boo radley

I just sold my SDB but only to move up to an XL650(gratuitous brag). The SDB is a great press, and you should be able to load 100/10min on it. See many threads, here, on the subject. Not very much, IMO, especially if you use Hornady One-Shot case lube. There's a very slight shove needed on the down-stroke, which de-primes and resizes, and just a little at the end of the movement, when the primers is seated. It's very hard to quantify, as brass condition affects this, as does use of case-lube, etc. But you've got a great deal of mechanical advantage. With newish brass, and One-Shot it's almost effortless. Not sure what you mean, nor do I remember. IIRC, it's just like any other resizing/depriming die, where a replaceable pin is centered in the carbide sizeing die. Don't remember if the pin was a single piece or sleeved and retained in another piece. Why do you ask? Most. Sometimes some would bounce out, which could be solved with a small piece of tape around the cup rim. I never bothered with the tape, and maybe 5-10 per 100, tops, would bounce out, to be collected later under the Strong Mount. No biggie. Buy extra primer tubes.

Sort of, David. But I was mostly dwelling on negative things that HAD been true; that weren't BS. In Bassham's book, "WWIM," do you remember his anecdote of shooting in snow? Short of it is, he's never done it before, but he tells himself he's the best in the world at it, and goes on to win the match. But. What if he'd shot two or three matches in the snow previously, and they were his worst performances, ever? Now what does he tell himself (yourself) as the flakes fall on the way to the match? The answers to that question in this thread, have been terrifically enlightening. There's no getting around having the confidence experience and practice in snow, or weak-hand shooting, or whatever provides, but I sure see how I could have thought about things differently. Probably beat this 'un to death, but shooting a classifier with a single-digit percentage does sting a tad.

Cy -- I'll try adding the trigger parts back in; I don't think that area was responsible for anything but occasional light-primer strikes. I've since upgraded presses, and haven't noticed a single high primer with the new XL650. <shrug> Here's a picture of the tungsten guide rod -- it's not much of a picture, but you can see the wear. There are a few rough patches, and I can imagine the flat, sharp-edged coils of an ISMI spring catching on 'em, and slightly binding. Do plain steel rods wear like this?

rstandley -- I'm not sure what you mean by a flap wheel -- I was thinking of sticking the rod in a cordless drill, spinning it slowly, and hitting it with 600gr wet/dry paper? Or maybe 400gr to start with? My concern is that I'll burn-off the plating, and the surface below won't polish smooth, continuing to cause the same problems I have now. I've got to admit -- I'm pretty disappointed how poorly this product seems to hold up. Anyway -- another 280 rounds, last night, with the factory guide-rod and spring, and again zero problems, so I will probably say the hell with it, and leave the gun as it is.

Some great stuff here -- I appreciate it. Heh -- as an idle experiment, I made a quick list of Bad Things responsible for the ugly match/stage. I am truthfully amazed when I see, in writing, how many aspects were purely mental... 1) weak in single-hand shooting -- skills issue. Plan to develop. 2) gun functional problems -- fixed. 3) Poor attitude (premonition) driving to match -- mental 4) Fear of poor performance when seeing classifier & stages --mental 5) Lack of focus at classifier (long day, didn't visualize, rattled by previous stage, etc.) -- mental 6) Lack of plan/understanding at classifier (was very uncertain how to shoot it -- tried going around the 5 targets one-way with the right hand, and the other way with the weak hand. Zero confidence) -- mental 7) Paid way too much attention the times of other shooters (WHY??) -- mental 8) Totally shot for speed, and became rattled when my gun jammed. (One of the -- literally -- best shooters in the *world* did this in 11 seconds with a dot gun. I shot the 3 strings in 13 sec; no f*cking wonder I had 4 mikes. If I'd understood the stage, I had all the time I needed, within reason, to have a good classifier provided I got the hits. -- mental 9) Self-imposed pressure on the stage (although I'm not sure this is a bad thing) -- mental Amazing. Only one aspect was a true skills issue, and even there, I had more than enough to have reasonable results.

