What caliber is your Open gun?

[Chris Keen]

Well, keep on running them Bobby ...... I got some open mags I need to send your way!

[Flatland Shooter]

I still don't understand the 9x21 and 9x23 crowds that aren't European.

Some of the open guns out there are leftovers from the time period USPSA outlawed 9x19 for major. My open backup gun is a Para 9x21 built in 1995 and still runs fine.

Out of possibly 75 to 100 shooters in our area, I've not met any others currently shooting 9x21 or 9x23.

Bill

[uscbigdawg]

...When you put more than about 25 rounds in a mag in 38 Super... at some point you are going to have a failure to feed due the semi-rimmed Super rims overlapping....

No disrespect Brian but in the time I've shot open, no jams at all related to using 38 Super in any of my guns (pistol by Rusty Kidd; mags by Grams Engineering) to include 3 big sticks (2-27; 1-30).

I see jams all the time in the guns of others, but that's a function of many gunsmiths and mag "tuners" that flat out don't know what they're doing, not a function of the case/caliber.

Rich

[MP5_guy]

Still plugging away with .38 Super. It works for me, so no point in changing it.

My experience is the same as Rich (above). Ed Cameron built my race gun (and my wife's), and the handful of problems I have had can all be traced to improperly loaded ammo (or failure to QC), or a problem with magazine setup. I've got >50K rounds through mine, and it just keeps running fine.

Edited August 31, 2009 by MP5_guy

[larry cazes]

...When you put more than about 25 rounds in a mag in 38 Super... at some point you are going to have a failure to feed due the semi-rimmed Super rims overlapping....

No disrespect Brian but in the time I've shot open, no jams at all related to using 38 Super in any of my guns (pistol by Rusty Kidd; mags by Grams Engineering) to include 3 big sticks (2-27; 1-30).

I see jams all the time in the guns of others, but that's a function of many gunsmiths and mag "tuners" that flat out don't know what they're doing, not a function of the case/caliber.

Rich

Yes, Rich you may not have seen any issues with your guns but real potential certainly exists for this problem to occur with any rimmed case. This is actually a very well documented failure mode. Each of us obviously has our own standard for risk as far as reliability is concerned.

[BoonDocK]

I decided to go with 9 major due to availability. I have two open 9 major and so far i'm happy.

[fred fague]

I have three 9mm major Open Pistols with KKM barrels. I use Silhouette, MTG CMJ 124, and Winchester SP primers. The powder fills the case about 3/4 full. The PF is a consistant 169 and SD is 6, and primers show a slight flatness. They all run great and are very accurate.

[rupture]

9 major

[XRe]

No disrespect Brian but in the time I've shot open, no jams at all related to using 38 Super in any of my guns (pistol by Rusty Kidd; mags by Grams Engineering) to include 3 big sticks (2-27; 1-30).

I don't run a whole lot of Super, but I haven't had any problems, either. Bob Londrigan runs Super all the time, and doesn't seem to have any issues with it. There actually are a couple of "pros" for using Super - the bigger rim increases the margin for error in extraction, and the larger case capacity allows you to generate more gas for a load at the same PF (which, in theory, makes the load slightly more effective in the comp).

But, I have to agree with Brian - in terms of feeding, Supercomp (or other rimless variants) seem to have the upper hand.

And... TJ was actually noticeably different from Supercomp. The rim cut was larger/deeper, and the case web and lower walls were quite a bit thicker. Modern Supercomp has actually migrated in the direction of TJ. Sectioning cases shows some interesting things, that way. Supercomp's rim cut has expanded, and the case web is thicker than older Supercomp.