motosapiens

I haven't had any trouble with s&b brass in 9mm or 40, and I've loaded a few 100 of each. no issues with the primer pockets or anything. Maybe there are different sorts of s&b brass. I bought the bullets on sale at cabelas (9 and 40 both) within the last year or so, and saved the brass. It actually is one of the easier ones i've worked with.

I've gone down to 5.3 or 5.2 with a 165gr bullet. cycled 100% reliably, and still had more recoil than what i usually shoot with n320. I saw an article online where one of the magazine guys was loading .40's in the mid 4 gr range, but that was also with heavier bullets.

umm. what? I don't know that much about reloading, but that seems to go entirely against newtonian physics. Perhaps you meant it needs more powder to achieve the same power factor.... or perhaps I just don't know very m uch. At any rate, there's a whole chapter in the Lee manual regarding reduced loads. You can do lots of interpolation and guesswork if you feel like it. Since you're shooting for minor anyway, you shouldn't have any real safety worries. I've used data for the next lighter and the next heavier weight if I couldn't find the one I wanted, and sort of guesstimated between them. Obviously this would be less safe working at max pressures. I personally use 4.2gr of n320 behind a 165 gr jacketed bullet. I haven't chrono'd it yet, but it shoots light, and cycles the gun reliably every time, and also conveniently fits in the .5cc scoop that came with my dies. I'm still doing the slow 150/hr single-stage loading routine for the rest of the year, and the scoop works easier than the powder measure I currently own. Note that for steel challenge, you don't even need to make minor, just a velocity IIRC, so you can just keep going lower and lower until it stops cycling reliably, then go back up til it cycles every time again.

I'm not sure if I discovered that or not, since I found 3 out of the 4, and they were quite obvious. That definitely saved me some trouble. I should mention that I do sort my brass by headstamp, and load them that way too, so all the rounds were at least the same brass. the vast majority of the rounds were within 2 grains. But yeah, it's not perfect. Better to just pay closer attention to prevent the problem in the first place.

due to my own stupidity (to be discussed later), I had to pull some bullets from some 40 rounds. I don't have a bullet puller, so I went and bought one (and a bad scale, to assist in diagnosing which rounds needed to be pulled). I got the green plastic one from cabelas, and I personally couldn't get the bullet to budge the tiniest bit. I'm not 100% surprised, since the lee die seems to size those suckers down to where the possibility of setback during use is totally non-existent, but i'm just wondering what people do in that situation..... I ended up taking the bullet-puller (and the cheap bad scale) back to cabela's. I tried to buy a scale that was less cheap but they had gone off sale in the previous 24 hrs (price went up $20), so I thought I'd wait and do research on decent scale. long version: cheap me, still using a single stage setup. One of the advantages is there is less stuff to screw up, but after a few thousand rounds, I still managed to screw something up. I decap, size and prime in bulk, then I load in lots of 50. As I was nearing the end of one lot, I realized I had 4 more bullets than I had spaces in my tray. I know the bullet fairy doesn't magically insert bullets into my reloading sequence, so after a moment of thought I figured out that in my late night delirium, i must have grabbed 4 empty (and also un-belled) cases out of the bag on the table, instead of the belled, charged cases out of the tray next to the bag. Awesome, so in front of me somewhere, I have 4 cartridges with no powder. What better reason to go shoot in the backyard (of a suburban subdivision) at midnight? I finally thought better of that tho, and figured that a smart person would just go to the store and buy a digital scale, and a bullet puller, and weigh all 50 rounds, and figure out which 4 were empty, then pull those 4 bullets and start over. Well, the cheezball $30 scale was able to diagnose 3 rounds that were 5+ grains lighter than average, and almost 3 lighter than even the lightest of the others. Cool, maybe it was really only 3 and the 4th was the one i realized my mistake and put back. Ok, pull the bullets......... NOT!!!! After using the puller for a bit in various ways I figured I'd get medieval, and clamped the bullet in a vise and still couldn't move it. At least I'm not worried about setback and pressure spikes now, lol. fwiw, you can clearly see the bulge in the case where the bullet seats to, and it takes a fair amount of force to seat them. Not as much as sizing, but still significant. So fine, I threw away the three bullets, and had 3-4 others that were marginally light which I set aside to use extra care with, since I couldn't pull them, and then the next day went out to shoot, since I had a shiny new m&p40 (and also my old m&p40compact for comparison). The marginal rounds all shot fine, and then a magazine or so later the gun (the old one) went 'puff' ... 'click'. Didn't cycle the slide, fortunately, because somehow i must have had a particularly heavy bullet/casing combo in one of the emtpy rounds, so it wasn't even one of the marginally light ones. The bullet made it about 1/2" or less down the barrel of my compact. Doh. end of comparison. So i shot the new gun for a while, and you'll have to take my word for it that in slow and measured shooting the full-sized m&p isn't noticeably more accurate than the compact, but in faster competitive style shooting it is noticeably more accurate and jumps around less and comes back on target more quickly. Exactly what I was hoping for. Got home and used a 1/4" socket driver stuck into a 9mm casing (fits nicely in a 40 bore) to tap out the stuck bullet with no muss or fuss, and learned a lesson or two. anyway, anyone have any luck with inertial type bullet pullers on tight fitting rounds?

