitive). anyway, just got a chrono finally, so I provide the following data to my reloading brothers free of charge. Hopefully someone will find it as useful as I find so much stuff on this forum. I'm impressed with the consistency of the pro-autodisk powder measure. Single-digit standard deviation on 2 out of 3 loads today (plus my 9mm load was even tighter). I only wish the gaps weren't so big between sizes, but that's what sandpaper is for. As you can see, i'm pretty much there on the minor loads (but going to do a little sanding to get about .1 gr more for safety's sake), and still have a little work to do on the major load. I'm pretty conservative, so I'm thinking of trying n340 for major since I won't be right at the published max load then (n320 max is 5.2gr at 1.126 oal for 165gr bullet according to VV). These are all shot out of a cz75b. I forget the barrel length, but y'all have google. Feb 2012 .40 4.2 gr n320 (.53 autodisc) 165 gr zero jacketed 1.130 oal wsp avg velocity 854 140 pf Feb 2012 .40 4.0 gr n320 (.49 autodisc) 165 gr zero jacketed 1.130 oal wsp 2/7/12 chrono avg 763, sd 8, pf 125.9 Feb 2012 .40 5.0 gr n320 (.61 autodisc) 165 gr zero jhp 1.125 oal wsp 2/7/12 chrono avg 984, sd 7, pf 162 (need to try 5.1) Feb 2012 .40 3.2 gr clays (.49 autodisc) 165 gr zero tc 1.125 oal wsp 2/7/12 chrono avg 770, sd 14 pf 127

interesting. i don't think i can get my 40 bullets to move even with no crimp at all. the lee sizing dies size the case small enough that you can see the slight bulge where the bullet is.

just got a pocket pro ii. the instructions say it will turn itself off automatically after 10 mins in case you forget to turn it off, but they offer no clue how to turn it off, or whether turning it off is possible. can anyone buy me a clue?

I'm a total newb, but I do read alot, and think alot. First, 2.8 of clays seems pretty light to me. I've been using 3.4-ish under a 165. Not chrono'd yet, but internet research suggests a 140-ish pf. At 2.8 i'm not convinced you'd make minor pf unless you were using super-slippery bullets like blacks or something. this opinion is subject to retraction when I finally get my chrono this week and stop relying on other people's chrono data. Second, OAL has 2 main effects, one is on pressure, so if you are on the verge of blowing sh!t up, a longer oal can reduce that risk, especially with a spiky sensitive powder like clays. Second, oal affects feeding, so you want to use an oal that fits in your magazines and is reliable in your gun. 3rd, it appears that oal also has an effect on velocity/pf, but the first two effects are vastly more important, so I would tend to ignore this one and just add .1 grain more powder if you need more velocity.

I decap, size and prime in mass quantities (1000 or so at a time) while watching sports on tv. That is also typically when I inspect the brass for cracks or dents or whatever. So when I go to load, I'm starting with sized and primed brass, and things go pretty quickly.

complicated question. If I thought there was *any* significant chance I would blow up someone's gun due to my mistake, that would mean I might blow up my own, so I better either stop reloading, or pay more attention. OTOH, if you teach a man to fish, instead of just giving him a handout, you are helping to create independence. You know the saying, light a man a fire and he'll be warm for an hour, light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

good question. If you look at this chart http://leeprecision.com/cgi-data/instruct/Dippers.pdf in conjunction with your handy-dandy reloading manual, you can get a good idea of how voluminous a powder is. I look for powder where the load I want is going to be around 0.5cc (the second column), which fills a .40 case around half-way. You can see that .5cc of titegroup is around 5.9 grains. You already know that's a LOT of titegroup. That powder is not fluffy enough for my personal tastes. OTOH, .5cc of power pistol is around 5.6 grains, well below the starting load for most bullet weights (this makes a good plinking round, although the recoil is definitely stouter than you would get with a faster-burning powder). If you look in your reloading manual, you will even see there are some compressed charges listed for power pistol, meaning you can fill the case up so far that you have to compress the powder with the bullet when you seat it, and you still won't blow up. That makes it forgiving of mistakes. If we look at WSF, we see that 0.5cc is about 5.9 grains. Checking our handydandy load data online we see that the max load for wsf and 180 grain jacketed bullet is 5.8 grains, which tells us wsf is fluffier than titegroup, but not as fluffy as n320 or power pistol. I don't know if a double charge would overflow the case or not, but it should certainly be obvious on a careful inspection. Conveniently enough, both n320 and clays make a decent minor load with .5cc, and since I had a .5cc dipper before i got a better powder measure, I loaded alot of rounds with those powders.

wow rocky, i'm really glad you got lucky enough to not get injured. what a crappy way to introduce yourself to reloading. I've only been reloading less than a year (abaout 8000 rds or so), so take everything i say with a grain or two of salt, but I am somewhat paranoid, and I am also someone who thinks alot about what I'm doing. I do reloading stuff while watching sports on tv sometimes, but ONLY in a single-stage setup. I expand and charge 50 cases at a time, then I stop watching tv long enough to carefully examine the tray of charged cases and verify that the powder looks right. After that I can go back to daydreaming. I started with power pistol because i read it was a pretty forgiving powder and it would be hard to blow myself up. i'm now using n320 and clays (minor only) and still haven't blown myself up. With lee dies, I doubt setback is a problem. My 40 bullets are hourglass-shaped, even pushing as hard as i can i can't make the bullet move even a mm.

i found some on youtube, and david the cgw guy pointed me to a good thread on calguns.net with tons of pix for my decocker model. I was a little hesitant at first, but cgw instructions are good, and the installation turned out to be pretty straightforward. I had never had a cz apart before, so i felt the experience was very valuable just in learning more about my gun.

