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kcobean

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Everything posted by kcobean

  1. i think I found their website. Based out of Akron, OH? No pictures of their work. Do you have any? thanks for the tip on the Barricade. Will give that a try in the meantime
  2. I've contacted 2 places about NiB coating a gun and neither has returned my emails or calls. I have a bald gun that I need to get coated before the rust takes over. I want it to look as close to bald as possible when finished (i.e. I'm not looking for color, I just want the corrosion protection.
  3. Just to close this out....I actually got a phone call from Mr. Black Bullets himself, Chandler Lefrain, and he walked me through a few things. First, the chamber on my new gun is TIGHT. If you have ever used an EGW case gauge, you know they are precisely to spec and very unforgiving. My chamber seems to be cut to about the same dimensions as the EGW gauge...perhaps just a tiny bit larger. Rounds that stick my new gun shut to the point that I have to grip the slide and hit the grip with my hand to get it out of battery will drop right into a Dillon 10/40 gauge with no issue, and those same rounds will also fit the chamber of my Brazos pro with no issues, so the tolerances on the new gun are just less forgiving. Second, on Chandler's advice, I moved to a Redding dual-ring carbide resizing die as opposed to the Lee U-die. Third, one thing I wasn't doing this time that I've always done before is lubing my cases. This was causing HUGE issues. If you're not lubing your brass during reloading you're doing it wrong. They say you don't have to with carbide dies, but my dies were actually ruining brass if I didn't lube it. I have always used Dillon Case Lube, and once I went back to it, it made a big difference. Fourth, the competition seating die is awesome and while we had some concern that it wouldn't work with this bullet profile, it seems to be working well Fifth, I was crimping the cases to spec, but apparently the crimp die and these bullets at this length require some caution. I think my crimp die was deforming the cases somewhere other than the the case mouth because I backed it off, used a bit less crimp and I saw a dramatic improvement in consistency. I loaded 600 rounds last night (and several thousand between when I started this topic and now), and out of the 600 I loaded last night, I had 5 that failed to gauge and 3 of those were nickel cases that split when the bullet was seated. Huge thanks to Chandler for his hand-holding....you don't see that often.
  4. How do I contact Ron? This is exactly what I’m looking for.
  5. I have a bald gun. Cheeley aggressive grip and frame, Warwick Tactical slide, KKM hybrid barrel. Time to finish it and I love the bare metal look. It seems the closest treatment out there is Nickel Boron, and I’ve seen AR BCGs done in NiB. Any reason you couldn’t NiB a whole gun? Pic of gun for reference
  6. Can you help me understand your answer? One round might drop right in with no resistance, the next round off the press might not chamber even with considerable pressure. Given that, how would this be a chamber depth issue?
  7. All range pickup used brass with varying headstamps.
  8. The BBI 200 gr bullets are .401. I don’t have a solid measurement of the chamber diameter, but given that some of the rounds drop right in and some don’t, it doesn’t appear to be a tolerance issue (other than the chamber being just tight enough that a bullet being even the tiniest bit non concentric or off axis causes it to bind) The 165 gr RNHPs I tested are .400 and have no issues, however I’m not sure if that’s because they’re smaller diameter or because the seating die does what it’s supposed to do on that bullet profile, or a combination of both.
  9. COAL is 1.18-1.185 neck diameter after a mild crimp is to spec (.423) Yes I cause gauge every single round I fire and as many fail the gauge (an EGW 7-hole) as fail the plunk test. the barrel is professionally fit and cycles the 165 grain RNHPs without issue. The chamber was cut to spec but not to my ammo. A little more info to support my concentricity theory: for the rounds that fail the gauge, If I force them into the gauge, when I pull them out the coating is shaved off of one side to some varying degree that corresponds to how much effort was required to press the round in, and some rounds drop right into both the gauge and the barrel.
  10. Alright…ordered. I hope this works. I’ve got 6600 of these things to load. thanks!
  11. I have been loading BBI 200 gr bullets for a few years and they’ve run fine in my STI Eagle and Brazos Pro 2011’s. I have a new gun that has a KKM hybrid barrel and about half of my rounds fail to pass the plunk test and about half of the remaining half will plunk “snug”. The reason, I suspect is that my seating die is not pushing the bullets in straight. It’s the Dillon seat die and I’ve tried both inserts. For contrast, I loaded 20 165 gr plated RNHP bullets and every single one plunks perfectly. Anyone using a different seat die and having better luck in a tight chamber with these BBI CFPs?
