raz-0

You only get nose dives with shorter rounds if your barrel is not fit properly, or you are trying to get maximum mag capacity bu using wafer thin followers. Sometimes even then they work. Most load long to be able to load fast powders that feel as light as possible. 4.7gr of titegorup in a 1.130 lengtth 180gr .40 round feels different than a 1.20 length .40 with the same charge. BUt I run 1.135 OAL in my STI all the time without issue. 1.125-1.135 will work in nealry every factory .40 that I have run into. A couple will prefer 1.130 as the high end if you plan on getting your mags real dirty. I have a bunch of major and minor .40 loads, more than I feel like transcribing here, so to the OP, what gun with what length barrel, I probably have a recipe.

Keep telling yoruself it's because of the gun if it makes you feel better.

Sold my USP9 to fund a M&P 40 when they first came out. The USP looks cool and was dead reliable, but designed stupidly IMO. IT has a totally crap trigger that is near impossible to make better (well they did revise it, still crap IMO). It has a proprietary light rail, they made the slide WAY too heavy which gives it a lot of muzzle flip. The M&P has a mediocre trigger, but compared to first generation USPs double action it is awesome, even better than the first gen single action. Hoever, there are multiple options for improving it unlike the USP. The light rail is standard. It is also dead reliable once the striker design was sorted out. S&W also doesn't hate you, the retail consumer. So if something does go wrong, you don't have to put up with attitude and hassle to get it fixed eventually some day.

Those numbers don't look right. The ace ARFX full length excluding buffer tube is 10.9oz according to ACE, which is close enough to what I actually measured (I had to replace some of the hardware because it vanished into a different dimension after getting dropped). As far as I can tell, that is the weight with hardware, but without the rubber pad. That'd make the buffer tube wieght by their math another 10 oz. The magpul PRS is listed by magpul as 1.68 lb not including the buffer tube and 1.90 lb with. This list has it listed as lighter than the w/o weight. I haven't gotten to weigh one, but having handled one it is NOT light. Also, even the short ACE socom M4 stock is heavier than the ARFX stock even according to ACE. The proprietary extension for it is heavy, but the list has it at 20.1 oz. where ace claims 16.5 for the long version, and that includes the tube. Even if you add a rifle length buffer, that's 5 more oz, which gets you to 21.5 oz. I wouldn't trust this list based on my experience. From del-ton, you can get a kit with the ARFX for $90 that has the buffer tube, buffer, and spring. Cheapest I'm seeing the sully is $130. If you want short like the sully stock, the ARFX entry stock is $96 from del-ton with buffer tube, buffer and spring. That's 9.7 oz without the tube or buffer.

cerakote on slides is just fine. No worse than parkerizing or a bunch of other finishes. However, customized creationz can be a real mixed bag. I don't think I have ever seen anyone complain about the actual work, but the guy who runs the place seems to turn into a giant were-a-hole periodically and doesn't like getting stuff turned around or answering calls. IIRC, there were a handful of people on the M&P pistol forums that had issues with they guy holding onto their gear for way too long and being a jerk about it.

And limited quantities of slide lightening at that. It's a shame, he built my L/l-10 gun, and his work was top notch. his turnaround times were unheard of. Seriously, it took me less time to get my box of parts back as a gun than it took me to get a mossberg 930 that was in stock form bud's gun shop.

for rainier, just use lead data. The core is very soft lead, and the plating is thin and fairly ductile. For berry's double struck, I get pretty close to jacketed performance. For xtreme plated, I'd knock a tenth off of max loads form most manufacturer's data, or just use JHP data. The smaller case volume of the JHP vs the tighter seal of the slightly more ductile plated bullet seems to be about even with them.

