cautery

No... makes perfect sense.

You guys that are using the Montana Gold bullet... Are y'all using the FMJ or the CMJ?

Joe D - Hence why I said "MIGHT"... AustinMike - OK.. without pictures it's hard to describe, but... You have the narrow portion of the trigger safety that starts at the bottom, goes past the pin pvot, and terminates in a wider "pad" at the top... On a stock trigger, this is a thick pad... On the Sotelo trigger bar, I think you will notice that he has already trimmed the "pad" back a bit... The pad is what needs to be trimmed back... I use a single edge razor... On mine, I really didn't have to shorten it much... What I needed to do mostly was take the sharp edge off the outboard edge of the pad... In other words, I radiused the edge so it wouldn't catch the pocket in the frame... Do it a VERY little at a time... You want to keep as much material as you can. But you also want to have it short enough that putting your finger on the trigger will recess it enough to alloe the trigger to begin pre-travel... On mine, once I eliminated the vast majority of the pre-travel, I had to cut back past the pad into the shaft quite a ways... <disclaimer mode on> BTW, I'm not advocating that you mod anything... just telling you what I did. Modifying stuff is a good way to mess things up... at the least requiring replacement parts. Doing stuff you don't have the skils/experience for can result in unsafe functioning of the weapon... <disclaimer mode off>

Joe D - Not sure if I want to go much lower than 2-1/4lbs... It's nice and reliable here, and plenty light. Just want to smooth things out a bit more. atmar - You MIGHT be able to get 1lb IF you could find the right trigger spring... You might have to go up on the recoil spring... Personally... I wouldn't do so on a carry pistol...

OK... Here is an "errata" for the procedure above. Instead of 1.375" x 1.375", cut the holster clamping spreader to 1.1" x 1.375". This will allow the spreader to sit in between the top and bottom seams on the belt within the belt hanger. This will make it 1) easier to inert between the belt and hanger, and 2) prevent it from distorting when the set screws are applied.

Two (or three) things you can do to modify what you have and make it more solid: 1) Add a layer of 3/4" MDF to the ENTIRE top of the bench. Since the top is already installed, it'll be a bi tmore difficult to get the second layer boded, but you can do it... To get the benefit from the second layer, you need to get a near 100% bod between the two layers. You can do this by measuring/cutting/dry fitting the new layer.... Once you are SURE it is exactly the right size (you can overhang the front some and router it flush later if you have a router and a bottom bearing flush cut bit), then layout and pre-drill for ome good quality screws (flat head). Use 1.5" screws... You may have to go in and nip/grind the tips off later from underneath. Once you have it all pre drilled, then using a SLOW set wood glue, spread an even, but sufficient layer on the existing top to get a 100% bond.... Use one of those paint pads or a 1/4" roller. Then put the new top on and index it quickly with the outside screws to make sure it is square... Do NOT tighten them down... Just get them started.... Start at the center and drive the screws tight... Work out in a circular pattern to drive the voids out to the edges.... until you have them all tight.... Scrape off and clean up the glue spill-out at the edges... Let the top dry... Do not put any weight on it until it is dry... 2) Along the front edge... Add a second 2x4 under the lip for the entire length of the bench. Clamp it in place and secure it at many points to both the existing 2x4 and down through both layers of the top. This will add some rigidity to the front lip... You'll need much longer screws for the fron part of the strong mount... And you'll need longer ones in the back too unless you already have 3/4" extra threads beyond the nut now... Use large diameter (fender washer x 2) on the under side of the bench for securing the strang mount to spread the load. It does not appear that you have any stringers going through the middle of the bench under the top... It's hard to fit length-wise stringers after a top is on, BUT, you could put a front-to-back cross striger under the press... basically splitting the distance between the strongmount legs... This will stop the strong mmount from flexing the middlw of the table top.... assuming the doubling of the top thickness doesn't fix all of this... Additionally, if you double the layer on the second shelf, it will make that one stiffer AND increase the overall weight of the bench.... I would doouble it and add 2 or 3 cross stringers with down screws/bolts into them... to add weight AND increase the load I could put on the second shelf.... Then I'd store ALL of my bullets on the second shelf split out at each of the legs... (lower center of gravity, and greater overall weight... Hope this helps...