This sort of sounds like a sizing problem. I'm not familiar with other dies, but the lee sizing die (not a u-die or anything) i use squeezes the cases down small enough that I can generally see the line where the bottom of the bullet is in the case. even with no crimp at all, the bullet is in there quite snug, and I can't imagine how it could set back.

sounds like the cz 75 shadow http://czcustom.com/cz75shadowtsadablk.aspx

? like what? i put some wood grips on mine (from czcustom.com). Other than that the only accessories or parts it needs is ammo. spare magazines are in stock at midwayusa. i even bought a pro-mag spare at cabelas so i would have a 3rd for my first idpa match.

is the sp01 legal for idpa? i thought it was a smidge to heavy (but many people report that changing the grips is enough to squeak it in under the limit). I shoot a cz75 in idpa, mostly because that's what I own and I prefer a real da/sa for carry and general use. It takes some practice to deal with the disparate trigger pulls, but I don't think practice and learning is a bad thing. The main reason i like the cz is it fits my hand like a glove and points very naturally and instinctively. It might or might not do the same for you, so I would try one and see what you think. I also have a s&w 40c, and the stock trigger on mine is very very nice and easy to shoot accurately. If a full-sized 9 or 40 feels as good, I would probably consider something in that line too. They fit my hand well also (with the large backstrap). I personally just can't get comfortable with a glock, but if you can, that might be a great choice also. Stop worrying about it, just buy and shoot.

well, i wouldn't load open 9mm even now. I guess i'm just a pansy. It seems safer and easier to me to just use a bigger gun, plus then I get to buy a bigger gun, woohoo! I did some reloading in about 1980, for 30-30 and .38/357. There wasn't as much easily available information, but i didn't have any trouble getting started. I asked a few questions at a local shop, got a manual and got 'er done. All my cartridges went bang. It's definitely easier to figure out what is going wrong nowadays if something goes wrong tho. But mostly I think I just waste more time on the 'net when i could be shooting or reloading or dirtbiking or drinking beer and watching hockey.

I suspect he is getting it from Law Enforcement agencies. A lot of agencies only use factory ammo for carry AND qualification. My son is a Border Patrol Agent and said he has never seen a reloaded round on their range! When I was the firearms instructor at my agency we found out that it wasn't much more expensive to buy loaded ammo than it was to ship our brass back and have it reloaded. I work for an LE agency (non-LE position) and we pay about WWB prices for self-defense hollowpoints (used for carry, quals and practice), so the savings to reload aren't worth the hassle, risk, liability, etc.... I can usually get the guys to scrounge me up a bunch of empties when they shoot if I keep their computers running. Better yet, they use SIGS.

500 rounds a week is a lot imho. If you had said 100-200, I might have suggested starting with a cheap lee single-stage or turret press, learning more about reloading, and saving your pennies for a dillon, but at 500 rds a week, you are looking at several hours of extra work. You'll save enough in ammo costs to pay for a dillon or other top-quality press in a fairly short time consuming that quantity of ammo.

Some good points in this thread. I have no problem or criticism with your philosophy, mine is only *slightly* different. Only 1 person can win. IMHO focusing excessively on that sometimes encourages people to take unethical shortcuts. I compete to test myself and to quantify my improvement. I race motorcycles as well, often at the regional and national level where it's just silly for me to have any intention of winning.

first off, as a fellow noob your equipment sounds totally adequate for now. It's a step above what i have. a fast-ish powder with 124gr bullets will shoot alot softer than factory ammo, and cost of even the good stuff will be considerably lower. n320, solo1000, WST are pretty popular for target loads. So is titegroup and so is clays, but as a newbie i'd prefer to stay a little safer and more conservative. n320 is more expensive than most powders, but the difference per bullet is pretty small (less than a penny). I found 124gr berrys bullets in stock at cabela's so i bought a box to try, and loaded up some rounds with 4.1 gr of n320 and 1.130 OAL. those shoot pretty soft and function great in all my guns. I don't have a chrono yet, but many folks have assured me that going as low as 3.8 gr will still make minor with a 124gr jacketed or plated bullet, so I loaded up a handful at 3.8 and a handful at 4.0 to see if they'll cycle my gun (cz75) reliably. I got a bunch of zero bullets for my .40, but they're back-ordered most places in 9mm, so I'll probably stick with berry's for the 9mm for now. tjconevera.com has good prices (including shipping) on berrys and stock generally seems to be good. I just use winchester primers because they work, and don't cause problems and sportsman's warehouse has plenty of them in stock. I think other primers would work fine too, but I started with these, and it's simpler for me to stay consistent.

