macbolan

My middle daughter just recently got interested in shooting steel with me as well and has joined our local club. She shot her first steel match today and didn't DQ....we were both very happy. The primer and power shortage has slowed down our plans for a bit, but she mainly is interested in the rimfire pistol class and fortunately I did buy gobs of .22s last year before they seemed to evaporate. Hopefully that can keep us shooting matches on a more limited basis until primers start showing up again. If anybody in Northern CA wants to trade 1k of CCI BR-4 Small Rifle benchrest primers straight up for CCI or some other brand of Small Pistol primers....I'm willing to drive to a Starbucks parking lot..... I have seen small batches of primers show up at our Gun Club shop, but unless you are there that day, the word gets out and they are gone pronto. Anybody else seeing small batches of primers appear and disappear lately in your LGS?

Alright...Alright...Alright... (Thank you Mathew...) Remove a comp on a revolver that because of cylinder gap will probably never develop enough gas pressure to be effective........brilliant!! Looks like thats going to be an additional item I get done when I have an action job performed. I'm holding off on that until/if/when Federal primers again see the light of day. I'm shooting winchester primers now and there is no light strike issue or failure to fire. How about another noob question? Anybody have a favorite way to clean dirty moon clips after a match? Do you clean your moon clips? I just spent half an hour with an old tooth brush and Hoppes with the garage doors open. I have to wear latex gloves for this, not getting all that crud on my hands. Thanks, Mac

Well I shot in my second steel match since getting my 929 back and this time I had a different kind of failure. It was a smaller match, only 5 stages but when we got to stage 4 which was Pendulum, I could not for the life of me hit Plate #2. I was shooting Hi, I was shooting low, it was crazy. We got to the last stage, Accelerator when I noticed that the front comp was loose. We got an Allen wrench and screwed the comp cap back on tight and I finished the stage with more normal times and behavior. Ok, yet another thing to put on my Match pre-flight list. Extractor rod counter-screwed in tight - Check Comp cap allen screw still locked tight with locktite - Check Shooting optics and not Iron sights from now on - Check

I recently got my 929 back from S&W after stupidly sending it in because I could not thread the extractor rod back on....I didn't realize it was reverse thread. Sigh. Anyway, I shot it last week at the Hogue Range facility and a full Steel match, all 8 stages and did not have one cylinder lockup. Ran like a dream. I recently switched to 0.035 TK moon clips as well. That was probably my original issue, running with 0.040 moon clips. Guess I'll hang on to them if I ever start having FTF issues. One thing I have noticed is I got some of the less expensive blue steel TK moon clips and they load up much easier in my BMT Mooner than the Stainless steel ones. I'm just shooting steel matches, no ICORE or run and gun matches, so I think I can get by with the blue steel clips.

I have an ancient Para Ordnance P14 that I had built for IDPA and now want to shoot it in Steel Challenge limited, but its missing a grip screw. Anybody know where to get a set? I've tried Brownells and Sarco. The ones Sarco sent me are too small for the grip bushings.

So just so I understand the potential extractor - ejector rod issue I probably had. If the ejector rod becomes a bit loose under recoil, that would push the extractor back a little bit and possibly cause the cylinder lockup issue? Does that sound about right?

Intel6, do you know if the 929 uses the Small Extractor tool or the large one? Its an N Frame revolver.

Oh and I also got with the Buckmark a Ruger PCC 9, so I can use that with all the extra 9mm brass I have laying around. I still have some Winchester primers I can use for that.

Wow, I feel like such an idiot. Oh well, I was running out of primers anyway. Maybe I'll get the 929 back when Primers start becoming available again.....On the plus side, I did just get a new Buckmark today to start Rimfire steel shooting with...so there's that....And I can get rimfire ammo at least.

