TobyJ

Thanks Tampa-XD45 (I grew up in Tarpon Springs, BTW)...I had read your posts when doing some searching the other night. So they are both Uzi mags...huh...one is clearly 'modified', but the other looks like a factory mag release cut. Good to know. I don't have any colt mags handy, but I'm sure I can come up with some to try. Another question about the bolts...what's the difference between glock and colt? I haven't been able to find any good pics, and some manufacturers claim one or the other, while some just say colt / glock compatible. Picture of the faces of the two bolts I have is attached. If I end up having to get a different mag block, I would consider glock, since I shoot glock handguns

Hello there, I have a registered SBR lower, that I'd like to build a PCC on to dabble in the division. I mentioned this to a buddy at the range, and he told me he had some blocks, bolts, and mags that he' make me a good deal on. He's out of town for a month, and I'm not sure how much experience he had with these anyway, so I figured I'd ask my questions here. The pic attached is what he gave me...told me to figure out what, if any of it worked for me, and we'd figure out a price. First the blocks...Of the two, the 'two toned' one (left in the picture) is an extremely tight fit in my lower, whereas the all black one drops right in. with the upper off, both mags (colt and modified uzi, from what I can tell) both insert fine and drop free. One I add even a stripped upper, both mags get noticeably harder to insert, and no longer drop free. It would appear that the upper is squishing the top of the adapter into the mags. I've tried searching this, and didn't find anything directly to the point, but I did read where some folks had better luck with metalform mags in the 'drop free' category. Next the bolts. I am currently running a law tactical folder on the lower, and would like to keep it. It appears that the bolt on the left is standard length, and I'd just need to modify the weight to allow me to get the LT bolt extension installed, and adjust buffer weight accordingly, so that's the one I plan to go with. As with the mag blocks, I don't know any manufacture info on either bolt, so any input is welcomed. Both bolts are ramped as well, and would seem to be compatible with my Layke Tactical trigger. Other than the low investment, I don't have any real reason to use these, over other stuff out there. So if I can't get the block sorted out, I will probably turn to a Kak or Hahn unit (leaning toward kak, as I'd like to keep the investment down...as I'm still dabbling at this point. Thanks for any input, Toby

I used a version of the candle method (you can find all sorts of stuff on youtube) on my G34, and I really like the way it came out. Points much more naturally, IMO. Toby

I've used arredondo, tried, and hennig...they all work, and they all require some mods to work well. I like the arrendondos the best, but make sure you get the 10mm version. Midway and a few others list them as working for .45 and 10mm, but the springs and followers are different.

Based on the last CO rule about classification, does that mean that they will not have CO classifications for a while (makes sense, as they get a body of scores)? er I shot an 'outlaw' IDPA matched last night with my G34 / rmr and it was pretty cool. Might be something I want to do more of. Toby

I've had one of his triggers in my gen 4 34 for about 6 months, and probably 6-7000 rounds...I really like it. I had a little trouble with the overtravel being set up too short, so I actually just took that screw out. Didn't really notice a difference. Trigger is short and crisp, using a 4.5lb striker spring, and I haven't had any misfires with win or fed primers. Now that flat triggers are legal in CO, I'm thiinking of having him build me a new one with a flat shoe. Toby J

Could be sizing, or could be coating...I have also run Blue Bullets, which they say are sized .355 and .400 accordingly, with no leading. They used to have an explanation on their site about why properly coated bullets don't need to be oversized. But they also use something other than hi-tek. I don't have any of the 135 SNS 9mm's lying around, but I did find one 200gr .40, and it measured just under .401. These leaded in two different .40 barrels. Would a full .401 or .402+ have fixed the leading? Might have, but so did switching to plated bullets :-)' Bunches of folks have great luck with SNS, and other than the leading, I found them to be top notch...very accurate, quite reasonable, and very quick shipping. They just aren't right for me, right now. TobyJ

I had been running tg with sns, but had leading issues in 3 guns...my .40 Trojan, my glock 20 with .40 like wolf barrel, using 200gr sns...and my g34 using 135gr Rn's. I could see noticeable lead in the last inch or so of barrel after only a couple hundred rounds. I don't think it ever affected function or accuracy, but I didn't like it. Folks have said it's the heat from the tg, and others claim to shoot sns over tg with no issue. I don't know. Now I shoot frontier plated in everything. 200 gr rnfp in the .40's, and 135 or 147 rn in the 9. Toby J

4.0 gives me 170ish with 200gr sps in my Trojan...but that's loaded out to 1.23. TobyJ

