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DogmaDog

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    Warren Bigelow

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Finally read the FAQs

Finally read the FAQs (3/11)

  1. I bet he'll kick anyone's ass in reholstering skill...and his unsighted shooting through high ports has to be superior as well...shame about the malf. I had a legally blind fellow in my Steel Challenge squad one time...walked toward the shooting box with a white cane, and folded it up as he stood in the box. I told him to make ready, and let me know if he needed help in any way. He made ready, holstered, and nodded his head. He wasn't especially fast, but he shot and hit the plates. One thing I really respect about our sport: it treats all competitors equally. Every shooter has his or her own challenges to overcome, and every match offers the opportunity to do it.
  2. I have the same question. I'm willing to work as an RO, but I also want to shoot the match...can I do both?
  3. Imagine a pistol with two front sights on it, one half way down the barrel, and one at the muzzle. If the sights are perfectly aligned, you won't see the front front sight at all...just the closer one. However, if your muzzle is turned some angle, then you'll see both of the front sights, and the sight at the muzzle will look to be further away from the center of the rear notch than the sight at the middle of the barrel--the deviation from perfect alignment will be more apparent the further the separation between the front and rear sights. So longer sight radius makes errors in sight alignment more readily apparent. Also, I find a narrow front sight with a lot of light on either side to be easier to aim precisely than with less light. DD
  4. Cool topic. I think you're stance is probably "fine"--like a lot of good shooters, you should periodically reexamine it and refine it, along with your grip, trigger control, etc. I don't think you need to worry so much about being "upright"--if your knees are bent more than most people, or your upper body leaned more forward, it's not a problem, provided your center of gravity is above the balls of your feet. In fact, if you watch good shooters, you'll typically see them get lower and more aggressive in courses requiring more movement. The thing to avoid is unnecessary muscle tension--you want plenty in your grip and forearms, but the rest of your body should be relaxed. If you're exerting effort to guard your chin with your shoulder, for e.g., you'll probably shoot better if you can get that bit of tension out of your stance. DD
  5. Don't tell my rifle! I have a standard weight carbine buffer and tube on my rifle with low mass bolt carrier. So far it works fine.
  6. OK, I had a chance to do some more experimenting today, and I think I've made some headway: My friend at the range was right! Size more. I was sizing brass the minimum amount, so the base would be flush with the upper step on a case gauge. I tightened my sizing die so I'm now lightly to moderately over-camming, and sizing the brass flush with the lower step of the gauge (shoulder set 0.004" further back). The neck ID now measures 0.221. I'm not sure why it's smaller. Just for giggles, I tried sizing without the decap/expander ball in place, and the neck ID came out 0.214", which I'm thinking is smaller than we want (or else why would there be such a thing as an expander ball?) I made a few dummy rounds, and the bullets seated tightly. With no crimp, I got 0.003" setback when chambering in a rifle. With crimp die adjusted per Dillon instructions (1 full turn past touching the round), I couldn't move the handle on the press all the way, so I backed it off to about 1/2 turn, and got 0.005" setback. With just a very slight crimp (about 1/6 of a turn past touching the round...one facet on the hex nut), I got no setback. My test batch of brass is now re-sized, and in the cleaner. Hopefully I'll be working up some loads tonight! DD
  7. I don't have any new brass, but I have once-fired from several manufacturers, including lake city. I'll try one or more of those. Also, I talked to a guy today who suggested I might not be sizing the brass enough. I had my sizing die adjusted pretty much as directed in Dillon's instructions, with the die backed off one half turn from touching the shell plate. The case heads gauge between the two steps on the Wilson gauge. My friend suggested they need to be flush with the lower step. I don't understand how that would improve neck tension...could it? DD
  8. Hi all, I'm just starting my foray into rifle reloading. The first several dummy rounds I've loaded had problems with the bullets being loose in the casings--they can be pushed in to the top of the cannelure, and will spin when twisted by hand. When I seat them before the cannelure, the bullets will set back when I chamber them in a rifle. Increasing crimp seems to make the problem worse (the bullets get looser, not tighter!!! What's going on?? Here's the equipment I'm using: Dillon 550 Dillon 3 die set Wilson Case Gauge Once-fired Remington brass Hornady 55gr FMJBT w/c bullets I cleaned the brass, full-length sized it with the dillon die, then trimmed with a Possum Hollow Kwik Case Trimmer to 1.750" (some cases are 1.751", and some are as short as 1.743"...don't know if that much variance is a problem or not). I chamferred inside and outside of case mouth with a chamferring tool chucked in a drill. Prior to putting brass back in the press, I cleaned it again. Dimensions: The expander ball in my sizing die measures .224" I checked the de-capping stem, and it doesn't appear bent. Sized case mouths are .245 or .246" OD, and .222" ID Bullets are 0.224" just below the cannelure, 0.215-0.217" in the cannelure, and 0.223" just above the cannelure. Rounds seated to just below the cannelure are 1.250" long, which is about the longest I want to go. OD of the neck on a loaded cartridge is about 0.247 or 0.248", which is the same as in some factory reloaded ammo I have. Crimping isn't working intuitively...putting on more crimp seems to make the bullet even looser, and doesn't seem to reduce the diameter of the mouth of the case. I'm at a loss to understand what's going on, or what I should do about it...any help you can give would be much appreciated! Thanks, DD