So...you got the exact performance that your self-image pictured. Oh, absolutely. And, at some level, I'm not sure this really deserves a lot of examination, beyond a "So, you shot a bad match, we all do from time to time, BFD -- learn from it, and move on." But I still find the underlying issue fascinating, because I don't know how one can "override" facts, based on past performances, with only mental management. I need to get to the point where I can say to myself, "Great! A stage with single-handed shooting. I'm glad I've been working on this, and this should be a good stage for me," and be honest. I'm not sure how anything but practice, and getting back on the same horse, can get me there. Just rambling.

I'm not a bit superstitious, but occasionally I'll hit something I've had a bad experience with, in the past, and damned if it doesn't happen again. For example there might be a certain hole in golf you always bogey (or worse), or..whatever. I can think of thousands of examples. Anyone know a fast-track to beat this issue? The only way I know, is to FINALLY beat the problem, then move on....I've read Lanny's book, but find it pretty tough to ignore past performances. The actual example -- early Sat am, looked at the USPSA site, noticed the classfier section was working again, and saw, hey -- I just needed an eighth classifier to jump to B-class in Limited. Didn't even have to be a particularly GOOD classifier -- just enough to throw out a 45%'er. I hadn't planned on shooting that day, but I rearranged things, kissed my sleeping wife, and hit the road. On the way to the match, I began experiencing some really ugly thoughts. I remembered how I'd shot 3 matches at this particular club in the past, and ALL were horrendous. I started dwelling on how this match seemed oriented towards lots of steel and stand-and-shoot stages, with tight shots, and how much more I prefered to run about.... I began to wonder what the classifier would be, and hoped it wouldn't involve strong or weak-hand shooting; I'm really weak in that area, but have been working on other things instead....Just some negative thoughts, which I don't normally have. I started thinking on, too, on problems I've been having with my gun.... Long story longer -- sure enough, the classifier was some 3-string monstrosity that involved 5 shots at a bunch of hard-cover, and of course, required strong-hand and weak-hand. And, sure enough, it ended up being a terrible stage, with 4 mikes, a jamming gun, and a terrible match, overall. The thing that kills me, is I could have sat right where I am now, not shot my match, and entered my predicted score, and have had it be pretty accurate. I can pull some constructive stuff out of this, and it's helpful to realize, too, part of the problem is lack of confidence (for good reason) on some areas of the game. And I can work on that. But otherwise....

Hi Joe -- Yup, good point, but it's the straight (correct) one. Flex: I believe I bought the tungsten guide rod and 15-lb ISMI spring from Custom Glock Racing. I'm still leaning towards the hypothesis of the spring binding on the worn grooves on the guide rod (why should this rod wear at all, btw?), and causing the occasional, but intolerable feeding problem. I put a note on the Gunsmithing section of a forum I found called "GlockTalk." We'll see. I liked the feel from both modifications, but I can live without them more easily than jams during match stages and classfiers. Fact.

Thx, 40AET: I'm all set I think -- I loaded some more and with judicious use of the casefeeder's power switch, I can get it to do what I want.

Pistol returned to stock, except for the sights. 300 rounds, of which 50 were weak-hand, and 50 strong-hand. Zero problems, and the *only* mags I used were the high-caps with Dawson extensions. I loaded each to 20, too, until I ran out of bullets. My suspicion is that something unholy was happening in conjunction with the tungsten guide-rod, the worn grooves in it, the IMSI spring, the pistol, and cold weather. In the CR-Speed holster the gun is completely exposed, and assumes ambient temperature. I do not believe that the RSotelo trigger kit was contributing to this problem, but I pulled that out, too. I do know for a fact, I had some light primer strikes on my reloads with the striker spring in the kit.... I'll try another test later this week, by putting the gun and mags in the fridge, before hitting the range, but I think <knock on wood> the problem is solved.