Originally, I was gonna have Charlie Vanek do my trigger, but he is/was ill. Hope you are feeling better Charlie! So, then I ordered a Sotelo kit from triggerkit.com. Apparently, trigger bars are at a premium right now, and RS took a while getting my kit to me. Not his fault... He had to hunt up enough trigger bars to fill all his orders. Anyway I got impatient, so I took out my tools, stones, polishing compound, etc. and set to work... Stoned everything flat and polished it super smooth... This helped things a lot, but there's a limit to what you can do without more drastic measures... Finally, the RS kit arrived... Nice kit. I installed all of the kit parts and measured the trigger pull (see my article on my wesite for how I do it). The RS kit came in right at 2lbs 8 ozs... Not bad for $50.00 and drop in installation. The trigger safety needed to be trimmed back just a hair more, but that was a non-issue, especially knowing that I wasn't finished anyway... Looking at the parts in the kit, I decided to try the 3.5lb connector I had worked on instead of the Sotelo part... The Sotelo part was polished properly and in all the right places, but I had stoned mine to true it up in several critical areas... I also stoned the edge on the Sotelo trigger bar that rides under the connector lip as it had some minor machine marks visible that could not have been removed by polishing alone. I could have just swapped the trigger bars out, but I hadn't drilled mine yet.... And, I have to say that Sotelo did a better job than I did machining the trigger bar angle where it catches the striker... Learned something there... Made a jig that will cut that angle in a trigger bar now. Sotelo's firing pin plunger is a work of art. I haven't touched that at all. Anyway, I measured again today, and I had it down to 2lb-4oz... Very smooth.... But I still wasn't completely happy with it as a whole... I had ordered the parts/tools needed to install set screws to adjust pre-travel and over-travel... I didn't have time to work on both of them, so I did the pre-travel. It's not nearly as difficult as one might think... though I wouldn't recommend it to ANYONE... You do it, it's on you! Anyway, I got it done, and progressive applied the setscrew until the pistol first failed to reset. Then, I backed off a certain amount to make sure I'd get 100% reliable reset. Then, I checked to make sure that the drop safety was still functional... it was. Finally, I cut the trigger safety down until it was short enough to function properly with the reduced pre-travel. So, thusfar, I have a 2lb-4oz trigger, with drastically reduced pre-travel, very smooth, and a better break... and of course all safeties functional. I still have a few things left to do... I have to finish the over-travel set screw. I also plan to mill the center section of the connector down some. I've been putting it off, but I also need to tighten the slide... Even with the reduced power striker spring, pulling the trigger still sucks the slide down... The trigger bar is still rubbing a tad on the right side of the mags, so I need to mill the mag catch a bit more to lower the mags in the well, and/or mill some of the polymer off the right side of all my mags until they no longer touch. That has to be adding some drag to the trigger... Finally, and the part I am kinda psyched about... I should be getting the parts/tools soon to eliminate the lateral play in the trigger... This should really clean up the trigger feel... This particular mod really wouldn't be noticeable until you fixed all the other stuff first... Oh... BTW... I took the pistol out to verify that there would be no "light primer strikes" usig WSP primers... I'm about to order 25K, and didn't want this to be an issue... It wasn't of course. I put 400 rounds of my stuff and 50 rounds of CCI Blazer through it, and every round went bang. If it'll light CCI primers, and not one light strike in 450 rounds, I'd consider that reliable. Later...

Gonna be a long 4 day drive between Rochester, NY and Albany, Or, but I'm going to be there.