Well, firing new brass 1 time is just silly, so let's ignore that. He's paying $275/1000 now. I just got going, but here are my (rounded up) costs per 10000 9mm berrys 124 grn RN $25/250 at cabelas wsp primers $28/1000 at sportsmans warehouse n320 powder(the expensive stuff) $29/lb, so a little under $20 for 1000 bullets worth brass is free and if one has been buying cases of cheap ammo, one hopefully has plenty of brass laying around. So my costs are at $148/1000, and i could bring them down another $15 or so by getting the same bullets in 1000's from tjconevara (which I'll probably do now that I know they work well for me), or zeros in 3000's from czcustom.com, and save more by using cheaper powder if I was really stingy. Of course, the OP could also save money by buying wwb or federal 115 fmjs from walmart at around $220/1000 including tax IMHO a more important side benefit is that you will likely improve your shooting by going with a heavier bullet and faster powder loaded to safely above the power floor (assuming you are shooting production or something with a 130pf). The difference between a round optimized for target shooting in your gun and a generic manufactured round that has to cycle everyone's action and chamber in every gun is significant.

well, cool, false alarm on the glockiness. the speer brass cleaned up pretty nicely and after a trip through a regular lee carbide sizing die drops easily into the chamber of my gun. Ended up with 120 or winchester nickel cases and 250 or so speer brass cases, + 10-15 win NT cases that I just tossed cuz i've heard they're a pain. Hopefully this connection will continue. The best part is my boss and co-workers were grubbing around in the dirt to do me a favor. I guess I owe them a beer.

I've only ever reloaded brass fired from my own guns, but the brass fairy came today. I do tech stuff for a law-enforcment agency and some of our rangers were kind enough to pick up their brass and some other leftovers (local pd?) from their shoot. Ours is all winchester nickel-plated, fired once, from SIGs. Most of the rest is speer, and of unknown ancestry, but I know at least 1 of the big local pd's uses glocks, so there's a high-likelihood it's been glocked. I'm only going to use it for minor idpa and plinking loads, so i'm not too stressed about that I don't think. Here's my plan, criticism and additions welcome: 1. wipe off and inspect, discarding anything squished or otherwise really ugly looking. Found one split case already, and several among the pd brass that must have come from the same gun, with the same jagged scratch on the outside. it sprinkled a bit out today, so it's all a bit dirtier than normal for me. I figure it's smart to wipe off the big chunks enough to inspect before throwing it in the tumbler. 2. after cleaning, inspect more closely, segregate the nickel from the brass cases. 3. after decapping a handful of the possibly glocked rounds, run them through the sizing die and make sure they'll chamber in my m&p40c. Anything else in particular to watch out for? I'm kind of annoyed about the nickel-plating, but it looks like i'll be able to get reasonable quantities of them for free as long as I work here, so I guess i'm not going to complain too loudly.

as someone who just recently got into reloading, allow me to share my own thoughts from a newbie standpoint instead of a die-hard expert standpoint. Knowing very little about reloading, it did not make sense to me to invest $600-1000 on a dillon progressive machine, especially because I know I'm impatient and I know it would be a pain to get started with everything I had to learn. I also knew that step one was going to be to experiment and work up some loads in small lots to see what my gun likes and what i feel like shooting. So it made sense to me to start with a single-stage press, so I could start doing things immediately, and do things one step at a time. I believe the experience will be very helpful when i step up to a progressive press, and all the equipment will still be useful. Especially for small lots, and working up new loads and stuff. All you really need to get started is a lee breechlock challenger kit (currently $89 on sale at cabelas) and a set of .40 dies (about $35-40). Other stuff that would be helpful, and you will eventually want anyway might include an easier to use scale, and a tumbler for cleaning brass (cabelas has a tumbler kit on sale too, with tumbler, strainer, corn-cob media and polish for $55). Of course you are shooting more than me, so the time required to load 500-700 rounds may get burdensome. I seem to be able to load 50-80 rounds per hour as a newbie taking my time, so for the 250-400 rounds I shoot each month, it doesn't take too long. I can load 50-100 rounds to relax before bedtime and leave most of the equipment set up so i can do it again the next night. I expect I'll do this until next winter before i spring for a fancier setup, but of course the inexpensive single-stage press will still get used. For example, it's small and portable enough to just take with me to the range and spend some time experimenting loading up 5-10 cartridges at a time with gradually increasing (or decreasing) charges for chrono or accuracy testing.

