Jonnin

apparently almost all shells have a bit of magnetic material in them by design, no matter if it looks like brass or anything else visually. The metal caps, if they are steel, are some mighty soft steel.

Heh, I was thinking the same thing during the deer season gear show & tell. "My new 1500 yard sniper rifle with a $800 scope saved me $150 in meat for the year..."

There appear to be about 50,000 different things called "XD". Not caring for the style, I was not sure if they all had that or not. Not important to this thread though, the point is his XD should be more than fine for the sport and the glock guys dont have any edge over him in the events.

Yea, its very soft. I had some of the very light loads and just added a mag tube to my shotgun. Of course, I had to check it, so I poked 7 of those things into it and hand cycled them a few times. There was a rough spot in my tube that I finally polished out, and in the process I hand cycled them a few more times.. At the end of the day I looked at the shells closely for the first time and the metal was beat and dented so much that I could have used it to make a mold for a new receiver face. All 7 shells were dented and beat to a pulp, which actually helped a little but (they were extra prone to hangup in the mag tube, so once it took THOSE it will now take ANYTHING). I was afraid to use those dented shells, and will not be testing with them again for sure. I will use them again though, I need some low recoil rounds and those are the weakest thing I have found, unfortunately anything better quality is also a lot more potent and I cannot handle rapid fire with stout shells.

Sorry to hear about your mom

Yea they said it but try reloader's case lube, and clean the thing really well, and see how that goes. My .44 even gets stuck cases with brass sometimes, the bigger rounds just do that sometimes, its usually minor but from time to time it can be a pain. The steel coating stuff is not helpful to any gun. Someone else should chime in here, but the coating is designed to help semi-autos, not revolvers, and I would be willing to bet that you could remove it before shooting them if you wanted. There is nothing in a revolver that needs to be protected from the steel on steel that the coating helps, except the interior of your cylinder, and if you had the case lube instead of the coating, it would be fine IMHO.

You cannot cure stupid. Biggest laugh I had a couple of years ago was a big, expensive SUV with a bumper sticker "more green, less bush" or some similar garbage. Just keep repeating to yourself that the average IQ is actually quite low, its a bell curve, and nothing you can do or say will change that, and you will feel better.

Thanks for the invite! I may do that someday, I am a member up there. I have a gun I could use now (before when I thought about it, all my stuff was too small (bullet or case length rule) or too big (fit in a box rule)) but I picked up a 9mm that would work since I last looked. We just traded out the wife's glock so it will have to be later, her replacement will be a few weeks away.

I noticed my red dot sight had serious elevation problems when I tried to use it for short ranges of 7, 14, and 21 feet. I put it dead on at 21 and it was inches off at 7, and fixed that, it was inches off at 21 again. There is no good setting that works on some optics at a variety of really short ranges, the farther out you go, the less it seems to happen (so, 125 and 150 yards can almost use the same setting, its not even one inch off, while a couple of feet makes an inch up close). I know the eotech is better and not the same as my red dot, but this same problem happens with a low power scope, and possibly other devices, yours may or may not suffer from this problem and to whatever extent, test it to find out! All that to say I am slowly making a 223 pistol into a package. I was going to go with the scope and 45 degee off that red dot, but the red dot issue above made me change my mind. I am now thinking about using a laser sight (laser pointer, whatever its called officially) for the up close work instead. I have not had a chance to try that out, but the laser can be put nearly in line with the barrel and "should" suffer less from this sort of problem. If you are going to go with the setup you have (not multiple devices or anything): I would say set up the sight you have at the range where you would prefer to aim instead of just point & spray. At 10 feet, you can hit an enemy without any aiming at all, and 4 or 5 223 should make most folks stop doing whatever they were doing and think about something else (if nothing else, they will be blind and deaf now, and possibly on fire). If you set up your sight to hit the target dead on at 25 feet, it should "work" from 20-30 feet, and if they charge in or are closer, it will be a little bit off but you can swap to point&shoot when they get that close. That is how I would do it. I do not think you would easily justify most shootings that you are involved in at more than 50 yards. Picking off some guy that is 100-200 yards out is going to be a tough sell to a jury. Just saying. You really should not need to be doing that in most realistic circumstances, and it should be a low priority to focus on shooting those ranges defensively.

