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raz-0

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Posts posted by raz-0

  2. Posted

    Shooting on a marked range at known distances? Don't need it.

    Shooting with a ranging reticle at something you have a reasonable idea of how big it is? Don't need it.

    Shooting without a ranging reticle at something you have a reasonable idea of how big it is? Can get around it with some know how, but the laser rangefinder is probably of benefit in general.

    Shooting without a ranging reticle at something you don't know the size of? Yeah, it's useful.

     

    The cheaper the rnage finder, the less accurate is likely to be and the less well it holds up against the alternatives.

  3. Posted

    Is anyone else annoyed when you order something and you check the tracking and see that it's coming USPS? "we think your package is in our system. We're not quite sure where it might be, and we think we might potentially deliver it in 4 days, or not, it really depends because, frankly, we haven't really got a clue if your package is actually moving through our system so if it shows up, that's great. If it doesn't, well don't worry, thousands just like you have the same problem."

     

    No, not really. Because it usually gets there in a timely fashion. If they can't leave it it goes straight to the customer counter where I can get it without having to deal with a maze of voice menus and someone in India on the end of a bad VOIP phone system. It'll also be at that counter the next morning when they open, and doesn't depend on when they brought the last truck in and the way the wind was blowing. Overall, I LIKE when stuff comes priority mail flat rate. Things like media mail are another matter. Their tracking system is lacking compared to UPS and Fedex, but in general it hasn't been an issue.

  4. Posted

    He needs to adjust the diopter. There should be instructions with the scope, and if it is not adjustable... well wrong scope. With serious prescriptions, the diopter might not have enough adjsutment, and you ahve to start messing with eye relief with some negative compromises. Also, 65.. does he have bifocals, progressives, etc? There are a lot of things that can make it suck. If he can't make a page in a book held about a foot away form the face clear with whaterver eyes+glasses combo, he isn't going to have much lufck with a scope without seeing the eye doctor first.

  8. Posted

    Depends on who makes that $500 M1911. If built with USGI spec parts, it'll run with few issues.

     

    Case in point: I own a ~$500 M1911, a Springfield Armory Mil-Spec model. It's a ittle fancier than their GI model, but the same parkerized pistol. I've only put about 200 rounds through it, but it has functioned just fine. Even with cheap $5 magazines, it feeds and functions without a hitch.

     

    It has SA's crappy bar stock extractor, which has a short lifespan. If you want to shoot 175pf and under loads, expect a lifespan around 2-3k before you start getting a lot of FTEs (you might get more, but that is the range I ahve seen most failures). If you shoot hotter factory ammo, and keep the heavy mainspring and recoil spring, you'll likely see closer to 5-7k. A proper spring steel extractor will go MUCH longer than that, as will an aftec. Cost to fix is between $30-80 depending on what you choose.

  9. Posted

    commodity speculation is the devil... trading based on what people "think" the price of gas will be creating fear and more trading prices go up.. supply and demand play a part but very little.. since we have plateau'd on oil production and supply I wouldn't expect to see much more of a difference in the 3-4 dollar a gallon range for the next decade.

     

    You are right, but it has gotten worse than that. The big investment banks like goldman sachs have gotten into the commodities warehousing business. Including oil. THe regulations only require them to release purchased goods within a certain amount of time. They abuse that lag to their benefit when trading. Somehow this is legal. I suspect in addition ot honest speculation, we have inventory manipulation going on as well.

     

    We had a really warm winter, and people aren't driving all that much, inventory is high, and the euro isn't doing anything amazing compared to the dollar, and we've seen the price points before on everything,

     

    If it goes like last year, they'll decide we really mean it about not drivng so much by may, and prices will taper off. The pattern for the last few years has been a runup like there was going to be no tomorrow at the end of winter, then the realization that the consumer does not ahve unlimited funds beginning in may with the obsesive gamblers giving up if there are poor memorial day weekend travel numbers.

  13. Posted

    thanks for the pics. The metal tabs poke into the front of the stock barrel nut, and the angled shape makes the flange on the barrel nut wedge against the slot around the circumference of the tube? So anti rotation is just friction and the tab on one side? (Not that that wasn't the case before, but there was a lot more clamping surface in the old design).