First, let me say that I really dig my CR Speed gear... I like it so much, I bought a second set to use with my open pistol when/if I build it. In addition, the folks at CR Speed (Cathy and Franco) are great people and a pleasure to deal with... However, neither the Versa Hanger on my WSM holster or my Versa-Pouches would stay exactly where I wanted them... Even with the security wedges in place. So, I have come up with one solution. I drilled and tapped the belt hangers for set screws. On the holster belt hanger, I drilled from the front face because: 1) It is the thickest portion of the hanger, and 2) You can tighten the set screws while wearing the holster... like while you are setting the position. 3) It also allowed me to use a 1.375" x 1.375" piece of 22 gauge steel sheet as an insert between the set screws and the belt. This provides better clamping force, AND protects the belt. Note: I used TWO set screws to make sure the holster wouldn't twist in place in addition to sliding fore and aft. Here are some images... warning, the are about 110K each, but they are good images. WSM Holster #1 WSM Holster #2 On the Versa-Pouches, I used the same approachexcept I drilled/tapped the edge of the belt hangers. I'm pretty sure you can use the Versa-Pouch security wedges as belt protection inserts rather than having to make up metal spreaders. Even if you have to make the metal inserts, it's still a cool deal. Here are the images: Versa-Pouch #1 Versa-Pouch #2 Hardware: (note: I used metric hardware since the rest of the hardware is already metric) M5 x 0.80pitch x 8mm long set screw (2ea. per mag holder) M6 x 1.00pitch x 8mm long set screw (2ea. for the holster) 1.375" 1.375" x 22 gauge sheet steel (or equivalent) for a holder clamp spreader. Tools: -11/64" drill bit to drill pilot holes on mag holder belt hanger -13/64" drill bit to drill pilot holes on WSM belt hanger -M5 x 0.80 pitch tap (make sure it is 0.80pitch as there is a 0.90pitch tap found commonly too) -M6 x 1.00 pitch tap -Hand tap holder. -Drill press (not required, but recommended) for drilling pilot holes AND can be used to make sure M6 tap is started squarely in the aluminum holster belt hanger. -60 degree chamfer bit/tool (not required but recommended to clean up pilot holes before tapping (especially the holes in polymer) Additional Materials: Blue thread locker... just a small drop on each set screw once you have it all where you want it. DO NOT use too much on the polymer. DO NOT use red thread locker. DO NOT over tighten the set screws on the mag-holders... it is not necessary. Hope y'all find this useful...

John, I just love shooting. Add to that, that I like trying to make/improve things, and you have a perfect combination of activities to spend your time on.

Flex, as a rule in standard SAAMI spec chambers, straight wall pistol brass tends to shorten. I have never tracked it, but I suspect that if the brass is shot out of the same barrel over and over, the rate of shortening would slow and/or stop after some number of firings... I ALSO suspect that brass shortens less in tighter chambers... If the round had less room to expand laterally, then it follows that it will steal less material from the length dimension. I'd actually like to look at what the minimum chamber diameter could be and still get reliable function in a comp. pistol... You'd still need to make sure you had an adequate radius at the chamber entry, but the rest of the barrel should be ablet otighten up considerably. I further suspect that you could almost eliminate case shortening with such a barrel... If you didn't stretch the brass as far, it would tend to spring back to original dimensions.

I dont know if anyone could make the tubes and put the components together as cheap as what you can get a factory Glock mag for. Of course not... That's no the point. The point is to get metal tubes that don't take up all the extra room that the polymer coating does on the factory tubes... Oh, and BTW... I suspect that other than the mag catch... metal on plastic would be slicker than plastic on plastic...

So, a properly fitted barrel is a waste of money? OK.. So, what if you don't HAVE that 1 in 10 or 1 in 100 Glocks, that shoots those "5 shot quarter size groups at 25 yds "? Are you saying that it is a waste of money to get a barrel fit so that it DOESN'T drift laterally at lockup? No, getting a barrel that has nothing but a long barrel hood is probably a half measure. But getting one where there is extra material available in all the critical dimensions... And then fit the barrel to your particular slide... I don't see how that could possibly be a waste of money.

