Well, it would certainly take a long time to make enough for a 2700 this way but, then again, the video below has an undeniable appeal for the do-it-yourself types.
I wonder if the ignition time feels different?
See http://www.youtube.com/user/delstacy24 for related videos from this same gentleman.
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I wrote the following as a comment to http://xavierthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/06/19112-m1911-and-other-heirlooms.html, a blog I follow.
In the sport of Bullseye, a.k.a. Conventional Pistol, dozens of shooters stand side by side firing at targets. Each shooter trusts those on both sides to fire their weapons safely, make them safe when the time is up, and follow the four rules of gun safety at all times.
At a large match, on a table for all to see and consider, are the items each shooter has brought to sell or trade. Several thousand dollars worth of guns may be sitting on that table throughout the match.
And at each shooter's firing point, two or three more valuable handguns will be sitting there while everyone is 50 yards downrange looking carefully at and scoring the targets.
The thought of a gun going missing never crosses anyone's mind.
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I didn't shoot very well in today's 2700. All my scores were down at the low-end of where I've been shooting. The bad news is this was an Authorized match and the scores count so I'll be in Outdoor Sharpshooter land for a while. The good news is that's where I *should* be competing, that's where I *need* to be working, and doing the things I did today (shooting, not quitting, re-focusing on basics) is what will *eventually* let me learn what I need to know to advance. Patience!
Clarence, to my immediately left, had a squib but caught it immediately. Other than the round stuck in the barrel, there was no damage to his 1911. (I think he was shooting the gun later in the match but I didn't confirm that.) He shot well in spite of that incident (and whipped me by 100 points -- way to go, Clarence!).
Steve Reiter, Senior US Champion many times over, was scoring my 45 targets. I let that get to me on the first two Slow Fire targets and butchered them both, scoring only in the low 70s with not one hole in the black on the second of the two. Ugh!
But then I re-focused all my attention back into my shot plan by meticulously following each step and, I'm pleased to say, resurrected myself on the first SF of the NMC with all shots in the black. TF and RF thereafter weren't great but they were tolerable, mostly in the mid-90s.
I fired some carefully reloaded Aguilla brass in Slow Fire after making them specially for today and making doubly certain to fully seat all the primers. Even so, I had nine high primers in the 60 rounds in Slow Fire over CF and 45. For TF and RF, I switched to reloads in Starline using the same batch of primers but had no problems -- no high primers. So, something is decidedly wrong with Aguilla brass.
But I still have mixed feelings about discarding it.
On the down side, the high primers cannot all be detected by vision or touch. I've had several shooters try and we all failed to spot several high primers. So the bottom line is if I shoot the Aguilla brass, some "thunks" will happen.
But on the plus side, if I restrict its use to Slow Fire only, shooting it is a great "ball and dummy" drill; and brother does it show me I have a problem when I think there's a live round in the chamber.
(Jerk!)
Dry firing alone just isn't solving my "jerk" problem so, for the time being at least, I think I will continue reloading and shooting the Aguilla "Surprise" ammo, but only in Slow Fire of course. And quite frankly if the high primers continue long enough for me to learn the lesson of how *not* to jerk, that would be fabulous.
So, looking forward, we shoot a "Camp Perry Warm-up" next Sunday starting at 7:30AM.
I'll be the jerk with the high primers in Slow Fire ... but not for too much longer if this works.
See you on the line.
Focus on Front Sight |
Like many other shooters, I also have a full-time job that limits my practice time. And also like many others, my job includes travel which compounds the situation.
And in my case, I mean a lot of travel. On a typical trip, it is common for me to be "in transit" for 8-10 hours on day #1 with a combination of shuttle to the airport, checking in the recommended 60-90 minutes early, flying for 5 hours (Phoenix to some east coast location), and then having another hour of airport and travel time to some previously booked hotel. Then, I put in the next four days, 8 to 5 or 6 or 7, at a customer's location. Then, there's the company email to be scanned and mostly deleted before bed. Day #6 of such a trip is fly-home day with another 9-11 hours "in transit" since I buck the jet stream on the way back west.
So, I take my Bullseye sport if, when and where I can.
Most clubs are very welcoming to newcomers. And although my Outdoor Sharpshooter and Indoor Expert ratings aren't the most stellar, they do say I've developed some small set of skills and that I'm not likely to do any harm ... well, except to the target frames or maybe a low-hanging overhead on occasion (sorry, Florida!).
Although my progress up the Bullseye ranks has been slow, there are some advantages to how I've had to fit in the sport.
First, and as I've noted before, I've met a lot of nice, stable, solid and dependable people.
That's because this sport attracts those people. Remember, you're standing side by side with loaded guns, concentrating on your own front sight and trying hard to ignore everything else around you. This demands a deep trust in, and also from, the person standing next to you with his or her own loaded gun. Those undeserving of that trust, or who cannot develop the same toward their neighbor, don't stay in the sport.
