Just4FunLP

About this post.... I wrote this post late in the evening as I was dozing off to sleep. The next morning I thought about some of the things I wrote, and now wish I would have worded it a little differently. First. I suggested that the management of USPSA could do more to look into this issue, and that this is what associations do. I really don't know anything about the roles and responsibilities of the USPSA. I don't know how they are structured, or anything about their resources. I do know that they manage my favorite sport, and I appreciate it. Second. I suggested that somehow we could pressure these companies to increase production. Probably a stupid idea. Actually, I'm a free market kind of guy, so maybe I should start my own powder company... Anyone want to go in with me....?? Overall it was kind of a long stupid rant. I promise not to do it again until I run completely out. Hopefully it won't come to this. Thanks for the feedback. I read every word.

I'm getting totally discussed with this. Heck, this is America. Once you make up your mind that your going to do something, like I did about 6 months ago with reloading, you do it. This issue of powder is ridiculous. I bought 1 pound of Accurate 5 when I first got my re loader back in November. It was a lot of fun to reload and shoot, but I haven't seen anymore. I did buy some IMR PB a few times, and have enough to last for a couple of months. It feeds great and seems to work well, but if you use the published loads in 9mm it won't even cycle my XDM 5.25. I've worked up to about 3.7gr, which is way over max, and it still wont quite make minimum power factor. I love the powder, but that max load thing has me a little worried. I've placed back orders for Accurate No 5 and Solo 1000, but I have no idea if these will ever come in. When I placed the order they said they had back orders that had been on the books for almost a year. I would really appreciate any insight on how to get the stuff. I assume someone is getting it, and I'm just not doing it right. If not, then I guess there are a lot of guys out there that ordered big back when when it was available, and they're going to be disappointed when they start shopping around. I have read some explanations about supply chain, and how some shortages far up the chain can hold things up. I work in manufacturing, and understand how companies wouldn't want to spend a bunch of cash to set up production that will last a while and then fade away when everything settles down. I get all that, but I would still like some independent verification on what's going on, because nobody i've read seems to have any facts. I can tell you when my company doesn't supply our customers with good quality product on time, the customers will be crawling all over our facility demanding to know what's going on, and exactly what we are going to do to fix it. And let me tell you, changes are made real fast. Who's getting the powder? Why don't I ever see pistol powder for sale on line? How long does this have to go on until the manufacturers do something about it. Perhaps the management of USPSA could look into this. I would assume they carry some weight, and could get answers. USPSA is an association, and associations represent their members. I work in an ISO rated manufacturing facility, and there are lot's of consultants you can hire that will figure out exactly where the problem is. Just take them to the manufacturers and ask them what's going on? What's their plan to fix the problem? And whether or not they are dedicated to providing supplies to our sport? If they start dancing around the questions, let the consultants push them a little. At some point there should be enough information to write an in depth report on the subject. I don't think its a big conspiracy. It's just that there is a demand, and the customers should know what the manufacturers are doing to meet the demand. Yes it may be a few guys out there buying everything up, but they're building awesome ranges where I live, and more and more people are taking classes and shooting in matches in large numbers. I would think that the sport is growing.. And we need supplies. If a vendor would commit themselves to meeting the needs of competitive shooters they would have many loyal customers. Sorry for the rant. I've been wanting to get that one off my chest for a long time. Tell me where I'm wrong. I usually am. This components thing is nuts. It's hard enough to work all day, have time with the family, reload and practice enough to have fun and improve. Then throw in having to scrounge for powder. It's pretty frustrating. There must be a way to have a steady supply, but I just haven't found it. I really don't hear that much about it in these forums. I would appreciate any help. Thanks.

I love my 650. I'm just disappointed with the powder shortage situation. It's been very frustrating.