  15. Posted

    raz-0- attached is the load data I assembled and I hold no liability that this is safe for anybody else. I think it discounts some of your statements and findings. These loads have been assembled on a Dillon 550B with Dillon carbide dies.

     

    We are not actually in much disagreement. I just typed 0.030 instead of 0.003 and kept typing the same thing. I hate it when I do that, sucks to look like a dumbass because you weren't proof reading properly. Yes going from 1.135 to 1.105 would be severe variation. I wouldn't worry about 1.000 vs 1.010 unless you are really pushing the envelope, and I wouldn't try chasing down the discrepancy of 0.003" by fiddling more with the machine. Editing my posts to reflect that. Been doing way too much of the touch typing substitution type typos lately. My brain thought 30 thousandths for some reason at the start, and my hands kept typing 030 and 040. Probably would have been better off giving examples of the actual numbers.

     

    I'm still not seeing as consistent OALs as you are in random mixed brass though, although I am seeing less than 0.010 spread on random brass with reasonable press setup and care. Usually I'm seeing variations like 1.130-1.137 on my .40 with random range brass and a casual setup. If I sample, set up for the middle of variation or at one end of variation doing it one cartridge at a time, then fine tune on random 4 round selections a few times over the first 100 rounds, I can usually get it/keep it to ~0.004 for variation and either limit it at the high end, low end, or aim for the middle of the variation, which I found to be a PITA until I got a micrometer seating die. .40 due to bullet profile and the fact some vendors have pretty "tall" brass and others pretty "short" brass, if I want to go below that, I at the very least have to cull certain headstamps. 9mm and .45 aren't so bad, and I can usually keep it to 0.003 with them and a little effort put into setup.

     

    moving away form the lee FCD in .40 and to a dillion taper crimp has helped with measured OAL, but I think half of it is because it helped with concentricity. The other half is because without the sizing ring, it doesn't pull on the bullet nearly as much when the cartridge is pulled out.

  16. Posted

    I found it more interesting regarding just how bad some of the products are. The second one he demonstrates is just an unforgivable design, and is literally opened with a bent paperclip. Mostly I think it is full of useful info for judging if something you are lookign at in the store might be a total POS. If you watch the whole video, the guy adds a $40 lock to the first candidate and is quite happy with what it is.

  18. Posted

    One of the best things about this forum for me is getting better acquainted with firearms and legalities so I can do my job better. I can honestly say in my academy firearms recognition and legalities were barely touched. It was more of a " you will learn when u get out there". All this info supports my addiction and makes me a better more informed officer.

     

    Out of curiosity, was any enlightnement on the subject forthcoming when you got there, or was it more like "we don't ahve time for that, you should have learned it already?"

  20. Posted

    Have you taken any classes with this guy? Because I have heard about the CAR system for quite some time and it makes very little sense to me. I don't discount it entirely because whenever the guy talks about it, it seems like he has come up with a pretty cogent set of inputs that he thinks this is an answer to, but in actually trying it, 90% of it strikes me as not making any sense nor having a meaningful benefit.

     

    I'll start with what makes some sense to me. The "high" position for close stuff is actually a pretty repeatable platform to practice point shooting/index shooting from a close range with some adjustability in "POA" while maintaining a physical index via kinesthesia. It's also a pretty sound position to try and keep someone from grabbing your gun, and you can go from a low ready maintaining muzzle discipline to shooting very fast. Although it makes things harder, you can pivot with it through a fairly wide range of motion and it can be integrated as a rather natural intermediary position in a weaver or modern ISO draw.

     

    Now for what doesn't make sense. Pretty much every other position.

     

    One it is heinously complicated about what you are supposed to be doing to do it "right" I have NEVER seen a video that shows anyone but him doing this for five minutes without that person screwing it up royally at some point. I'll note their slick "we are a cool training facility" ad doesn't have anyone using this technique (reinforcing my need to ask if anyone but him can use it right on demand).

     

    Two, back to the non dominant eye thing. I'm assuming you go to the dominant eye in one direction and the non dominant in the other based on his rotating around the centerline thing and general happiness to go to a mirror image of a given stance to get "180 degrees" of coverage. The only explanation I have found of this is that it allows you to keep your sights in the line of sight to watching the bad guy, while letting you see everything wiht both eyes. I've tried it, and every single image I have seen of anyone doing it form the muzzle end of things basically has the gun in front of the forward eye obscuring a lot of field of view, and your whole freakin' hand in front of the rearward eye. You literally spend every waking moment of your life with everything other than this system learning to do the opposite of what this system tells you to with your eyes. That strikes me as very much swimming upstream.

