Will Abrahams

+1 for primary machine. They milled several slides for direct mount trijicon SROs. Very happy with their work. Those cylinders you mentioned in your earlier post are the mounting screws. The screws are fairly long with only the last 1/4 of the screw threaded.

Just to be clear, when I said "feeds reliably" I meant feeds the last round reliably : ) I could not get the +4 TTI basepads to fit the nickel mags. They would slide on but I couldn't push up the retention pin as it would hit the mag body. The Henning seemed to fit well.

Also, what did you do to get the TTI basepads to fit the Nickel mags?

What the folllwer will do will vary with different magazines and gun/slide stop setups. With my open gun I had to dremel the follower down as it would frequently lock the slide back with one round left sitting on the follower. In my limited gun it would not lock the slide back but feed every round flawlessly. As far as what it "should" do you will have to ask Beven. He is a very nice guy who will be happy to answer your questions. What you want it to do is a matter of preference. Personally, I would love to have it lock the slide back to prevent the dreaded click instead of bang on the final target of a stage (happened to me twice last season). However, I would rather error on the side of not locking back to make sure the last round feeds. Factory followers seem to be able to accomplish both tasks reliably. Im guessing its trickier to do with thin higher capacity followers???

Looks good to me

Front sight blank installed by primary machine when they did the slide milling. I'm not sure if they sell it separately from their slide milling package.

Yup, I have seen that crazy thing : )

LOL, that man can make anything work!

I currently have a shadow 2 slide sent off for optic milling and slide lightening cuts for weight reduction. Under the new ruling weight reduction would no longer be necessary. I am leaning towards still having weight taken off the slide to lower reciprocating mass and possibly help with dot tracking. I could be a little off on my numbers but and looks like with the slide lightening + optic it would be approximately 2 oz lighter than a stock slide without optic. Any reason not to do weight reduction on a shadow 2 slide?

ah gotcha, that makes more sense now. Thanks for clearing that up

Agreed, however, 9mm has more taper than 40SW as stated in my post 40SW looks like it has a thousandth taper where 9mm has 10 thousandths. If neither amount of taper matters when sizing, that's great, but I just trying to understand what single ring carbide sizing dies are doing dimensionally to 9mm cases that have more taper than 40SW. From your response it seems like the difference is inconsequential and I should quit thinking about it, get the lee die and start loading

I have been loading 40SW and 38SC for several years, but am now getting setup to load 9mm for carry optics. I have some questions regarding sizing 9mm as it has more taper than 40SW. Are dies with a carbide sizing ring essentially turning the most of the case into a straight walled case? I don't see how it couldn't unless the carbide sizing part of the die was the same length as the case and tapered. I imagine that it wouldn't really matter as the round would still chamber, but changing the contour of the case from the original spec just seems a little strange to me. RCBS has dual ring carbide dies that has a lower and upper carbide ring. My understanding is the lower ring is slightly larger so the brass doesn't get worked as much. This design seems like it would preserve more of the original taper. Anyone have any experience with this die for 9mm?

I have had good luck with the igaging calipers. They have always given consistent results. Not sure how well they take abuse as I haven't dropped them or anything. If you plan on using them for rifle cartridges with the hornady comparator, get the ones longer than 6 inches. That way you have a little more to hold onto when measuring long cartridges. As far as chronos, I have the pro chrono, the CED M2 and the magneto speed (rifle use only). I have lined up the CED M2 and the pro chrono and both gave similar results. For this reason I mainly use the pro chrono, as it's compact, quicker to set up than the CED M2 and the 9v battery will last all season.

47 ounces. I'm thinking about trying a heavier gun but worried about slowing down transitions.

I have had great luck with Aero uppers and lowers.

I prefer a 5 inch bull without barrel ports (popple holes). To me full length guns shoot softer than the shortys. Seems like shorty open guns are less popular then they were 8 or so years ago.

I am a huge fan of the TacSol. Mags were pricey, but have a good weight that help it feel like a loaded limited gun mag. plenty accurate for USPSA practice.

I don't have any experience with the Marvel conversion, but I do have a TS conversion which I run on a dedicated 2011 frame for cheap practice. I will echo what most have said about the TS. I have been very happy with the purchase, plenty accurate. For some reason mine doesn't run CCI mini mags well but loves bulk pack ammo. I also went with the heavy mags to better mimic reloading with my Limited gun setup.

I was able to fit 20 rounds with a Dawson basepad and grams guts. Easily reloadable too. It had about 1mm of room in the mag length gauge. I might be able to get 21 with a Dawson SNL basepad, but I imagine it would be very difficult to seat. I will be ordering some SNLs soon and will let you know.

I spoke with someone at STI who said right now they are just doing the 40 SW mags, but they are working on 38/9. I will see how many rounds fit with grams guts and Dawson basepads. Unfortunately, I won't be able to get to the range for a few days to try them out.

I recently ordered some STI mag bodies from Brownells and was expecting to receive the traditional STI mags that I have bought over the last 10 years. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw this new design. I did a search on google and this forum, but could not find any info on a design change. Just thought I would share.

Good to know I'm not the only one who does this. I have had many waiters look at me like I'm crazy when I asked for a side of ketchup with my steak.

One of the best things at Texas Roadhouse

I have a 550 and a 1050. As far as which I enjoy more (excluding speed and ease of conversions) I would say the 1050. The 1050 is more automated. so its kinda fun just to pull the lever, sit back and watch everything fall into place : )

I noticed you mentioned using the 550 as a single stage. Something to keep in mind: You may notice difference in OAL and crimp when using the 550 as a single stage then try to transition to progressive. When I first got my dillon I set up the dies with only one case in the press at a time. Then when I started loading using all 4 stations I noticed my initial values would change slightly. Finally I figured out that if I was going to use it as a progressive press I need to set the die heights with a case in all four stations, like it will be when actually loading. Just my observations, YMMV or maybe my 550 was just being quirky...