I also live in Florida. I just remove the two pins from my 650, slide out the toolhead and take in the house. Simple

Bill T and Sarge Thanks for the info. Bill T's insights are the most I've ever seen on the subject. I started shooting last year (april 2013 or so) and spent a fortune at Walmart before I finally broke down and bought a reloader. I must say it's been a very expensive and frustrating journey. It took forever to find the gun I wanted, then the 9mm ammo was impossible to find at a fair price. The only thing that kept me going was the Walmart app on my cell phone, and a huge effort to track it down and beat the other guys to the store before it sold out. Then, finally I took the plunge and bought a reloader so shooting life would be smooth as silk. HaHa.. Oh well.. I'm in it now, and there's no looking back. What you said about finding a load and stocking up is the only way this will work for me. I'm on a budget, and have limited time to constantly search for components. The only thing that's gone really well is they recently opened and awesome range in Tallahassee that's pretty much designed for competitive shooting. I just tested a load this weekend that I think I'll be able to manage, so, once I get my hands on a chrono to verify it I'm going to stock up and pump out the ammo.. Sorry for the rant, but I needed to get this off my chest. It's all fun. Reloading, practice, matches... It's all great, but it will be nice much better when the supply chain get's straightened out.

That's a great idea. Actually I did collect a few samples from the range. Now that you mention it, I'm the maintenance manager at a manufacturing plant and we have an ISO certified QC lab. I may take them in and have a close look. I guess the main thing is that I shouldn't see any blow by on the case, or the primer. I know they covered some of this in the Lyman book. That's part of the reason I'm so long winded on my posts. I've been responsible for troubleshooting expensive equipment for 30 years, and the one thing I've learned is that details and facts are directly proportional to speedy resolution of a problem. I'm a professional question asker. The other reason I'm long winded is that I like to talk...

This morning when I went to load my first IMR PB and 9mm 124gr Bayou bullets I carefully read the IMR load data and decided that the closest one was the "125 GR LCN". Is this the data I'm supposed to be using? It's a bit confusing. The starting load is 2.9gr, 908fpm, 25,500psi. Max load is 3.4Gr, 1004fpm, 34,000psi. First I noticed that this 34,000psi appears to be the highest pressure shown in all the 9mm data. Second, the 1,004fpm falls just below minimum power factor. All this was a bit confusing because everyone I see online is using much more PB like tbrtt1 above who shows 4.3-4.6gr. So me, being “Mr. follow the instructions”, ignored everyone and started with 2.9gr. As you can imagine the cases could not clear the gun on the way out of the XDM 5.25. Fortunately, I did load a bunch at "Max" load and everything seemed to work well. They were noticeably softer than the 115gr Federal factory ammo I brought along. I'm certainly not an ammo connoisseur, but I could definitely be happy with this. That's good because I have 5 pounds of the stuff... Also, it metered perfectly just like everyone said it would. A lot of people also recommend Clays, but it has even lower listed velocities. What's up with that? I assume you just keep increasing the powder until you reach minimum power factor..?? After my last match one of the more experienced shooters was kind enough to talk to me for about an hour and a half and answered many questions. When we talked about my reloads he asked me where my cases were landing, and I didn’t have an answer. I never really paid attention to this in the past. Today I noticed that the Federal 115gr cases were landing over my shoulder 6-8ft away at about 4:00, and the cases with the 3.4gr of PB were landing about 3-4ft away in front of me at about 2:00. I don't know if this is of any significance, but I thought it was interesting. This reloading is fun, but it is time consuming and has been quite a distraction from my shooting practice. The component shortage makes everything a real pain. Once I get my load all worked out I’ll stock up on supplies like everyone else and it will be easy to just sit down and pump out bullets by the thousands…

Yeah, the Flexbar looks like it may work. When I first started I was dry firing several times a day. I would just walk in the room, pick up the gun, and spend a few minutes gripping the gun very hard. Now when I go to the gym I do about 30 minutes on the elliptical, then when I get to the weights I'm all warmed up. It really seems to make a big difference. Now when I go in and do a short intense dry fire I notice that my arms (particularly the weak side) really feel the burn, but now that I've been working out it doesn't seem to turn into long term pain. When I start a longer practice I do jumping jacks to get my blood flowing. I just have to make sure nobody is looking when I'm at the range... Maybe there is a reason that every athlete in the world warms up before before they hit the field. Maybe we're athletes too... Cool...

