milanuk

I would get the Redding Type 'S' F/L bushing die. I don't so much subscribe to the idea of using it as a Wilson neck die (I have more than a couple of those) i.e. with no expander and using the bushings strictly to control neck tension, as I size the bushings to squeeze the neck down just far enough to let the expander ball just kiss the inside of the case neck on the way out - it still sets the final ID; it just doesn't have to work near as hard (or deform the neck or shoulder in the process). Either way works; it just seems like one of my cases always gets a little ding here or there, and the expander smooths that out no problem. I should mention that I also spring for the floating carbide expander ball that Redding sells - it is harder, slicker, and self-centering - between that and judicious choice of bushing size, you can ixnay about 99% of the ills most people attribute to expander balls. For seater die... the Redding Competition die is a good choice, no doubt - I have several. The Forster Ultra seater more or less works just as good and is a fair bit less money. Your choice. For just starting out, I'd say it might pay to stick w/ the 550 primer setup, and worry about it later. If'n you're inclined to ditch it now, I'd say you can get perfectly good results with the RCBS hand priming tool. I'd fondled and used other people's Sinclair priming tools - but when it came time to spend my own money, I got a K&M. Blued steel vs. shiny stainless, and about half the cost for pretty much the same functionality. For trimmers... I have a Giraud (yay!) but for smaller volumes I use a Wilson with all the Sinclair accessories/hop-ups. The basic Wilson trimmer is very functional, just not quite as fancy. If the choice is between the Wilson and anything else, I'd get the Wilson. Pretty much the defacto BR standard, and it only gets better (easier to use) as you add the Sinclair bits onto it - which you can do over time as $$$ and desire allow. A basic scale (hopefully you already have one) will work just fine for the forseeable future for your endeavors. Actually, if you want to make live easy on yourself, stick with ball powders, or possibly very short cut extruded powders. I'm not an expert on .222 or .22-250, but I do shoot one heck of a lot of .223... Win748, H335, Xterminator, TAC all meter well enough that I'd say that weighing charges is probably a waste of time for most shooting under 400-500yds. H380 is a classic ball powder for the .22-250 - IIRC, the name came from ~38.0gr to get a 50-52gr bullet to 3800fps or something like that. Still works well from all that I hear. Short cut extruded that you might consider include N133, 4198, & Benchmark. For most purposes, I think the Dillon APM will meter these & similar powders well enough to keep things interesting - my 'thrown' loads that I use in a .223 Rem consist of ~25.2gr H335 or 26.5gr Win748 behind a 52-53gr match bullet - I'd stack them up against most any 'weighed' charge for their intended purpose - making little holes @ 100-200yds. The things I'd do if I were going to use the 550 for loading rifle ammo I expected to be accurate and precise... first, do your sizing on a separate tool head. Run the cases thru, size & decap in a separate process. There is enough fiddly/twisty stuff that needs to be done in between (case trimming, primer pocket cleaning, tumbling off lube, etc.) that it's just easier to separate the sizing from every thing else - that and the sizing is the one 'high force' step that can mask the more sensitive steps like powder charging and bullet seating. Doing it separately eliminates that concern. Next, I'd install a Dillon decapping die in station #1 - serves as a backup to clear any tumbling media that may have gotten stuck in the flash hole. Finally, I'd skip a station when inserting cases - i.e. put one case in, run the ram up and down, rotate the shell plate, run the ram up and down for the next operation, rotate the shell plate again, insert the next case, then proceed. This further separates your powder dump step from the bullet seating step - allowing you to focus on one or the other, not both. Other things people do to enhance precision for loading rifle ammo on Dillon presses includes floating the lock rings - take a look here for an example. This is something David Tubb popularized in his last book when he discussed his loading setup. Not sure if he originated the idea, but it seems to work for him. John Whidden is another *very* good shooter who seems to buy into it, so I'm guessing it must work to some degree. I've got one on order now, I'll report back on the forum when I get it and have a chance to test it. Anywho, there ya go. Monte