I think part of the reason why your premise is falling down in this venue is because NJ isn't the home of fudd. Fudd was dragged out back and kicked to death a while ago. For example, the CJ board is some of the most fudd like characters I know. Yet any fight I have had with them isn't about them having any malice towards us, but simply from a complete lack of understanding what we do and why we do it. I think at the heart of it, NJ is so hostile to us that there are very few factions of gun ownership that are happier fighting with another gun owning group than with the politicians. I've heard plenty of other USPSA MDs gripe about the fudds and have to put up with gobs more hassle and hostility than we do in NJ, and USPSA is the poster child for "gun culture 2.0" since 1970-something. I think the only relevant discussion of gunculture 1.0 vs. 2.0 is mostly in where growth in the shooting population is coming from. Hunting is on the decline, and although concealed carry has been around forever, the greater availability of low-hassle, legal CCW has a bunch of new shooters going form no experience to joining for SD reasons than ever before. Although movies and TV probably have driven some percentage of new shooters in the market, video games are becoming a ubiquitous part of the cultural backdrop for each successive crop of kids. With that, not only are guns cool, but people's experience with them are more experiential than in decades past where it was just movies and TV. As an illustrative fact that 1.0 vs 2.0 doesn't illustrate some cultural divide is that 2.0 showed up and there were things like USPSA, IDPA, 3-gun, etc already here ready and waiting.

Several years ago when I was still in an apartment complex, we had the circling helicopter and hoards of uniformed officers crawling all over the place. Absolutely nothing on the news. I had to ask several LEOs in order to find out it was the end of a low speed chase resulting form an amber alert and a parental unit gone off his meds. Nobody was being particularly secretive, it was more of a non event except for the bit with the helicopter?

I'm nto fond of that list. It is old. Pretty much EVERYTHING I have tried that is on that list doesn't agree with the results found there by a good bit. I think mostly because the bullets, even if the same make and model may have changed, and the powders definitely have. It's a useful tool for some guesstimating, but I wouldn't use it in place of a chrono.

Look like they should be ok. Don't like the sales pitch though. Better than mil-spec? They look like mil-spec BCGs that someone didn't pay to have MPT per the mil spec, nor have they been HPT unless they omitted that from the sales patter.

Yeah and ignore that COLA increase for social security.

What gun with what length barrel?

As one of the CJ match directors I can guarantee you you will never see Amidon's idiotic ruling enforced while I'm in charge unless you have come up with some means of reloading form your front pocket that provides a competitive advantage.

As far as I can tell, there are a ton of BCGs with all the same specs out there for about the same price they even have their logos laser engraved in the same spot. I suspect they all come from the same supplier, especially since several of them got in a pissing match over price and claimed testing. I think the reality is the spikes, BCM, and palmetto state armory BCGs are all the same part with different logos, and possibly slightly different sampling rates for the HPT/MPI testing.

I used to use midway a lot. Now I use them when I need something ASAP and everyplace else is out of stock. powder valley is the goto place for powder and primers. wideners and graffs are also good. midsouth shooter's supply is good too. Except I don't buy bullets from any of them. For that I go with precision delta if I want the cheapest FMJ. Montana gold for jacketed with a covered base or hollowpoints (not SD, for accuracy, shooting out of a comped or gas operated pistol), precision bullets if I want moly coated, and the bullet works for plated (I think they sell extreme, for rainier, powder valley has decent prices).

You can't get a bohica. As far as I can tell, the guy running the shop closed it's doors and left town. Which makes a certain degree of sense given that he was revising the platform due to safety concerns, and neither issuing a recall nor warning previous customers that the upper might be dangerous. If you are interested in such a thing, you might try the zel custom tactilite uppers. They ahve had issues, but they did preemptive recalls like you would expect a real business to.

If you don't want to spend on the dillon super swage, just ream the pockets. The swagers that mount on your press form other brands all suck. If you do go with reaming them, make sure to get something with a good, sharp cutter. The hornady is decently priced and sharp. The lyman not so much.

I'm pretty sure OBRPC lets you at the outdoor range. 100 yards hardly makes it worth it though.