Perfect timing.... When I placed the order for the PB I ordered some Precision 9mm 125g on the recommendation of a top notch shooter at my range. The only problem was there was a 4-6 week delivery. I had just gone through 1000 147g Bayous (they were my very first reload) and saw that precision had some 147g in stock, so I ordered 1000 to tide me over. Unfortunately there is no data on the PB data for 147g bullets, so I went back to Bayou and ordered some 125s and they shipped the following day. Just got them today and I plan to load the Bayou 125s tomorrow with some PB. It's interesting. When I loaded the 147 Bayous with Accurate No 5 they seemed to shoot very smooth compared to Walmart Federal 115s. I ran these right around minimum load and they had about a 1% failure to completely eject. Like it didn't fully operate the slide. I don't have a chrono so I'm just guessing. Next I loaded some of the 147 Precisions just a smidgen above minimum. After assembling about 100 I decided to check one in the gun and the slide wouldn't go all the way up and the bullet was stuck in the barrel. I figured out that the Precisions have less taper and must be pushed in the case more to make them work in my XDM 5.25. They shot very dependably, but seemed to be much sharper than the Bayous. The Precisions have a much more pronounced depression in the back. Wonder if his makes it build more pressure? Or perhaps I had them in too deep? Sorry for the long post, but I would like as much feedback as possible. I really don't know what I'm doing...... I think I'll load a bunch of the 125g/PB tomorrow and head for the range. I've got nothing else to shoot. Also I noticed quite a difference in the two brands. The Precisions have a very simple shape. And the Bayous have what I think is called a lube ring. Can someone explain the differences in these two bullets? My load manual doesn't really go into that much detail on the subject. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Hope it make sense. I've been dozing off...............

It's funny. I was dealing with pain and finally decided to start working out to build up strength in my arms and improve my agility. It definitely helped my pain, but more importantly I got off my butt and I started taking care of myself. I feel like a new man. I also do the palm down curls and an exercise where you have a 12"x1-1/2" piece of PVC pipe with a 6ft rope going through the middle. I connect the other end of the rope to the cable and pulley on one of the machines and set it at the lowest weight. You just raise the weight by reeling it backwards and then reverse and raise it by reeling it forward. Do this three times, three days a week and your arms will either fall off or make you look like Popeye the sailor man. http://www.mensfitness.com/training/build-muscle/get-that-popeye-forearms Still working on that agility thing.... Please send me a message if you have any suggestions.

Update. I wasn't seeing any other pistol powder for sale, so I bought some IMR PB and some Precision Bullets 9mm 125gr. They didn't have any 125gr in stock, so I got some 147gr to tide me over. We'll see what happens... I assume I just look in the Lyman's book to come up with the starting powder charge and OAL using the cast bullet chart?

bajadudesThanks for the Gunbot suggesetion. It looks like it will be a big help.

Precision Bullets 9mm 125gr flat point, The first half of my list is from their website. I shoot a XDM 5.25

I just got into shooting and USPSA this year and have been trying hard to get up to speed. First, purchasing a pistol seemed to take forever. Then I put in a lot of practice trying to improve my skill level as quickly as possible. The ammo has cost a small fortune, and if it wasn't for the Walmart App I wouldn't have been able to get as far as I have. About two weeks ago I finally purchased a Dillon 650 and all the accessories and got my first thousand reloaded. It's been a lot of fun. I had a problem finding powder, but was able to purchase the last pound of Accurate No. 5 in town at a hefty price. This seems to have gone pretty well so far, but I have been looking for more powder for two weeks now and have struck out. I've scanned the forum and there's a lot of info on what to use, but from I can tell none of it is availible online. My goal is to reload quality ammo at a low cost. Because there are so many powder choices out there I made up a list of powders to shop for (see below). The question is, where is everyone getting their powder? Ive been looking mainly at Midway, Midsouth Shooting Supply, and Powder Valley among others. I know I'll get a lot of good feedback, so thanks for the help. -------------------------------------------- Any powders for cast lead bullets will work for Precision Bullets. Recommended Powders Vihtavuori N-320/N-340 Ramshot Competition/Zip Winchester WST Alliant American Select/Power Pistol Hodgdon Universal Clays/HP38 Not Recommended Powders Hodgdon Titegroup Vihtavuori N-310 Note: If you are having a fouling problem or too much smoke, try a little slower powder. (powder burn rate chart) From Lymans manual 120gr (#2 Alloy) Titegroup Bullseye 700X 231 Green Dot N340 Zip Power Pistol HS-6 AA#5