No one needs a baseball bat either, its a killing machine in the hands of a thug, and using it for fun is unimportant to society as a whole. Guns are used for hunting food (you must eat to live). Guns are used in a variety of sports, during which no one is killed, just like a baseball bat. All my guns combined have killed less people than 1 of ted kennedy's cars. The government refuses to assign 24 hour police protection to me, and if I am attacked by someone with a knife, they will kill me as I am not very strong and getting older. My gun keeps me safe from the criminals that liberals let out of jail instead of executing. You get the picture. Be creative. But the sporting one is the one to drive home: guns are fun to shoot, many people enjoy the sports (skeet, bullseye, or just plinking, and more), and those sports are safe, no one is killed during the events. More people die each year in car accidents than have in the past century due to accidents at skeet shooting events, for example. A gun is only used to kill someone in 2 cases: 1) a criminal who needs to be executed gets one and does harm (the same guy could run someone down with a car, knife someone, beat someone to death with a guitar, strangle someone with an electric plug, burn someone to death with a can of gas, and more), and 2) an honest person putting a stop to someone like the criminal in #1. You can counter her gun control laws by saying we need more police, better enforcement of laws, harsher punishments, and so forth. If the liberals were doing their jobs with police and enforcing the existing gun control laws (the ones that prevent all ciminals from having any guns), we wouldnt need to carry handguns, but they are failing badly and a lot of bad guys are out there so we have to allow guns so honest folks can get a fair chance. All that aside, why do we need free speech? Why do we need the right to assemble? Why do we need the right to vote? Why is gun ownership any different from any other right? I thought liberals were all about protecting the rights of the people, they are all the time crying out over free speech (horrid anti USA "art" for example), whats the difference? Just random thoughts. You will never change the mind of someone who watches liberal media and buys into the "guns are killing machines" propaganda. The best you can do is challenge her to come shoot one at a range for fun, at a paper target. Take a target 22, and do some fun stuff like shoot at a jug full of water to make it jump or a spinner metal target, etc. Make it *fun* and talk about how much fun you are having and how its a personal challenge to improve your marksmanship, something you can always get better at as you practice and enjoy the sport.

The cost of 9mm and 45 or any other caliber is evened out a lot with reloading. 45 costs a little more, but not that much, and most "combat" 45s will shoot a lead slug (cheaper) while glocks use jacketed only ammo (unless you swap out the barrel -- your XD can handle lead ammo). So you can, if you reload them, probably do about as well with either gun. Note that most .45 have a lowish capacity; the top 9mm hold over 20 rounds while the majority of the 45s are 15 or less. I dunno about idpa rules on capacity but they seem to have build the thing around glocks and probably have no limit to the number of rounds, but they limit the gun size, so the larger 45 round will never get as many shots in the same dimension gun as a 9mm.... that will hurt your ability to compete a little bit unless they limit everyone to 10 round mags or something (??). If you are not in it to win at all costs, that should not matter. There is no advantage to a glock. Your XD is very similar, really. If you handed me both of them, I could not tell the difference without looking at them, unless your XD has that grip safety. For some reason I thought the sport did not allow SAO guns like 1911, but I could be mistaken, I really do not know. There is not really that much you can do to a glock to improve it anyway and still have it legal for the sport; you would have to remove the trigger "safety" and 3/4 the trigger travel to fix it, and that wouldnt be allowed (nor safe for carry, it would become a target pistol only). Note: when I said lead ammo, it has to be a little harder than pure lead, or the slide and feed ramp will deform the bullets, which is very bad. Still, you can shoot the stuff that has no copper, and that is where the price problem is -- they make a type of lead that works in semi-autos, and any 9mm "lead" slugs will be made that way since 99.99 % of all 9mm are semi autos...