Dude, it's $139 for a MPI and HPT tested mil-spec BCG. Click the button and buy it or don't, I dare you to find something to compare it to that is actually similar and differs by more than $10. It's pretty much my go-to solution to the question of which BCG. It's affordable, it works, and it lasts pretty well. You wnat a price atch on a great deal, but think $185 for a pimp gold BCG is a good deal. Myself, I don't know that I'd nitride the bolt. Depending on the process, it can be high temp or low temp. The operation of the bolt WILL wear through it. For example I have a low temp TiCN coating on my 2011. It's VERY hard stuff. But where the hammer rubs against the slide stop wore to bare metal in about 7,000 rounds because the hammer is softer metal than the slide stop underneath. I don't want a failing coating on my bolt (yes, park rubs off, but it rubs off to a powdery like substance that is similar to carbon fouling that the gun is designed to deal with. Not little very hard flakes). High temp nitriding processes will change the temper of the metal. That's not necessarily good for prolonging the duty cycle of the locking lugs, which are usually the first part to fail. As for chroming a bolt, then you have to concern yourself with hydrogen embrittlement with regards to the locking lugs. I said I was trying to keep it simple previously. If you waqnt a fancy coating on your carrier. I suggest getting a carrier separate and either putting in a mil-spec bolt, or if you want fancy the JP or LWT bolts that are "better" via engineering and metallurgy rather than a coating. IMO bolts should not be plated or nitrided.

Sort of. An m-16 proifile carrier does not have any ramifications in terms of being accused of trying to build a machine gun. Putting one in a semi-auto is perfectly fine. At one point it was a gray area, but that was hashed out with plenty of BATFE letters to prove it many years ago. However if you have an actual full-auto AR, you need one or it won't work right. It'll work in both and is a bit heavier. A semi-auto BCG won't work right in a full auto gun, and is a bit lighter. The difference is at the rear for the carrier on the bottom. If you look at the m-16 carrier, you will see the thinned area on the bottom ends at the same spot it does on the top. With the semi-auto version, it ends farther back on the bottom than on the top.

Rock river arms carriers are semi-auto profile, and their staking job uses the right methodology, but tends to be on the wimpy side, so YMMV. As far as I can tell they add a thread locker to theirs which helps. I have one in one of my uppers and have several K of rounds through it without issue. As far as MPI or HPT on the BCG? Dunno, I doubt it.

Proper staking is necessary. What they are talking about with regard to that is the staking of the gas key. The gas key is screwed on. Staking is deforming the metal around it and the screws to create mechanical interference that prevents them from unscrewing. What you see people worrying about is too little staking. IMO too much is equally as bad. An example of not enough that you commonly see looks like someone took a big chisel across the top of the carrier and screws and applied pressure from top to bottom on the carrier. This dents all the bits that need to be deformed, but usually doesn't create an overlap of deformed metal, and thus misses the point. You'd see this a LOT on 90s era bushmasters and RRA. Heck, you'd see it a lot in 90s era ARs of all manufacture. The other common "bad" staking job you woudl see is denting with two pointed hardened screws from the top (one one each of the carrier key screws). This was more likely to work, but was often done wrong. IF you click to soom in, this pic of a stag BCG shows the often less than adequate chisel from the top type of staking. It CAN work, but often the ones that work are also using some form of thread locker for an assist. http://www.rainierarms.com/?page=shop/detail&product_id=114 The CORRECT way is to use hardened screws in a fixture dimpling in the gas key form the sides until the screws deform slightly. If you are careful, you can achieve acceptable results using a cold chisel form the sides, but it is more abusive to the key, screws, and carrier. Spikes standard carrier, BCM's carrier, and daniel defense's carrier all are good examples of properly staked keys. the daniel defense web store has a particularly good picture. http://www.bravocompanyusa.com/PhotoGallery.asp?ProductCode=BCM+Bolt+Carrier+Group+AUTO+MP https://danieldefense.com/components-parts/upper-half/complete-bolt-carrier-group.html As always, when you say not enough of something is bad, there's a whole group of people who think that means more is better, and they usually fall into the crowd who think a bigger hammer or pushing harder can fix anything. On top of that, you have some fixtures like the moacks staking tool that will let them push as hard as they want. If you go to http://www.m-guns.com/tools.php# and click on pocket moacks, theres a good picture that shows a mediocre 90s era screws form the top staking job that was probably sufficient, as well as the result of using a moacks tool to do an aggressive but probably still acceptable staking job. I've seen results form their tools that has essentially traded the fear that the screws might back out for the fear that the cracks you just put in the metal might spread and make the screws' presence irrelevant. As a note, ABSOLUTELY DO NOT, try to "fix" the staking job and any bolt carrier that is coated with chrome, NiB, or any other nitriding process. The only one that might forgive you and not start flaking badly are osme of the titanium nitrides. They'll crack where you distort them, but they are pretty good about not having the damage spread and the coating flake. IMO some example of parked good to go items in terms of staking are the following Spikes phosphated BCM's BCG daniel defense's standard BCG LMT's standard BCG Young's manufacturing standard carrier (their chrome ones look good too) There are others, but those are the one's off the top of my head. The palmetto premium BCG looks like it is staked properly as well.

http://www.del-ton.com/ACE_Buttstock_p/bs1029.htm arfx fixed stock kit. Rigid = good.

