Jonnin

The press is fine. You can get a more expensive one if you want, I shy away from telling people on how to spend their money. The one you got will work and is backed by their warrenty. Aluminum stuff has a bad rep but I do not know of anyone who has worn one out or broken one from normal usage. Lol I tried to steer your away from the hand primer tool. Now you have to pull the case off the press, prime it, and put it back on -- this is very slow. If it comes to that, take a set of tweezers and hand place a primer in the press is faster than taking the brass off every time. I got the press attacked one, but didnt attach it, I just hold it up to the press, click it, and set it back down, as I am rolling a new piece of brass in the lube with the other hand. I guess I didnt make the options clear enough, but whatever you want to do. Primers are just awkward, no matter what you do, with this type of setup, so go with what you like. Its likely that the extra money to buy local mostly offsets shipping fees for heavy gear like reloading stuff. Most of the time its a wash to buy local higher or buy on the web & pay shipping... you probably didnt lose all that much. You may not need the factory crimp die; the seating die does a light crimp (lee dies do, anyway, brand matters as some seat dies do not) and its good enough for normal use. Also up to you, but I have so far ignored the crimp dies (I also bought them, just to have it if I ever decide I want to use it). All in all it sounds like you have enough to get started. Just be sure to check your powder charges on the scale and overall length of the cartridge (too short can blow up, too long will not feed). Make 5 or so test rounds, try them in your gun(s) and if they work, go for it!

example free reloading manual (this one is for accurate brand powders) : http://www.accuratepowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/accurate_load_data_3.5.pdf

The reloading kit looks ok. Its probably overkill with stuff you dont have to have, but its fine. Get a refinished turret from LEE directly for cheaper, actually always check their refinished goods (used but checked out and repaired if damaged). The tumbler looks good as well. You do not have to have a bullet puller. Its nice, but it can wait. I average a couple of fubar cartridges a month, total is still under 20 goof ups, not even $1 worth of wasted bullets and so forth, and I have stopped messing them up for dumb stuff that happened as I was learning. You do not need to buy a reloading manual either. The web has all the reloading data you need, and if you buy lee dies, they have load data as well. You can get it if you want, but you are paying for free information. You need a set of dies for each caliber. I would get just one to start, learn the process, then proceed to buy more later. Its your choice. You do not need a reloading tray. Case lube is required for necked and larger cases, or non-carbide dies. Carbide dies for small calibers does not need lube. 9mm, 380, etc can go unlubed. You need a high precision scale to weigh your powder, bullets, etc to double check things. Do not trust the lee disk measure to drop the powder you want, their chart vs powder dumped is off. The tool is consistent, but weigh the charges yourself to get the correct disk setting for your load! You want calipers, to check the length of your cartridge. You need a sturdy table to mount this stuff on and a set of shelves or something to organize it all. You need a strong magnet to pull steel cases out of your pick-me-ups if you scavenge brass from public areas. You want a notebook to write down everything you do, and labels for the batches you make. ---------------------------- If you buy it one piece at a time instead of the press kit, get the same 4 turret press, the lee auto disk powder device, the primer tool (be sure its the right one, there is a handheld one that is called auto-prime, thats NOT it, read product description carefully), the rifle charge die (this is for all rifle cartridges), spare turret or 3 (here is the deal, if you have turrets, you can keep your dies set up, if you only have one, you have to reseat the dies each time you change caliber, and that is a 10 min process of getting them screwed to exactly the right depth in the turret -- but you can function with just one if you do not swap calibers often). You might get the doubledisk powder measure adapter (if you do not, you have to hit the rifle cartridges with powder twice, the largest hole for the disks with only one disk is just barely able to work for a 223 with some powders... I just hit it twice, but the riser lets you stack 2 disks to only hit it once). Finally, I do not like the primer tool that hangs off the press, and I took it off and just pick it up, click it, and put it back down each time. Maybe a little slower but its in my way when it is mounted to the press. Thats my take on it. Your plan is fine, my comments are designed to cut out the stuff you don't need to save money and confusion, but your original plan is more than acceptable. Here is a link to lees refinished stuff (and consider order from them directly, or at least compare prices) : Lee Precision: Closeouts (note the $9 turrets..!)

You might try to make some longer range ammo for it. A mid-weight bullet with a hefty loading, maybe, experiment and you might find a way to get a bit more range. Its still only going to go as far as it does; at some point thats all you can do in the given caliber. A longer barrel may also help. Bullet style will help too, some designs carry farther and more accurately. I would attack the ammo side first, see how much you can get from just that, as its easier to do than finding the ultimate barrel, and I would think that 16 vs 18 inches will only have a very small effect, you want to really kick up the range you need to add a lot more than 2 inches to get enough velocity to matter.

Qtip, fluffed and dipped in cleaner, goes right down the barrel and its done. Brush if needed but its rare to get fouling with jacketed ammo.

I hear its worse now with the "mag safety" (safety being a relative term, I guess). I would advise the "intact" cleaning and lube, where you just clean it without taking it apart. I do my MK II that way and it eats 150 or so rounds a week most weeks.