I've loaded enough rifle cases (mostly .308 & .223) w/ Imperial Sizing die wax to go thru multiple tins - and each one is good for thousands of rounds. Most (all?) of my stuck cases have been w/ Hornady One-Shot aerosol spray lube. Sounds like you need to make your taps a little more substantial... a light 'swipe' of my index finger across the top, pinch the case between thumb and fore finger and twist as you pull it thru your fingers. Start pinching as close to the case head as you can (fingers of the 'off' hand will dictate how close you can get), and make sure you get everything you can - case body, shoulder, & neck. I generally do either every, or every other case depending on how much sizing is involved. Three to four, or five, cases is asking for trouble - as you found out. Yes, you get a little bit of build-up from one to the next that should keep things from sticking, but it's just too easy to build a rhythm of one hand hits the wax tin, the other hand grabs the case, pinch-twist, one hand sticks the case in the press, the other hand operates the press handle as the first hand hits the wax tin... It's really not that hard, man. If you ever decide you have nothing better in life to do than turn case necks (who, me? ) Imperial works pretty well for lubing the inside of the case neck when you run an expander mandrel in for that as well. Pick some up on your finger tip, do a twisting-squeegee move to wipe it off inside the case mouth, then run the case thru the press w/ the mandrel. Should open up the neck to just the right size to fit over the neck turner pilot, no problem. As I said, I've used this stuff for probably eight or nine years now with basically zero problems (other than misplacing one tin and having to buy a second one to flush the first one back out into the open...)

I've got a wee bit of experience w/ Savage rifles... First the good news. With a wee bit of load development, most likely your gun *will* shoot as is. Even the misalignment between scope and barrel is fixable. Been there, done that. Since you already have the base & rings (and yes, EGW is good stuff), my suggestions would be (in this order): 1) call Savage, and talk to them. They usually are pretty good about making things right. They are working very hard on making things *better* in their production process. 2) If you don't want to deal with possibly returning the rifle to the factory or importer for an inspection/repair/exchange, I'd suggest getting a set of Burris Signature Zee rings w/ the offset inserts. If you rotate the inserts 90° you now have a system for kicking your scope around to point the same direction as the barrel. Assuming a certain ring spacing, the inserts marked '10', '20', '30' will move your POI that many MOA. Since most people don't have that *exact* ring spacing for whatever reason, you might be wise to get a couple different sets (30mm rings may only have one thickness, '10') and play with them in the front and the rear ring to get things pointed where you want 'em w/ the scope windage mechanically zeroed. The barrel may well shoot as is. I've had two (my original 10FP barrel from several years ago), and my current (2nd) match barrel in my 12 F/TR that were just rougher than a cob. I've looked through them w/ a Hawkeye bore scope; let me just warn you it ain't for the faint of heart or weak of stomach The first barrel, the one on the 10FP... looked like a hoof rasp like we used on horses back on the ranch where I grew up. If you know what one of those looks like, then you have some idea of how bad it was. The 12 F/TR barrel was slightly less fugly, but still not great. The solution (for me) was running a box of Tubbs Final Finish bullet through there. The *whole* box, following the instructions. Made a *huge* difference in how the barrel cleaned up, and generally tightened up the groups as well. It tends to recontour the throat a tad, so don't be surprised if you have to seat the bullets out a smidge to reach the lands As far as I can tell, it's more of a re-adjustment of the throat angle to something shallower (and more resembling what custom barrels get throated with) than a wholesale erosion of the throat, but thats just my opinion. As to whether such a barrel can ever shoot well... some folks would think not, but Team Savage (of which I'm a part) seems to do pretty well with the barrels we get. Would I like them to look/be better? Oh heck yes. But with some cleanup and load development, they do shoot - well enough to be a threat in 1000yd F-Class, anyways. As for where the misalignment comes from... well, Savage is starting to move from a 22 or 23 step assembly line machining process, with all the associated opportunities for cumulative error, to CNC machining (got the first big cnc machine in December, went on line in early summer, I think it's just doing the new Target actions right now). Before that... yes, there were probably some that got machined funky. I've had Remingtons that a drunken monkey must have drilled the scope base holes in the receiver, so its not just a Savage problem. The other possibility is that the heat treating process may have caused some warpage. With the relatively thin connecting pieces between the front and rear receiver bridges... there is some significant opportunity for twisting as things cool down after heat treating. Now I think the current process is just to heat treat the front receiver portion, so that may be reduced somewhat. Lastly... who ever torques those barrels down must have arms like Popeye, as I've had a bugger of a time getting a couple of them off. Any debris in between the mating surfaces in there as things get wrenched down could cause some misalignment as well. At any rate, first try contacting your dealer, the importer, or Savage, second try some rings like the Burris Signature series and get things lined up. Get that barrel cleaned up, and I think you'll be happy with your new rifle. HTH, Monte

