Griz

Buy some Winchester White Box and go shoot a Glock match. The armorer there will rebuilt it for you. -Brian

Unless they ramp up the reality show drama that we all hate, I bet the ratings will tank and this will be the last season.

Since no-one knows what specifically is wrong with any of these unreliable guns, I'm willing to offer $350 shipped for one that hasn't been monkeyed with and has been unreliable out of the box. I paid $525 for my 930jm that runs flawlessly, so $350 seems like a more than fair price to me for a defective gun that doesn't run and that the best in the business allegedly can't figure out. You'll get $350 instead of taking a total loss. If someone is willing to unload their problem child on a naive sucker like me, I'll either figure out the issue and correct it or join the group think that says "I don't know what is wrong with it, but I know it's a piece of junk." PM me and I'll have a USPS MO on the way ASAP.

I'm suggesting that your 3rd party anecdotal evidence doesn't match my (and many others) first hand anecdotal evidence. For all I know, all 5 of those guys in the same local group are doing something like putting grease on the piston based on the advice of a local "guru". Something is obviously wrong with the guns in your local group, but you don't know what, so it seems wildly irresponsible to present speculation as fact. If I had a gun that unreliable, it would keep going back to the manufacturer until it was fixed or they bought it from me. Surely the shooters you are talking about are not so timid that they will just bend over and accept a defective product?

What specifically is out of tolerance on these problem guns? To claim that parts are out of spec and not hardened appropriately, one would have to blueprinted a few guns, wouldn't they? I still have only seen one specific issue brought up with the 930JM (and note that doesn't seem to be a 930 issue, it seems to be a specific to the trigger job in the 930JM).. The firing pin spring seems to be too weak for some ammo. All of the other answers I have seen have been vague hand waving that boil down to "it has a low price so it must be cheaply made". I'm starting to suspect that for some reason there is bad blood between Mossberg and some "3-gun" manufacturers and/or smiths that is at the root of all this bad mouthing with no specific defails. If that's it, give us details. If a company has been behaving badly, they deserve to be punished for it. I steered newbies away from Ruger and S&W for more than a decade based on politics alone.

A Bianchi Cup Open revolver with a big gap leaves a nice tattoo on the inside of your forearm.

Confirmation bias probably plays a big role in the reputation of a brand within any particular group. If you buy a low priced gun that isn't favored by the cool kids and it malfunctions, you're probably quick to decide it's junk and needs to be replaced. If you spend a lot of money on a respected brand and it malfunctions, it must not be broken in yet, or maybe it's your fault for not cleaning or lubing it correctly.

Please let us know what you hear back from the NRA. I set up a 686 for the first version of Production rules and am pretty sure Big Butts were prohibited... But I also had to grind the single action notch off of my hammer under those rules.

Calibration is not a one time deal for measurement equipment. It has to be done periodically as components age. A chronograph used in uncontrolled lighting is even worse than most equipment, it should be calibrated every time it is set up and again when conditions change if you really need accurate results. I guess it's voodoo to most people. The magic box says X fps, so that must be right!

I don't see what you guys are complaining about, I'm sure they have an audit trail that shows the chrono is kept calibrated and they have a rigorous testing procedure documented so there are no variations shooter to shooter... After all, nobody would run a national championship without a calibrated chronograph, right? <- (that's my poker face)

A buddy bought an old Logan and we ran it in my garage for a while. We looked at a bunch of South Bends but they are very crude for what you pay for them around here. The Logan was light years ahead of them capability-wise. One big issue is the spindle bore is too small for rifle work on the little South Bends. He finally cleared out room in his basement for his Logan and reclaimed it, and I really missed having a lathe.. Finding that Logan was so much work that I said "screw it" and just bought a Grizzly G4003G. The little modern details of the Grizzly make it much more pleasurable to use than the old Logan (power switch on the apron, D1-5 chucks, no need to swap out gears, etc). Anyway, I would be very unhappy if I had to use one of those little South Bend 9" lathes now.

I agree, but I have seen shooters fighting with every brand. I have also seen youtube torture tests of most makes. The most impressive was of a $300 Russian gun. All anecdotal, not controlled. I have shot a borrowed M1S90 and a borrowed M2. I bought a 930 JM to use for a few pay periods until I could save enough cash to buy a M2. I figured as much demand as there is for the 930 JM I could flip it for more than I paid. The problem right now is that I cannot figure out what a M2 would do that the 930 doesn't do other than kick harder. The group think says that the 930 JM is inferior, but I have never seen anyone say why other than it costs less, so it must be cheap. The 930 JM I have runs cheap Wal-mart shells 100% (which neither Benelli I borrowed would do) and after dremeling out the loading port and welding the lifter it is easier to load than either Benelli I borrowed (which had not been modified). What else do you need in a shotgun for shooting static targets other than it goes bang when you pull the trigger and it's easy to reload? I love high end gear and would like an excuse to buy another toy, but a match ready M2 is 4x the cost of what I paid for the 930 JM and I cannot quantify a single thing I would get for that money other than more recoil and people admiring my gun. I have the cash ready now, but I am unconvinced that I should spend it.

OK, "rough around the edges" and "unreliable"... I see plenty of people complaining about unreliable benellis, so I'm still not sure what the specific issues are with 930 JMs other than cosmetics and the low price. Can someone point to a controlled test that demonstrates the "unreliable" nature of the Mossberg or is it just that it costs less so everyone assumes that it must be unreliable?

What specifically is wrong with the 930?

You can have both... Look at it as an accessory for your big mill. These X2s are much lighter and cheaper than a good rotary table for a real mill!