Same as I am now... It's not for the sport for the most part... I just want to see if I can do it, and still have the pistol maintain most/all of its reliability. However, I DO see the benefits for the guy that can only afford a Glock to shoot IPSC with... If for the price of a smith fit barrel, he could get 1" groups at 25 yards, then his probability of making an "A" with a marginal shot would rise drastically, vs' the 3+" average group a stock Glock shoots. Sure would be good to have on those long standards stages too... "Holy Cow Standards" anyone? And it would actually not be a sub-MOA pistol... merely a 4MOA one.

Yeah, I know folks say metal and plastic don't go together, but... I don't see why someone hasn't made a metal Glock mag tube yet... I know you could design the mag catch step on the tube such that it wouldn't wear the mag catch down... And with all that polymer eliminated, the tube could be fatter/longer, thus allowing for longer rounds in the mad and more importantly, you might gain an extra round or two...

LOL! Yeah, I do now... You don't know me Sheldon, but I am an incurable tinkerer. I know that no one trims pistol brass, but I' ve been working on a project on and off since 2001... Part of it involves setting a consistent headspacing on the round. The way I am doing this is by cutting my chambers shorter than SAAMI spec... On proto #3, the barrel hood to headspace shoulder is 0.844" instead of 0.850". Since 80% of all once-fired brass is longer than 0.843" (it actually averages about 0.843"), and virtually ALL NEW brass is over 0.843", I can trim all the case to the same size... about 0.843"... This yields a true 0.001" headspace 9distance between the case and breech). My theory is that loacting the round in the chamber more consistently, will yield better accuracy... (taken in conjunction with a bunch of other stuff like 0.001"-0.003" bullet jump, etc. Of course, I am doing this on a Glock, so there are some other things that have to be fixed first before the headspacing thing will yield the best results... Things like a REALLY bad extracotr design... (for these purposes), needing the barrel to be hand fitted, and the like... Function is not what al this is about... It's more about me trying to make something that already works, "More, Better, Faster..." (Some call it tilting at wind mills.)

Adding Kurt and Sheldon! That's great guys. Look forward to seeing y'all there.

I have great respect for WIN once-fired brass... Besides the fact that it has those virtually irremovable deposits in the primer pocket, and the insides never polish up... I tis pretty good brass... never have to worry about it being safe... I've never ruptured one. But it has a very loose lenght tolerance (lot to lot?) I have to cull about 20% for being to short for my purposes... I actually have about 5K WIN brass right now. I used it in my proto #1 testing. Going "bang" isn't the problem, nor is feeding... One of the other things I am considering is the reduced time I will have for loading next year... I need to save time where I can. With the new Starline, I have NO short cases... I can just trim to length and load. That's why I bought the 1050 and RF100 today... When I have a day home to load and refit, I want to be able to do a bunch... I'm going to do component prep in my spare time on the road... When I am home, I'll need to load quickly, and spend the rest of my time working on my projects/practicing.

I'm not going to go into any great detail, but CERTAIN drop-in/semi drop-in barrels do tend to increase accuracy. Match a good aftermarket drop-in with a proper match reload, and you can do better. But a properly done hand fitted barrel will make a world of difference in group size... Ideally (with respect to barrels), start with a smith fitted barel that is short chambered (preferably just roughed out short of the headspacing shoulder with no taper cut forward). Have the barrel fit to your slide... Figure out if the magazine is the limiting factor for OAL... In 40S&W it is... Determine what the max OAL your mag can reliably load, OR what the max OAL you need for your application. Get the standard SAAMI spec drawing for the roughing/finish reamer used in your barrel. Then mod it to reflect the lead you need to make your OAL with about a 0.001-0.003" jump to the tapered lands... This is the hard part... AND it's bullet specific... Unless you go with a much larger jump... Order the reamer set from Pacific Tool and Die.... Get your smith or someone COMPETENT to cut your chamber, and finish the barrel off... BE SURE TO mark the barrel as a shot chambered barrel somehow. Work up a load for the gun... Test, re-work, test, rework, test... until you get the accuracy you are looking for... Or blow it all off and just shoot... Or buy a custom 2011...