Bobby, Looks pretty slick. I've seen pictures floating around other places; not sure if they are marketing the same thing or a knockoff of John's work. It is one of those things that the first time I saw it, I stopped and thought 'Now why did it take so long for someone to come up with that?!?' I have a gun that uses the AICS system that I use for practical/tactical competitions (and after the new barrel in 6-6.5x47L, varmints!) that I just may have to get one of those for. The only pity is that its not legal for F-Class (through no fault of its own). Monte

Hello all, I finally 'cured' my 550 of its sticky primer problem after fighting it for a while (year plus), and thought I'd share the trick w/ those who might also need it. What was happening: primer slide sticking back, hesitating, then snapping forward. This resulted in primers flipping and landing upside down or sideways, or just launching out of the primer cup entirely. I tried everything suggested to me, ranging from lubing the slide w/ dry graphite, cleaning and polishing every surface of the primer slide itself, checking the op rod wire, the rollers, replacing the tip of the primer feed tube, etc. Nothing seemed to make much difference. A couple emails back and forth with Dillon tech support covering all the above resulted in a simple response - "Send it in". While very generous and no doubt they would have got it fixed faster, I couldn't bring myself to send it in for such an intermittent problem - some times it would go days without a hiccup, and then suddenly stick almost every time. So, I limped by, riding the handle up very slowly so the inevitable 'snap' forward wasn't enough to cause too many problems... other than an abysmally slow production rate. In my most recent bout of troubleshooting, I ran the problem by the folks in the Reloading forum over on Sniper's Hide. Again, we covered all the bases listed above. I had determined that the slide stuck just *after* it cleared the primer tube, and did it no matter whether it was under spring pressure or not, and regardless of whether the primer housing was tightened down or not. Then one fellow mentioned checking for 'ripples' on the housing. I cleaned the inside of the housing thoroughly (again), and sure enough, with the freshly cleaned and polished surface I could just see two 'ripples' where over-tightening the mounting bolts had bulged the aluminum housing (which is fairly thin right there). A few minutes w/ a small 4" mill file to knock off the high spots (I didn't want to take it down to perfectly flat - that would entail taking off more metal than I was comfortable with - apparently it wasn't that flat to begin with) and suddenly my primer slide works perfectly! Oh happy days! At any rate, I thought I'd share this little 'fix' as I don't see it in any of the various help documents for primer feed troubles on a 550... maybe I haven't found 'em all. HTH, Monte

So... how well does that work with boxes of Remington 7-1/2 Small Rifle primers... If you've got a secret for flipping those little buggers over w/o doing the 'chase' bit... I'm all ears.

Dunno about the rest, but I think yer dreamin' if you think Dillon is going to do this one... it'd be tantamount to slitting their own throat, by undercutting one of the reasons people buy Super 1050's in the first place. Just a thought.

Steve, No offense to the good people @ Dillon... but I don't think the 1200 Rapid Trim is really what you want for precision long range accuracy rounds. A Wilson (if you are willing to run by hand) or a Giraud (if you want it powered) are probably better routes to go. Maybe I'm wrong, and the Dillon is the cat's meow for this sort of thing. I know people who use one in conjunction w/ a Lyman 'M' die to circumvent the need to chamfer/debur (supposedly), but I'll stick w/ my Giraud for now. Monte

Another cheap and easy option to try would be to throw it in the freezer overnight. The metals should contract at different rates, and it may release some of the 'grip' of the die on the stuck case. It's worth a try before you send it off, and it's not exactly invasive where it risks damaging the die in any way. HTH, MOnte

