BeerBaron

I really like the egw gauges as they match the chambers in my kkm and other barrels well (just a tiny bit tighter than the barrel which is what I want). But I don't think egw make a 100 round gauge? If you want speed the 100 round sb gauge will deliver.

you have speed in the wrong places. your 'double taps' were fast and it showed with the mikes on the more challenging targets. to me a lot of your second shots are what I'd call "hopers" as in "I hope this hits the target", basically one sight picture, 2 quick trigger pulls which will work mostly on close open targets but is not a reliable technique. I suggest don't go into next week thinking "I'll just shoot faster" I can just about promise what will happen is you'll speed up your split times to the point your second shot becomes a bigger gamble as to whether or not it finds the target and most likely transitions will still be slow. transitions is one of the things you can improve in dry fire. as MM pointed out you want to speed up the non-shooting stuff. reduce the time spent not shooting which gives you more time to shoot more accurately. you A % is great but the mikes not so much. get on to some dry fire transition drills and do some draw and reload dry fire. otherwise it's a great start for your 3rd ever shoot.

the only thing I can imagine is some slight porosity or a stress riser in the corner there combined with the slide hitting the comp (i.e. poor barrel fit). are there any witness marks on the front end of the slide where it was hitting the comp?

weird. I can't tell for sure but is that the muzzle end of the comp or the breach face end? I assume is the breach face end but it looks like it could be the muzzle end that has snapped off?

in a total shooting time of 264 seconds you are unlikely to gain 60 seconds (or 1/4 of your time) back from reloads and draws. especially in open where you do only 2 or 3 reloads per match. my strong suggestion would be video your stage runs and then run them through shot coach to figure out where you are spending time on the stage. my feeling is most of your time will be - moving between positions (fortunately you don't need massive cardio fitness for this, we are talking small bursts of speed) and transition time between targets. in a basic 12 stage match you likely only have 10 draws or less. of those draws probably only 6 will be direct to a target, the others will be draw while moving and the remaining 2 stages will be table starts etc. even if you cut draw from 1.5 sec to 1sec that's likely to give you back around 3 seconds out of 264. reloads are the same. lets say even 5 reloads per match. 3 of them are likely to be during movement. 2 standing reloads if you cut from 1.5 sec to 1 sec gives you back 1 second total. run some stage vids through shot coach, look at stage planning. efficiency of movement, and a big one is transitions. you had approx 260 scoring rounds. lets take off 40 rounds for steel. that leaves 220 on paper. that's 130 targets and in arrays of typically 3 or 4 targets that's approx 100 transitions. if you are doing 0.50 transitions (not uncommon) cutting them down even to 0.30 would net you something like 20 seconds. Movement and planning will likely be a big time saver too, but to get the answers some analysis of your current on stage performance is required.

ben's books are great. I'd also strongly recommend the dude's book that posted in this thread. Mr Enos. His Practical Shooting: Beyond Fundamentals is a classic. Most of the other authors on his books page probably read that book when they were starting out. All of the top shooters I know have read Brian's book. Most still have it and read it again and again. I think the must have books would be: Brian Enos - Practical Shooting Ben Stoeger- skills and drills (and probably dry fire and practical pistol too) Lanny Basham - With winning in mind Start with those 3 and build from there.

