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Ken Mays

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Posts posted by Ken Mays

  1. ... and the case rim somehow getting in front of the extractor hook. I have been in touch with Brandon at SVI and he said those sounded like magazine related problems, I still have to look into that, but my mags are a year old SVI mags so I don't know about that. They did send the gun back with a fresh 12 lb recoil spring and a blue shock buff which I have never used before. I wonder if that is effecting the dwell time at the rear of the recoil cycle and effecting the feeding reliability.

    This happens because the cartridge on top is jumping out of the magazine during recoil and the extractor is not snapping over the rim. I would try fresh mag springs to increase the tension on the cartridge stack. I have been given the recommendation to increase the OAL of the rounds if this is occurring. If the IBF is not perfectly flush with the rest of the cartridge pickup rail, there's also a chance it could be helping to drag the top round forward as the slide returns.

    At any rate, the extractor should be able to snap over the rim if it does occur. I personally think the new SV extractor is a little too stiff to do this. You could try an extractor with a more conventional design.

    Some experimentation with a slightly stronger recoil spring might also lessen the bump at the end of the slide travel and reduce or eliminate the frequency of occurrence... though this will alter your muzzle flip behavior somewhat.

  2. I picked up a Dan Wesson 10mm and installed a .40 barrel. The 10mm DW mags work well with .40 loaded to 1.200" OAL. Might not be something everyone wants to do, but it's another option for those who want something different, or a stainless gun.

    dw-3.jpg

    I also recently picked up a STI Sentry from another member here and aside from some minor issues, it has been a solid performer.

    sentry-3.jpg

  3. A common cause of hammer follow is trigger bounce. Too many people concentrate on minimizing pretravel in the trigger system, not realizing that the ignition system needs a certain amount of pretravel to provide clearance for the trigger moving back due to inertia. The lighter the trigger pull gets, the more important this becomes since the center leg of the sear spring is able to provide less tension against the trigger.

    A gun with a borderline amount of pretravel can exhibit hammer follow depending on how it's gripped. The more it moves during recoil, the more likely it will happen.

  4. The last one I did was what I call "STI Plus." Most parts were STI, with the exception of Kart barrel, Brown GS, EGW bushing & fire control, Wilson premium extractor, and a few Caspians parts like the ejector, etc. I cut Novak front and rear dovetails, with a Novak front and Heinie rear sight.

    I did want to upgrade where I felt it made sense, without going "Spare No Expense". I'm not going to use this as a heavy-duty comp gun; your purposes may differ.

    sti-left.jpg

  5. A 9mm throating reamer is money well spent. I load my 9mm long, and never had a problem until I went to bullets with a smaller radius ogive... so the bullets get fat sooner than others.

    The reamer is tapered so that you can go as far as you need to.

  6. Well, in that case, looks like I'm boned. It seems as if it will have to be the flat SA trigger and the devil with the consequences. I don't much care whether I shoot in Production or Limited anyway.

  7. Thanks, guys. I was hoping to get a flatter trigger profile, but I can't see how I could straighten it out without moving the tip too far back, striking the frame before releasing the sear. And that probably wouldn't fly anyway.

  8. The hooked trigger on the SP-01 was designed by a sadist; the tip digs into my finger something awful.

    I see folks are replacing them with the 85 Combat trigger; that might help somewhat.

    I also see there is a straight SA trigger available. I'd like to use that one, but how does it work? I assume you can't use DA mode any longer once the straight trigger is installed, which would force me into Limited.

  9. You absolutely do not "have to" set your gun up so it won't back for Limited. Honestly, I consider it one of the biggest false truths that gets spouted about constantly. If a functional slide stop doesn't hurt anything in Single Stack, Production, or Limited-10, I fail to understand how they suddenly cause problems in Limited.

    I'm really glad to see this post.

    I had reached the same conclusion a while back, especially after I'd run dry a few times on an empty chamber. But "everybody knows" you don't want your gun to lock when empty, so I had a vague feeling I was overlooking some nuance that I'd forgotten.

  10. In my opinion, they are not going to prevent much in the way of adverse effects, regarding gun longevity. There is also the problem of buffer disintegration and shortening the slide travel. I have experienced malfunctions when shooting weak-hand-only that were eliminated when the buffer was removed.

    That said, I do use them in my Limited guns and probably will continue to do so, mainly due to curiosity. I've never had one tie up a gun, and I'm interested to see if they ever will... but I'm not the most serious competitor out there, either.

  11. I just picked up a used S&W M&P 45, and it definitely did not like my 200 gr LSWCs. I don't recall the OAL at the moment, but I can tell you I had about 1/16" or so of the bullet shoulder showing above the case. Believe I was using about 4.5g of Titegroup.

    I kept getting the same failure to feed; it looked like a 3-point jam. Happened with all 3 of my mags to some extent, at least once per mag.

    Ran with WWB hardball fine. I'm going to try varying the length and see if that helps, but I hate messing with a load that's reliable and accurate in my 1911s. If I can't get any improvement, I'll call S&W.

  12. Do you notice any type of a trend with a certain brand/head stamp of brass? The majority of the rejects I have (in 9mm) are in R-P brass. The brass doesn't seem to have a consistent thickness and even with flaring sometimes the bullets seat off center. Most of the time I don't even use a flare die and run the EGW "U" die with no problems. Flared or unflared is hit or miss with R-P brass.

    I've looked at that and never noticed a pattern, but I will keep a closer eye out in the future.

  13. So that bulge is fairly far up from the base of the case? Roughly where the tail end of the bullet is? If so, I'd look to the bullet not matching the die insert's profile --- if you're loading with Dillon dies they give you two choices for the part that actually cups the bullet and pushes it in the case. If not that, I'd look to how that die was adjusted --- did you really read and follow the instruction manual, about having cases in various slots of the shell plate with the platform raised (or in the case of the 1050, the head lowered) while tightening the die lock rings? Something's pushing the bullets in at an angle....

    Also --- enough bell to allow the bullet to sit in the case mouth straight? I have seen this issue with insufficient bell --- and the adjustment between not enough, just right, and too much is small.....

    Using RCBS dies. I'm actually using the seating insert from my 9mm die since it matches the bullet profile a lot closer than the two .40 inserts did.

    I'll check my belling. Right now I bell just enough to allow the bullet to sit on the case without wanting to fall off.

    Thanks for the suggestions!

  14. If any of your reloads fail the barrel test, your reloading process is sub par. Time spend fixing your reloading problems, is a better investment than perfecting your post reload defect detection.

    I'm already using the EGW undersized die and a Lee FCD as the last step. Both dies are as close to the shellplate as I can get them. I don't know what else I can reasonably do.

    The problem doesn't seem to be that the brass isn't getting fully resized.

    The rounds that stick in my chamber seem to have a bulge where the heel of the bullet displaces the case outward. I saw it a lot more with the plated Frontier bullets, which leads me to assume they're of inconsistent diameter. It happens a lot less with cast lead, but I usually get about 2% of my rounds sticking in the chamber.

  15. I was having problems using Lee dies.

    The seating/crimping die was crushing the case at the shoulder. The case was swelled outward slightly at the bottom of the shoulder. This wasn't obvious to the eye but the cases would stick in the chamber. You need to find out which part of the case is getting stuck in the chamber. I'd have a bright ring around the top of the case right below the shoulder.

    I switched to a Redding seating die and no more problems.

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