Fantom919

How come there's no checkering at the top part of the grip? Do people usually not apply pressure in their grip on that part? (Makes me rethink my grip now..)

I use a lok palm swell on the right and a thick DAA aluminum grip covered in silicone carbide. They are more grippy than any other that I've tried. To be honest for me, with fairly dry hands, fresh skateboard tape texture has the most grip. I haven't been able to find any that will stay stick on a grip panel without moving around or stay clean long enough to remain grippy. I also noticed that with silicone carbide, if you don't apply too much pressure you can slide your hand around and reposition it while still maintaining contact. For me this is needed when I get a bad grip on the draw or something. With skateboard tape that's grippy, wherever the hand hits, it's pretty much there unless you completely take your hand off. Oh yeah and with the new production rules on grip and weight, you could probably add epoxy or jb weld to your frame and grip panels, sand it down to be whatever frame profile you want and then add silicone carbide on the whole thing. It'd be a lot of work but you could probably replicate the pt evo grip that way.

Without taking caliber conversions into consideration, I see the speed/output of a 550 with a case feeder capable of being the same as a 650. If you add a bullet feeder to the 650 i think it's capable of outputting the same as a 1050. 1050 I think is overall a better machine with the swager, more stations, priming on down stroke, etc. So output alone is not the only thing to take into consideration. I like the case feeder on my 550 and have not experienced that many issues with it and it's definitely faster. Yes it can jam up but it's typically very consistent. I don't think people take into account the time it takes to grab and orient the case in your fingers and then place it in the shell plate. Sometimes (at least for me) I'll grab a case upside down or something so I'll I have to fumble it around in my fingers before placing it. I can see if the case feeder is not set up properly it being a pain in the butt and not getting into a good flow or rhythm is annoying. If you're changing calibers as much as it seems, I'd say it's probably not worth it. I shoot 9 and .40 so I load like 10k of 9mm before I switch to .40. I have the case feeder parts for .40 which only takes about a minute to change out so it's not bad.

Maybe not a tool but that little slave pin for the trigger return spring from CGW has saved me much frustration.. Obviously their trigger pin as well. I have the czcustom sight pusher and it's worth the money in my opinion. Small and aligned perfectly.

You should come to California. Prices have gone down a few hundred bucks lately. $2800 to $2500. What a deal.

I use dawson .215 tall x .100 or .215 tall x .90. Also both of my Accushadows use the HAJO rear sight. I think rear width is .120.

Thanks for the info! I'll have to load up some 3.9s and see what they chrono at but should be close based on my previous testing. Helps we load to same oal too.

What kind of gun were you using for your 200gr tests and Prima SV? I chrono'd some 200gr blue bullets at 1.185 oal and 3.5gr and 3.7gr and got avg velocities of 793.6 and 819.3 respectively. I think I'd have to push 3.9 to be around 170. Do you think 3.9gr of prima SV would be too much and be in kaboom range for 200gr bullets? I'd imagine I'd have to go to 4.1gr for a FMJ. For reference, I also chrono'd 180 gr bayou moly and 180gr montana gold JHPs out of the same gun. 4.3gr for bayou got me 936.1 average and 4.5gr for MG JHP got me 942.1. I'd probably go up .05 grain for cushion. Thanks!

Thanks I'll have to look into that a bit more. All of the rounds seem to drop in just fine if I do the base of the bullet first so that should confirm at least I won't have any issues further down the round right? Or is that not worth the time since I already use the GRX die?

Do your bullets easily fall into the case gauge? I just got a Hundo XL after trying the normal Hundo and all of mine seem to stop short (maybe 2 widths of the case rim) and I have to give them a little push to get them flush. You can see that the brass gets a little scuffed from having to press the round down. Here is my setup: Dillon 550 Blue bullets 200gr, Bayou 180gr, Montana gold 180gr Crimp .421/.422 OAL 1.185 All brass goes through GR-X die before loading Do I need to crimp more? Doing the case wall thickness x 2 + bullet diameter .421/.422 seems to be correct. I'm worried going down to .419/.420 is going to swage the bullet a bit. It could be that I'm just used to using my 9mm Hundo gauge where they all fall in with no resistance as well. Any input would be appreciated.

I use a lok palm swell grip (same profile has stock rubber grip) on the right and a DAA thick aluminum on the left that's covered in silicon carbide. The Lok grip just feels comfortable in my hand and it has a bit of a ledge on the top so I put my thumb there when doing weak hand shooting. The left I've changed around as I've changed my grip. As you experiment with what grip works for you (in terms of hand placement and where you put pressure on the gun), you might want to change grips around to make it feel more comfortable and repeatable. I have larger hands that fit a tanfoglio large frame better but since we cant really get those in CA, I've messed around a ton with grips to get something I prefer on my CZ. In the end, it's all preference. Just make sure your gun makes weight and fits the box. (Thinking about it more, don't symmetrical grips seem counter intuitive? It would make sense if we held a gun in between hands as if they were mirror images of each other. But we dont. One hand is on top of the other, one slightly in front, and the grip panels on either side are contacting completely different areas of the hand.)

So bascaly you're guilty of what ever the chrono officer decides unless you can prove yourself innocent? Is anyone else concerned that they openly admit to not being experts at each gun (understandable) but then make unsubstantiated rulings of what is deemed acceptable or not? Even more concerning, they rely on a A CZ shooter/rep as their fall back to what's acceptable? I understand that a reasonable approach would be to ask Matt as the assumption would be he is most familiar with CZ's. However, if we're talking about reasonable, why would this topic even be in question? Safety works in SA and the gun is DA/SA. What's the issue? Let's also not forget that there's a conflict of interest when a competing shooters opinion determines the outcome of another shooters match potentially. I don't doubt Matt's integrity and don't think he would purposely call the gun unsafe with any ill intentions. But from a situational standpoint, this seems quite undesirable for him to make a call.