The problem w/ the 168 SMK has less to do with the velocity and more to do with the angle of the boat tail... basically as the bullet starts to slow down thru the trans-sonic region, the 168s boat tail tends to cause it to be unstable and yaw - and ultimately go through the target sideways (key hole). Sometimes it makes it, sometimes it doesn't. I've watched a guy randomly pepper the target w/ 168s going 2800+ from a 28" tube (after shooting quit well with 175s), but you do hear of people shooting them w/ little/no problems. Basically, it *can* work, but isn't a high enough probability bet for me to put any money on. The 168gr Berger VLDs might be an option if you are really stuck on that weight. The 175s work, as do 190s (both Berger and Sierra). Most of the top finishers at the US FCNC were running 155s... they shoot a little flatter (less demands on the adjustment range of the scope) and they fly a little better in the wind at the velocities they normally get launched at... 2900-3000fps. For the 175s, 43-44gr RE-15, or 44-45gr Varget should work very well. Lapua cases tend to use about a grain or so less powder than Winchester cases, so be careful and work up accordingly. For the 155s... anywhere from 45 to 47gr Varget works really well for a lot of people. A lot depends on what kind of chamber/throat/barrel you have... I've put 47.5gr behind a 155 Nosler in a Winchester case thru a factory 26" barrel - 2940fps. I've shot 45.2gr Varget behind the same bullet in a slightly heavier case in a 30" custom tube - 2930fps. Start about 44-45gr and work up. One of the current 'fads' is the 154gr Lapua Scenar - the bullet is literally a hair longer than a 175SMK, advertised BC is a RCH higher, and you can still boot it out pretty fast. Theoretically the best of both worlds. Some conflicting reports as to whether it lives up to its rated BC, and of course you need to feed your gun what it likes. Noslers and Bergers work pretty well for me so far. HTH, Monte Team Savage

25.0-25.5gr H335

Couple observations... I was at a 'smiths shop one time and he showed me a Browning A-Bolt Stalker that was in for some work or another. It was in a synthetic stock, and there was some bedding 'goo' around the recoil lug area. Note I did not say 'compound', I said 'goo'. Looked like nothing other than semi-hard rubber cement! Not exactly confidence inspiring. Second, and this I admit is 'second' or 'third' hand... supposedly Browning uses some sort of gawd-awful high-temp epoxy to secure the barrels in place. Simple torque and a dab of Loctite apparently isn't enough. I've heard stories of people twisting receivers, ripping threads loose, etc. trying to remove barrels for re-barrel jobs. Seems like the factory intends them to be used as is, until they die, then you just buy a new one. I know most 'factories' don't like the idea of you or me or some gunsmith fiddling w/ their product from a liability standpoint, but once I buy it, it's *mine*. Anywho, these are some of the reasons tossed out anytime someone asks 'Why not Browning' for precision rifles. It's not that they aren't accurate enough or couldn't be made so... but the factory seems to go out of their way to make it difficult to work on them. When you can buy Remington or Savage rifles or receivers and get working, why bother w/ the Browning unless you are out to prove a point?

Eric, For most shooting, you're probably right. Hell, for most of *my* shooting, you're probably right. I was a little perturbed since I thought I'd found a way to short-cut or speed up the process of getting all the carbon gunk out of my long-range match cases. Monte

Alrighty... I've been using this stuff for a while now, tumbing a variety of cases for rifle ammo... .223 Rem, .308 Win, & 6mm BR. It seems to work fairly well overall. Definitely learned *not* to decap the cases before tossing them in the tumbler w/ the rice. Sure-fire recipe for getting the primer pocket jammed full of rice kernels! Anyway... I was wondering if anyone else had noticed a build-up of some sort on the inside of the case, specifically the neck? I had run a batch of .308 cases thru the tumbler w/ rice before I put them thru the ultrasonic cleaner (the idea being to knock off the bulk of the nasty stuff first). One thing led to another, and the cases wound up in the tumbler for oh... a couple days (don't ask). When I went to US clean them, it seemed like they had a hardened glaze on the inside that was even *harder* to get off than the regular carbon fouling was. Great! I'm curious if anyone else has ran into this sort of thing. At this point I haven't had a chance to tumble more cases to see if it was the length of time they got left in the tumbler, the kind of rice, the additive I used, or what, that caused the glazing. If anyone has any useful input, I'm open to suggestions! TIA, Monte

