NuJudge

The people at Front Sight in Nevada have Glocks as rental guns. Nine months a year they get shot 800 or so rounds a week. The sun is so strong you can get a sunburn on a cloudy day. The instructors talk about round counts above 200,000. They mention rails on the slide failing at the rear, but not near the ejection port, and nothing on the frame. They say they send them to Glock, and Glock replaces the slide, and back in service.

Can I suggest buying the book by Kuhnhausen before you do anything else? http://www.midwayusa.com/product/199119/the-colt-45-automatic-a-shop-manual-volume-1-book-by-jerry-kuhnhausen

I bought two conversion kits from Beretta USA's website late last year. No problems with them or the spare magazines. Lots of people are immediately skeptical about CTD.

Berdan primed cases reload just fine, you just have to have the primers. Berdan primers adds just one step.

Beretta has been hinting on their FaceBook page that they are making 92G-SD pistols. The discussions I have seen say the MSRP may be about $1300.

Just in general, Ball/Spherical/globular powders are more difficult to ignite at lower temperatures, and they may need a hotter primer.

I have never had any problem with using any type of large rifle primers for the Garand. The big thing is to get them seated slightly below flush, and have an adequately sized case, so you do not get slam fires.

To measure the cylinder throats, pin gauges. They are available from a variety of sources, including eBay. To measure the barrel groove diameter, you need to slug the barrel and then use a micrometer to measure the groove diameter.

http://gearscout.militarytimes.com/2014/12/30/the-m9a3-berettas-shrewd-move/ Since I have big hands, I do not like the Vertec grip, but I do like the slide, and I do like the 92G decocker-only. About the only thing they have not thrown in there is Brigadier-type lumps on the slide.

For what use, and for what bullet weight? For 100 yards, or for 200 yards on a range with no wind, 26.5gr 748 with a 52gr match bullet in a LC or WRA case will always shoot well. For match use, look at the New Jersey Highpower site's "Reloading Stuph" for loads with a variety of powders and bullet weights.

My father in law was in his 70's with a bad heart. I gave him a Remington 600, and loaded ammo for him using 125gr bullets with SR4759 powder. It worked fine. IMR is talking about ending SR4759 production next year, so if he goes that route, he needs to act quickly.

I don't know if you are interested in jacketed, but if you are look here: http://www.shootersproshop.com/nosler-products/nosler-blemished-2nds/nosler-10mm-135gr-jhp-sporting-handgun-bullets-blem-100ct.html

What is your barrel groove diameter? The groove diameter on my 9mm Beretta (5 barrels) and Walther (2 barrels) pistols are all just a bit under .358". With such a barrel, if you shoot a bullet smaller than groove diameter, and the bullet does not 'rivet' to the larger groove diameter on firing, you probably will have lots of gas blow by the bullet, removing lots of Lead from the bullet and depositing it in the bore. Lots of people like soft bullets, especially for lower pressure cartridges. If you go to the various 1911 forums, you will see people advocating softer bullets for .45 acp. If it works for them, God Bless them. I like hard bullets for everything. They do not rivet on firing. I try to load Lead bullets slightly larger than groove diameter. I don't have to worry about Power Factor or anything like that. I cast the Lee 358-125 RF using wheelweights and a little Tin, and drop it from the mold into a 5 gallon bucket of water. I have a Browning HiPower that also has a groove diameter that is about .358". It has a chamber that is really tight, and will not freely accept a cartridge assembled with a bullet larger than .356". That barrel gets jacketed.

For Military once-fired brass, give some thought to small base sizer die for at least the first loading. I really like doing that first sizing on a single stage press. After having an insufficiently sized case, the biggest pain in the neck in hand loading is trimming brass. Again, as noted above, let your wallet and how many cases you're doing be your guide. Dillon has a trimmer you can put on the 1050 press. Giraud makes the fastest stand-alone. Gracey is another stand alone, but it only trims, not chamfers. There are lots of relatively cheap mini lathes, some both trim and chamfer, some are self powered or can be powered with a hand drill. There are several new trimmers that you hold in your hands, but I know nothing about them. The easiest way to get such brass sized, trimmed, primer pocket crimp removed, is to send it out. There are several vendors on the Service Rifle boards that do this at a nominal cost.