Hey guys. Sorry it took me so long to get back. I've been reading every word of your posts and really appreciate you taking your time to help me out. On the reloading for my 9mm xdm5.25 I'm going with the 650xl and I placed an order for 1000 147gr fp from bayoubullets.. Donnie seems like he will be helpful as I get started. My reloading manual recommends Power Pistol for these loads so I put my name on the Midway notification list and am waiting for it to become available But I don't know how how long the wait will be. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. I want to order my machine ASAP, but I don't want it to arrive before I have a good supply built up.. If anyone has experience loading these 9mm 147gr Bayou Bullets for an xdm 5.25 i would appreciate any pointers. They will be the first bullets I ever reloaded. Some photos would be great. We have our monthly local Match tomorrow and it looks like it's going to be beautiful her in tallahassee. Last months Match was somewhat disappointing for me. My goal was to make no mistakes. I had a reloading problem in a place that was surrounded by Targets and I got flustered just missed one all together. I didn't see it. This killed that run. Also on the qualifier it was a simple marksmanship test at short range with strong And week hand shooting , And I ended up with one in a no shoot. This would have put me at about 5th out of twenty. I had made big improvements on my shooting, and my speed was very good. Unfortunately I had these two very disappointing errors. But on top of that I got a no shoot penalty on a course without any no shoots. The scorekeeper was a bit confused and had made some corrections and I guess it got worse when they tried to decipher the mess to post it online. And to make things even worse I got 63 (I think) penalty points for nothing that I'm aware of. I don't even know how a person can get 63 in one run. Long story short I was 11/20 the month before, and even with my 2 legit ament brain farts I still would have move to 8. The bad scoring put me way back into 11th. If there had been no scoring errors and I didn't have the failure to engage and hit on the no shoot, i would have come in 5th or 6th. A couple of months in the top 5 would be a great accomplishment for me. But that's the way it goes. I really Injoy the matches. There,s no prizes so it's only for fun. Right???? I had taken the day off from work today, so I went to the gym for a light workout and headed out to the range. I got one of the big Bays and setup a small course with 7 targets and two barrel stacks. I ran through this for about an hour until I thought that I was wearing myself out for tomorrow. So for the first time I'm out hear on the big bay with paper targets scattered everywhere. I recalled reading Ben Stoeger and Brian Enos shooting at 50 and 100 yds, and thought I would give it a try for fun. Just to see if i could hit anything. Low and behold, it wasn't too bad. In fact I shot these 25 and 50yd targets for quite a while and I think that there is at least some good confidence building. I'm going to have to do this more often. Setting up short, but realistic stages is a lot of fun. I shot up 350 rounds. I hope I don't feel too sore in the morning. Again, this month I want to just get through the course clean. With no penalties. I think my accuracy and speed are good enough to give me the performance I want, but I just can't have anymore STUPID mistakes. I can do this. The problem is between my ears... At 8am I'm going to ask The Lord for a little help. It's just a expensive hobby, but what the heck, he might just understand... When I joined this website I decided to use a low key name like Just4FunLP. It's still just for fun. ....I think...... . I hope you get all A's tomorrow.

