Joe4d

check your ejector and firing pin retainer

I too dont get the adjustable sights fascination, SOmehow people think they are more accurate, once you get them zeroed you pretty much never mess with them until they break, A good durable Novak or Hienie rear is the way to go, be advised though you may end up having to change the front sight to a different height.

Take the barrel out, how's the slide now ? If the problem goes away you have barrel fit issues, probably need to take it back to the guy that fit it. If the problem is still there, check your ejector, firing pin retainer, etc. Do Not take metal off the slide until you have isolated the problem.

really sit down and do the math, you'll need the upper, springs, magazines, etc, While good in theory, these switch top projects usually dont work out. You can very quickly spend more money than you would buying a complete gun the way you want. While it is possible I wouldnt bet the farm on a different top end just fitting and working on your existing frame,

I reamed my singlestack .40 for the same reason, so all my .40s could use the same ammo, it's pretty simple operation, all you need is a small vice to hold the barrel and a hand reamer,,as kend pointed out you are looking for a THROAT reamer not a chamber reamer, I rented my reamer if it is gonna pretty much gonna be a one time deal, I used 4d products (no relation) but there websight is down, check all the easy stuff first, make sure the chamber and throat are clean, you may only need a minor polish job.

That is an awful cheap and lazy way to address the possible problem of a shot leaving the range off a rear falling popper. First there are no local rules in USPSA, if this was a USPSA match the Area director needs to be all over it. If the club was that concerned about it stop using rear falling poppers and spend the few dollars to switch them to forward falling. If shooting a target is unsafe the problem is with the match and club officials not the shooter.

Probably easier to find a different bullet.

DOnt worry about the "support" thing you are reading in the manuals, just dont push the envelope on ur loads, really isnt any reason to. Its a .40 not a 10mm, The barrel removed from the gun makes the best case gauge, doing that will tell you if ur dies are ok, personally I did not have very good results with Dillon dies I got lots and lots of case gauge failures and quit using them.

Here ya go,,, traditional goat skin bota,, http://www.tienda.com/table/products/bb-02.html

You wanna try a Dillon .40 seating die ? that is the one that has the flip over seating stem, I have a nearly new one, I didnt like it, Its urs for whatever shipping is, I think there is a $4.95 flat rate box, PM me ur address and I'll mail it out monday.

looks like they have a new 130 gr 9mm mold, the rest still have lube groove, The jerkyness on loading was why I didnt like em,

http://www.dawsonprecision.com/ProductDetail.jsp?LISTID=65A0001-1142964355 These loaders are simple, cheap and work great if you have a flat surface, Yes I have to use them after about 15 rounds but not much of an issue my mags hold 20 and will easily reload 19.

The last time I bought westcoast/xtreme, back to something else, etc,,,I threw half of them away, These bullets are so bad they have to keep changing the name to trick a new bunch of shooters into buying them. I had a Nowlin match 9mm barrel that hated lead, I also was using bulk Speer 124's what looked like moly cast bullets in it, these just wouldnt group after a few magazines,, So I tried plated, this was in the days before flat rate boxes and a local dealer stocked bulk Berry plated, I had tumbling issues with tthe 147's but 124's worked great, I used alot of Berry 155's in .40 and 240's in .44 magnum. In the .40 and .44 cast and jacketed grouped better, but the Berry's were good enough, I bought Westoast once, Extreme, and Rainers, my experiences were horrendous, they were so bad as to be unsafe, there was no way to adjust the crimp to avoid either over crimping or bullet setback, I started measuring them and the were all over the place in size. I liked Berry's and had good results with them but they wernt as good as jacketed, and their prices went through the roof, I run Precision Moly now, Manufacturers figured out the market would support much higher bullet prices, and as long as we keep paying these inflated prices companies will keep charging them.

I dont understand your statement, "I don't want to spend a large sum of money and have the same issues I had with the 1911 not locking the slide back." You also mentioned the slide release being in the way,,, what exactly is the issue you are having ? The slide lock isnt used in USPSA limited, most widebody Limited and open guns have the slide stop completely disabled.

Thats pretty much all I use, Maybe something has changed but I get 20 in mine, STI tube, Dawson follower, ISMI spring. I do have to use a loader but they have been perfectly reliable.

Id buy some more mags and shoot what you have in Production division, an Open M&P is gonna be more of an experimental tinker with platform, You'll be traveling alot of uncharted territory, You'll have a much less uphill journey if you start off with a platform more suited for Open and Limited, Keep ur eye open for a used EAA witness open gun, or STI. Probably spend less than you would on a M&P and all the custom add on parts.

BBI's are using older style molds meant for cast bullets and lube, The grove makes em less smooth to load, I prefer the updated design of Precision, However, I wouldnt have any qualms about using them and loaded a bunch of Master Blasters

My point in bringing up wind speed and direction, was to point out that different things will make different poppers fall at different speeds, there is probably just as much variation between two rear falling poppers set up on different days, in different places as there would be between a front and rear falling popper, This is simply a single variable among many and probably not the most significant. People are suggesting rule changes, if everyone that thought any given issue was insignificant ignored the issue, we would have a rule book full of rules addressing issues found significant by a very few people.

Kudos for the tall Argentine shooting over the wall, and why is it an issue he had an advantage ? I wonder how many times he has shot through a 5 foot port where everyone else had an advantage over him ?

The Wizard of Oz, back in the days of only 2 or three channels on TV , everything stopped when this movie was broadcast, we watched it every year growing up.

I dont think this is a problem that warrants much attention, Are we gonna start adding wind speed and direction to the classifier description ? THe drive down issue is of limited use, but even if we say it does matter as sperman pointed out, Are we gonna start timing poppers ? Even with all forward or all rearward they fall at different speeds, I would have to see apretty big data base of the same classifier shot on rearward or forward before I would believe there was any difference whatsoever.

I think I would want another 170, always good to have a spare everything.

There is no Open class,,, but the same formula holds for a comped .40 as a comped 38 super, light bullets heavy charges of slow burning powder, 135's are hard to come by and expensive when you do, so most use 155's they are just easier to come by, after that Auto comp, power pistol, HS6, Bluedot, come to mind to work well, quite a bit of published data to go on.

You havnent mentioned what barrel you are using, I had issues shoting lead in 9mm, I never really found a load I liked for the Browning Hipower, and My 1911 game gun with a Nowlin match barrel gave me fits till I figured it out. I did all my acuracy tests with a clean barrel, But couldnt get past sharpshooter in IDPA because I was bombing points on stage three, Id come home and practice it do great, go to sanctioned classifier and blow stage three. One day I lost the front sight optic, and went to rezero with about 150 rounds since cleaning and was getting group size in feet. cleaned the bore went back to one hole groups, kept shooting and with each magazine the groups opened up more and more, I switched to winchester 115 hollow base bullets and never looked back, Moral of the story, the slightly undersized Nowlin barrels hate cast lead.

yeh no kidding 170 mm mags,, I just dot get these companies making wide body guns then not making magazines for them, Or a 6 inch in 45 ? Id like to see a 9mm set up for open, Make a standard 18/9 drill and tap the frame have a compensated barrel and include two 170mm magazines. I can add the rest myself.