motosapiens

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.

after closer examination, it looks like the disconnector has a teensy bit of up and down wiggle, and if it's wiggled in the up position, it doesn't catch the trigger bar from half-cock. if it's in the down position, it catches fine. If i turn the gun upside down when it's at half cock and give it a little shake, it doesn't catch. It works fine from fully cocked and from all the way down.

I recently put a lighter spring kit and new hammer in my cz75 bd. The gun shoots awesome. However I'm wondering if I did something wrong in the install, or if the following behavior is normal and I just never noticed it before. 1. If i press the decocker, but manually hold the hammer from falling, then let up the decocker, then manually let the hammer finish falling to the half-cock position, then pulling the trigger skips on something (doesn't catch) and instead of rising and then falling, the hammer just falls gently to the fully uncocked position. Why would I do this? I was trying to duplicate an issue that happened once or twice at the range (#2). 2. if just flick at the decocker, basically trying to press and release it as fast as I possibly can, I am sometimes able to get the gun into the same situation, where it's at half-cock, but the trigger doesn't catch. 3. if i press the decocker like a normal person, it works normally. I don't have another unmodified cz to fondle, so I'm wondering if I could have messed up something (and if so, what), or if the behavior in #1 is normal.

I have a compact 40 that has a pretty tight fit (one of the reasons i bought it over a millenium pro). I liked it so much i bought a full-size 40 too. the fs is definitely not as tight a fit. It used to bother me, but it is the most accurate gun I own, so i stopped being bothered by it. I figure it'll still shoot even if it's full of sand and dirt.

I'm not sure how other people got into IDPA, but when I found out about it, I already owned a CZ, and not a 1911. I wasn't going to go buy a gun just to compete. The whole point for me is about learning to shoot what i carry better. I carry a cz or m&p, so that's what I shoot for IDPA. Also it fits my hand like a glove.

update: the cajun gun works decocker hammer and spring kit showed up saturday while I was at the famous potato bowl watching a great football game. It took me 2-3 hours to install the parts, thanks to the internet and various picture threads. The only slight glitch was i managed to somehow mangle the teeny spring for the firing pin block actuater gizmo while driving the slave pin through the sear cage. I unmangled it enough to get it to fit back in there and work, so no harm no foul. I'll replace that spring next time I have to take the gun apart. Night and day difference in the trigger feel. Significantly lighter pull in DA, and crisper earlier release that I really like. One minor concern afterwards. A couple times, after I decocked the hammer, i pulled the trigger and it didn't catch somehow. I was able to pretty much duplicate the feel of the problem by decocking and then continuing to hold the decocker down while pulling the trigger. I messed with it when i got home, and cleaned and oiled it, and have since been unable to replicate the problem, so maybe it was just a bit of grit or grime or something sticking in the way. It ONLY happened when shooting from half-cock after decocking. Any idea what would cause such a symptom?

Well, I got a small performance bonus from work, so I ordered the cajun gun works decocker hammer and spring kit and installation kit. Looking forward to getting it installed soon. I think it will be a fun opportunity to learn a little more about the gun too.

Point taken. I concur, and that's one of the reasons i'm trying to think carefully and consider everything before i make the jump to a faster setup.

I do not concur, at least not with my procedure. Between the charge/expand stage and the bullet-seat stage, i make a visual inspection of the tray of 50 cases to verify the powder is at a similar level. A double charge would overflow the case and be extremely obvious. This inspection only takes a few seconds. The rest of the time you can go back to not paying attention. (although I do still measure the OAL from time to time, and actually weigh the powder charge from time to time). The one issue I have had is that one time i found myself taking uncharged/unexpanded cases from the wrong pile, so I had seated a few bullets w/o powder. I was able to find them easily enough and now i move the tray of uncharged/unexpanded cases down to the floor when i switch dies, so there is ONLY the tray of 50 charged cases on the table. That has prevented a repeat. BTW, thanks to all for the thoughtful advice. I think I need to hook up with someone local that loads on a 550 or 650 and observe one in action. That would probably clear up alot of my questions.

that's alot. I have some questions if you don't mind? Are you doing all the operations on the press(including priming)? do you leave it set up? how long does it take you to switch calibers? How often do you use it? Do you sometimes mangle primers? or do you have to be picky about what brass you use? I ask because in priming on the press (on the downstroke of the singlestage), I sometimes can feel something going wrong, so i jiggle the shell in the holder a little, and don't force too much, and sometimes just give up and throw that piece of brass out. I'm not sure how that would work out with several concurrent operations going on with that lever pull. Also, on something like a 550 since it doesn't auto-index, can I just run it like a turret press if I feel like doing things more slowly while watching tv? And then run it like a progressive when I'm in more of a hurry and can dedicate full attention to it? No worries there. I agree with that thinking 100%. Too much to go really wrong if you screw up on a progressive.

In hopes of making a data-driven decision (at some point, lol), I figured I'd gather some actual data, and before doing so I went and splurged on a pro-auto-disk powder measure, since the whole scooping thing, while simple, is the most annoying part of my reloading process. Decap-size-prime: 7 minutes for 50 (a little slower than I thought. good thing I do this while watching football) bell-charge: 4 minutes for 50 (3-4 mins faster with the pro-auto-disk mounted on the powder-through-expander-die) seat-bullet: 6 minutes for 50 (often faster with 40, but the 9mm are a little more finicky about lining up for me, or i'm not belling enough) crimp: 2 minutes for 50 So if you count the first step, it's about 150 rounds/hour, and 1/3 of that time is while watching football. Now I have to do some research and figure out how fast a progressive system really is, including all the ancillary steps (and the fixing of mistakes).