A Questionable part of town?! Its not that bad, not the scrubbed clean "tourists here, dont stray from this sector" area but its a long shot from crackhouse row downtown or gang central on the north side. Its an average area, really, which goes to show how bad chattanooga is starting to get. I hate to hear the LEOs were shot, and am glad they caught the guy, but I WANT TO SEE THIS LEVEL OF RESPONSE WHEN US NORMAL FOLKS GET SHOT TOO.

Caught a round in the barrel of our 1911 45 this week, thankfully we noticed it, no harm done (came right out with a wooden dowel and a light tap). Nothing like a reminder to stay safe out there, these sorts of events are really "good" because they reinforce paying attention.

Really? Can you tell us exactly what you did again.... ! The only difference between a full auto and a semi is a catch after each shot that has to be reset by release and re-pull the trigger. These designs vary and I am not really into glocks, but likely enough its just something is in there too tight or too loose that is preventing this from working properly, either its too tight and doenst catch at all or too lose and catches and releases without the trigger reset. I would say open it up & watch what happens, it should be obvious where the mechanical stuff goes wrong, then try to figure out why & see if it can be fixed easily.

Lol! Get a rifle. You can find better ways to store magazines than that thingy, IMO. I could easily fit 4 1911 mags into regular pants pockets, or 2 into a regular "secret" pocket of a jacket/sport coat/etc, and you can get a holster that holds 1 extra alongside the gun without losing much (on a gun that big, it wont add to the conceal carry problems at all to stuff a mag into the holster with it). There are a multitude of other ways to carry mags effectively, and if the choice is between gear and a gun, get a gun IMHO.

If you are looking at reloading, let me suggest buying the cheapest BRASS cased ammo that is BOXER primed, to save up for later. Its a little bit more per box but you can save the cases, which take a lot of hunting and cleaning if you pick up off a range or a bit of money if you buy cases. Not that 9mm cases are hard to come by but if you save $3 per box then turn around in a month and spend $100 on brass cases, you havent saved anything. A 4 stage turret press is in between a dillion and a single stage. It does all the steps for you. I have one and attached an automatic powder measure as well (all Lee brand but the brand does not matter much, avoid aluminum lee press but the steel ones are good). Once set up, a box of ammo takes me less than 15 min to make, and costs $3 or so (with hardened lead bullets). They work like this: clean all your cases in a tumbler. I use a grease lube so I keep that on my hand, pick up a case with that hand (roll it in my fingers), put it on the press, pull handle (case is sized and deprimed). Push handle (case is primed). Pull handle (case is powdered). Grab a bullet and set it in the case, pull handle (bullet is pushed in, round is lightly crimped). At this point its either done (I stop here) or you can crimp again with a quality crimp die if you like. By now I have a case in hand being lubed again, click in a fresh primer and repeat... All you have to choose is primer, powder, and bullets. I use http://www.missouribullet.com for bullets, whatever primers I can get in bulk on sale, and I was using accurate #2 powder but am probably swapping to #5 soon. Its not that many choices, and to be honest for this type of shooting any bullet, 9mm appropriate powder, and primer will be about as good as another. Defensive shooting is short range, not high accuracy. I have about $500 invested in the reloading hardware, and have already made it back (in under a year) -- the 500 rounds of 380 alone saved me a ton. Note that for a glock I would start at 1/2 way between the starter load and max load for your selected components. Been there and done that, glocks were made to shoot +p ammo and the lowball starter loads will work in any other gun but will jam a glock due to lack of power to cycle the action. If you do start low, do not make many rounds until you try them...

The biggest problem I have with the CFLs are they do not work properly. First, like all flouroscent lighting, if you turn it off and on it uses more power (power up uses over 1/2 an hours worth of juice). Second, they burn out fast, promised to last for years I am lucky to go a month without replacing one. Third, the ones that do not die have that less light every day until dim thing that is common in flourscent lighting -- you have to figure out which one is dimmest and replace it now and then. But the big thing is the increased price coupled with rapid death rate. They may do better in a newer home but my home is old, the wiring is not the best, and these things have zero tolerance for surges, blackouts, etc which are common for me, some caused by my home (turn on the vacuum and the lights dim, pop goes the chinese bulb) and others by the area (power outages and flicker are all too common off the main roads). Basically, at this point in time, they are marginally better than a candle and need some work to be acceptable. CONGRESS NEEDS TO BACK LED TECH FOR THE FUTURE, NOT THIS OLD AND POOR TECH FROM 10 YEARS AGO. MODERN LEDS ARE 10000 TIMES BETTER THAN THIS JUNK, NONTOXIC, AND THEY ACTUALLY WORK. My LED flashlight does a better job of lighting a room than 2 CFL bulbs, has lasted longer without failure, used less power, and all in all blows them out of the water.