Yes, this is the key point. If your choice is shooting what you have or not shooting at all, then by all means, shoot what you have. Not only will you have fun, but you'll gather knowledge and experience that will help you decide if you want to keep doing it, and if so, what equipment would work best for your needs and goals. Show up early, help set up, ask some questions, watch other shooters, take your time and hit your shots, and have a good time.

Oops, my bad on that I guess. For sure, the question is more focused on competition than carry, and just wanting to educate myself on how competition mods would make something unsuitable for carry, or what I would particularly need to be aware of. I only carry the cz 20% of the time or so because it's a big heavy gun, so I usually carry an m&p40compact, or a pf9. I guess the point is my competitive gun would never be a full-time carry gun, but I wanted to be aware if there were particular mods that should make me not carry it at all ever. that doesn't sound good or safe. Heck, I'm not sure it's safe for games, since I'm kind of uncoordinated. thanks for the good feedback so far. the whole point of this thread is to educate myself about the practical effects of competition type modifications.

Kind of a newb question I guess. I already have a cz75 bd, and I absolutely love the ergonomics of the gun and way it points and shoots. I use it for home defense, and concealed carry about 20% of the time, and I've done a couple idpa shoots, and will probably do more. Might branch out into other disciplines, but I don't really see myself as the sort of person who wants a pure race gun. I see the 75 shadow has some trigger work and no firing pin block, but it seems that if you manually decock it (carefully) it would still be reasonable to carry it in DA-first mode. My research suggests it has an inertial firing pin so it should still be drop-safe. Is that so? feel free to expand this discussion beyond the specifics of cz-land, regarding various competition mods and which ones would make a gun significantly less appropriate for carry or defensive use. Probably I just learn to shoot the guns I have better, but buying new stuff is part of the fun that makes one shoot more and train and focus better. advice?

I'm sure you are correct, but I'm wondering if you could post a reference for that.

True, you can only carry 2 on the belt. Can you carry a 3rd in your pocket? Maybe i'm looking in the wrong section of the rules, but I don't see anything that prohibits you from carrying more magazines somewhere besides on your belt. I searched the rulebook for the word 'magazine', and read every sentence pretty carefully. All it appears to say is you can't carry more than 2 on the belt.

I've only shot IDPA, and was able to do it with my normal carry gear. Your gun is SSP division. Your shirt should work fine as a cover garment, but it would probably be safer to tuck it in under the gun and wear a vest or button-shirt with the buttons open so you can sweep it back to reach your gun instead of pulling up. Seems like there's more opportunity for something to catch or snag and cause a safety problem if you have to pull up instead of sweeping back. Practice at home, and whatever you do, take your time and do it safely and carefully in the match. You may want a couple more magazines since yours have a capacity of under 10. The rules say no string of fire can exceed 18 rounds, and if you start with 6+1, that would give you 19 total. That's fine if you don't miss, but there are some targets that you may miss and the scoring allows you to keep shooting, so having another magazine could help you there. We had one saturday with a 'texas star' (2 steel plates on a swinging gizmo). Very few of the shooters I saw got the 2 plates in only 2 shots, and several took 6-8 total shots. I shot my first idpa match last month and i used my carry gun (m&p compact 40), and IWB holster and just carried my mags in my pocket. Yes, it slowed down my reloads, but i was going pretty slow anyway trying to be safe and learn and not win or anything. I ended up investing $17 in a double-mag pouch for the 2nd match. I may eventually get a different holster, but for now, i was able to draw safely and reasonably quickly from my iwb holster. If you don't have a fairly stiff holster that will stay open for easy reholstering, you might consider one, or an inexpensive kydex owb holster just so you'll have 1 less thing to worry about and 1 less thing to possibly go wrong. It's easy to make an RO nervous by fumbling around in your pants with 2 hands.

I think that's common amongst the top shooters in the sport like yourself, however you could also ask why have any classes at all for that matter? Seriously. Not suggesting we do that but it wouldn't matter too much to me. Not that it would ever happen. I'm far far far from a 'top shooter', but I feel the same way. I don't really see the point for all the different classes. Is it just to be able to get a trophy in the beginner senior novice amputee transgender class by beating the one other guy/gal that showed up? I've only shot 2 matches, but I mostly looked at the overall, and other ssp scores. I figure in future matches I'll be able to gauge whether I'm improving by whether I move up overall, not by whether I get lucky and 3 people in my class have a bad day. I also race motorcycles off-road, and we have skill-level divisions there too, but that makes more sense to me from a safety standpoint, since everyone is shoulder to shoulder at the same time. For sure, many folks do seem to want to stay in the novice class as long as possible so they can get a plastic trophy by beating both other 40+ novice redheaded 250cc catholic riders. Of course, this is only my own thoughts about my own competition. For those folks who are motivated by the trophy, that's cool, but I only need the results. So I guess basically I'm saying it really makes no difference whatsoever to me what gets done with more classes or less classes or whatever.