Vincent258

Welcome back!

Welcome from many miles away in the northwest US (Washington State)! It's great that this forum can connect community members from around the world!

Welcome from many miles away in WA! Pew pew!

I may be touching on a point that has been made before but, after playing at our local action shoot practice last night, I learned that numbering your mags and keeping a log book of the malfunctions your encounter can be a great asset. Not necessarily to look back on multiple months down the road, but rather the next day or the following week after you have returned home and are trying to remember "ok, which magazine was it that gave me failure to feed issues" or (from personal experience) "remember not to index your trigger finger on the pin for the slide release during the 'safe handling' times"; to explain, on my P97, the slide release/take down pin protrudes about 1/16th of an inch on the opposite (strong hand) side of the gun and for some unknown reason the past couple weeks, I have been indexing my trigger finger on that, pushing it in, which pushes the slide release away from the frame just that much on the other side of the gun and translates into an inoperable trigger. That doesn't work very well when the shot timer beeps, I unholster my gun, acquire the target and.... nothing. These notes can be valuable, as a new competitor, in your training regement to remind you of little nuonces to fix during dry fire or live fire practices. Or, they can be used to remind you which magazine you need to clean and oil to try or fix other issues with. If there are other people out there that have any other tips and tricks from personal experience, I'm all ears. Thanks.

That could be reason enough to watch it. I might be pushing against the grain when I say this, but Discovery has done a good job so far. This new show may have potential.

Below is some in-depth information regarding the gun and the ammo. Bare in mind that I have not been able to chrono these loads yet. I am in the beginning stages of working these loads up for use in USPSA style practice shooting. At this point I have not been concerned about making power factor. All I'm doing right now is "putting holes in paper". With the specs listed below, I have not experienced a single issue with the gun not cycling properly. The lowest powder charge I have tried was 4.2g of Winchester 231 and about every 3 round would "stove-pipe". Gun: Ruger P97DC, all factory parts. I have mic'd the chamber depth and it measured .90" from the lands and grooves to the end of the chamber hood. Unfortunately I do not have the correct equipment to mic the inside diameter of the chamber accurately. From what I have found, the factory recoil spring is 12lbs. Ammunition: Handloaded .45ACP 200gr Rnd Precision Moly Bullets Brass: Reused Winchester cases from factory loads Primer: CCI Large Pistol Powder: 4.8g Winchester 231 OAL: 1.186 Crimp: -.001 (.470) Handloaded .45ACP 230gr FMJ Montana Gold Bullets Brass: Reused Winchester cases from factory loads Primer: CCI Large Pistol Powder: 4.8g Winchester 231 OAL: 1.245 Crimp: -.001 (.470) If there is anything I have missed, please feel free to ask; I'll be more than happy to provided it.

I ordered a case of BBIs 8 weeks ago. No sign of them yet. I ordered a case of Montana Gold bullets and had them in my hands in 12 days. I am a huge fan of moly bullets and will continue to use them in some loads but you just can't beat MG for delivery times. Anyway, to the OP's question, who cleans barrels? Monster, I too ordered from BBI and after 5 weeks, I canceled my order and ordered from David at Precision Bullets. Same price and got here in 4 days (TXs to WA). I'm very happy with my Precision bullets so far. Bear Creek Bullets was also recommended to me but, from what I have found, you can only order via phone. I searched through BE forum for the phone number. I haven't used BCB because I still have an abundance of Precision Bullets left.

I would like to follow up on this topic with an update. Since listing this topic, I went ahead and decided I would find out first hand. I loaded about 80 rounds of .45ACP 230g FMJ from Montana Gold with 4.8g of Winchester 231 (this is a load that I like to use "just for putting holes in paper"). With only a minor cleaning of the barrel (because I'm the type that prefers to maintain my firearms to a high quality), I went to my local range and did some test firing. Bare in mind that I hadn't removed any Moly from my barrel. It is easiest just to say that the test rounds went as smooth as butter. Absolutely no issues from the Moly coated barrel. I'm glad to know that I'll be able to swap back and forth with little effort. Originally, the reason for asking this question in the first place was because I was having issues with my Moly loads not chambering into battery all the was and I needed to know how much effort was going to be involved with switching back to FMJ's. However, since then, I have also fixed the issues I was having with my Moly bullets. It turned out that while loading the Moly lead bullets, the seating/crimp (one stage) was forcing the diameter of the bullet to enlarge because as the bullet was being seated, the crimp on the case mouth was digging into the bullet. I've learned that by separating the seating and crimping stages, it allows the bullet to be fully seated before any crimping is done and the diameter of the lead bullets does not enlarge. Now, my moly loads drop in and out of the chamber with ease during a "drop test". Thanks to everyone for their input. Happy shooting and keep'em in the A zone!

And a "thank you" to you for introducing another generation into our sport.

I'm with you. I started reloading a little over a month ago and I am having a blast (pun intended). Even throughout the trials and errors, the two basic characteristics I enjoy about reloading are the technical challenges (which are inevitable) and being able to make, use and enjoy my own product. Plus I got lucky! My "other half", who enjoys shooting too, has started to taking an interest in reloading and we will be setting her up to reload for her .38 special very soon. Life is Good!

Don't seat and crimp in the same step if at all possible. You can keep using your existing seating die with the crimper backed all the way (usually the seat/crimp dies have an adjustment knob for seating depth and how far you screw in the die itself regulates crimp, so back the die out 3 turns and then reset the seating adjustment to preference) out and add a 5th die in station 5 to taper crimp the finished round separately. Much better ammo will result. Seating and crimping in two separate stages has fixed my dalema as well. Previously I was having issues with my .45ACP 200g RND lead bullets, where the bullets weren't seating into battery all the way. After some extensive mic'ing and experimenting, I found that during the seat/crimp stage (combined), a portion of lead from the shoulder of the bullet was being reshaped, as the bullet was still being seated at the same time that the taper crimp was pressing the case mouth into crimp. This resulted in a bullet with a slightly larger diameter, compared to the diameter of a bullet before it has been pressed into a case. To remedy this issue, I tried separating the seat and crimp stages. Simply by crimping the bullet after it has been seated completely, the diameter of the bullet did not enlarge. I tested my completed rounds by drop testing them into the barrel of my gun and I was happy to find that they fell into (and out of) the chamber with ease. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. This information is worth it's weight in gold to a new reloader.

Thanks for your input Jman.

Hello from Washington (the actual State, not the District). I've been poking around in different forum topics and I am glad to be joining such a great group of people. There seems to be a wealth of helpful and knowledgeable people hear. So thanks in advance for helping out this Newbie.

Ultimately, I am hoping for clarification on the topic of switching from moly coated bullets to jacketed (FMJ) bullets. It was brought to my attention that after shooting moly bullets, if I ever wanted to convert back to jacketed bullets, I would first have to extensively clean all of the moly coating out of my barrel. However, I have not been able to find any information explaining exactly why? I am new to reloading and started reloading because I am getting increasingly more active in USPSA style shooting. I will have to assume that most all of us know the benefits reloading (cost, efficiency, performance, etc.). As I am learning about all the different ways I can help to improve the cost and efficiency, I found out about moly coated bullets; which seem to be a great “middle of the road” solution between plain lead bullets (cheap, but dity) and FMJ’s (more expensive, but clean). Would anyone be able to explain to me the characteristics of why a moly coated barrel and FMJ bullets “just don’t mix”? Thanks in advance for your help.