Just to close the loop on this one... I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner, but changing the recoil spring helped ALOT! The one that came out was about 2/3 the length of the new 14 lb one I put in. Considering it is a used gun, that should have been one of the first things I tried. Feeding the 1st round of the 10rd cobra mag got much better, but still not perfect, every time. Next, I tried the 200gr round nose bullet from SNS, and it has so far, been flawless. 3.9 gr of TG at 1.23 gets me 170pf, and is quite accurate Finally, on the advice of Tripp, I installed an EGW heavy duty mag catch, which holds the magazine about .020 higher. Not a drop in part, but after about an hour of 800 grit work, it fits great, and works great. With this in, I have been able to run either of the blue bullets down to 1.19, without a hitch. So while I could go back to loading longer, or even loading one of the blue bullets, I like the SNS load, so I think I'll just stick with that. TobyJ

Yep...1.23 allows me to load all 10 rounds, they feed, and they plunk and spin I'd load shorter if I could get all those, and that's sort of the point of the post. I think I can probably get it to run with shorter loads, but with other mods...but I don't see any upside. TobyJ

I picked up a used Trojan .40, and am working on my go to load. I am wanting to use the Tripp system 10mm mags, so as to be able to load up for USPSA Single Stack minor or major, as well as limited 10. Used the gun this weekend in a USPSA match, with good results. Load was HPN plated 180gr RNFP over 4.6 of TG, loaded to 1.18. I shot USPSA Major, so I never tried more than 9 in a mag (first one, with the barney), and all ran great. Today, I was testing with some Blue Bullets, both the 180gr and the 200gr RNFP, over 4.5 and 4gr of titegroup, respectively, loaded to 1.18 OAL. Since I bought the 10rd mags to be able to load 10 rounds, I gave that a try. Well, on the slide rack load, the bullets went nose down into the ramp, and the slide wouldn't close. A quick rap on the bottom of the mags fixed it, and once the first round was in, the rest fed without issue, with either blue bullet. Went back and tried the 180 plated, and loaded to 10, same issue. Loaded to 9 or less, and the plated runs great, with the blue bullets occasionally requiring the mag tap to get the first round to load. 8 or less, and all three work fine. I've done quite a bit of searching, and I see that others have had this problem. I've seen various fixes like re-ramping barrels, bending or filing feed lips, using .45 mags (this does work, but then I lose the 10 rd capability) as well as a higher mag catch (that one seems like it would work, as well), but those all seemed a bit drastic, so i started playing with OAL. At 1.23, I can get either blue bullet to feed first round, with the tripps loaded to 10, using the standard 'make ready' style slide rack (pull it back and let it fly). 1.23 also passes the plunk and spin test in the barrel, so I should be good there. other than tweaking the powder to account for the larger case volume created by the longer oal, is there anything else I need to consider? I've found a couple of threads where folks load out this long for .40, but most seem to stay at 1.20 or below, so I wasn't sure if there was some upper limit. My plan was to add .2gr of powder, and chrono. Looking at 10mm data, which is usually at 1.26 OAL, I think I'll be more than fine. I suppose I could also try a round nose bullet, if somehow staying to 1.20 or less will really make a difference Thanks for any help, TobyJ

Sorry...haven't been back to this thread for a while. To answer some of the questions, I use Winchester primers, and put every round I shoot through a shockbottle 100 hole case gauge, which is much pickier than my glock barrel and any plunk test I could do with it. The primers were not going in deep enough. Most were barely flush, and some seemed slightly proud (would wobble on the table)...and it appears to have been a tolerance issue with the press. I found a thread over on ar15 dot com, where a machinist was looking into why his shell plate movement was so jerky. He found that when it was all put together, there was .014 of clearance between the surface plate and the shell plate. He shimmed that down to like .003, and the jerky-ness went away. In that thread, it was also mentioned that this could be part of the problem some were having with high primers. I also had the jerky-ness issue (some of my HS-6 loads would actually spit out small amounts of powder on indexing), so I figured I'd look there. I didn't have the fancy measuring tools he had, so i tried just a .007 shim...that seemed to be too much, so I tried a .004...and that worked. The indexing is much smoother, and the primers are seating to just below flush. If you look at where the primer ram is mounted (to the surface plate), it becomes obvious how removing space between the surface plate and the shell plate effectively allows the ram to go higher. Should be close to 1:1, so my primers can now be seated .004 deeper. In the same thread, others reported having much less clearance than what the op did, which makes sense, given the tolerance differences in the parts. Combine that with the differences in firing pins, springs, etc., and it doesn't surprise me that some folks have no issues. I also found lots of stuff on the net about folks who have just given up priming on the LNL for one reason or another. My guess is that if they tried the shim thing, they might be able to get it to work. Thanks for all the input, TobyJ