I do have a lot of Lake City brass, that does have the Circle/Cross NATO symbol, but does not have a primer crimp. I bought it new, never loaded. In short, you should be able to see the crimp.

Take off your flash hider and put on a compensator.

Having big hands, I don't need the smaller grip of the Vertecs, but apparently Beretta USA is making a batch of stainless Vertecs. I hope they have some leftover slides, which I do like because of the front sight being in a dovetail.

What are you going to be shooting at, at what distance, and through what rifle? Also, what brass are you going to use? If you are going to be using once-fired military surplus brass and you have a tight chamber, you may well want to get a Small Base die. Once-fired military surplus brass may have some cases that were fired in machine-guns, and they tend to blow brass out a lot. Making such brass usable in a tight chamber takes a Small Base die. The more precision you ask from your rifle, the better the dies you will want. I shoot 200, 300 and 600 yard Service Rifle using highly tuned rifles a good bit. For that, I need very highly specialized dies. I use Redding dies for this purpose: http://www.midwayusa.com/product/248565/redding-type-s-match-bushing-2-die-set-223-remington?cm_vc=ProductFinding Some rifles such as the Mini-14 generally have loose chambers for reliability, and are used for plinking, varmint control and other non-precision purposes. If that is the case, Lee dies will probably be fine. The part about hand loading I dislike most is trimming cases. If the same is true for you, there is some tooling available from RCBS you might want to look at, and that is the X-Die. It is supposed to eliminate all be the first trimming after the first firing. It is also supposed to dramatically increase case life. I have bought one, but not used it yet.

The standard load for the M1A is 41.5gr of either 4895, a Sierra 168, in a LC case. For years I ran Federal primers, then switched to Winchester, and lately to CCI. A well maintained rifle, with either of these powders, should shoot better than you can. The advice regarding buying a box of Federal Gold Medal and group testing is good advice to check your hand loading. Are your groups bigger than they should be, or are you having fliers, especially if they are in a particular direction? High and low fliers at long range, with a dropping X count tell me a worn barrel. I started shooting M1A rifles in the late 1970s. The National Guard team members that instructed me told me to maintain the gas cylinder I should just dribble a little Hoppes in the gas vent. I later learned that was not sufficient. If you don't have the tools to disassemble and clean the gas system, get them and use them. My groups do get bigger after awhile if I do not. If the above do not resolve matters, it is probably bedding, and you need to send it to a 'smith.

I am a believer in really hard cast bullets, but they have to fit the pistol. I recently used a pin gauge on the cylinder throats of a newly acquired .44 Magnum 29-2, and found they were .428"! With groove diameters larger than that, it will be hard to not have Leading with cast bullets. Can I suggest that you have a gunsmith slug your cylinder throats and barrel to see what they measure. You want your cylinder throats to be the same, or slightly larger than your barrel groove diameter.

http://www.beretta.com/en-us/beretta-releases-limited-editions-of-iconic-90-series-pistols/?utm_campaign=Tactical%20Products&utm_content=9556325&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

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What does the fracture surface look like? You will probably need something stronger than a magnifying glass. Look for one of the following, or a mix of them: Fatigue failure will show marks like wave marks on a beach. This is the result of cyclical loadings well below what would cause plastic deformation. Fatigue is not supposed to happen in properly quenched and tempered steels loaded below something called the "Load Limit." Steel and Titanium are the only two common metals that show this quality. Brittle failure will be a low energy absorption fracture mode. The fracture surface looks crystalline. If brittle, I'd suspect the wrong alloy, or not tempered after quenching. Ductile fracture has a fibrous look to the fracture surface. Fracture surface is frequently a mix of two of these. The fact that it happened after just 50 shots says it probably is not fatigue. My experience in manufacturing was that the wrong material frequently gets into the supply chain, or heat treating gets done wrong, or doesn't happen at all. It would be hard to check whether the parts were fit right after the link broke.

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Beretta has now released a batch of 92FS Brigadiers. If you really want one, act fast, because there are apparently not a lot of them.