Luke E.

     Cool.. what kinda glass is that on top of it? I guess i'm just full of questions tonight  ;) .

Very nice! What barrel did you use?

  How many rounds are in the bucket? I'm not interested but one of the guys you met the other night would be.

   I'd say you're correct.. Anyone shooting a high enough volume of .338 Lapua to need to use a progressive press probably won't make it to long before their shoulder needs replacing! In all seriousness though, I have the Dillon small rifle casefeed plate for my 650 and I doubt that i'll get the large rifle plate unless I were to pick up an AR10 because everything I have in the large rifle category is stuff that I prefer to single stage for accuracy reasons. I just can't imagine that mine will ever see anything over .308 and likely won't ever see that.

   Haha I know what you mean about the simple cure's thing..     They really stood behind it on the one you sent back.. That by itself is enough to earn a lot of loyalty. It's a shame they venture away from that on the 1050 though but i'm sure it's for good reason. I've watched a lot of YouTube videos of guys trying to prove to the world that they can snatch the handle of their 1050 faster than the next guy and i'd bet that's the kind of thing that they are shielding themselves from. I know a lot of different commercial equipment doesn't carry the same warranty as their private counterpart such as lawn mowers but that would play a big role in my decision to purchase a 1050 or not. I just got a 650 and it spits out loaded rounds plenty quick for my needs and adding new caliber on it are plenty expensive. You could buy a new 550 for about the same money as buying everything needed to load 2 calibers on a 1050 so it's a bit rich for my blood.

The Old Fort WalMart in Murfreesboro has had cans of 9mm and .223 the last handful of times I was there but like others here, I noticed it was quite high      We may and may not see it come all the way back down but if we don't it will be because of things like, shutting the last lead smelter down and things of that nature. While it is fairly easy to find .223/5.56 right now, there isn't nearly as much or as wide of a variety as there used to be so there is still a "shortage". It may take a while but once all the manufactures get caught up and maybe do some expanding in order to satisfy all of the new gun owners, the price will fall back down more. The .223 hasn't been easily available to all areas for very long now and the prices have already fallen substantially compared to 7-8 months ago and I look for the price to continue down some more as shelves get further populated. Of course i'm not factoring in the insanely high probability of our coward in chief flapping his gums about gun control again, setting off another 1-2yr long fiasco like we are slowly coming out of.. 

   Yes, The 650 should load anything south of 50bmg as far as I know. I'm pretty sure I remember reading that the 1050 is a bit more limited in the cartridge length dept. but it should still be good to load most popular cartridges. I have a 650 and I know it claims to be capable of 338 Lapua but the only rifle I have run through mine yet is .223 so I have no 1st hand experience with any others. I didn't realize that they didn't offer the same "no BS" warranty on the 1050 like they do on everything else. I can see having a "commercial use" clause in there but I would think that an individual looking at a 1050 might be cared off by that.    What kind of problems are you having with your 550's? I've logged a great many hours on one and never had an issue that wasn't quite simple to cure.

   Sounds like you have had a fun juvenile hunt even though no deer were taken and I guess the experience is what it's all about. I hope to have the time next year to get a few youngsters out for the juvenile hunts. 

Congrats to your son.

   Nothing quite like getting hung up in an awkward position and then about the time you see relief she jerked the rug out from under you and made to continue to stay in that position! I got a good chuckle out of picturing your arms void of blood shaking while trying to the rifle still. Sounds like you had a good hunt even though the trigger didn't get pulled. Good luck with your daughter this morning!

Yup

Remember we already talked about that. I'm hoping it works out for you to bring it when you come down to use the range. I'm going to be over there tomorrow afternoon to re zero my Blackout. I replaced the narrow quad rail with a Troy modular rail the other day and moved the scope around a little so I've gotta get it back right before I head to FL hunting on Friday. I helped another guy put his TGO rifle together last night and it needed to be lapped. If I find a deal on one before we meet up I'll pick it up and lap his if he wants. I almost hate to admit this but here it goes, I got his upper built and bedded the extension and gas block and about that time I moved something on the bench which revealed the small ziplock that contained the damn dust cover! I wasn't on my game last night I guess.

   It is sho nuff heavy! I took your advice and didn't drop it on my toe.. 

Mike knows exactly what it looks like but here she is, [URL=http://s303.photobucket.com/user/lukeduke_03/media/Shilen1.jpg.html][/URL] [URL=http://s303.photobucket.com/user/lukeduke_03/media/Shilen2.jpg.html][/URL]

 I shot a fair bit of Wolf through handguns back before I got into reloading and I don't ever remember having a single isssue out of the ammo. I did have a mag that you could only get about 4 steel case rounds in before it would lock up unless it was drenched in lube but I guess that wasn't the ammo's fault per say. Wolf makes some of the very best .22lr ammo you can get so if the "gold" series of 5.56 is anywhere near as good as the .22lr then i'd say jump on it.

