rutilate

I'm brand new to competition shooting and am interested in purchasing a production pistol that will serve as many purposes as possible. I've found the list of pistols eligible for USPSA: http://www.uspsa.org/uspsa-NROI-production-gunlist.php and for IPSC: http://www.ipsc.org/rules/proddiv.php It seems as though IDPA is less restrictive. Has anyone gone through and joined the two lists to determine which pistols would work for both?

hehe. Yeah, that's 300/week. Updating the original post.

Breaking these numbers down a bit on the proverbial back of the envelope: Assuming that you're shooting 9mm, and shooting 150k rounds/year, 5 days a week, 50 weeks/year=600 rounds/day. I'm reloading 9mm at $0.124/round, so $74.40/day. 150k*.124/50wks= $357.69/week, $1550/month , $18,600/year. Of course if you're sponsored, the equation changes. If you can reload 1000 rounds/hour on your 1050, you spend 3 hours/week, 12 hours/month reloading 12k rounds/month. Assume you spend another 3 hours/month sorting, tumbling, prepping brass. (Is that accurate?) That's 15 hours/month. How long does it take to shoot 600 rounds each day? I'm new, and making an uneducated guess of < 60 seconds for 20 shots in a stage, so ~30 minutes each day plus 1/2 hour setup/cleanup, so roughly 1 hour/day. Travel time to and fro the range may add another hour. That's 2 hours/day, 10 hours/week, 40 hours/month. Add in 2 matches/month with 5 hours at the match and 1 hour drive time each way, you're at 14 hours/month. How much time do you spend practicing dry fire? Again, I'm new. Help me out here. People here advocate spending at least one hour/day. Assuming 1.5 hours for dedication, you end up with 7.5 hours/week, 30 hours/month. Totals: $297.60/mo, $18,600/yr 99 hours/mo, 1188 hrs/yr That's a serious commitment.

I am getting partially burned powder blown back into my face when shooting my M&P .45. Could it be that the Berry's hollow base is deflecting the charge backwards? I'm shooting .45 with Berry's 185gr hollow base round nose. I'm loading Titegroup 4.7gr. I didn't have any problem with the same load and Montana Gold 230gr. bullets. I see that this powder charge is similar to what many are using here. I'm wondering if it is possible that the hollow base is forming a parabolic deflector and blowing burning powder backwards along the gaps in the slide. Alternatively, is it possible that the bullets are not seated far enough, allowing the bullet to leave the case mouth before the powder has fully burned and only partially pressurized? Any thoughts?

I have both and love them both. With the 550, I can load ~400 rounds 9mm/hour, and with the 650 I can load ~600/hour. I reload the higher volume stuff on the 650 and lower volume on the 550. With lower volumes, it really doesn't matter. I work out of my home and have the luxury of loading 1-200 in the morning, then another 200 at lunch, and another 2-300 at night. Rarely do I spend more than 2 hours at a time cranking out ammo. Thus, either one can be made to work just fine. Having said that, I prefer the 650 for a couple of reasons: Less physical movement without the need to feed cases with one hand while advancing/seating bullets with the other hand Less cognitive load without the need to visually inspect powder level in each case if you use the powder check add-on. The downside is the time it takes to change calibers. You won't have to change from small to large primers, saving you a couple of steps. There are some other complexities with more moving parts with the case feeder, drop mechanism, and station 1 slide, but they either work themselves out over time or you get used to compensating for them. If I had the money for a 650 with accoutrements, I'd buy it again over a 550.

These are amazingly good sites. I'm very interested in gunbots forthcoming reloading section.

Thanks for the replies. I found 2 things: the primer seating rod was sitting too proud in the receiver. It needed to be dropped down deeper before tightening the set screw. In addition, the tip on the tube was broken. Dillon is taking care of me. Amazing customer service!

I have a Dillon 550 w/ small pistol primers that are sagging out of the bottom of the primer feed tube, and the primer cup is catching on the sagging leading edge on the back stroke, preventing it from retracting back far enough to drop the primer into the cup. I can use a dental pick to lift the leading edge of the primer back up into the primer drop tube and it will return to normal operation. At other times, it appears that the primer is catching on the lip of the primer drop tube and turning on its side so the primer is smashed sideways into the primer pocket. Any ideas as to what needs to be done to fix this? The screw that adjusts the depth of primer cup travel into the primer pickup well is completely recessed. Thus, there is no possibility that the primer cup is too far back. Ideas?

And there we have it. Thanks, Antichrome!

lol. You kill me. Of course it is more realistic. As an amateur, one of the things that I'm looking for is the ability to stay focused on the shot when someone else is sounding the buzzer, and increasing the speed of the target acquisition, firing, and recovery. For this, computer based training is a perfect match. Once my skills improve, I can go out into the "real world." I did find that one at predatortactical, thank you!

I took a look at predatortactical.com and don't see anything that looks like computer-based training. I also looked in the training section area here and couldn't find anything. The challenge with any type of key word search is that you have to have some rather specific idea of what you're looking for, and I'm not sure that I do. What am I missing? Or, more precisely, what should I be searching for?

Ah, you are so right! I found that the spring washer was put on in the wrong order with the washer on last. Thus, the spring wrapped around the small powder bar rather than tensioning between a standard washer and the bolt head. Much obliged! Do any of you use silicone spray lube on the powder bar? And do you drop a touch of oil along the guide ways that hold the upper in place as the assembly is lifted up preparatory to dropping powder?

I have one powder bar adjustment that is almost too tight to finger tighten and this one is really too easily tightened. Seems a shame to intentionally gum up the works, but in this case it is somehow loosening and throwing too much powder. I'm just hoping that the last 1000 rounds reloaded haven't been dangerously high.

How do you tighten up the powder adjustment screw? It seems to have worked its way loose over several hundred rounds. I had dialed it in at 4.7 grains Tightgroup and tonight I checked it and was surprised that it was dropping 5.0 grains. It is rather loose and can be easily rotated using my fingers.

Someone mentioned that there was a computerized dry-fire training program either provided or linked to from here, but I'm not quite sure how to go about finding it. I understand that it has some sort of random timer intervals as well as targets. Does this ring a bell for anyone?

I saw the quote in the previous message and was all excited about being able to backorder some small pistol primers, but sadly, no can do. I'm stuck w/o small ones!

I'll bet you're right. And I bet that these bought on speculation will show up in the classifieds in about 10 days!

They went back out of stock pretty quickly.

There have been a couple of posts lamenting the fact that everything is out of stock; Looks like Powder Valley has primers again. Small pistol primers are still out but they have far greater availability on everything else than they did last night. ETA: This is for CCI primers--everything else is still out of stock.

I like having someone else tap on the shoulder as a cue

Where is your grounding line attached to your press?

Hmmm.. Now that Powder Valley and the rest of the US is out of small rifle primers, it sounds like it might be ok to go the opposite way and use small pistol primers for everything....

I took my daughter and her friend to the range last week and had the friend "shoot snow" on the berm. It really did take the pressure off and help her relax. Before doing so she couldn't even hit paper at 5 yards. After "shooting snow" she got every shot on the target. She went from, "I suck!" to, "Hey, this is really fun!" Thanks for the advice!

What would happen if you were to tumble the powder funnel in either dry walnut media or wet stainless steel media? would that have the same effect as polishing with steel wool?

To echo what others have said I've had really good luck with Montana Gold and Powder Valley. I like the free shipping at the former and very modest shipping at the latter. There are a number of Montana Gold retailers around here that repackage Montana Gold bullets into 250 packs if you wanted to tray a smaller batch.