Very nice collection! Slow learners, I think. I do not think you can copyright the word two any more than you can the number 92, not sure but the name change seems odd to me. Here is mine, it predates the clinton era with 15 rounds. I love this thing, no, not selling it, just showing it! It came with the grips, official logo on them. Bad pic, I need a better camera.

neat. Reminds me a little of an old straight razor, somewhat, the folding kind.

Other direction! I want a 4 grain starting load powder, roughly, if such exists, so I can go up or down from there to make a wimpy hole punch. Fireballs and thugbusters are exactly what I don't want. I have $50 worth of self defense ammo (less now, I tested some) in case of emergency, which I hope to shoot in 10 years at the range because I never needed it.

good to know. I have "factory crimp dies" that I have yet to use for most of the calibers, just seems like overkill but I wanted the option. I cannot see the seating die crimp, but the ammo has worked fine and once it works fine and pokes a hole in the paper, I am happy and leave it alone. Later I want to learn to make accurate loads for good groups, but I am taking it slow and soaking up info as fast as I can. If I can get the 223 down, I will feel a lot better, its a lot more difficult, I may ask about it later but want to give it a couple more tries first.

I do not see why not. Most such devices are made that way, however look closely. I had a gun that came with a clip and the screws for the clip were actually replacing pins in the frame, removal of the clip made these loose which caused no end of problems. I think my situation is probably unusual though, most of them that I have seen were removable.

It isnt belled after seating. I looked for this too, and while it does do that on my 223 efforts (which I do crimp) it does not on the straight cases. Again, the seating dies claim to crimp as part of their function, and they may be closing the case mouth, I cannot tell. There is no visible crimp at the end of the process though, perhaps that is all the seat-crimp does is close the bell a little bit. I dunno, I am the new guy here, you tell me!

its not hard to filter sea water, and if you *must* you can treat it for safety (they probably should), I think you can put a small drop of bleach in if nothing else but iodine is what I remember being the correct way to kill off any nasties. Food is a problem, if they didnt have some stored up. That should not kill anyone: aid is on the way and it should take a few days to starve to death. Hopefully they can hang on until the red cross and such arrive. Its a very horrible situation, and I remember now why I don't want to live on a beach.

380 is insanely expensive and worth it to reload. I am not paying $15+ a box and more for that stuff when I can make it for 1/2 that or less. My powder measure has been reliable, I weighed it over and over for a while and it does vary but not by that much. As you said, tenths of grains matter a lot for this round (from memory its about 3.2 to 3.5 grains from min to max) and my measure, over 25 test cases, is 3.3 to 3.4 grains dropped. I have not needed to crimp, so far the bullets I have used have all "bulged" the brass a tiny bit (you can see in the finished rounds where the bullet stops, there is a tiny bulge there at the base of the slug) and I cannot force them in deeper with all my strength and test-cycling them does not budge them a bit. I have kept an eye on that but so far nothing has needed a crimp of any sort (on the easy, straight case semi auto stuff). I think my seating die does a very light crimp but I cannot see it and its unclear if that is doing anything at all (lee dies, ?). I agree with you on the picky ammo issues, thankfully so far the only gun that has been this way was my wife's glock. It wants hot loads and nothing else. The bulk of our guns take anything we throw at them without any issues. That is exactly where I am going next. I was trying accurate #2 because I had a lot of it, but I am going to use that up on the 45 (where it does pretty well) and get something else for the 380 along the lines you suggested. Soon as it is gone (it was free) I will branch out to try other powders to see what works best for various calibers. -------------------------- Thanks for the tip on air space problems. That was new to me, I am going to go google it to make sure I don't experience it first hand. The test 380s worked fine, maybe slightly more stout than factory ammo but nothing felt "wrong". A new powder is definately in order for the next batch, just to keep it gentle on the hardware if nothing else. And thanks again everyone for all the help! If I can make it thru the year without any unintentional explosions, there may be hope for me yet

+1 for liberty. Mine is just a combo lock, no keypad, but I am confident that between the fire glaze (paint, whatever it is) and the asbestos (or whatever it is) interior, that it will survive a typical house fire and typical burglar, probably both at the same time if need be. Presidential series, and worth every penny.