How does Benchmark run through the Dillon powder measure? I have a pound here that I've been meaning to try (along w/ a lot of other things) but I've still got 4+ lbs of AA2230C that I need to use up for 200SF/RF practice ammo first. The AA2230C was cheap, meters well, and shoots 'well enough', but not as well as H335/W748 for me. Once its gone, it's gone (they don't offer it any more). I 'know' the two ball powders mentioned work great thru nearly any powder measure made, and shoot very well, but as mentioned, they are a bit temp sensitive if you run max loads (I don't for 100/200... 600+ is another story though) and I am open to new options. A lot of my varmint hunting buddies seem to swear by Benchmark, though. Another option I'm playing with this winter (burning through a lot of 'odds-n-ends' in the powder cabinet) is some Ramshot Xterminator. Ball powder, meters like water, supposed to be similar to H335 in burn rate and it seems to shoot pretty well so far (been working with 53gr SMK flat-base out of a Savage bolt gun w/ a 24" Lothar-Walther 1-8 twist, and a scratch built varmint/target AR w/ a 1-7 twist 20" Wilson)... so far 25.3gr of Xterminator in a Winchester case w/ a Rem 7.5 primer seems to work pretty slick @ 100yds (no chrono data yet, need a new IR screen for my CED Millenium).

Good luck with the WW748, I've never had any luck with it, actually bad experiences so be careful if you're working near max loads. FYI, pressure rises with the temperature. If you work up your max loads on a cool day, you'll blow primers on a hot day. Agreed, max loads w/ ball powders can make for interesting times... Thats why that load is a good bit below 'max' (I've talked to guys running 27+gr w/ the same components). They were after velocity; I was after accuracy. 26.3-26.5gr W748 behind a 52gr SMK HPBT is an excellent hunnert-yard one-holer in most guns I've ran it thru. YMMV, of course.

50-55gr bullet and 25.0-25.5gr H335 is one of those loads where if it doesn't shoot (very) sub-MOA... there is usually a problem w/ the gun or the shooter... but not the load ~26.5gr of Win748 falls into the same category... shoots great, meters well, etc. etc. Still a ball powder, so I wouldn't leave the ammo baking in the hot summer sun or laying in a snow bank in the winter... otherwise should be okay.

Like I said... 'unfortunately, I can say that feature... works fairly well'. Hornady One-Shot spray lube didn't work so well for me. Back to the Dillon Case Lube for this feller. But if you have some Berdan primed cases slip into the mix... the decapping pin in a Dillon .223 die will turn into a dandy little 'J' hook... and then the case will *not* come free, even after you go thru all the usual motions. No fun. I think we ended up having to Dremel off the case head, use a carbide ball tip on a Dremel to carefully reach in and amputate the decapping pin, and then pull things apart. Like I said, no fun. It's been a while, so I might be a little fuzzy on the details, but that was the gist of it.

Another silly question for you... are you dialing out the parallax using that AO? I mean really checking and dialing it out, not just setting it to the number that coincides w/ the range you are shooting at? There can be some considerable difference on individual scopes. Sometimes the difference can be the target you are shooting on... I've found that w/ the right target size/shape I can shoot some dang small groups w/ lower powered scopes (<10x for me). And as mentioned before... if you're at the 'limit' of what the load can do... thats about all yer gonna get. Good luck, Monte

Thats actually a good point... many fixed power scopes of 10-12x and above have some way to adjust the parallax setting so as to minimize the effects of parallax while shooting. I know I've had a couple scopes that I couldn't get the parallax dialed out at higher magnifications (20-24x) and had to dial down as low as 10-14x before I could tighten up the group. Those were lemons as far as I was concerned... Does your scope have an adjustable objective (AO)? Being a fixed 12x I'd guess it does, but its low enough still that it might not.

Hmmmm... my NRA Match Rifle (WOA spacegun upper) has a 26" barrel (standard configuration from the 'smith)... and I've seen 'em w/ barrels out to 28-30" on bolt guns. Mine actually has a 4" bloop tube on it (which is okay for Prone, but it is a bit much for Offhand). For any sort of shooting that actually involved moving around... I could make due w/ a 24-26" tube (being only somewhat smaller than yer average yeti) but I'd sure rather have a 20" or shorter. YMMV, Monte

Pat Kelley, Not sure about 'accomplished' . More like 'lucky' Thanks, though! Patrick Sweeney, Kind of what I thought about the threading... I think Holliger has Frank White down @ Compass Lake do the machining on those barrels in a CNC setup. Not impossible to get a lemon, but I'd be dang surprised. I was using the supplied jam nut to secure the brake in place once I had it 'timed' where I wanted it. If overtightening can cause problems, that might have been it. Either that thing self-tightened with firing, or I must have gotten carried away snugging it down, as it was awful tight when I took it off. I ordered some crush washers when I put the A2 flash hider on my Service Rifle... I don't know what it takes to actually 'crush' those things, but it was more than I was willing to put my considerable weight behind with my upper held in an action block for fear of tweaking something I shouldn't. I'll try the tuner thing this next week as I get some time to make some trips to the range (about five minutes from my house). Thanks, Monte

