Shocker

I forgot about this guide: http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-plastic-sheets/=im63au you can click on the "about" tabs at the top and they'll give you an idea on strength, machinability, etc. And since they sell the stock also you can get a price idea and order it too.

I used a Bladetech for my SP2022 when I was shooting that in IDPA. Two things to consider is its not a stocked item for Bladetech so it will be a month or so to get it, and apparently there were two versions of that rail so it might be wise to call them.

ABS and HDPE are probably the most easily machined of the cheap polymers. Delrin is nice but I think it costs more.

We have several 3D printers at work but they all work in plastic. The metal ones are megabucks, but I think they're still sintered parts (i.e. not very strong)

I don't know what you all are talking about, a railgun is OBVIOUSLY man portable

I have a tungsten carbide wedding band, my bottle opener goes everywhere with me

I'm glad you like your belt but 5.11 does have affordable dress belts. I got mine, a double stitched black leather one for $25 IIRC.

.40s&w is almost always a truncated cone and its a slightly larger diameter so .40 ball vs. 9mm ball, the .40 will have a higher coefficient of drag and deposit more energy. But if the 9mm is allowed to expand all of a sudden it has a higher Cd and it's suddenly more efficient at energy transfer. The mechanism of expansion (hollowpoint, EFMJ, really tiny warhead...) is secondary.

I have the fingerprint one. Its not super speedy but its virtually silent and you can operate it without looking (i.e. under furniture, in the dark). My son is not even 1 yet but I'm more worried about his future idiot friends than him.

I assume you mean .338 Lapua Magnum. My impressions are expensive as hell, vicious recoil and (as a cartridge alone) will not be the limiting factor for any shooters that I know. If the army adopts it maybe the price will come down but personally I'm looking at .300 win mag for my own long range gun. Some day.

Looks horrible in my [humble] opinion, and did they use a steel receiver strictly to case color it? I.e. swapped 2.8g/cc aluminum for 7.8g/cc steel just so they could make swirlies?

As I understand it the 8500 is still made by ETA but exclusively for Omega. And ETA and Omega are both Swatch so it's "sort of" in house but I didn't think Omega was a true "manufacture" like Zenith or Patek, etc.

I was doing an "Aqua Terra vs. Datejust" shootout and the deciding factor for me was that I think Rolex is much more common (as common as a $5k watch is anyway) so I went with Omega. I wanted an in-house movement and I know that the 8500 isn't technically "in-house" its really close. Failing the Omega or Rolex I was looking Zenith. EDIT: The Skyfall is really really sharp. That would be a nice pickup.

My "EDC" is a B&M Chrono, with the good old Valjoux 7750 so its easy to maintain Traveling I have a Tag Pro Quartz, old faithful. I have an Omega Aqua Terra on order, the new 8500 movement with the Si14 mainsprings so I'm looking forward to that one. My grail alternates between a Daytona and a Master Compressor depending on my mood...

Are they >15 rounds? The only Beretta mags I saw were 17's.

I have the Lee kit (Challenger IIRC), it's fine although it has its limitations. With people selling used kits all the time you don't really have to settle for entry level if you don't want to. That balance that they give you is ok for setting up your powder measure but if you intend to trickle your precision rifle loads you'll be there all day. I was unable to find a Lee with an aluminum frame, though. I would imagine a cast aluminum press would be bad in many ways and if it was forged they wouldn't give it to you for $100

If it was made at Lake City, by any manufacturer, it will say "LC" and if it's been loaded they will have crimped primers since that's the mil-spec. If you buy unfired Lake City brass it won't have been primed yet so there's no need to be uncrimped. I assume any commercial manufacturer can crimp if they want to

If you want to make your own you can get drawings/part files of an upper or lower reciever and do your own takeoffs I found this site, for example http://www.cncguns.com/downloads.html

I took out the striker block on mine and polished the hell out of it (I did not grind it at all but the aggressive polishing did round out the bottom radius a little), it's much much less gritty now. I just put the piece on a punch (there's a convenient hole in the top for the spring) and chucked it in my drill and went to town with a rag and polishing compound. It's still stiff since I didn't change the striker block spring, and have no plans to, but I really like the results. I polished the trigger bar a bit but it didn't look like it needed much attention. I did have the luxury of having a spare striker block from my full-size, but it's not a dangerous mod, if you screw it up the gun just won't fire and you'll have to order an Ultimate Striker Block from Apex anyway

The folks on some other boards think the dovetail is the same between rimfire and centerfire. I know with my dawson I had to file it to get it to fit my .40, so worst case you'll probably have to do the same.

For my handguns i do all mixed brass, for rifles it's sorted by mfr. There are variations in thickness, volume, annealing, etc from mfr to mfr and even lot to lot so if you want consistency you have to eliminate all the variables that it's practical to eliminate.

Not exactly but my Sako is a sweet shooter...if you want to "cry once" have you looked at the Sako 85?

Both a bullet and a football undergo precession it's just that you're not throwing a football 1000 yards so it doesn't matter (those "lame duck" passes or ones that get tipped will have a lot of precession, enough to see it at 30 frames per second on TV) Some bullets will wobble a whole lot and come back under control, some start out fine and go crazy at the end of the flight, everything is a variable in order to drive reloaders crazy EDIT: if you have a few years to waste, start googling "shot dispersion" or something like that, people spend careers trying to make bullets predictable after they travel extreme distances Boy this thread has changed focus, eh?

And regarding spinning the bullet, you have to consider the Magnus moment and the bullet's strength to hoop stress so it's not just faster=better

Reverse drawn jackets have the max strain hardened copper up at the tip where the bullet first engages the rifling (that's good) but the weakest copper at the base so there is a risk of the bullet coming apart with hot loads (bad but low risk). Conventionally swaged FMJ is cheaper. Just an extra two cents on that