I finally had some time this weekend to set up my new XL650 press, which arrived early in the week (thx Brian!), and crank out a few rounds of .40. I must say -- it's pretty unbelievable how quick and effortless the process is: the SDB was nice, but this is a different animal. The priming is so smooth, I keep pulling shells out of the plate, to make *sure* there's actually a primer in there! A couple quick q's? I'm using the Lee 4-die set, and the lock-rings that came with the press....For the resizing die, the only way I could lock it down was to put the lock-ring underneath the toolhead. I saw some reference to this issue with the 550B series presses, so I figure same deal? The instructions say to screw the blue plastic wing-nut onto the failsafe rod until the end of the rod is even with the 'wings.' I had nasty problems with the powder bar not returning, until I cranked the wing-nut much tighter than that -- so that there's actual pressure on the spring: I figure this is right? Is there a simple way to "end" everything? I like to leave the machine empty of primers when I'm done, but there doesn't seem to be a simple way to stop the cases from feeding, if they're already in the clear plastic tube. I guess one just turns off the casefeeder 25 rounds, or so, before running out of primers? Thx, Steve

Yup. A final thought occured to me, in the context of returning the gun to stock: I wonder if the tungsten guide rod, which is starting to get very noticeably grooved, is causing problems? Could the recoil spring be sticking on the rod? It developed a slight groove, or two, early on, but now seems worse.... Anyway -- going to the range today, with a couple hundred rounds, and seeing what's what. If I have *any* problems, I'm calling Glock, or a Glock armorer, or both. I bought a used G22 upper, and will put that on my other Glock -- a G34, once it arrives, and once I order the appropriate trigger housing/ejector pin. This way I'll have a back-up, and who knows -- maybe I'll like the shorter slide better. But this does have to stop.

I am *this* close to.... Flex, yes, if I pull my slide off, I do see the top round in the mag touching the ejector. The contact isn't dramatic, but I can see there's some pressure on the rear of the case, tipping the nose up very slightly.... What does this mean? This is ridiculous. Today I shot a match using the factory 10-round mags, which have always worked, and *factory* ammo, which measure under 1.130". That would rule out crimp, OAL....Same problem, and it really $%*($@(-up my classifier, too. Every stage, I'd have to rack the slide back on a shot or two. I'm pulling the RSotelo trigger kit out of the gun, and pulling the 15-lb spring out, and returning it to absolute stock condition, to troubleshoot this issue. Infuriating.

<shudder> Damn.

Travis -- the site "www.glockmeister.com" sells slides and uppers, and the other online Glock parts/custom stores might as well. Dunno. Kinda pricey though: $415 for a G35 upper....I've been half-tempted to try a G22 upper if I can find one cheap enough.

Damn, Jon -- I opened the results from SWGC again, and you weren't THAT slow!! Were you on the squad with Todd Jarrett? I wonder what his splits were.... I wasn't paying much attention to anyone else, but I did notice one guy shoot both strings in the same amount of time, and everyone started the same way -- uprange, hands raised. I wonder if some folks "went for it" on the first string, saw they dropped some points, then shot the second string more carefully? Jake -- even if the draw time can be done while turning, can you turn and get a hit as fast as you can draw and get a hit? I'm not arguing, just curious.

+10 to that, and the rest of the comments... I bought the book when I first started, along with my press about a year ago, immediately read it a couple times, and...wasn't disappointed, exactly: there was more a sense of disconnect, and much of the discussion on awareness and seeing didn't particularly resonate. I picked it up again recently, and had the "ah-HA!" experience after reading several sections, and I don't doubt that wil continue. I was glad to have the book as a beginner, but I'm not sure it's a beginner's book -- I think it takes a while to get to a certain level of experience and skill before the book becomes engaging *as instruction.*

As I'm practicing drawing a Glock from a CR-Speed holster (I don't think the gun-type matters), I am noticing two "feelings" when I draw, assuming relaxed-hands-at-sides. The first, I am conscious of a feeling of grip, with the fingers of my strong hand, as I lift the gun from the holster. It's almost two stages, although most of the grip happens as the gun is coming up from the holster. The second: it's like a ripping motion -- the gun is lifted out of the holster on my second and third finger, in a single movement, and carried upwards, and I'm not conscious of anything like a secure feeling on the gun, until the weak hand joins my strong hand. Is this making any sense? The second way feels extremely fast and clean, since I come straight up with zero pause, but I haven't tried it in a match for fear that if I don't lift it *perfectly* out of the holster, it will go tumbling...<shudder> Do y'all sort of rip it out of the holster, on the lift, or are you more conservative?

I'm staying at the Green Gables, in Lake Wales -- stayed there this Fall, when I went to a 2-day course in Frostproof. I think it's a bit closer than Winterhaven? Was clean, and fairly inexpensive.