Well latest update on my 929 saga is I shipped it back to S&W today. I was going to have a red dot sight mounted on it and as I was cleaning it I noticed that the extractor was loose and moving back about an 1/8 of an inch when I just nudged the extractor rod, like it was loose. Then I messed with the extractor rod and it came out. So I think I have heard on one of these topics that the cylinder lockup could be caused by the extractor rod getting loose and backing out. That seems to have happened to mine. But when I tried to screw the extractor rod back together it would not thread properly. So I threw up my hands and sent it back with a description of the problem and a pretty pretty please to go thru it and see if there are timing issues and if other things are correct. Hopefully in a few weeks I'll get my gun back and I can run it with some 0.035 Tk moon clips and I won't get the intermittent sticking cylinder. I'll also try to contact S&W and ask them to check this "ball detent notch" thing. Thanks for pointing it out.

Early on I tried Winchester brass, still have the 2 or 300 cases I bought, but came to the decision with the .40 moons I had that Federal worked better. I'll get some .035 moons from TK and try those with the Winchester brass and see if that fixes the intermittent sticking issue. Thanks for the suggestion.

Thanks MWP. I've got a Lee Undersize 9mm die on back order. Seems many many more people discovered this remedy before me. I think the undersize die will fix the issue of the loaded moons not dropping easily into the Tk checker, but I'm not sure if that will fix the intermittent lockup issue. I was at the range yesterday and while running strings on steel stages, several times I had the cylinder lockup and I could not pull the trigger. I had to bump the cylinder to get it open. Something was hanging up. There were no extraction issues, the Federal brass just fell right out. So the thicker moons will not cause the cylinder lockup issues? Is .40 thickness on the TK moons sufficient? Thanks

OuterLimits - sorry just quoting what one of the distributors who buy millions of primers from Federal replied back to me. I hope you are right and this blows over after the election. My supply of Federals is running thin, but I do have a bunch of Winchester primers stocked up.

A representative at Ballistic Products emailed me back the other day that Federal has informed them that there will be no primers arriving for 12-18 months. I'll keep checking the various sites. Its going to be a while before this normalizes.

About 28 years ago I had just shot the 1992 Steel Challenge and was working up a light load for my wife's S&W 65 .38 special. I was shooting a 686. We both were shooting reduced power .38 special steel loads. I was loading on my Dillion 550 and I'm pretty sure I must have double charged because when I was testing the loads in my wife's revolver, I was startled when there was a much louder report and the cylinder cracked in two. Thank goodness for the billet aluminum Tasco pro point red dot sight mount or the top strap would have blown up as well. I stopped reloading for 28 years, have recently started back up with a rebuilt 550 press and load with no distractions. I also load with Red Dot, the fluffiest power I know, and 3.4 grs almost fills up the case. A double charge will completely overfill the case. Double charges are pretty much impossible due to that. That said, I may get a 650 or 750 if I continue to increase my shooting now that I've retired. I fell off the horse, and it took 28 years to get back up. Kudos to you for getting back up so fast.

New to the forums and new to this topic. I have a 929 and am getting used to it. I really like the potential the 8 shot 9mm has since I've been shooting a 6 shot 686 for Steel matches and shot the Steel Challenge with it back in the early 90s. Two extra rounds are a nice bit of confidence to go a little faster. I'm about to get a C-More RTS2 installed next week and I have the Hogue Big Butt grip and love that. I have been using the TK .40 moon clips and have settled on Federal brass as with my load of 3.4gr of Red Dot, I have no extraction issues. I did run into the issue with Starline brass early on, but have now relegated the starline brass to my PC Carbine I'm picking up next week. I am having intermittent cylinder lockups and am not sure if its because the TK Moon clips are too thick (I've read that some 929s like .35s and some like .40s). I am pretty sure I'm running into the Dillion brass bulge issue as I have the TK moon clip gauge and have had several loaded moon clips not fit. I am getting a lee undersize 9mm sizing die and hopefully the oversize brass bulge issue will go away. Did others run into the intermittent cylinder sticking issues when they were getting their 929s up and running?