I was worried about the same thing at A2 this year. My main accushadow would fire in DA with the safety up. In SA mode with the safety on it would not fire. I shot the first morning and then headed straight to CZ Custom and Stuart helped me fix it. I think maybe a rules clarification would be needed. It's calling into question the design intent of having a safety on the gun and when it was intended to be used. RO's assumption is that it must be functional in all conditions which is understandable, but unclear. What if the safety was designed to not work in DA mode?

I bought a case feeder for my 550 and maybe I got lucky but I've set it up once and haven't had to readjust anything. I've loaded about 12k on it so far. Yes, from time to time brass will shoot out from the case feed plunger because the rim on the case has a bur and doesn't allow it to slide in the channel. With the case feeder if I load quickly with a solid push for the primer I can load 100 rounds in 6 minutes. A more relaxed pace puts me at around 8 minutes. This obviously is start and stop time with a filled primer system but even on a 1050, you have to fill primer tubes and then load them into the primer system. One thing to remember with the case feeder is that it makes changing calibers a bit more cumbersome because now you need the caliber conversion for the case feeder too and may need to adjust the case feed cam arm. Definitely a point to remember since a big advantage of a 550 is the fast change overs. I think you also need to take into account the overall time you spend on reloading. For me, I sort the brass, sort 100% every 9mm head stamp, wash in water, dry, tumble and then load. After I load, I wipe down/tumble the loaded rounds a bit to get the case lube off and the case gauge every single one with a hundo. In the end, I spend a ton more time on everything else besides the actual reloading part. So the rate of reloading doesn't really bother me that much. I also only shoot 15k a year so if you're shooting like 50k, that's a bigger difference. For 20k, a 1050 at 1000/hr would take 20 hours. On a 550 with case feeder at 600/hr it'd take 33.3 hours. Is 13.3 hours a year really that much to focus on driving down? For me, no. I'd look to a 1050 for the benefits outside of just rate increase (priming on down stroke, swage capabilities, etc) In terms of rate only, I think a 550 with case feeder can get close to a 650 with case feeder. Likewise a 650 with bullet and case feeder can get close to 1050 with bullet and case feeder. (Maybe someone with experience on these set ups has some input)

Haha actually I used it for unique and red dot since they were flake powders and just kept using it for TG. I guess I could try without it but I figure if it ain't broke don't fix it.

I'll try not stirring the powder around for a few 100 and see what it looks like. When I use titegroup I have a hair clipper zip tied to the powder tube and that has helped with consistent throws. With this powder it vibrates so the big and small pieces are separated (fairly obvious) so I turned it off. Ever since I've noticed that, I've been a bit more observant of how the powder settles over time. I also keep my powder full between 50 to 75 precent. Maybe I'll try between 75 and 100 for a run and see. Thanks for the feedback everyone.

How are you guys getting this powder to meter evenly over a long loading session? I will agree that it probably has the best SD at times from my chrono data but over 100 rounds, it varies .10 gr. Right now I end up mixing the powder and adjusting if necessary to stay within a +/- .05 gr range. I notice that if I don't kind of stir the powder around after 100, the larger pieces gravitate to the top and the smaller ones make it to the bottom. This causes inconsistency over time. Is anyone else seeing this large of a shift?

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

I'm thinking about getting a Mr. Bullet Feeder and was wondering if anyone had any issues setting it up with the bayou 147gr FP bullet? I also am trying out the blue bullet 147 which is similar in shape. Thanks!

Anyone else able to measure blue bullets? Was thinking of trying them and moving from Bayou.

I love the case feeder on the 550. I only load 9mm with it right now but was thinking of getting the parts to use it with .40. It allows me to focus on the powder and since you have to index manually, there is no way you can double charge since the 2nd case would jam the press if you forgot to index it. If you reload multiple different calibers I can see it being a pain but it would be the same pain you'd have if you invested in a 650 and sold the 550. My route it to buy a 1050. Keep the 550 for the quick caliber changes (no case feeder) and have the 1050 for the high volume calibers. 650 seems to not be worth the upgrade. I'd only buy a 650 if I started with it.

What are you crimping to? I load 1.15 147gr zeros with a .3785 crimp. Did you have any coke bottle shapes with the plated? I typically see more of those with my .356 bayous. The DAA powder funnel also helps to keep the bullet straight.

My current combo is Lok palm swell on the right and DAA thick aluminum on the left with 36 grit silicon carbide. Width is right about 1.4 at the thickest part. I'm actually tinkering with a thinner left side grip with silicon carbide as I don't think the support hand grip width makes as much of a difference depending on where your hand and fingers end up. Also I feel like you can grip harder on things that are a bit more narrow than wide but not sure exactly. I really prefer a flat left side as I get the most surface contact with the weak hand palm. The scales 2.0 and Lok palm swell have very defined contours that feel weird to me so I've moved on.

Anyone have any new data on this? I finally got a chance to do a reloading session this week and had some issues with the powder settling. I attach a motorized hair clipper to my powder hopper so the powder settles and I get more consistently throws. However with this powder (this is the only type of powder I've used like this) the variation in size causes them to separate when vibrated. So the largeneral pieces move to the top while the small pieces go to the bottom. This causes a large variation from small to big in my throw weights. More than .2gr. Anyone else have issues wth this? For now I've turned off the clipper and stir the powder around every once in a while. If it doesnt stay consistent I may have to pass on this poweder.

Is it the hajo sight? If so you can drift it. I believe there is a set screw you're supposed to loosen but I used the cz sight pusher without doing so and it was fine.