it's a valid point. there is also rampant fanboy-ism where people will post in support of a product they have not even handled/tried let alone owned. I agree with sarge though just because a gun isn't winning nats doesn't mean it's not good. At the top level of the sport gun purchase decisions are a little different. Mostly it will be linked to sponsorship. No competitor will intentionally hamper themselves to get sponsor $$ but it will certainly influence them. We see top shooters running glocks in limited but I don't think anyone would argue a glock is the best platform for that division. Hell KC has shot open glocks and it's even less ideal a platform in open. Those guys can still win matches with 'less than optimal' equipment because they are good. At the top end of the sport reliability is super important but beyond that most of the top guys can make it happen with a hi-point if it ran 100% and met a basic standard of accuracy. I would suggest look at what is popular at matches and look at what sells quickly. You see lots of CZ shadows an tanfoglio stock 2's in production. You don't see many Beretta 92's because they are less than optimal. yet ben stoeger won plenty of matches with them. I think most would agree they are not the heat for a production gun. You're right about the fact that people like to post positive statements to justify their purchases though. If I'm brutally honest I have been less than impressed with the way a certain person from CK conducts himself in general which does dampen my enthusiasm for the brand a little. But I don't have to be friends with someone to like their product. I also have had a few small imperfections with my CK that were not show stoppers but still a bit annoying. I will say all the important stuff on both my CK's was correct. barrel fit good, slide fit good (if anything tending towards being too tight) no loose screws or stupid mistakes, aftec fit properly, nice machining, decent blending of parts. The bad: one small (pin prick) mark on the coating on my grip, small surface corrosion on the (bare steel) hammer. I stand by the fact that the CK open guns offer great value over a mass produced STI. For not much more $ than a DVC you get quite a bit more gun. Will that translate to better points or times? doubt it. but it may boost you confidence a little (which does help performance) and may make shooting more enjoyable and most consistent. I think the atlas 'semi-custom' open model will be a real contender when it goes on sale. Very nice selection of parts in the spec sheet and they seem to know what they are going (on this one I have no experience as I haven't shot or owned an atlas).

even a V4 won't stay on when you remove the battery tray. BUT when you re-insert the battery it will come straight back on at the same brightness setting you had when you pulled the battery. On the older versions if you pull the battery the sight turns off. When you put a battery back in the dot won't come on till you press a button and it will come on at the default brightness (which from memory is level 5 out of 10).

I currently have a match gun and 3 backups (but am selling one of the backups). Match gun is a CK 2011. backup 1 is a CK 2011 backup 2 is a SVI 2011. Ideally you want the backup to be as close to the main gun. For me that means same grip, same trigger (shape and pull weight), same red dot and ideally same config of comp/springs/barrel. My backup 1 is not identical but very close. One gun has the 'hardcore' type slide and the other is a thunder which is about .3oz lighter. my SV is very different with a slide 2.5oz lighter again and wears a polymer grip (for now). Match gun and backup1 have same grip (CK steel), red dot (RTS2) and same trigger components etc. The only difference is the slightly different slide weight. After I sell backup 3 (a tanfoglio Eric custom) I will spend some coin to update the SV with metal grip, RTS2 to bring it in line with match gun and backup1. I previously went without a backup gun but what I found was by the time you get a decent spares list (scope, mount, safety, screws, pins, springs, trigger parts, ejector, extractor, slide stop, mag catch etc etc etc) that you've probably got at least $1000 in parts and they do nothing but sit around. For not that much more $$ you can have a backup gun which is fully functional and means you no longer need a massive spares kit as when something breaks you switch to the backup gun then just order the part you need. If you can afford it a matching backup is the way to go.

no, it's such a fine line between mag locking in and mag over inserting. if you have set up the mags so the base pad is the stop you may find you get quite a few mags dropping out when you thought you had seated them...

I think the SV extra shot flat is about a short a trigger as you can get.

Ding ding ding! can you please tell my wife that on occasion I am right? most often when I've seen head scratching light strikes in an ibf gun it was the screw backed out (doesn't have to be much). One guy didn't even know he had an ibf so it would have taken him a while to figure out! I'm glad I could be of some help. The stock sv pin seems to work well as long as we remember to cut the spring to the length sv reccomend. I also carry a spare ibf screw but I carry lots of spares...

I've never had to touch a lee de-primer pin on either their regular dies, u dies or universal decapper. And I've NEVER had a primer get pulled back into the case. That's many 10s of thousands of rounds. Mostly in 9 and 38 super. Ive heard of this happening a lot with Dillon dies though. ive probably used 8 or more lee decappers/sizers and all worked 100% out of the box.