Ok. I am reading the manuals, but not everything is said clearly in every document, that was the main point. If the manuals label +p clearly, then none of the ones I have include that data, there are no markings to that effect. Which is fine, again, I just want some cheap range ammo, I can buy the hard hitting stuff as needed. If the load data is maxed at the cheapest/weakest firearms, that works too, I suspect my sig is better made than whatever they used. There is no "working" the load for the 380 (another point): its just under the max unless I go to hand weigh each charge (not going to do that) because the auto device is on its lowest setting. That is the amount of powder I am going to get, though I could change brands to weaken it. I feel better about trying one in the gun though, its under max charge (slightly), seated much less deep (relative, haha... small distances here) than the listed minimum (lower pressure) and in a quality firearm. I didnt crimp them, I assume that would increase the pressure slightly (sits in case for longer?) Thanks for the info, I will try a couple of these to see if they seem usable, and if not, buy a different powder that needs more mass for the same energy. I already hand cycled them and they feed fine, so its really just a question of how stout they really are. Being as careful with it as I know how to be!

I like the idea of camping out; that is your best bet, with a long range camera/zoom so you can get the faces, liscense plates, etc and take it to the cops. The sign said its under video, so, that makes your film usable as evidence I think (but am not a lawyer). The rule is usually that if the person did not know they were being recorded, it becomes an issue, but the sign covers that hopefully. Better: you are an eyewittness, which even if the footage is blocked, you cannot be kept from testifying. You can also set up remote video, where the camera transmit the images immediately to a nearby computer. Flash, no flash, doenst matter, you have the footage. If you put a fish eye lens on, you can see nearly 180 degree arc and on a decent resolution camera, that will get you nearly everything if you put up 2 or 3. You may WANT them to take the cameras or destroy them, thats another thing to arrest them for (theft or destruction of property). If the camera is pricy, you can move the charges up from petty theft, at some point, I forget the exact dollar amounts. Its totally a setup to burn the guys doing it, but spending more could make the charges stick, and get you better data, etc. Just random thoughts, not advice, but you might look into this sort of approach.

Is the never exceed info in manuals for normal ammo or for +P ammo? Does it assume the round is seated to the min OAL (so if you seat it less deep, is it less potent?). I am not trying to make super hot rounds (actually the opposite, I just want a paper puncher), but I am having a small aggravation with the auto-powder device on the 380 .. my smallest setting is close to the max charge but I do not seat it quite that deep. I know 380 does not have an official +p but for other rounds, the max load, it was unclear (for future reference). Finally, the accurate download (pdf) for load data has COL for the overall, and I didnt find anywhere if that was the min or recommended (I have assumed that it is the min, and backed up my loads with several sources of data from other manufacturers) but it would be nice to know. Typically I have split the difference between the COL listed there and the max OAL of the round (well known), and seated it at that point. Thanks, still a lot to learn here, and still aiming for the weakest ammo that will cycle my guns as best I can until I know a heck of a lot more...

unless the author approved, its very, very unlikely that a free copy on the web is legal. If the book is very, very old as well, but this one probably isnt.

If you spend about twice the price of the gun they offer, you get the gun "free" with the class. It was, last time they offered, a glock of some sort, I think the gun listed new at around 500 and the class was almost 1k (or more, its been a while since I now direct all their email to the trash right away unseen), I forget the exact numbers but it was in that neighborhood. The offered gun was one of the huge models, 7 or 7.5 inch monster, thats about all I remember of it.