Flex - I already have 1K on the bench for testing purposes. I'm not crazy about the idea of using once-fired brass for matches.... I'm going to be shooting full time next year. Just the lost brass matches I'm planning to shoot next year are going to eat like 7200 cases... Testing is going to eat at least 2-3K since I can't reuse the brass for that. Yeah, I'll probably cheap out and reuse brass for practice... All total, I'll probably load and shoot about 30k in 2006. I'll think about it. I dropped the order for 20K bullets today. I'll be dropping my powder/primer order in a week or so. I don't have to make the brass order immediately... but I am leaning heavily toward new brass for next year. This one big order should set me up for a while. I'll retire my old brass (WIN, R-P, etc.) and just use the "once-fired" stuff for practice. Then al I'll have to worry about replacing is the match and testing stocks. Next year is "my" year... No, I'm not going to work some miracle and become some great shooter. What I mean is that next year is just for me, to do what I want to do. There are a lot of things I am goign to give up and do without to make this happen... I don't really want to make my shooting tools part of that list... I might never get to do anything like this again in my lifetime, so I want to make the best of it. Hard to explain....

Well, my 550B is great, and I would NEVER let it go.... but I simply need to spend less time loading, and I'm gonna be using a lot more ammunition next year, so I dropped a check to Brian this afternoon fot a Super 1050 in 40 S&W and an RF100... I probably should have just moved up to the 650... But then I'd have three presses within a year when I moved up to the 1050 anyway.

I'm getting ready to make one big brass purchase to cover me for all of next year. I'm going to buy Starline 40 S&W... Anyone else want to jump in and try to make one of the larger quantity discounts? If you are interested, PM me.

In military helicopter training, the first thing the instructor tries to do is get the student focused on using his eyes. Flying "by the seat of the pants" will get you killed. Your body will lie to you... Your eyes don't "lie", as long as they are not impaired in some way. It's what the mind DOES with the input that distorts the reality... When I was younger, I had almost a 100% photographic memory (not so much anymore). It's cool because your eyes are almost like videocameras... You can replay what they saw with virtualy no interpretation. I would suspect that his would be similar to what you'd LIKE your eyes/brain to be like when shooting... assuming you've reduced the mechanics to a sub-conscious level. Flight instructors refer to a limited attention span and attention overload. When your span of conscious control is full and you add an additional stimulus and/or task, something gets dropped... r overall performance of all tasks deteriorates. The "good" pilots are those who can relegate more of the "normal" tasks to the sub-conscious, freeing up "attention" to handle additional taskings... like shooting bad guys and avoiding surface to air missles.

Flex - Yup, I realize/believe that everythin else is basically subordinate to seeing... Maybe not subordinate in the strictest sense, BUT the "seeing" will lead you in the right direction on just about everything else that you need to do "right". Now, at 42, my vision is rapidly declining at near distances, and the eyes don't react as quickly. Some of that I can mitigate with practice and exercises, but some of it is inevitable. The key to me shooting " better than average" will be to find ways to cope with the limitations... Same thing with the knees... I have one bad knee and one that ain't much better. Can't get new ones, so I have to do tings to cope with the ones I have... like dropping say... 60 pounds and taking a large percentage of the load off them. Man, I love this sport...