     

    Three. The guy seems to be advocating the use of this with multiple attackers in mind. However it seems to severely limit range of motion to a cone of fire roughly .45 degrees. He gets his 180 by flipping to a mirror image hold very rapidly. However, with his demise, it seems people are finally showing off the details of the grip. While the thumb pushing on thumb things does give you some stability, it is MASSIVELY awkward to swap hands and reacquire the grip. He's fast at it, but he only really seems to get 90 degrees of coverage in the form of 45 degrees of coverage at each end of his 180.

     

    Four. A number of things he touts as advantages are no better with tis than any other system. For example the visual check of empty or not is swimming upstream as far as being in fight or flight mode and what usually happens with target focus (i.e. I'm gonna focus on the bad guy first), and really no different than trying to practice that routine with any other stance. The natural position for a reload is anything but. Even when he demonstrates it, he is moving as far from his index as many other methods, he's jsut practiced the snot out of it, so it looks smooth.

     

    Fifth. Accuracy. I have seen very few demonstrations of the system's accuracy other than from the "high" position, and even then it has been at 10ft and less. While the accuracy for truly index shooting form the high position is acceptable, I have also seen students of his who are happy with the system transition to the combat high position, which involves a sight picture, and their accuracy was worse than with the index shooting.

     

    Sixth. I see a BUTTLOAD of his students on youtube rushing a hasty draw into an awkward position while sweeping their femoral artery. This seems like an awesome plan. You get more than the hazards of a crossdraw holster without any of the benefits like having an easy draw form within a vehicle from the driver's side.

     

    I could get a lot more detailed, but that's a start. In all honesty, after examining it, it looks like what you get if you take someone with proficiency in hand to hand and with a sub gun in CQB and zero experience with a handgun trying to make up a technique form scratch. Imagine the technique with a subgun on full auto, and you get a lot more upsides entering the picture IMO.

  21. Posted

    Why do you think the brass would effect the COL? Explain...

     

    Empirical evidence. I've tried to dial it out of multiple presses, and you cannot without resorting to performing QC on the components going in. Mixing head stamps and lots on brass introduce component variation, not every brand has the same wall thickness, nor same dimensions on the extractor groove. Lot to lot, wear on the manufacturing equipment can affect those dimensions as well. On top of that, cheap bulk components are only so consistent, so you have variation in them as well. Make it range pick up that may have been reloaded before, as well as being shot out of a variety of guns, and due to how much the brass has been worked due to multiple loadings, or looser/tighter chambers, you'll have wall thicknesses that vary as well as extractor rims that may have been distorted, and general stretching that may show up in any critical dimension. As to why this has a negative effect on consistency of OAL.

     

    1) You ever notice how every single shell holder ever has a groove in it which is used to retain the cartridge at the very least on the up stroke when the case is pulling out of the dies? Well, most of them don't necessarily allow every piece of brass to actually lay flush with the bottom of the shell holder or the sub plate on a progressive shell plate. This is due to variations in how the extractor groove is dimensioned. Even if they did sit flush on the down stroke, it wouldn't matter on the up stroke, and with things like taper crimps and whatnot, you actually change the OAL with that part of the process. It causes less deviation on a single stage because the single case shell holder is concentric with the case and fairly rigid, however on a progressive, I have yet to see a press design that doesn't permit some plate flex. If you have a gap, the resizing station will usually cause some flex as it is usually the station with the most force exerted on it earliest in the downstroke. This causes the spacing between the seating dies and the shell plate to change. Usually with that side of the shell plate lifting slightly. It'll change your OAL simply because at the very least the plunger that the bullet pushes against in the die will be touching a slightly different part of the ogive.

     

    2) Especially with a lee FCD in the crimp station, but with any taper crimp in general, you will find OAL grows a bit with most pistol cartridges after being crimped. Case wall thickness, and overall cartridge length can affect this. The former does so by how much the cartridge binds in the die. The more binding, the more force exerted when you pull the cartridge out. the less binding, the less force. This affects finished OAL. Case wall thickness varies between brands, lots, and is affected by number of times sized, fired, and reloaded as well as being fired in loose chambers.