Thanks for the responses, folks. The barrel in question is a White Oak Armament 20" Service Rifle tube... Wilson 1-7" twist, full 1" under handguards, .730 forward of the gas block, etc. Probably the third or fourth one of these I've had, and all the rest have just hammered, even with an A2 flash hider installed (on my Service Rifle). Right now this one just has a knurled thread protector whoozit from Adco Firearms on there so I don't have to worry about mucking up the threads. Okay... I gotta ask... if the bullets were really ticking the brake on the way thru... wouldn't the shooter notice?!? I was always under the impression that sort of thing lead to rapid disassembly of the brake followed by changing of underwear by the shooter... When I finally pulled that brake off of the muzzle, it was on there tight. Almost thought I was going to have to go search for a bigger hammer Pat, Just finished up 'hell' week, coming up on my week of four 8 hr days, then my week off. Running the last 600yd match (for us) of the year tomorrow @ NCW Gun Club. Thanks, Monte

Hello, Have an AR that I'd purchased a nice Miculek brake on when I assembled it, and I just about pulled out what little hair I have left trying to get that blasted thing to shoot. Even my special bullet-fairy pixie dust loads (i.e. known good loads that usually shoot little knots in pretty much any gun I've tried them in) shot maybe 1 MOA at best, most everything else hovered around 1.5-2 MOA. For a heavy AR w/ bipod off a bench, w/ a NXS 3.5-15x scope... that didn't cut it, needless to say. I'd tried all sorts of load development, just couldn't find anything it liked. Took the brake off and it was like night and day... bullets just clumped together on the paper like they had a homing system or something (as it should be ) So... at this point it looks like the brake was the culprit. Any ideas as to 'why'? Thanks, Monte

Okay. Obviously a ground-up build would be ideal. I'm not in a situation where thats feasible; I already have several ARs and would like to press one of them into service for a 3-gun match or two per year. At least one of the local ranges that has 3-gun matches has a bay that goes out to 450yds, one out to 100yds, and everything else is considerably closer. AR#1: NRA Service Rifle. 20" heavy barrel under the hidden float tube, .730 forward of the FSB, A2 sights, A2 flash hider, weighs about 12 lbs w/ just enough ballast to balance it on the D-ring. It has a hooded rear leaf w/ removeable aperatures. I can either remove the hood, giving me a humongous ghost ring for close in stuff and flip to the other leaf for the longer shots. Alternately, I could use a red-dot on a goose-neck mount. I'm not wild about a 4-8 moa dot for the longer range stuff; almost feel like I'd be better of w/ the irons. AR#2: NRA Match Rifle. 26" heavy barrel under the float tube, .730 forward of the gas block. Full match aperature sights (Phoenix Precision w/ Gehmann adj. aperature in the rear, RPA Tall Boy ladder front sight w/ Gehmann glass ring adj. aperature in the front. Creedmoor Evolution adjustable stock. 13+ lbs. 4" bloop tube/ extension epoxied onto the barrel (think in terms of a 30" long barrel). Very accurate. AR#3: Scratch built 'SPR'. Same barrel as Service Rifle (20" HBAR contour), YHM float tube, JP gas block, Magpul PRS stock, A4 flat-top upper w/ Nightforce NXS 3.5-15x50mm in LaRue SPR-E mount, muzzle threaded for brake/comp. 13+ lbs w/ scope. Considering possibly putting a 1-4x scope like a Millet DMS in another SPR-E mount and swapping out as needed... but that scope + mount is a lot of $$$ sitting around unused most of the year. Also considering some sort of side / secondary iron sight setup... figuring $100-150 which isn't *too* bad, considering most of the other viable options (other than just sticking w/ the irons on the Service Rifle cost at least that much if not 2-3x once optics are added) Like I said, a purpose-built gun would be nice, but not really a viable option at this point. I'm half-ways tempted to just use AR#3 as is w/ the scope left on 3.5x and see how bad it really gets Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Monte