I couldn't get my chronograph to work consistently today, so my "range day" became more about practice than testing/practice. Having the extra rounds may have made the difference... Having laid off shooting for about 4 yrs, my handgun skills (which were nver very highly developed anyway) have atrophied to near non-existence. Today, I had a true practice plan... and followed it. Here are some of the things I noticed: 1) My draw is incredibly slow! Best I could get it down to, and still get an "A" hit at 11 yards, was 1.30 seconds. Now, that's nothing to really "notice", but I started to analyze why and came up with a few things... a) Can't get a consistent grip on the pistol coming out of the holster. I finally figured out that at least PART of the problem is that my holster is setup all wrong. It was set too far back on my hip which was causing me to have to move my shoulder to get to the grip... So I moved it forward, which helped some. However, then I realized that there is simply no way for me to RELIABLY get my hand up under the "beaver tail" and thumb between the gun and the belt... The holster is set too close to the belt... Time to add some spacers... This will also help to get the pistol away from my... well... fat. (Move it away from me, until I can get rid of some of the "me" that's in the way). Frankly, it's amazing to me, that I was doing 1.3's with the mechanics so jacked up... 2) I can't get a consistent grip with my left hand.... This I'm sure is predominantly due to the fact that the right hand isn't in the same/right place (fast enough) so that my left hand can hit the same spot every time. 3) My stance is... well inconstent... (to be kind). My feet are in pretty good shape, and naturally seem to hit the right mark, but from there up, I'm in trouble. I can't seem to consistently avoid locking my knees out, or keep my back straight, or incline forward at the hips... In all, I end up lock kneed, sway backed, and leaning back a lot of the time... Not a very stable platform... Probably push me over with a strong breeze. However, when I DO manage to get the stance right, my times and accuracy are better, and I can "feel" the shot... smoother and a lot more relaxed. I couldn't get my draw to first shot to get any better, so I recorded it as a benchmark and moved on to draw and fire two... 1) My first shot got slower!!! Have NO idea why... One would think that you could keep the first shot the same, but it got about .2 or slower... Ideas? 2) My splits are incredibly slow... No way I could "see" the second shot faster than about .6 or so to start... I could hammer the second shot about 75/25 2A/1A1C in about .21 (slow even for a hammer), but that isn't acceptable.... Only 2A at 100% for 11 yards... and it has to be Oh so much faster... Why so slow? Well, I FINALLY "saw" the problem... or rather DIDN'T see it... I'm flinching!!! I've NEVER had that problem before, but apparently now I do... I don't really care why I was doing it, but by ACCIDENT, I discovered/did something that helped.... 3) I've always had cross-dominance (right handed/left eye dominant). I used to be able to get by with both eyes open and just move the pistol over... Unfortunately, it appears that either my dry-fire practice trying to convert to right eye, or simply age (42) has changed things... The dominance isn't strong enough anymore... Now, I drift back and forth and can't get either eye to take charge.... So, for the last several months I've been having to resort to closing my left eye... It's worked... better, but not a solution, and after today definitely not. One of the things that's been happening since I started closing one eye is that I can't get my eye to transition to the front blade from the target fast enough... or at all sometimes. Just for grins, I shot a couple of strings (draw and fire 2rds x 2 targets) with both eyes open, not worrying really about shot placement... just concentrating on getting a sharp focus transition from the target to the front blade... It worked... I CAN transition to the blade faster.... BUT... More importantly, my eyes stayed OPEN... no flinch... or at least a drastically reduced frequency... All I can surmise is that having one eye closed kindof "loaded" the blink trigger for the other eye... For the first time since I read Brian's book, I ACTUALLY SAW the front blade come up out of the notch!!! I was psyched... Unfortunately, I actually saw TWO front blades come up... Then I remembered reading about the tape trick, and seeing carina with one lense of her shooting glasses taped with some sort of "frosted" tape... I didn't have any of that, but just for grins I tried a piece of black electrical tape over the central focus area of my left lense (placed while I held a sight picture strong hand holding the pistol... I just aimed with normal grip, and then dropped my left hand without moving anything and picked up the piece of tape and placed it). Then I reloaded and shot some 4 round strings... Well, there's so much other stuff wrong with my fundamentals, that no miracles happened, BUT... 1) My transition from target to front blade was faster and more consistent, 2) I was able to get a VERY sharp focus on the front blade, and 3) I was able to see the shot... no flinching! Progress... after a fashion anyway. While shooting the 4 round strings (besides seeing that my transitions are sucky slow (.63)), I realized that I was shooting 2As MUCH more consistently on the second target than the first.... AND faster. All I can come up with is that my grip improves before I get to the second target... Maybe the holster position tuning and a lot more draw practice can improve the grip thing... Tomorrow... reloads. I really have to get to work on those... With the grip reduction on my Glock, I can't use a mag well, so I really have to get precice with the reload mechanics... Anyway, I apologize for the long post, but I had a productive day, and it helps me to write stuff out to internalize/analyze it.