Thanks...I found a thread over at AR-15 dot com where someone measured the tolerances between the shellplate and the backing plate, finding quite a bit of slop. His problem was jerky movement as the detent balls snapped into place (another problem I have), and fixed it with shims. By shimming the backing plate up, it will move it closer to the shellplate, which will, in turn, allow the primer ram to run up that much further. Now all that's assuming that it is a mechanical limit, and not a leverage issue, as you seemed to experience. I've got a set of shims on order, and they will be here today...fingers crossed! I looked at the penny / dime fix, and I don't see that as a solution. The primer ram stem bottoms out on the body, so unless your shim only contacts the ram (really small diameter), it won't change the protrusion. Now on some older presses, it seems that the primer ram actually makes a dimple on the press, and I could see where the shim might help there, but mine hasn't done that yet. TobyJ

They seem to have solid hits, although they are not as pronounced as the ones that go bang...not sure how much of that has to do with the extra pressure the ones that go bang go through. It's all mixed brass, out of the same batch I've been reloading for a while...same as the stuff that goes bang from the lee press. And the ones that don't have varied headstamps...so it's not one brand. Primers seems unlikely, as I don't see how a few from each box of 100 could get contaminated, leaving the rest ok. And it also seems strange that none of the contaminated ones ended up in the Lee loaded ammo...they are all from the same carton of 1000 that has been sitting in my office since I bought them about 2 weeks ago. Thanks for the thoughts, though... TobyJ

As the title says...I loaded up about 200 rounds on the LNL. Load is the same, 5.6gr HS6 under a 135 frontier plated at 1.13 that I had been loading on the lee. Primers from the same box of 1000, even used the Lee dies. Took them to a match yesterday, and had regular failures to go bang...like 6 out of 30 on the first stage. Thinking it might be my new (less than 200 rounds) wolf 4.5 striker spring, I changed it out for the factory striker spring. Next stage was better, but still had a couple fail to go bang. Moved on to the classifier, when I found a bag of rounds I had loaded on the Lee. Same batch of primers and powder, but these were 115gr frontiers over 6.8 gr HS6. All 12 for the classifier went bang, as the did the 8 for the mini stage that was next. Unfortunately, I didn't have any more of those, so I went back to the 135's for the last stage, with similar results. I think I had 2 fail to go off, out of 28. Came home last night, and looked for anything that might be amiss. I found that the primer seater assembly was only finger tight, as was the shell plate. Figured that might allow for high primers, so I tightened both up. Loaded up another 100 rounds this morning, and headed for the range. Same issue, had several failures, so I shelved those. This time, I also tried to restrike a couple, but they still didn't go boom. I had also grabbed another bag of rounds from off the lee, this time they were 147gr frontiers over 3.3 of titegroup, so I tried those, and all 40 or so went bang. Called up Hornady, and the guy thought I might be seating the primers too deep (??). Figured yesterday they were not deep enough, due to the shell plate and the primer seater being loose, and that today, I tried to make up for it by man handling the setup, setting them too deep. I've never heard of that being a problem, but did manage to find several posts on the old interweb where folks said that you could damage primers by seating them too deeply, or that maybe the striker couldn't reach them well enough to ignite. So I loaded up 21 rounds, trying to seat them 'just right'...3 failed to ignite, and wouldn't on a restrike either. Gun ran fine for 250 rounds (all from the lee) last week, and ran the lee loaded rounds today, so I think I've ruled the gun out as an issue. All rounds from either press have passed a shockbottle case gauge, so I don't think its an out of battery issue, either. Other than 'buy a Dillon (which is an option), anyone have any other thoughts? Thanks in advance, TobyJ

My first load was 115gr plated at about 1250 fps, and I'm also working with 100gr plated at around 1450. All seem to work the comp, and in my thus limited testing, I can't say that I notice a significant difference in recoil or muzzle flip. I was just surprised how quickly the 135 made major. TobyJ