     

    3) variation in bullet consistency. Take a seating die apart. You will see they contact the ogive rather than the tip of the bullet. They contact the bullet where the bullet's ogive describes a certain diameter. Bullets are imperfect and thus you will find that where that given diameter falls on a given bullet varies slightly from it's neighbor, and thus where a given seating dies set at a specific position will contact them will be different. This changes OAL. In my experience, truncated cone profiles exaggerate this the most.

     

    I've fond that if I sort by headstamp using brass that is from the same lot and fired and reloaded the same number of times, I can get very consistent OAL on a single stage press. Mathematically WAY less than 0.01 variance average, but practically speaking although I had less rounds over or under my target length, the maximal variance was about the same as with a progressive press, which was a range of about 0.015 in variation For reference, I'll say I only experimented with stuff I bought new and was known once fired n the first loading, after that it just got dumped in the big pile of brass to reload.

     

    Also, especially with progressive presses, as you use them a lot, they get sloppier.

     

    I've also experimented with sorting finished loads by OAL and chronoing them. Their velocity spreads overlapped between OAL groups significantly. Given that velocities were consistent within the < 0.004 slop I was getting with zero QC on the brass other than looking for splits and damaged case rims, it's reasonable to say that the pressure curves were similar between them and there was no safety issue. I also noticed no functional increase/decrease in accuracy between groups. However, I'm not the most accurate pistol shooter. I'm only good for about 4.5" at 30 yards if I'm trying, and I'm better than I was back when I did this.

     

    These days, I seat with a micrometer seating die, and if I'm seeing more than 0.030 variance with high frequency of variance, I'll diagnose press setup. If I'm below 0.030, and I'm not pushing the max book loads, I'll leave it be. If I am pushing max book loads, I'll hand pick a range of headstamps and beat up and nice loking brass, load them, measure the variance, and use the micrometer adjustment to easily bring sizing in line to keep max length in a functional zone for my guns, and stay above minimum OAL for the charge. I have yet to run into a situation where I could not accommodate both conditions.

     

     

    [Edited to fix brain fart typoes]

  23. Posted

    I won't say I disagree with him, but he's wrong on a lot of his points. 1) grip angle. An arched or flat mainspring doesn't change the angle of the front strap. If the glock doesn't point right for you, I wouldn't voluntarily choose it.

    2) The 1911 was originally designed with a flat mainspring housing. 3) I've seen a hell of a lot less than 15,000 glocks, and I have seen plenty of them fail, but the rate is way less than a box stock 1911. 3) I like the g19 best of the glocks, but if you have wide meaty hands I'd go 17 or baby glock as a nice forceful mag insert can take a good hunk of flesh with it that can actually cause malfunctions. It also bleeds like the dickens. 4) unless you have small hands and a high grip, a grip safety with a bump is hard to not activate. The skinny mil spec grip safety I agree with him about. 5) the gs prevents you from picking it up and shooting it in awkward positions. Compared to similar guns, the glock is damn near the most picky about limp writing. 6) be ignores durability. It takes a lot to shoot out a glock and a 1911, but I've seen more eol cracked glock frames than i have worn out 1911 frames, and the glocks took a lot less time to get there.

     

    You can get a glock reliable 1911, but it is likely going to cost you at lest as much as three glocks. Also, it's not like glocks are your only choice for box stock reliability with capacity.

     

  24. Posted

    My AR will not cycle Wolf ammo. They dont make it out of the magazine and into the chamber. They jam half way between. it eats ANY brass ammo but no steel. I wound up trading what I had with Maks for brass ammo.

    Just my $.02

    Ken

     

    What weight bullet, what temperature at the range, what mags, what length gas system?

     

    With a mid length gas system on a 16" I have had similar issues with some old stock 62gr wolf and pmags in cooler weather (high 30s). Too much friction, not enough gas.

  25. Posted

    With the slide lightening cuts, is it a matter of trial & error to get the right weight recoil spring for proper cycling?

     

    Not really, at least as far as functioning goes. A 1911 will operate reliably with a fairly wide range of recoil spring weights, the experimenting comes in when you want to alter the speed the slide comes back or goes forward and how that makes recoil feel. Unless you are going with REALLY light loads, in which case you will have to go to a lighter spring.

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