If you want a better trigger on the standard sp01, it's easy to achieve with the cajun gun-works kit and a lighter spring kit for a total of $125 or so. I did that to my 75bd and immediately lost interest for now in getting a shadow for competition. the difference between the stock trigger on the 75b/bd and the cgw-kit is dramatic, and allows me to shoot tighter groups more quickly. I'm sure it could be better, but I'm going to have to try something better and improve my skills before i could consider shelling out more dough.

If the object is reduce the number of shooters, requiring club membership is a good way to do it. Around here, people join the club that is close to them and convenient, and they help out at that club, but they still shoot events at the other local clubs. I've been an officer in 2 different non-profits (motorcycle club and trail advocacy club), and I never heard anything ever about the source of revenue (member vs non-member) being any issue whatsoever. We never even tracked it... at all.

nope. do 75b's in 40 (slightly beefier slide) have a problem making weight in idpa? I thought it was only an issue for the sp01.

I suppose if I had been thinking, I could have found the box and last weekend's match and just tried it, but it didn't occur to me. My 75b (40) came with 2 10 round mags, and i got a 12 and 14 round mag right away. The 14-round has an extended baseplate. Obviously, I can only load it to 10 rounds, but it certainly is easier on my thumbs to put 10 rounds in the aftermarket mags than in the stock mags, so I was wondering if anyone knows if the extended mag will still fit in the box with a plain old 75b (standard fixed sights). If not, I'll keep using the shorter mags, and eventually just get a couple more 12-rounders.

This site is full of serious enthusiasts, so I think it's hard for some of them to understand that not everyone is shooting 5 days a week. I have a single-stage, and I like reloading. I spent less than $200 to get started, including dies and a case tumbler. Sure, I want to get a progressive press later this year, but for loading a couple hundred rounds a month, I think a progressive press is a waste of time and money. I've been loading about 500-ish rounds a month for the last year. Basically I just spend a half-hour before bedtime 2 night a week loading. The single-stage press is small, so I can leave it set up in the office by the computer, and just kill 15 minutes loading 50 rounds while the wife is getting dressed and putting on makeup for dinner. Now if you need to load 1000 rounds a month..... you should probably get a progressive press right away.

the suggestion to get more input from the wife is a good one. i personally feel like plastic guns have no soul (even tho I have a couple m&p's). If I had $1200 to spend I would be looking at a cz with some custom work, or a 1911, or something else made of metal, that I could put pretty wood grips on, but obviously you have your own preferences. It also makes a difference whether you are looking for something competitive, or something for range and fun, or something for carry and defense.

the front site on one of my m&p's is not perfectly centered, so i just run the rear sight a little further over. it's not far enough to be annoying. to make sure it's the gun, and not you, i'd try shooting some groups with my other hand, and/or have a friend try it.

Not sure I understand how he 'lied', but I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't return, just going off what you wrote here. All the same, I'm glad I saw this, and I'll know to be aware of the possibility of such zealous interrogation should I travel somewhere that has different customs.

update again. the gun is working awesome now. Apparently the tolerances in my gun are such that the slightly milled disconnector that works in every other decocker gun doesn't *quite* work in mine. the trigger bar was occasionally hitting the beveled portion of the disconnector (only from half-cock) and sliding off. putting the stock disconnector back in makes it work great. it's not supposed to, since the hammer is cut, but I guess that's the way tolerances stack up sometimes. I shot about 100 rounds from s/a, half cock d/a, and fully lowered d/a. David from cgw has been awesome to work with, and assuming he agrees with my thinking, i'm going to just have him send me a disconnector that is only milled about 50% of what he normally does. I think that should cause the d/a to release just a little bit earlier than stock, which would be just about perfect. working with cajungunworks has moved me much closer to buying a few more cz's, because now I know I can make them into awesome shooters for not much $$. Looking at a 75b in .40 and a p01 as my next investments. I just can't justify spending $250-300 including shipping on trigger/spring/hammer work for those guns, but I can easily justify doing it myself with cgw parts for $100 or so. I now shoot the cz just about as well as the M&P with apex trigger kit that I have been mostly shooting for the last 6 months. That was my goal. Yay. Metal guns rule.

no adjustment screws, but thanks for the tip. I must have read 100 of your posts on the cz forums in the last few days while researching how to bust into my gun for the first time. thanks for asking so many good questions so i could take advantage of the answers.

after even closer-er examination, it looks like it may just be a case of tolerance stacking and my gun is at the far end. Working with david from cgw for ideas on what to check, I pulled it all apart again (MUCH easier than the first time), and close examined what was happening. Looks like the disconnector is milled just a smidgen too much to be happy in my particular gun, at least from half cock, so it slips of the trigger bar early, like right away (if you get lucky and it's positioned 'just so'. It works 95% of the time just fine, but if you turn the gun upside down and give it a little shake, it works 0% of the time. i put the stock disconnector back in just to verify, and that solves the problem. From what I read, it shouldn't really work with the recut hammer, but perhaps that's another indication that my gun is one end of the tolerance spectrum. i dry fired it extensively after reassembly in d/a, d/a from half cock and S/A, and it seems to work just great with the oem connector and the recut hammer. looking forward to working with cgw to figure out exactly what the best solution is. Hopefully david will learn something from my gun, and I have learned a tremendous amount, and had fun, and I feel like I know my gun alot better now. Starting from fully assembled, I can have the hammer out in 10-15 mins. Maybe less if all goes well. the hardest part is seeing the little spring i need to lift up to get the decocker out. Note to self, btw, my next cz will have a safety, for a variety of reasons.