SteelMaster with major 9mm?

[DrLove]

folks, have anyone tried shooting major loads from a steelmaster? If, did it require any mods?

[DrLove]

anyone?

[Trent1k1]

I have a friend with a SteelMaster shooting Major. They upgraded the recoil spring to something much heavier. Unfortunately I don't have any details beyond that at this time.

[wes777]

I dont see why you would have to do much beyond changing the recoil spring to about 9 lbs to load test. There are plenty of lightened slides on shortys. Throw in a dawson aluminum buff and give it a try.

[424D57]

My wife started running major in her matchmaster late last year (when I finally got a press). As far as I can tell its the same gun as the steelmaster, but with a slightly longer comp, so the experience may relate.

At first switching to major we had a few stove pipes. Switched to 90deg cheely setback mount and they almost disappeared.

When I got above ~1350fps when playing with the load to get some buffer over 165pf, we started having more and more frequent fail to extracts. It seemed like the extractor was hopping off the case rim. To try the easiest fix first (and a change she wanted anyway) I pulled the recoil master in favor of a FLGR and IMSI spring - think I started at 10lbs.. theorizing that the slide wasn't staying locked up quite long enough for the brass to return to size after pressure died down, causing it to be stuck in the chamber when the slide wanted to pull back. I was at least partially right, since occurrence of fail to extract dropped to almost nothing - once-twice per match (as opposed to 1/4 rounds fired. Final fix was an Aftec, after which its run flawlessly. haven't seen the FTE or stovepipe since.

I absolutely am not a gunsmith, and absolutely cannot say which of the fixes were necessary to the end result and which were not.

To offer a contrary (if heresay) point of view - buddy runs his matchmaster bone stock with major and hardly has any trouble at all. Obviously YMMV.

-424D57

[Mark R]

RocketCity1911 runs a steel master in 9mm major. He uses silhouette powder and 115 gr bullets. Not sure what he did to it to run major, but he also shoots it in Steel Challenge matches. Maybe he'll chime in here soon.

[RocketCity1911]

RocketCity1911 runs a steel master in 9mm major. He uses silhouette powder and 115 gr bullets. Not sure what he did to it to run major, but he also shoots it in Steel Challenge matches. Maybe he'll chime in here soon.

No changes for major or minor. I use a light recoilmaster and an STI extractor. Made Master with that setup.

[lee blackman]

I know its an old post, but I was curious if anyone had any updates?

I've been trying MG 125gr JHP's (.355" listed under 357 sig bullet) with Autocomp 7.0~7.6gr.

I'm running the recoil master light (tried a flgr with 9 pound spring, but liked the recoil master better).

I haven't chorno'd yet, but the gun seems to run really flat at about 7.2~7.3gr of Autocomp. Like flatter and better than the minor loads I've tried. Its almost like the gun was really meant to run the load. My understanding from others load data is this should be hitting if not real close to major pf.

The internal modifications I have are an aftec extractor and a brazo's oversized ejector, which were installed and tuned by the previous owner. The gun came with a brazo's offset mount which I changed back to the original mount. It ran fine for the last 8000 rounds of minor ammo I've put thru it, but I think its getting time to replace the springs in my aftec or something, as I'm getting occasional and more frequent FTE's.

The biggest problem that I've been having is the top 1/3rd of my C-more lens are getting ruined. The blast shield seems to protect the lower 2/3rds. Like no matter how I clean it (lens cleaner or mild detergent) the top 1/3rd gets super dirty and scratched. I bought a Cheely 90 degree setback mount, that I'm going to install and try, hoping it will solve this problem.

[RocketCity1911]

I use lime-a-way on a Q-tip to clean my lens. There's some posts on that subject somewhere in the open pistol threads...folks have tried many different cleaning solutions/techniques.

[cecil]

I called C More about lens cleaning... they said to clean your lens with a Q tip moistened with Hoppes gun bore cleaner... then clean it with Windex... it works..

[lee blackman]

Hey, thank you very much for taking the time to do that Cecil I really appreciate it. I don't know why, it never even crossed my mind to actually call C-More and just ask. Now I know, and hopefully others will see the post too. Simple enough, Q-tip, Hoppes, and Windex.

[DRichardson]

Vinegar works really good too.

[lee blackman]

Just got home from the range. The Cheely 90 degree setback mount solved the problem. I ran a few hundred thru it, bout half minor and half major. No powder on the lens... I sighted in at 17.5 yards. At 3 yards, the group was maybe an inch below point of aim. I wish I would have done this earlier.