ScottQ

According to Wolff's website, the factory hammer spring is 16 lbs. That certainly seems to be in line with what I remember pulling out of my gun.

I definitely appreciate all of the feedback and thoughts. Ironically (or perhaps not so ironic) the open shooters at my regular club match all seem to feel like I'll progress much faster shooting open. The non-open shooters (production, mostly), feel pretty strongly that the open gun is not the way to go. At this point I think I'm leaning toward giving the open gun a shot for a while, as I think it may help me improve the weakest parts of my shooting. Some of my weaknesses are mostly just a matter of more practice (faster draw, faster reloads, continuing to improve footwork), but the biggest one that I seem to be stuck on is basically seeing and shooting faster, and calling my shots. I think the feedback from the open gun should help with that. We will see. Wish me luck!

Yes, I have a nice Hardy Mongoose (purchased from another shooter here on the forums), an STI Edge for Limited, and a Springfield 1911 for Single Stack, as well as the Tanfoglio for Production. I like shooting them all, but I need to pick one!

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has a bad habit of switching from one gun to another, one class to another, etc. from match to match, but I feel like that's been slowing down my progression, so I've determined to pick one gun and one class and stick with it for a while. The question is, which one? Initially I thought Production. So for the last few weeks I've been exclusively focusing on Production. I currently shoot an EAA Tanfoglio Stock 1, though I doubt if that's really relevant. Keep it simple, no race holsters, no need for high capacity mags, plenty of practice with mag changes, etc. Recently, though, two of the better shooters are our regular weekly match suggested that if I wanted to improve faster, I should switch to my Open gun. It was their opinion that I would make faster progress in Open for several reasons. Without having to worry so much about mag changes, I would be able to focus more on footwork, transitions, movement, and stage planning. With the dot providing near immediate feedback, things like good trigger press and a good grip would improve faster. Basically their logic was you can more quickly learn to shoot faster with an Open gun, and once you learn to shoot fast, moving back to Production, Limited, or Single Stack would be easier. Given that these two are both regular Open class shooters, though, I was hoping to get a broader array of thoughts and opinions. So if your goal is to learn, improve, and make progress the fastest, which class would you shoot? Or does it even matter? If it helps, I tend to fall much more on the "Slow but Accurate" side than the "Fast but Misses A Lot" side of things. Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts! Scott

Single action is very nice. Perhaps a bit more take-up than I'd like, but it's very smooth, and breaks crisply at about 2.75 lbs.

I had the same thought about the hammer spring (those little guys have a nasty tendency to get mixed up sometimes), so I have already ordered a brand new 13# hammer spring from Wolff just to make absolutely sure I have the right spring in there. I'm pretty certain I do, but wanted to make absolutely certain.

I finally spent some time yesterday doing a trigger job on my Stock 1, and the results aren't quite what I expected, so I was hoping to see if you guys had any ideas. I started out with a Stock 1 which I have put maybe 3,000 rounds through, and when I started my (very basic) trigger gauge showed a double action trigger pull of about 8.5 pounds, and a single action pull of about 3.5 pounds. When I was done, my double action pull is now about 8 pounds, and single action pull is about 2.75 pounds. I'm quite happy with the single action - it's still got a fair amount of take-up but it breaks very nicely. I was honestly hoping for (and expecting) a double action pull down around 6.5 to 7 pounds, or even a bit less. Let me review exactly what I did. Took everything apart, and with the help of a few posts and videos polished all of the major areas that I understand need to be polished. Polished both sides of the trigger bar, and the inside of the frame where they ride, polished the top and sides of the plunger, the bottom of the trigger bar where the plunger rides, the top of the interruptor, and the bottom of the sear cage. I put a little polish on any other areas where 3,000 rounds worth of shooting indicated some wear or rubbing. I used a combination of my Dremel with Flitz, and some nice polishing cloths which run from 30 micron (400 grit equivalent) down to 1 micron (8000 grit equivalent). Some machine marks were obviously left behind (some of them are quite deep), but all in all most everything was polished to a mirror finish. It's certainly not beyond the realm of possibility that my polishing wasn't perfect, but it's hard for me to imagine any imperfect polishing would be affecting the trigger pull that much. Along the way I pulled out the original plunger spring, and replaced it with a pen spring (mine was from a Papermate), which seems to work perfectly. I also replaced the 14 pound hammer spring which was in there with a 13 pound hammer spring and Henning's extra long firing pin (the production legal version) which I got from Jim Bodkin. With the 13 pound spring and the stock firing pin I would sometimes get light primer strikes, so I'm hoping the longer firing pin will allow me to use the lighter hammer spring, though I've not tested that yet. Finally, and if there's an area where I messed up it seems likely to be here, I replaced the stock hammer with the Xtreme hammer (which I also got from Jim). With the new hammer installed, the safety did not work (I understand this isn't uncommon), so I followed Eric's directions and carefully removed just enough metal from the sear leg to allow the safety to engage. The safety now does what it's supposed to do at every hammer position. So now I'm perplexed. Eric's website says, as regards the Xtreme Hammer "the double action trigger pull weight has been dramatically reduced." I would have thought the combination of the new hammer, the lighter hammer spring, and all of the polishing would have reduced the DA pull by more than 1/2 pound, so I'm wondering if I'm missing something. Hoping you guys might have some ideas!