 I was wrong, it was .35 cents per round but here's the link to the ammo TDR posted,   http://buygunsandammo.com/product/5-56-62gr-fmj-ss109-penetrator-sealed-brass-case/?added-to-cart=18    And here's the link to the TGO thread link (it's like the 3rd or 4th post from the bottom),   http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/topic/71662-tgo-ar-build-deals/page-14     EDIT: it's also 62gr SS109 if that matters to you. it's usually a bit higher than 55gr fmj

 Someone posted a link to some place that had factory new 5.56 ammo for $0.38 (I think) per round. Sealed primer and bullet (for whatever that's worth) and it was brass case ammo. I think it was in the "AR build deals" thread and should be on the last page or two of it. I'll see if I can find it and post the link here. There may be better deals but I load my own so I don't ever shop for ammo.

   I'm not making excuses for them because it irritated the crap out of me to want to order a $15 product from them and have the shipping be $13 or something like that but I don't think they did it out of greed. I think the more likely reason is that because of the super high order volume, they decided to offer one option that would take care of anything ordered just to eliminate one more point of confusion. If that is the case I think they should have come out and said so to keep folks from assuming that that was their way of secretly gouging them. I may be completely wrong but Midway has always seemed to be a fair. customer service oriented company so I have given them the benefit of the doubt. I did quit ordering odds and ends from them because it was stupid to spend as much money to ship the item as the purchase price was but I did order from them if the list was long enough and the money made sense. I am happy to say that now that things have slowed down some Midway is once again offering multiple shipping options and my last order cost me $4.27 to ship. 

   Only if he threw the pistol at her knee, if he shot her then she probably escaped with a whelp.. 

 I was wondering where this was leading because the .22 short I have wouldn't manage a hit to the bottom of a Coke bottle twice in a row if you had the barrel jammed in the neck. Of course i'm exaggerating... Just a little though. Thanks for the laugh Daniel!

You're not an SEC guy are you?

      Exactly! It took me a little while last year to settle in on the fact that it is indeed the growth of the shooting population that is responsible for a large percentage of the shortage and then next biggest cause (like I mentioned above) is US! All of us regular/frequent shooters need to have far more ammo on hand to achieve the same comfort level than we did 1 1/2yrs ago. Those two things could be having about the same effect or even backwards from how I listed but bottom line is, New shooters and seasoned shooters carry the bulk of the shortage "burden" on their shoulders. The thing is (and I don't like seeing the same guys lined up at Wal Mart everyday either) it is human nature to need somebody or something to blame it on, it's somewhat of a coping mechanism and I think this is more where the "scalpers" and even the government fall into the grand scheme.  I do believe the government was intentionally causing supply issues ( :tinfoil: ) when all this started but that has either slowed or they've learned to be a lot more discreet.    With a government that is constantly grasping, ripping and clawing away at our gun rights (and all rights for that matter) I for one see that the benefit of such a HUGE growth to the shooting base and the fact that it makes each of our voices louder outweighs the negatives such as having to search or even cut back the amount of .22lr one shoots. Once the demand levels off to an honest altitude, the ammunition manufacturers will rise to me that demand. How long that will take, who knows, but i'm guessing that they are following everything very closely to try to figure out when the trends mellow out and turn into something that they can count on to provide them a good return on the investment in new equipment. I load pretty much every round I shoot so buying ammo isn't something that I find myself in the habit of doing unless I happen to be somewhere and notice fairly price .22lr so my opinion may not matter a bit to anyone else but I myself was so busy looking for someone or something to blame last year that I overlooked the magnitude of the new and seasoned shooters.

 Welcome Bolt!

   Capitalist (scalpers) aside the next thing I can think of causing the shortage is that before all this craziness started most folks would go buy a bulk pack for plinking and then when they started to run low they would grab another next time they were out and about but no one is doing that by choice now. Those same people rather than having a bulk pack on hand will buy any they see because they aren't sure that they will be able to find it when they do need more. So now the same people that were buying say, one box per month are now buying 2,3,4 or however many they have the chance to. So even if you don't count all the new .22 owners that bought guns due to the Obama & pals reaction to Sandy Hook (LOTS & LOTS), the demand has gone up 300-400% but the manufacturers and still only capable of producing the same or slightly more. Most manufacturers I would assume don't want to put a large amount of their funds into new equipment and facilities to ramp up production for what is likely not a permanent level of demand. I would say that demand will be permanently higher than it was before Sandy Hook because of the great number of new firearms sold and new gun owners BUT,, not it will eventually drop back down to a more permanent level and my guess would be, that's when the manufacturers will start adding capacity to suit.

   Thanks for the offer, i'll give you a call shortly and pick your brain about the meter.