  12. Oh, and the Chrono officer felt bad, so he gave me his ice cream ticket. Everything is made better with ice cream. Or bacon. But he didn't have a bacon ticket.
  13. I'll be the first to admit, it was very hard to accept the bump knowing that with a few ounces of pressure (just enough to take the slack out of the basepad/tube interface) it would pass. That little bit of slop offered no competitive benefit...it didn't allow an extra round to fit in the mag (and blah blah blah blah...all the shit you say when you're getting bumped and your brain wants to fight it). But at the end of the day, the Chrono officer was following the rules and I am responsible for my gear, so Open it was. The A8 MD was kind enough to send me his gauge so that I can tune/check my mags and I'm going to buy some new mags or at least new basepads anyway because these are pretty beat up after several years of being dropped in the rocks. I was really just looking for people's preferences on mags now that we have viable options with MBX in the mix.
  14. I don't know how to "adjust" a mag that's suddenly too long short of sanding material off the bottom of the basepad. I'm hesitant to replace the tubes this close to Nationals (I have two majors in September, NC state and nationals) because they work with my gun 100% of the time.
  15. At Area 8 last weekend I got bumped to open division because the magazine I provided at Chrono was maybe .5mm too long. Funny thing is, it's the exact same mag I've used at Chrono at every major for the last 2+ years and it's always passed. I'm told that after repeated drops, the Dawson basepads can deform enough that the slot the mag lips sit in loosens up and the spring pushes the whole basepad down, causing the OAL to increase. So time to either order new basepads or new mags. I've heard mixed reviews on the MBX mags, and I think I've heard that STI has a new magazine out. Curious to hear what people recommend based on their experience.
  16. Thanks JimmyBob. I ended up ordering this one: https://dawsonprecision.com/warren-tactical-s-w-m-p-fixed-competition-sevigny-sight-set-black-rear-fiber-optic-front/ Should be here tomorrow.
  17. I've been a Limited division guy for years. Shooting a little production this year, but my M&P9 has a worn out pair of night sights on it. I want to put a set of sights on it better suited to competition. What are people using these days? Dawson Precision competition? Found these: https://dawsonprecision.com/smith-and-wesson-m-p-22-competition-fixed-sight-set/ I'd greatly appreciate input from those shooting M&P's in competition. Thanks.
  18. Thanks! I'll post some pics when it comes back from being refinished, thumb rest and racker added. I can't wait!
  19. I would recommend pulling the firing pin and running a Q-tip with some Hoppes on it down that FP channel. That channel gets a LOT of carbon build up in it. I do this after every couple of matches.
  20. What troubleshooting have you done so far? What can you rule out? Troubleshooting is a process of elimination.
  21. Does the o-ring just go down at the shoulder of the threads?
  22. Thanks for all the input guys. Never heard back from Robar so I took it to a professional Cerakote applicator here in the area that does work directly for STI. He spent an hour with me showing me some of the work he's done on various guns and their work is impressive. Should have it back in a few weeks so I'll post pics when I get it back. Decided to go with a new color I think he said is called Midnight Bronze and he's going to distress it for effect. Should be interesting!
  23. Just kidding. I stripped this OLD STI Eagle 5.1 down to the very last screw, every pin, everything to send it in for refinishing. The original finish is almost gone and this gun (which is my backup to my Limcat) rusts every time I take to the range if it rains. It will literally have visible surface rust after one day. So here's the question I pose to the community... If you could get a very affordable cerakote job done by a Cerakote certified applicator, would you do that, or would you go with something like an NP3/NP3+ finish from Robar? I sent Robar an email (their site asks you NOT to call them...weird) and haven't heard back yet, but it looks like an NP3+ job would run me about $150-ish dollars more than a cerakote job. What do you guys think?
  24. I daily carry a regular M&P, so I'm just gonna shoot that. I may upgrade to a 2.0 at some point, but it won't be before BITB (and likely won't be on the Production list in time anyway).
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