At my very first outdoor match some years ago, I was very excited to find I had been placed in the same squad with Dave Sevigny. He and I talked a bit before the first stage, and I was really looking forward to shooting with him and watching him shoot. I shoot the first stage, and Dave is the RO. There's no reason for it, really, but I was nervous shooting that day, probably because Dave and several other good shooters were in my squad. So I finished the stage, and did just like I always do - rack the slide, drop the magazine, and pull the trigger. I'm sure you can see the problem. Not sure where my head was at that day, but of course the gun went boom - safely pointed at the berm, as it should be - and my day was done. I rather doubt if Dave remembers this, but it's something I'll certainly never forget. Haven't had a DQ since, and I'm now MUCH more careful to slow down and take my time unloading and clearing when a stage is done.

That's pretty much what I figured, but it's about as clear as mud. An extra power striker spring obviously means the striker hits harder. An extra power firing pin spring means the firing pin hits more softly. Go figure.

The XL firing pin is also on my list to consider, but it's my understanding that Henning's firing pin isn't Production legal. Or at least the one he lists on his website. I've seen other posts that allude to a new Production legal XL firing pin, but I don't know if that is ready for prime time or not. Maybe some of you guys know. The other option obviously is to order Eric's from France, but that takes some time, unless someone is stocking these parts in the US that I don't know about.

My first step is to polish the firing pin and firing pin block. If that doesn't work, then I have a 14# hammer spring here which I'll drop in. I had the same thought.

I just picked up a Stock 1 a month or so ago, and so far I really like it. Compared to the plastic guns I've been shooting it's so much nicer. Accuracy seems better, and the sights recover faster (presumably due to that big cone barrel and the all around heavier frame). The only challenge I have run into was failures to feed and extract properly with my 130ish power factor loads. Out of the box it ran fine on factory ammo (though in truth I only put a small amount through it), but I had frequent issues with my reloads. Ultimately the solution was a lighter 8 lb recoil spring and a lighter 13 lb. hammer spring. Once I put those in my feeding and extracting issues went away and the gun barely recoils. Still working on my trigger, and I'm getting a few more light primer hits than I'd like, which I'm working on as well. Safe shooting!

I'm confused. Does the Wolff spring which comes with all the recoil springs improve primer strikes, or make light strikes easier? Which would I want in there?

Well, lesson learned I suppose. That's an awfully expensive die set to work as poorly as it seems to work. Buying an additional $147 dual ring sizing die to properly size a case seems a bit silly, especially when other manufacturers' die sets seem to work just fine without all the drama.

This is essentially all once fired brass, the vast majority being Winchester White Box fired from my HK USP Compact. I suppose I could certainly sort by headstamp and see if there's any pattern to be seen with certain brands of brass. I did stop by Redding's site, and checked their FAQ's. Their answer seems to be: Question: My Titanium Carbide Resizing Die is leaving a ring on the bottom of my case, is there something wrong with my Die? Answer: The size of the carbide ring inside a Titanium Carbide Sizing Die must be small enough to allow the case to accept a bullet with adequate neck tension. Thus, the bottom of a case may be sized a little more than it has to be. Usually, backing the Die away from the Shellholder to size approximately 1/2 of the case or enough of the case to hold the bullet with rectify the problem. I'm sure backing off the sizing die to only size the top half of the case would work, but it seems as though that defeats part of the reason to resize them in the first place. Other dies from other manufacturers don't have this problem, do they?