Forget the crush washer. It's not going to work as the slide moves away from the barrel while cycling. Also you don't want the slide pushing the barrel forward by the comp. that will lead to cracked slide or comp. crush washer only works on guns like a 22/45 with simple blowback where the barrel is fixed (then you can use a washer between comp and barrel shroud). The solution here is 2 set screws.

I think it's a bit scummy to make the customer pay to return a gun that was clearly faulty. Sadly most companies are the same and will often only pay shipping one way (if at all). Ck have a great product but I think they could probably afford to step up the customer service a little. Making true 'no cost' replacement on a faulty product is one of those things that should be a no brainer.

I can't speak to yours but my 2016 built ck's both have titanium comps. I know this not from a spec sheet but because they are both titanium. The other 6 or so ck opens I've looked at all had ti comps too. Their comp is fairly small but I still wouldn't want the extra weight of a steel comp.

Check your ibf screw is not loose. I have seen phantom light strikes appear in svi and it was loose ibf. It uses a 1/8 hex key from memory. Put one down the firing pin tunnel and ensure its tight. I run the sv pin in my sv. It has the firing pin spring cut as per sv instruction (they specify to leave x number of coils past the head of the pin). My trigger is just under 2lb and hammer spring is either 17 or 15 (I think it has the 15 in there). No light strikes ever though I only run federal spp and srp. Other things in the system can also contribute to light strikes like a short hammer strut or bent hammer strut. But I'd check the ibf first.

I have a hardcore and thunder (both 38 super). Both with rts2 and steel grip. Very flat shooting but also fairly soft. My svi is just as flat but harder in the hand than the ck. The downside over custom is really in aesthetics. And the fact that your gun won't be a one of a kind. Other than that that it has all the good gear. Egw fire control aftec extractor titanium cheely comp brazos racker pvd finish lots of things to like about them.

In practice I've noticed zero difference. I mainly now use starline super comp but when using regular super I used starline regular and starline +p interchangeably without issue. I certainly wouldn't pay extra for +p super brass.

In my opinion the best starter kit is get the Lyman 1200 (with slotted lid). It costs about $60 and comes with a batch of their excellent green corn cob media which will last about a year. For separator all you need need is a regular household bucket that fits tightly on top of the tumbler. You fit the bucket on top then invert tumbler and bucket. 30 seconds of shaking leaves all media in the bucket and brass in the tumbler. I then put a collender on the bucket and dump the brass into that to get out the last few grains of media. It works really well and very easy to use. Cheap too.

I have a tanfoglio Eric custom which has 12 holes in a v pattern (6 down each side). It seems to work really well. The v shape also gives cool looking flames. Lol. I think it does help keep the gun tracking straight up and down. Some guns with popples seem to not move straight up and down (but that could be a function of uneven grip pressure too). I think 4 holes in a v with a decent comp would be a nice setup.

Yeah blue on the screws between scope and mount. Red for mount to frame. Just check periodically that they are all still tight.

even easier. one piece of advice. avoid the shiny stainless screws. they are usually pretty soft and will wreck the heads easily. get some grade 8 steel fasteners (most good gear will come with them). They are usually coated black.

Eklind t handle will be great. They are excellent hex keys.

There's a couple of reasons: the biggest one is reliability. To get reliable lock back you need a large nub on the inside of the slide stop. With long loaded 40 (and to a lesser extent 9 and 38 too) often a bullet will contact that nub causing premature lock back. You don't want that. The other is the potential ejector damage as pointed out by niroth81 that can happen when you enthusiastically seat a mag with slide open. The final reason is that that you don't need it. With 20 rounds in limited and up to 30 in open you should not be running the gun dry ever. There's always a place to reload before running the gun dry. In an open gun it's basically as fast to cycle the slide with a weak hand side racker as it is to hit the slide lock.