  9. Huh. I've only shot mine a few hundred rounds worth, and I haven't noticed any significant wear yet. I use the mod choke, unless I try skeet shooting with it, in which case I put in the IC. I put a fair amount of lube on the piston system, and find the gun gets sluggish and starts to fail after about 300 rounds without cleaning. The fiber optic on the front of mine broke...so I'll need to get spares for that. Otherwise, I don't have any yet. I dryfire mine, completely oblivious to whether it is "safe" or not...I just assume that it is ("safe" as in won't damage the gun...I'm not oblivious to "safe" as in surely unloaded, and not pointed in a direction where someone could be hurt if it went bang). DD
  10. I've only looked at the no-battery version, which is now piggy-backed on a 3.5 power ACOG mounted on M249s in the Marine Corps. We got this ACOG now where the BDC reticle actually slants a little to the left with increasing range, to account for bullet drift to the left caused by gyroscopic forces as it drops...this on a belt fed machinegun firing from an open bolt, with the sight mounted on the feed tray cover. To back it up, theres a HUGE 9 moa dot in the RMR on top. But I digress. The RMR looked like a well-built piece of gear...but I don't think I'd want a dot as big as 9 moa on anything. Therefore I'd chose the battery operated version with the smaller dot. DD
  11. Start reading that reloading manual, and download the instruction manual for the Dillon press as well, and read that! That will probably be the most important thing you can do to learn to reload safely. I recommend learning to reload for the pistol first...it is substantially simpler and faster, with fewer steps. Rifle cases generally require trimming after resizing, which usually means two trips through a press, with some steps in between. If you're a member of a club, or go to matches, you may be able to find someone else with some experience reloading. I learned to reload initially by begging a local master shooter to give me a tutorial on his machine...that took a lot of the anxiety out of the process! DD
  12. Welcome! I'll be returning home to OK soon...hope to see you at some matches. Definitely check out USSA in the northeast, and OKCGC in OKC! DD
  13. Be careful with a clamp-on front sight--some are made to clamp to the rail on the free float tube, which means they're too short to clamp onto a railed gas block. DD's is that way. I bought a 14.5" lightweight middy from CMMG that I use as a patrol rifle. Initially, I had a permanently fixed Miculek brake on it so it could double as a 3-gun rifle. That didn't work so well--the blast is way too intense. I wound up with a Troy Medieval muzzle brake (not the flash hider), that seems to provide some braking, but not enough side blast to annoy the crap out of my police partners at the range. Be careful about how aggressive you go with a comp--more compensation/braking generally comes with more blast to the sides, which isn't good if you have buddies standing next to you (or kneeling right in front of you in a doorway). The A2 flash hider has always seemed to me to be perfectly fine as a flash hider, and much cheaper than the Phantoms and Vortices floating around. I added a Daniel Defense Omega Rail to mine to free float the barrel, and mount a light. It's no larger in diameter than the stock handguards, so would prolly fit in your weapon rack. Mine has the light on the bottom, attached by a scope ring, with a tape switch along the top rail just behind the front sight, so it's amenable to the contemporary USPSA forward grip style, and ambidextrous. That could work the same way on a Troy TRX or VTAC rail. On mine, the front sight is the traditional A2, doubling as the gas block. With a 16" barrel, you can get a few more inches of sight radius putting the sight just behind the muzzle device. For a fixed sight you could use a clamp-on front like Armalite's or JP's and have only one piece, instead of a railed gas block with clamp on front sight. Conventional wisdom seems to say a rail-mounted front sight is less accurate than a barrel mounted front sigth. I'm not sure, but free float tubes are now available up to 15" long (TRX is one), so you could mount a front sight on the rail right behind the comp. Definitely get a good trigger. Hope they approve your RDS soon...my dept allows them, so long as the irons can be used with the optics installed. Whatev. DD
  14. A couple lengths of 3/8" dowel sandwiched between two mags held together with zip-ties. The dowels have some inside-out duct tape on them to keep them from sliding out--not sure if that's necessary DD
  15. I saw a thread for this over on AR15.com. It's a carbine stock with a spring in it, apparently dampened by friction between the stock extension tube and the stock itself. They claim it reduces recoil...but does it help to shoot faster? Anyone using one of these? Do you like it? Is it a quality product? Does "MAKO" have a good reputation? Seems like a pretty low price for a decent stock...let's hear about it! http://www.makosecurity.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=GL-SHOCK&Category_Code=_stks Thanks, DD
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