I'm still fairly new to reloading, and so far I've been doing 9mm and .45 ACP on my Hornady Lock N Load AP without any real issues. I just started setting up to reload .40 S&W though, and ran into an issue that I hoped I could get some insight/opinions on. Thus far sizing cases for 9mm and .45 ACP has been no issue. I use the Hornady dies for both of these calibers, and they have been working well. For .40 S&W I wanted to try a Redding die set, though, so I picked up the Pro Series Titanium Carbide die set, part number 89253, which is as far as I can tell the die set Redding suggests for progressive presses. The issue is that the sizing die seems to be buckling the cases toward the bottom. The Redding instructions seem to be more or less the same as the other Hornady and Lee die sets I've used, i.e. screw the die into the press until it contacts the shellholder, and tighten it down. Redding does add one note in their instructions, which states "This adjustment works best for most cases. However, you may find that adjusting the die away from the shellholder slightly may product better appearing sized cases." The pictures I've attached are after I've already "adjusted the die away from the shellholder slightly". Previous attempts with the shellholder touching the die show the same thing, only much worse. In this set of pictures one of the cases is clearly crunched, one is slightly crunched, and the other two look to be fine. I included both a before and an after picture. These shells were not shot through a Glock, and do not at least to my eye appear to be particularly bulged prior to resizing. So what I'm wondering is: 1) Is this die just sizing much lower than the Hornady and Lee dies I'm used to, and I simply need to adjust it up until it stops buckling the case? 2) Is the die likely defective? Should I contact Redding? It certainly feels much tighter on resizing than the other dies I've used. 3) I understand .40 S&W can be somewhat more picky, due to higher pressures than many other calibers. Should I be running all my .40 brass through something like the G-Rx die before reloading them? They certainly don't look to be particularly bulged. 4) Is there something else going on that I'm missing here? Note that when I started having this issue I switched to a .40 Lee die set I have, and that die set seemed to run fine without messing up any cases, and the ammo ran fine through my STI Edge. Thanks for any insights! Scott

Just to provide one more data point, when I loaded 125 gr Sierra bullets (with a more common rounded profile) they ran great at 1.12. When I got some of the Montana Gold hollow points (with the more truncated cone profile) I had to drop the OAL down to 1.10 for them to run in two of my guns and 1.09 was needed for the EAA Witness. Never have had to load as short as 1.05 though at one point I did run some at 1.06 and they did run fine.

Certainly not the first time I've been accused of overthinking something. Good suggestion on checking for setback. I've seen people suggest loading a mag, shooting a few, then taking the bullets out of the mag and measuring them. I haven't seen any issues when I've done that, but I have seen one of my .223 rounds get crunched pretty well when a bullet jammed and the bolt slammed into it. Even with a crimp it was pushed way back into the case.

So I got my first single stage press a few months ago, and have been loading 9mm, 45 ACP, and 223 for a few months now. My rounds run good, and I'm enjoying reloading quite a bit, but the process of expanding and crimping still confuses me a bit, so I wanted to run some of this by more experienced folks. There's just so much information out there that seems to be conflicting. Some people don't crimp 9mm at all. Some love the Lee Factory Crimp Die. Some hate it. Some say to Taper Crimp instead. My Hornady 9mm die set came with some sort of crimp built into the seating die which isn't apparently a Taper crimp, but I'm not sure exactly what it is. It seems to abuse the brass when I've tried to use it. Being something of a data guy, I have collected some actual data from what I've been doing so far, and wanted to see if anyone has any insight. For the record, I'm loading 9mm with mixed range brass, using 124 gr Montana Gold JHP bullets, and 3.8 grains of Titegroup and CCI primers, loaded to 1.10 OAL. I was originally loading Sierra 125 gr FMJ bullets to 1.12, but the truncated cone on the MTG bullets won't load that long and still chamber properly, so I reduced the OAL a bit. The rounds function well in my Glock 34, Springfield XD Tactical, and EAA Witness Stock 1, but I'm going to be moving all of this over to a new Hornady Lock N Load soon, and want to make sure I don't run into any avoidable problems. Thus far I've been running with no crimp at all, as the Hornady die doesn't seem to make a very nice crimp (or I've never figured out how to adjust it right), and the rounds seem to function perfectly without any crimp. I've never noticed any setback on any rounds. I measured the diameter of the top of the 10 cases at each stage in the process, and here's what I found: Before resizing, case neck diameter - Range: 0.3810 to 0.3850 After full length resizing - Range: 0.3730 to 0.3740 After case mouth expansion - Range: 0.3760 to 0.3790 After bullet is seated, without any crimp - Range: 0.3760 to 0.3785 It's my understanding that with a bullet diameter of 0.355 and a case thickness of around 0.010, a "perfect" round would measure approximately 0.375 at the case neck. Mine obviously run between 0.001 and 0.003 over that, and while I don't seem to run into any trouble, I just wanted a little sanity check to make sure I wasn't missing anything important or anything which is likely to bite me later. Thanks in advance! Scott

That picture is more consistent with what I've also experienced when a lighter recoil spring was needed, and looks quite different from what I run into when my OAL is too long. I would agree that a lighter recoil spring should solve the problem.