I'm never sure if it is better to resurrect an old thread, or start a new on the same topic...folks seem to get blasted for both, so here goes... I found a 9mm Major load for my glock 34 sort of by accident today. I am using 135 gr, .355 Frontier plated bullets, with HS-6, looking for a minor pf, high gas load to run a lone wolf comp on a lone wolf, alpha dog barrel. Hodgdon site lists loads for a berry's 130 plated, with a starting point at 5.9gr for 970fps, and a max load of 6.5 for 1097. I was looking for 140pf, or so, with lots of gas, I figured I'd try 5.9 and then 6.3 (yeah, I skipped 6.1), loaded to 1.13 Here's where the surprise came in...the 5.9 load came in at 1175 fps, and I made major with the 6.3 load, at an avg. of 1242fps! I was not expecting that. I found one other post where someone reported that they made major with 7.1gr of HS-6 and 135 berry's (in a CZ, I believe), but this barrel has proven to be fast, and I had planned on working up to major at some point, but I was expecting to hit it at 6.8, or so...but not 6.3. Since I wasn't planning on being anywhere near that high a PF, I was using range pickup brass, that has probably been loaded 7 or 8 times, but still don't see any bad signs on the cases or the primers. gun is a Gen 4 MOS with a Jager stainless rod and ISMI 15lb spring and it ran flawlessly. I just started messing around in open (gun was my carry optics gun two weeks ago), and really didn't plan on going major, and am not sure I am going that way, yet. I know I would at least need a bigger comp, which could mean other changes, but I just wanted to share my experience. As always...my load in my gun, and nothing bad happened. TobyJ

I run one of those on my lee turret, when I load subsonic 300 blackout. With such a small amount of powder, in such a deep case, any other form of visual inspection is difficult at best. I drilled a small hole in the turret, and am able to look down into the case to see the powder quite easily. TobyJ

I've been through 2 vipers...glass fell out of the first one. Replaced under warranty, but replacement failed after about 10 rounds. Dot went to top of glass, and wouldn't adjust. Sent that one back, and asked vortex if I'd be better off with a venom. They didn't really answer the question, other than to say a new venom is headed my way. Tobyj

So what about one of these as an open gun...it's the semi-famous 'SP-01' Compact, or 'Steel compact with a rail'. It's built like a tank, and weighs in at 38 ounces with empty mag. Apparently they are some sort of CZ contract overrun. I'm working on trying to get it approved for Carry Optics under the 'at least 500 offered for sale' clause, as this version isn't listed as a production gun. While I expect it to be approved to run CO, I was thinking about where else I could run it. CZ Custom has a threaded barrel for it that measures 4.22" from the breech face, which puts it right in line with some of the short barreled open guns. It will take regular CZ75 mags, so that part is easy, and with the shorter grip, clearance for a magwell won't be an issue (provided a mag well is available). Optic could go on the slide, obviously, but I would think a frame mount would work well, also Do a SAO trigger, and I think it might work well. One concern I have would be the 9 major loads, but like I said, this thing is built like a tank. Like I said, my plan is to use in in CO, but I like options :-) TobyJ

I've wondered about this...as in, what about an excessive crimp hurts accuracy. It can't be just the groove, as some bullets feature cannelures or even lube grooves. I'm not saying it doesn't, I'm just curious as to why. And I have no intention of trying these...I just thought it was interesting to see plated bullets with big crimp marks being sold. As others have said, they are pulls for a reason...maybe that's a big part of it. TobyJ

This post was less about the value of the projectiles, but more about the big crimp mark, and how maybe 'over crimping' isn't the problem lots of folks think it is. I have had good luck with many different plated bullets...Xtreme, Berry's, and most recently Frontier, in both 124 and 147. I've always crimped 'just enough', and would have tossed stuff that looked like this. TobyJ

I came across some 'demilled' plated bullets online...doesn't say what ammo they were pulled from, but they have large qty's available. Does the military use plated 9mm for anything? Figure its either them, or a large commercial outfit. What really caught my eye, though, is the noticeable crimp mark on the bullet. I've always thought that such a mark would not only mean that the crimp die is set wrong, but that the bullets likely wouldn't stabilize, and all sorts of other bad stuff. Assuming these were part of some 'professionally loaded' product, I'm thinking either the deep crimp is not that big of a deal (as long as the plating isn't cut) or maybe that's why these ended up as pulls. If the latter, sort of lame to put them up for sale... FWIW, they are 147gr plated, and are being sold for $.06 each over at reloading valley. TobyJ

Can't help with your setup, specifically, but I had originally gone with the big 'hold everything' case, and now have gone back to just a gun rug in my range bag. Biggest reason is safety area rules, and how having mags in there with you could cause issues. I don't want there to be any chance for me to touch a loaded mag, or for someone to say or think I touched a loaded mag. TobyJ