One more update. I've been shooting now for about 6 months, and having a blast. I downloaded the Walmart app on my cell phone and it's been a great help in finding bullets. Although the bullets are costing me a fortune, Walmart is the best deal around. I have shot three USPSA matches and have been reading all the books and practicing hard. It's really a cool sport. You can put a lot into it, or just go and have fun. I noticed pretty quickly that I was having problems with pain in my forearms, so it inspired me to finally get off my butt and join a gym. This has helped a lot, and I'm feeling better than I have in years. As far as my gun choice is conserved the xdm 9 5.25 has been great. I have no doubt that it was the right choice. I have a couple of old family hunting guns, but the xdm is all I want. I'm enjoying studying competition shooting, and I'm going to try to get as far as a 50 year old man can go. The drills, shooting on the move, the challenges of the matches, it's all very enjoyable. So far I've been able to maintain a stock of about 1000 rounds but today I'm down to about 50. I'm going to hit Walmart in the morning and snatch a few boxes of fifty. I usually do pretty good with finding 100 boxes, but no luck this week. If I don't buy something soon I'll be out of business. I've decided that I want to shoot about 250 rounds twice a week. This is in addition to 4 dry fire sessions. It seems to be working, my first match I came in 18 of 20, and on the second match I was 11 of 20. When I received the scores on my third match I was still stuck at 11, but after I double checked the scores posted on the USPSA web sit against the photos of the score sheets, I noticed a 56 point error. So I really came in 8th. That's a pretty good jump for me. And if it wasn't for hit on a no shoot and a stupid failure to engage I could have taken 5th. I need to somehow learn and practice stage breakdown. This is the second Mach where I've either didn't see a target behind a barrel, or got distracted by a bad reload and ran off leaving a target with no holes. This mantle part of the game is very hard for me. I've noticed the top shooters are pretty sharp guys and their brains operate faster than they can blast their way through a coarse. Me, not so much. I'm really going need to figure out a way to learn the stage programming and visualization techniques. I would like to receive any comments or suggestions. Also any comments on the amount of ammo I'm shooting would Also be helpful. I'm chinking of buying a Dillon 650XL. Does anyone have a load they could recommend for shooting production USPSA? I'm looking for cheep and available. The federal ammo 115gr I'm getting at Walmart is about 25 cents a pop ..plus tax, and I'm hoping to use the new press to reduce my cost of ammo about 50%. Thanks in advance I'm sure I'll get some good info.

I participated in my third match this weekend and I had a small problem with a reload that distracted me a little. While I was dealing with this I completely forgot a target that was off to the right about 30 degrees. I also had a no-shoot on the very next stage. The bad part is that I had a FTE last month as well, and my goal was to get through the day with no mistakes. For a newer shooter I think my speed is OK and my accuracy is improving steadily, but when I run the numbers on my score sheet the biggest problem is stupid mistakes. I know my limitations, and I can tell that the really good competitors seem to be quick thinkers. Me, not so much. Is there any way to practice to help overcome these problems? It's hard to simulate a large coarse of fire during practice. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

7/7/2013 I’m a 50 year old family man that is very interested in USPSA shooting. I have an XDM 5.25 9mm, and have shot up about 1200 rounds. I recently joined a new gun range in my home town of Tallahassee Florida called Talon Training Group. I’m looking to have fun, improve my skills, and shoot, shoot, shoot. ……. Hopefully without going broke… As a young man I hunted with my family. Hunting is fun, but not enough shooting. I need to shoot. Now I hunt bullets… J I served a hitch in the Navy and am now the maintenance manager at a local manufacturing plant. Because of my commitment to my family and company I have to carefully manage my practice time. My range has an introduction to Competitive Shooting class that unfortunately I had to miss due to work but will attend the next one as soon as it’s available. In the meantime I’m hoping to gather information so I can use my practice time and ammo as efficiently as possible. The internet and YouTube have been very helpful, but I feel like it’s time to get some confirmation on my techniques and practice habits. Hopefully I can find a good book until I can get hooked up with some of the local people. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Lawton