SSGJohnV

I registered a bit late and got a day that unfortunately doesn't work out perfectly. Anyone interested in switching squadding for someone who's scheduled to shoot all day Friday? I would much prefer all day Sunday. I'm active duty Army and have to request the days off to drive down from Tennessee. Any takers? Thanks! Looks to be a great match in the making in any case.

I use Dawson. Easy on, easy off. I see a lot of people using both, though. Dawson is team awesome in my book, so they get my business.

Hi all, I recently took possession of my new 2011 5" in .40 SW for my IDPA/carry/steel gun and I have some questions regarding converting it to 10mm. Please refrain from the arguments for or against carrying a 2011 for personal protection. I have weighed all the options and am comfortable with it. I've trusted my 6" and before that a stock STI 5" Edge in competition for thousands of rounds and think its worth it. Any how, I already load for .40 and have 10mm brass on hand, with a new KKM 5" bushing barrel en route to me and will be fitted by a competent gunsmith. I have been doing my reading and understand about a heavier recoil spring (20-24#, correct?), but do I need to worry about anything else? I have both tuned 140mm mags for my race gun and 4 126mm mags that have been tuned but non-professionally. My current mags should feed and handle 10mm, correct? I load to 1.180 currently with .40 with no feed issues. Is there any thing I'm missing from a gunsmithing point of view that I should consider before taking the plunge? Standard load practices of working up and taking it slow are going to be taken. I would like this to be a hog gun/personal protection piece. Can't lie and say that 17+ of 10mm sounds like a good insurance policy. Thanks for your input. -John

I know some clubs do group buys on reloading components every once in a while, but making loaded ammo for sale requires an FFL from the ATF, along with insurance (liability and all that) so that's usually out of the question. I won't even load ammo for my buddies at work. They lose a finger, and I'm on the hook for it. I have been shooting my reloads for a little over 2 years now, including 3 major matches, and I much prefer it over factory, especcially when shooting steel. I can make rounds much cheaper that are at the PF I want without issue, and don't have to worry about finding enough of the same ammo at a local store or online.

If it's a standard 1911 style barrel there are several options. Look on shooters connection after verifying what type of ramp cut it has (either a Para/Clark or a Wilson/Nolin) and you'll be in business. Expect to spend between $180-230 and then pay to have it fitted to your slide and frame.

Yep, so does Aaron. Check out his single stack next time you're down there. He had Tim mill the slide so his initials are in the rear cocking serrations. I plan on having Tim ream my barrel for 10mm here soon. A good group of guys down there. From what I've heard Tim has been busy lately, but can catch up pretty quickly on small jobs. Good luck on the rebuild. Hope to see you down in Dickson soon. Classifier match next weekend.

Nice to see another Clarksville shooter. Check out Calhoun Custom as well. He shoots with us down in Dickson and does some excellent work. Don't know if he does refinishing but hey as been very responsive for me and I've seen his work in person. It just works.

Bulldog is right. I have a set of 4 tuned mags from Dawson with their pads, Grams springs and followers. That quick disassembly latch makes cleaning them at a match that much easier.

The room is roughly 10x12 or 12x12. I'm tempted by the ease of going the plywood route with some sanding and sealer thrown in for practicality. What about using those clear hard plastic floor mats you see for computer desks? Would you that discolor the carpet as well?

Hello all, I recently bought my first home and have managed to secure one of the spare bedrooms for my reloading/man cave room. I plan on putting my reloading bench in here but there's one concern I have. It's carpeted. My question is what would be a good choice for a smooth sweepable surface of about 4x8+ feet that I could put down over the carpet? Ideally I would replace it with laminate, but we plan on renting out the house in a few years so keeping the carpet would be nice/cheaper. Thanks! -John

I use a tooless guide rod from Dawson and it has the same issue every once in a while. Just be sure the link is down towards the frame before you reassemble it and you should be fine.

I only sent in the slide as shipping a frame from alaska would be prohibitively expensive. He did cerakote the entire slide though, lugs included, and it was a toght fit initially after receiving it bit went back to about normal after about 100 rounds. There was some rub off onto the barrel and hood as well, but easy to clean off. I just shot this gun in the 6th annual chatanika iron man and got second in limited with zero malfunctions. Glenn does quality work.

Hey All, I just got my slide back from Glenn at Lone Star Innovations and I couldn't be happier. Glenn gave me exactly what I wanted and was a pleasure to work with. He took my stock CRP Edge and gave it a makeover by: -tri topping slide -3 "coffin" style lightening cuts -reamed chamber for long loaded ammo -refinished in black cerakote Heres a link to the imgur album: http://imgur.com/a/OiijV I love the changes and look forward to rocking my black and blue blaster at the Chatanika Iron Man in Fairbanks this weekend. Thanks again, Glenn. -John

Custom Rust...you called it. I tightened the front grip screw down and it goes in slick as snot now...I kind of feel stupid now. Thanks for the help, everyone.

Thanks. I will try that tonight and report back.