Not really, but I can identify. I started with *exactly* the same grip you describe based on another shooter showing me: "Look! See how your two thumbs fit together?" (press them together, staggered so that the right thumb is about 1" behind the left thumb). I shot like that for about 7 months, then took a Frank Garcia class, and the first thing he did was correct my grip to the position you describe: the right thumb is now staggered back about 2" or more. Yeah, it felt really weird at first, but after a month, and a lot of dry and live fire, the correct grip felt normal. Beyond this anecdote, I'm not qualified to say anything: if you think your grip still isn't correct, maybe you can have someone take a picture and post it here?

nheiny, Eric, SinC, Cy, etc -- thx for the advice, and suggestions. Friday night, I did polish up the feedramp, and noticed how much smoother it seemed to feel with a JHP. First 4 stages of the match, yesterday, zero problems, though I used factory 10-rnd mags for the classifier.... But, ah ha!, I thought. Issue solved. Then -- last two stages, one of which was naturally a hellacious field-course, I had horrible problems feeding. I will strip the pistol today, and compare the trigger bar with the stock one, and shoot some factory ammo which has a much shorter OAL than my reloads. Until I get this straightened out, I'll probably just pick up a couple 15-round mags, and shoot 15+1 in LTD -- not ideal, but safer. Very frustrating. <sigh>

Just shot this -- probably my best classifier. The thing I like is that it was the very *first* classifier I ever shot, in March 2005, where I shot 50 points in 9.25 for a 5.4 hf, in L10. Yesterday, shot 57 points in 5.95 for a 9.6 hf, so it's nice to see improvement.

Aaggh, still having issues. About 5-6 rounds out of 200 failed to chamber. When I looked down, the round seemed "hung" on the feedramp, holding the slide 1/2 open. If I pushed the slide closed the round went completely nose up. If I did a "sling-shot" the slide closed normally. Not sure what this means. It only seems to happen with the 2nd or 3rd round in the mag (in other words on my second or third shot). Is it possible it's my reloads? I'm shooting Zero 180gr JHP's loaded to 1.142 OAL. Someone looked at one, and commented that I had "no crimp" though it measures as if I do, and I get no set-back, despite pushing with all my force....Could the lip of the case be catching on the feedramp? Things I've ruled out: limp-wristing, grip contact with the slide, old magazine springs: I'm using modern (#6 follower) magazines with brand-new Dawson extra-strenth springs and base-pads. My recoil spring is an ISMI 15lb spring riding a tungsten guide rod. It has about 2-3k on it. I guess I'll try a couple hundred rounds of factory ammo, and see if I still have this problem.

I bought a G35 this fall, and started shooting Ltd with it. I had previously been shooting a 1911 in L10. I really like how easy it is to be one's own "gunsmith" on the Glocks, in that I could add sights (Dawson FO/Heine), trigger job (RSotelo's $50 job), grip tape (Eric's Tru-Grip), swap out the extended slide release for a regular one, etc. I have a G34, as well, and I'll probably buy a G22 upper at some point, so I can mix and match, and have a back-up at matches, since most of the parts are identical. I'm still more accurate with my 1911's, though -- I tested this again last night....But the point is kinda moot, since I've been doing so much practice with the G35, anything else feels strange when pointing and shooting. I don't know how some folks switch guns from match to match. I'm also starting to kinda think that it doesn't really matter WHAT one uses, within reason, provided it runs and you practice with it. I've been shooting better recently, and hopefully will move into B class on the next update, or be right there -- can't say a G35 has helped or hurt.

I think I'm just going to go ahead and snag the Lee 4-die set in .40S&W. The 4th die appears to be the Lee FCD that y'all are going on about, and the set it cheap enough that if I want to onesy-twosy replace a die I can, if I run into problems. That Redding Competition seating die looks nice, but is pricey, no? Since I just load (mostly) one bullet profile, what's the advantage, once a regular die is dialed in? For .45, I'm not in a huge rush, and I'll just try to pick up a cheap 3-die set on eBay, and another tool head. I am looking forward to getting the 650. The SDB was a great press, and all I really needed, in truth, but my nature is impatient, and attention span short, and I like the idea of cranking out a couple thousand on a rainy weekend, and then not touching it for a month. I hope.