I have had problems with my 9mm Witness stock feeding when my OAL was too long, so I think you're on the right track, at least to the extent that there are any similarities between 9mm and 40 S&W. I haven't studied this in as much detail yet as I'd like to, but it seems as though the rifling is closer to the chamber in the Witness than in my other 9mm pistols (Glock and Springfield). Rounds which will cycle perfectly fine in the Glock and the Springfield will jam up in the Witness, where the slide will stop about 3/16 of an inch short of fully going into battery. Bullets with a rounded nose profile seem to work much better than those with a more conical/flat top profile, and I have to load my MTG hollow points at a much shorter OAL than my more rounded Sierra bullets. My question would be when you have a failure to feed, what exactly is happening? In my case the slide fails to go into battery by about 3/16". Is that happening with you also?

I ran across what seemed to be a good deal on a barely used Witness Stock 1 at a local store, and it decided it needed to go home with me. I could hardly say no to such a nice looking firearm, so it's found a new home. My intention is to shoot this pistol in Production, as I'm rather tired of shooting plastic guns and have been wanting something like this for a while. I have ordered a Blade-Tech holster for it, and a couple of reduced power recoil springs to fine tune the pistol to my reloads. It appears as though my Springfield XD mag pouches are the same as those for the Witness mags, so I should be fine there. I have some questions, though, mostly relating to the trigger. My (limited) experience to date is mostly on rifle triggers and polymer guns (Springfield XD and Glock), so the DA/SA trigger is all new to me. Currently the trigger pull is somewhat more than 8.5 lbs in DA (that's as high as my trigger pull gauge would go), and around 4.5 lbs. in SA. I would obviously like to bring the weight down and smooth up the trigger pull so it will be nice for Production shooting, but of course I don't want to do anything that will bounce it out of Production. From what I'm reading, simply polishing various bits inside will both reduce the weight and smooth out the pull? Is that essentially correct? And if I wish to go lower still a lower power hammer spring, possibly in conjunction with a longer striker, will also help? Not sure what else I might be missing, or if this is something I should even consider taking on myself. Is there anyone you guys might recommend to work on the trigger on this gun, who does a nice trigger job? Anything else I should consider doing to the gun to improve reliability or function, and still staying within the Production rules? Thanks in advance! Scott

I think you hit the nail on the head. When/if I wear something camo it's a combination of a) I like camo, It's comfortable to shoot in, or c) that's what was clean. It's certainly not tacticool, at least not what I wear. To expand on what I said earlier, if Match Director sent me packing because my pants were Old Navy Cargo Pants in a Woodland Camo pattern, I would not go back to that match. I respect that the Match Director has the right to make that call - it is after all their match, and I'm a guest. As a guest, though, I won't choose to put myself in that situation again. Ironically, last night we had a new shooter at our regular weekly match wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Nothing at all out of the ordinary. He turned about to be some ex-military guy who wanted to argue about whether or not he had to keep the hammer dropped on his holstered pistol. Needless to say he lost that argument, and was watched very closely for the entirety of the match. Nothing he did turned out to be unsafe, but I suspect he won't be back as his ideas on how to shoot were quite a bit different from ours.

I am also trying out a Glock from shooting mostly Springfield XD and 1911, and in addition to getting used to the grip angle, the trigger is certainly very different. For me at least, shooting slow fire is fine, but when I start getting up to speed the longer trigger pull is causing me to push shots low if I don't concentrate on a smooth trigger pull. Had a string in last weeks match where we were shooting a line of simulated 8" plates indoors. I had a lovely string of perfectly centered shots which were all about 2" below the targets at 18 yards or so. I just try to focus on the most fundamental basic of shooting, that being the ability to pull the trigger without disturbing the sights. Whatever method does this for you the most effectively certainly makes sense to me.

Wow, I had no idea wearing something like camo was even an issue. Maybe that's because I'm in Georgia, but when I go to a match (any kind of match - USPSA, NRA High Power, 3 Gun, whatever), I choose my clothes based on the shooting I expect to do. The weather, the expected range conditions, the amount of movement (or not), all factor in. One of my common choices is a pair of cargo pants that are loose fitting and have plenty of pockets. They hold up well to muddy conditions, and are loose enough so that movement and odd shooting positions are no problem. They also happen to be old fashioned woodland camo. If I were told to go home because my pants were camo, that's most assuredly the last time I'd be going out to that match. The truth is a lot of military gear is used by competitors because in many cases it performs very well. And a lot of it happens to be camo. Who cares what color it is. Safe shooting, Scott