I dont see a case for it being ethical to own a gun (you may have good reasons not to, such as infirmity/age/blind/etc). If you doubt yourself, your training, competence, marksmanship, etc, then you OWE it to those around you to NOT try to shoot bad guys in some sort of public area throwdown. What I am saying is that say I cannot hit anythign when I shoot because I suck. There is no case to say that it would be more ethical for me to carry a gun, if that were the case.... which means that carrying or not carrying is not the part where ethics enters into the conversation. Try a different theme, related, but one where the ethics is pure, not subject to circumstances.

Colt gold cup is only $1000, in the middle of his range, and awesome out of the box. They have other models in that range as well, its not that hard to find a new colt for under $1400.

Dual layer is still medium in the middle and plastic on both sides of commercial disks. You can polish either side of those as needed. Again, just try it first, they will work with some pretty bad ones more often than not. Last time I did it I just used diamond dust, because I had it. It was totally overkill, of course, but it does work.

First just try it. If the disc does not work, you can look into polishing it out with software on a PC dvd writer or special devices made for the purpose, or possibly do it yourself if you know how to polish things to an extreme level. Commercial discs are plastic over medium, and the plastic can be scratched to a pretty high degree before failures happen. If the scratch is deep enough to damage the media, its not fixable. If the scratch is so bad it deflects the laser during reading, thats when yo polish it out, if it did not hit the media. Cheap disks, the media is on the label (most cheap home writtern discs) and those are most often damaged from the label side, not the plastic underside -- a scratch on top ruins the disc very easily. I dont think any commercial discs use that type, its too easy to ruin them.

Limitations are needed, however. Unlimited damages means that with a good lawyer and the wrong jury, a single person with a minor injury (heals and is gone inside a year or less) can put a small business under, costing jobs and more, for what should have been a small penalty. On the other hand, a serious injury (lifelong consequences) should reap a large reward. Business must be protected, in other words, from being destroyed (costing jobs and such) yet the individuals who are harmed must be compensated as well. I do not know where the happy medium between the two should be --- possibly limits but very high limits, or possibly a defination (such as I used) on severity of the injury such that business is protected from large payments over minor injurys (ambulance chasing type stuff) while individuals who are really, actually harmed are paid in full. The AT WILL laws are also a mixed blessing. They prevent a lot of nonsense (racial quotas, unions/strikes, etc) which I do not approve of (if someone walks off the job, they can be fired & replaced on the spot, IMHO, and at the company I work for, we have had 2 minoritys (out of maybe 50 people) apply in 10 years, you cannot hire people that do not apply (we hired one of them, not that it matters, he was qualified and THAT is what mattered) ). IMHO again, a business should either post the building for no guns or not, none of this employees cannot customers can garbage, either everyone can or no one can. They may need to be tweaked a bit but the concept of working AT WILL is awesome. The "you can quit at any time, and I can fire you at any time" needs to stay as this single rule has circumvented no end of problems in my experience, for both sides (and, because of this, no one is ever fired, they are allowed to quit for a clean record by mutual agreement and we respond to reference checks with "it was a bad fit" in those cases).

You are not supposed to quote full articles, but link to them, as per a recent post by TGO David. He was going to retire anyway, it was a "going out" stunt, poor judgement but who has not done something like that? Funny, when no one is hurt, but still very poor judgement. I would have liked to have been there to see that one though.

Thats unusual, or at least in my area. They usually just dismiss that you have a gun and continue as normal (they do check for the HCP), and all is well. I asked a LEO that I know and he explained that anyone who admits to having one and has a HCP is very unlikely to be a problem while the folks that DONT tell them are the dangerous ones...

Sounds great. One at a time though, I cant afford to buy the place out all at once even at those prices... I don't need camo. I don't hunt, its not all that attractive to me, and if its zombie time and they are close enough to see this type of gun, I am in trouble...

Awesome, thanks a bunch! I know where those are, hixson would be the closest to me.

What wallmarts around chattanooga have long guns? The ones I have hit do not, but I have not made any effort to tour their stores either. Heck, it takes 1/2 an hour to get a box of ammo at the one closest to me, you hunt down an employee, then they hunt down the person with the keys, .... I was looking at the single shot H&R survivor 308 but if I can get a savage in that price range, I might do that instead. Certainly worth a look-see, though I really like the stock and design of that single shot..

Computer freaked double post.

Soon as I can get a semi-auto one I will be all over that thing. Maybe when ruger copies it they will make a semi too... no, wait, engineering is too hard

I am going to disagree here. The idea of practice with weak ammo and carry hot ammo is bunk, IMHO. If you carry a lightweight 357 and practice with weak, cheap target 38s, that recoil is going to suprise you when it comes down to defending your life, and thats a bad time to discover just how brutal a HOT 357 is in a light pistol. Same for these little guys, they are difficult to aim (small grip, short sight radius, etc) as it is, and if you swap to a HOT magnum load, even a .22, in those little guns it will not shoot the way you are used to. Some practice with cheap ammo is required unless you are rich, to be sure, but I strongly advise practice with the actual ammo that will be carried as well, to avoid finding out at a really bad time that the gun jumps out of your grip or that you cannot double tap because the muzzle is pointed at the moon after the first shot, or whatever.