Wait on the ballscrews. My understanding is that they will complicate your life on a lightweight manual machine since the table could move easier under cutting forces if you let go of the handwheels. The stepper motors have holding torque that keeps the table from moving when you convert it. I could be wrong though, I've never tried ballscrews manually. I know some people use them on manual Bridgeport sized machines, but that's a whole different scale where the table is massive enough that it might stay put for light cuts with no screw at all. I used the CNC fusion kit.... It was a quick way to get up and running but I hate the Z axis and will re-work it eventually. I also paid for the pre-loaded ball nuts, but I don't think it was worth it, after figuring out how they work, loading the balls isn't a big deal. Note that they are pre-loaded with standard .125 balls, not oversized balls as I mistakenly thought. You'd be way ahead of the game if you made a project of making your own motor mounts following Hoss Machines plans (or just his general approach).

On the X2, to make an angled cut with the tilting head, you'd be cutting along the Y axis, which on the stock X2 is less than 4". Doing something like profiling a slide would be challenging. Much easier to use angle blocks or an angled bit to do that sort of thing manually (to me anyway)... Or cut the angled profile using CNC, that's the sort of thing that is easy to program by hand Tramming is pretty easy with just an indicol type DTI holder that clamps onto the spindle... I just sweep it left and right and then adjust half the difference to get very very close on the first try. I use that same holder for sweeping in vices, etc as well. I don't think I have ever done a project without using it. Example of what it looks like: http://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=1251&category=1310310429 This is also an example of where analog is better. Sweeping in a workpiece or tramming a mill with a digital DTI would be a huge pain IMO... Also the accuracy of the DTI doesn't matter since you don't really care about the absolute measurment, you are just trying to repeat a position.

My X2 has the tilting column and I have never used it... Probably could have, but it's less trouble to tilt the work piece. If you convert to CNC, you would be even less likely to need to tilt the column. What I have done though is spend countless hours trying to counter the loss of rigidity caused by the tilting column.

We shot a 3 gun match in the rain today. Last night I did my usual lazy-man's way of lubing my shotgun which was to hose the action down with gunoil, then wipe up what dripped out. The soaking rain washed some the lube out of the action onto the grip, and when I tried to do a strong hand Load-2, it was like trying to grab eels off of my belt. The first 2, I ripped off my belt and gripped hard which resulted in one of them shooting out of my hand like when you pinch a watermelon seed between your fingers. The next few tries, I had to loosely hold them and bobble them as they squirmed around while I tried to shove them into the loading port one at a time. I spent 15-20 seconds trying to load 8 shells into my gun and I'm pretty sure it cost me the match.. But at least I learned something! I also had a dud. The primer had what looked like a decent hit to me, so not sure what that was about. I guess all shotgun shells are not waterproof? (Walmart Federal 100 pack)

Fishing lures don't have to catch fish they just have to get fishermen to buy them... same principle with many gun accessories. . I bet if 3gun's equivalent of Kevin VanDam was seen with this trigger on his rifle they'd show up on ARs everywhere whether they helped or not

I know... I have tinkered with Solidworks at work (I'm an EE and my company has a few SW licenses, no CAM though)... That's part of the problem, when I trial something affordable at home, I'm comparing it to Solidworks... There doesn't seem to be a slam-dunk hobby solution, everything else has huge handicaps IMO :/ I've been dissapointed in the toolpaths generated by the cheap CAM systems out there. I'm doing some stuff with G-code that they just can't do at all (or I haven't figured out how to make them do it). dskinsler.... If you have the disposable income, then just dive in. That's the only way you'll figure it out. From the sidelines it looks harder than it is. Maybe I should take a pic of a pile of scrap parts for you

No, just googled how to do stuff as I needed it, and made lots of scrap experimenting (I can make scrap very quickly as toolguy pointed out ). What I'm doing really is as simple as just describing how I want the tool to move in lines and arcs. It feels like using a hammer and chisel when I see what jid2 is doing with CAD/CAM.

Here's an example of why I don't use a drill chuck much. I'm making a fixture for another type of slideracker and needed to drill the mounting holes for 3/8" screws to bolt the fixture to the table. Drilling a hole/pocket this big with this machine is right at the edge of it's capabilities with a drill bit, but writing a quick bit of G-code to do it is a piece of cake. (there are wizards to do stuff like this, but sometimes the tool paths in the free ones are annoying) Keep in mind that I have been playing with CNC for only about 2 months now, so it's not like this is advanced stuff that only a skilled operator can do. I'm still excited just about being able to cut circles! Also note the high end ball screw cover. % G20 G90 G64 G40 #10 = [0.375/2] (end mill radius) #20 = [0.575/2] (hole radius) #30 = -0.750 (depth of hole) #40 = -0.050 (depth of cut) F30 G91 G01 X[#20 - #10] M98 P101 L[ROUND[#30/#40]] G91 G02 I[-1*[#20 - #10]] G91 G01 X[-1*[#20 - #10]] G91 G01 Z[-1*#30] G90 M30 (end program return to zero) (--------------------------------------------------------------------------------) O101 G91 G02 Z#40 I[-1*[#20 - #10]] M99 (--------------------------------------------------------------------------------) %

I built a 686 Bianchi Cup open gun with no front cylinder retention at all... I fired maybe 20,000 rounds through it with no issues before I switched to an auto. No magnum ammo though.

This is why you make sure you are squaded with the cute Lady shooters (amoung other reasons). You slide right over to one of them and say, can you help me out? I am not kidding, I have done just this with loose rounds in the bottom of a mag pouch. Don't have any cute Lady shooters at your match? Shame on you! A better plan is to get the RO to drop a piece of brass into *her* holster.