Hello All, I bought a DAA Race Master holster with STI insert from a member on the forums and it works as advertised, but inserting and drawing the gun from the holster is a bit tight, to say the least. It starts just fine, but it actually squeaks when I push it in the last half inch or so and is very tight on the draw and insertion. I tried very lightly filing my trigger guard to check the fit but it still won't go without some force and squeak. Any tips or tricks to this? I even tried some dry graphite lube to see if that helped and still a no go. Thanks. -John

Probably should add that I have since changed over to Limited with my new STI Edge in .40 . Don't have enough classifiers in LTD to be classified yet. Also, finished 2nd overall that match with 17 shooters total.

Hello All, I just wanted to brag a bit. I shot my local USPSA match on Saturday and recorded it with my new Pivothead glasses. I'm classified as a C in L-10, but usually hang with the mid-high B shooters at my club, and I finally proved it with a stage win! I even beat the local M class shooter (although he was running Production...) I had 7 Charlie hits and 2 Deltas, but that's why I shoot major. 107 points out of 120 and a 15.09 time for a 7+ hit factor. Here's the video. Must go faster! And if this is in the wrong sub-forum, I apologize. Thought it fit here best.

I talked to Bob at Brazos and he gave me some good pointers. I put it back to spthe stock STI grip with the Brazos FCG and shot about 100 rounds today just fine, so I'm guessing the SVI grip I was given is just a tad too long in the grip, so that coupled with the Brazos sear was giving me the hammer follow. Here's hoping it stays true at the match on Saturday. Thanks for the advice, gents.

Pat, I understand that. I was just wanting to figure out what the difference could be in regards to the two. Also, I'm about to call Brazos in the morning and ask them about this, because this is really odd. The gun ran fine for over 200 rounds when it was bone stock. I'm trying to figure out what I can do to fix this problem, so I tried troubleshooting it tonight with a lot of the parts I have lying around. I thought maybe I had removed too much from the plastic mainspring housing, so I put in a metal one that came with the SVI grip. Still, there is very, very little engagement between the sear leg and the sear, with both the Brazos and the stock sear, and both the stock sear spring and the brazos sear spring. Is it the grip that's doing this? Maybe the grip is set up where the slot for the sear spring is too low in the grip to make the sear spring engage the sear correctly? If anyone has any ideas I would be welcome to them. I'm going to sleep on it tonight and attack the problem tomorrow when I'm less frustrated. Thanks. -John Edit: Couldn't sleep, so I put the stock STI grip back on with the Brazos sear, hammer, and sear spring. During dry fire it seemed to work, but I'm going to the range again on Wednesday to make sure. I'm going to call Brazos tomorrow and talk with them about it and see what they have to say. Match on Saturday, so I'd really like the gun to, you know, work, before then.

Good to know. I actually have the STI gunsmith blank trigger already, at it was shaved down to about the length of a short flat trigger. I was gifted an SVI grip and trigger bow, so I thought I was good with installing it on an STI frame. So, if I were to get an SVI frame, the trigger would be fine, or would getting an SVI sear spring do the trick? I'm going to the range tomorrow to check and make sure the hammer follow is fixed, as it didn't present itself last time until it had been shot a few times. In dry fire and slide racking it seems to be fine, but the proof will be in the shooting, I guess. Thanks for all the help.

I'm pretty sure Clays is still being made. Everywhere I've looked online says that the fire thing was a hoax. *shrug* http://www.adi-powders.com.au/handloaders-guide/news.asp That's the news releases for ADI, the company that manufactures Clays powders for Hodgdon. No mention of a fire.

Dawson ICE magwell would be nice addition for little cost, as well as a few extra mags. Can't remember if you need pads with the CMC mags, but I like the Dawson pads on my Wilson mags, so theres that. Congrats on the purchase.

I think I fixed it. I did some reading and apparently SVI triggers are a bit different from STI triggers. I replaced the trigger with the STI one I was running and I think I cleared it up. A shame, as I love the feel of it, but not worth it right now to screw with it. I'll get it fixed by a competent smith when I get other major mods taken care of. And bounty, the problem wasn't the tension. It was the spring not being long enough it seemed to keep the sear under tension after the sear released the hammer. When the trigger was pulled, bang, then the spring would fall off of the sear, and then hammer follow. If anyone else has an idea of what else I could do please let me know. Thanks again. -John

Hello All, I just recently got my new Edge 2011 in .40. I took the advice of some of the guys here on the forums and bought a Brazos Custom Gunworks fire control group along with a donated SVI trigger. I installed it all myself with little fuss besides fitting the safety and making sure there was clearance with the grip safety. I took it to the range today to do some load testing and about 30 rounds in started having hammer follow. It was not touching off the next round, but it was definitely hammer follow (have it on video, actually) and was able to recreate it without firing any more. About half the time when I work the slide I feel no "clicks" of the hammer hooks, half-cock or full-cock. I stopped shooting for the day and took it home to disassemble, and found the problem. Please let me know if I need to post pictures to get this resolved. So, with the grip and thumb safety removed I can see that the left leg of the leaf spring is barely touching the sear. When I pull the trigger that leg is either almost, or does in fact, fall off the sear. Now, I have the stock FCG that came with the gun, but I would very much like to get this FCG working. So, what can I do to rectify this short of just re-installing my old FCG? Is this a common problem? What can I do to prevent this in the future? Thanks. -John