Yes, there's a real difference. The question is do you want that difference. For example, bolts. There's MPI tested, and high pressure tested if you are staying in the realm of the basic mil-spec configuration and materials. Having both MPI and HPT per unit testing is the best bet there because you get some assurance of lifespan. Then you have coatings on the bolt. There's chrome. It can flake. There's fail zero stuff, which IIRC is nickel boron. It' is less likely to flake and is pretty decent. Both will make it easier to clean, and that's about it. Then you have material. Mil-spec is carpenter 158 steel. You have JP making it out of much fancier steel than that. Then you have deviations form the original design liek the lmt bolt that has a different shape to the extractor to have tandem extractor springs as well as a difference in the claw and bolt face design. Then there is the carrier. coatings You can get chrome.. problem is flaking, makes it easier to clean. You can get the mil spec parkerizing .. less durable on the friction front, but works fine. You can get various flavors of titanium nitride. Which is less likely to flake, easier to clean than park, but offers no corrosion resistance like the above do. Those will be black or gold in color. Then you have the fail zero coating, which is pretty durable and easy to clean. Then there is mass. You have the mil-spec m-16 profile in mil-spec steel. You have the young's national match, which is heavier. You have the young's light, which is close to the same weight. you have the mil-spec derived semi auto, which is a tad lighter. you have the young's ultra light which is lighter still. you have the JP light carrier, which is about the same, but you can't use a forward assist with it. You ahve the old JP aluminum carrier which is seriously light, has no forward assist and isn't made any more. You also have a titanium one out there that isn't made anymore. But was seriously light and had forward assist notches. then you have the LMT enhanced bolt carrier which has the gas porting in it changed to incrasae dwell time without increasing mass. Then you have things like the tubb weight system to add lots of mass to the carrier. What does combining all the above do? Well, if you go with a light BCG, you can decrease your gas supply via an adjustable gas block, and if you ALSO use a buffer weight of the right mass, you decrease the reciprocating mass without negatively affecting the ability to feed reliably. Which means less recoil and muzzle rise, and possibly faster cycle times. With a good comp, that all adds up to faster shot to shot performance if you can actually work the rifle that fast. Doing that takes a fair amount of practice. For a lighter buffer, you either use a carbine buffer (and a spacer in a rifle length stock), use something like the JP low mass buffer, or just modify a rifle buffer and swap some of the steel weights out with aluminum rod. If you go heavy, you can increase the dwell time. Which spreads the recoil impulse out, which feels mellower. But you are more likely to drive the barrel down when that big mass goes into battery, especially with a lighter buffer like you get in a carbine stock. Then you have stuff like the lauer enhanced carrier that increases dwell time without increasing mass. I could go on, but really, do you have to wait for the rifle to go back into battery you can get back on target that fast? No? Then you probably don't need one. Are you going for maximum accuracy at all costs? Then go heavy, and spring for an easy to clean coating, because the increased mass is going to make stuff sluggish if you don't keep it clean. that's an over simplification because the other half of the recoil and reliability equation is the gas system. That gets even more complicated. Myself, I go with a properly tested mil-spec bolt. Why? because at the moment the JP and Lauer are about 2.5x as much, and don't necessarily have 2.5x the lifespan before you start cracking a locking lug. For the carrier, I go with an m-16 carrier as the small amount of extra mass helps mellow out a mid-length system even more. I also go with the longest gas system that works reliably with the barrel length I want. So mid-length in a 16", and rifle length in anything 17" or more. I don't bother with adjustable gas blocks anymore because if you ant the thing reliable all year round with whatever ammo you have, and you aren't going with a real low-mass setup, you basically have to leave it wide open anyway. So why spend the money.