Second, because the laws in some places make it difficult for me to bring my own guns, I've been blessed with the opportunity to shoot a wide range of very fine handguns that have been loaned to me by shooters in those locations. I've shot everything from stock Rugers to Hammerlis, from more Rugers with Volquardsen parts to Rock Rivers, and from even more Rugers that've been blessed and fussed over by the finest Ruger gunsmiths in the country to 1911s that have been tweaked, ramped, honed, pressed and maybe even prayed over by the likes of Roddy Toyota and Dave Salyer, and I've had the honor of being able to shoot more than one Ed Masaki which, as any Masaki owner will probably tell you, just getting to shoot one of those is fabulous.
And the triggers I've experienced across all of these get a very wide range of descriptions. A very small number have been like dragging a brick across concrete. Those are darn hard to shoot straight. Most triggers, though, are like breaking a glass rod in their abruptness except that a glass rod will give a little before it snaps but a crisp trigger won't. And then there are the roll triggers, short, medium and long, with one so long I wanted a bathroom break before the shot went.
Over all those fine guns I've had the priviledge to shoot, I've learned to my public embarassment that I can jerk the finest handguns just as badly as the cheapest. (And thanks for not laughing.)
But I've also learned that I can hit the bullseye with just about any trigger as long as I concentrate, press straight back and move only that one finger.
This Sunday's 2700 starts at 7:30AM to try and beat the heat.
I'll be there concentrating on that "straight back" and "only that finger" and I'll be the one feeling like all of me is just pouring into the red dot.
I know you'll pardon me if I seem to be ignoring you while we're shooting.
But then again, if you're a Bullseye shooter, you already know that.
I'll see you on the line!
The sorting of my large bucket of all 45 ACP brass according to headstamp is done.
If you've been reading along, you'll know I'm doing this so I can separate out the Aguila that seems to have been having high-primer problems.
With the baggies of brass arrayed before me, here's what is in my pool.
The most common headstamp in my collection is Winchester of which most was saved from ball ammo purchased at Walmart back when I first started shooting the 1911.
Second and third most common are StarLine purchased at the Dillon store and the Aguila of which I've been writing most recently. The Aguila is also from ball ammo but purchased from a different source.
Here's the complete lineup and for the "rare" ones, the count:
(click for larger image) |
My original plan was to discard the Aguila. But with it now separated out and in its own baggie, I realize I can give it the extra little attention it needs in reloading. That is, when I decide to reload the Aguila, I'll just remember that this brand needs an extra firm push in the 650 reloader to fully seat the primer. (And I'll restrict its first couple of uses to Slow Fire just in case a high primer sneaks through.)
So, what have I learned from all this?
First, all 45 ACP brass is not the same. Although all of my supply is of the reloadable variety (brass not steel), some of it needs a little extra oomph when reloading.
Second, keeping brass sorted by headstamp is a good idea. Doing so from the beginning might have saved me a couple of days of headscratching and testing.
Third, top competitors use new or once-fired brass in competition. I assume there's a valid reason for that but exactly why, I don't know. If it makes a difference, then some of my tired old brass isn't gonna cut the mustard, but I don't know which shells those are. Although this experience didn't "teach" me this lesson, it did point out that, by storing brass in a single bucket, keeping track of firings for the brass was impossible. But by sorting the brass and storing it by headstamp from here on, this becomes possible. So, as I buy new brass in the future, I'll start doing this additional level of documentation -- each purchase will get its own baggie and I'll start tallying the number of firings of each such purchase.
And fourth, I still enjoy recognizing a problem, gathering evidence, conducting experiments and drawing conclusions. In software, we call that "debugging" and it's why I've been a software engineer (and software teacher) all these years. I do love the chase.
10s and Xs ... and no high primers!
Note: The pictures herein have nothing to do with the content of this article other than the inspiration for excellence each of these Bullseye shooters has provided over the years.
California |
My normal reload procedure is, after cleaning, to run each piece of brass through the Martindale gauge. Any that fail are discarded. I inserted this step into my procedure shortly after I started reloading because of a number of jams that occurred due to Glock-bulged brass. The Martindale gauge was 100% effective in resolving that problem so I've retained the step to guard against future jams.
But for the once-fired Aguila brass that came from my gun -- a 1911 not a Glock -- I made an exception. I resized that brass before the Martindale gauge assuming that wad loads would prove to be easier on the brass and that the Aguila would, therefore, perform well.
That exception has proved to be the cause of my efforts this week but not for the expected reason. That is, if I had followed my procedure and discarded the bulged Aguila brass, I would have removed it from my supply and thereby avoided this week's chase with high primers. The Martindale gauge step was added to prevent jams, not high primers but, for possibly coincidental reasons, that step would have been effective against this spate of high primers, nonetheless.
In the testing this week where the ammunition suffered from a very high probability of high primers, it was determined that all such high primers were in Aguila brass. None of the rounds in other head stamps had high primers. Not one.
The testing involved a total of 300 rounds of which 50% were Aguila. And a good proportion of that Aguila had been fired only once -- as ball ammo -- and had been resized before reloading. The remainder of the Aguila and all of the non-Aguila brass had been fired many times.
It's worth adding that I had already made those 300 rounds before figuring out that something was wrong. They then became "the test batch" because they were all suspect.
Steve Locatelli Colorado |
If that were the case, then perhaps only the latest batch of Aguila brass had flawed primer pockets. But it is also true that I've been getting high primers for almost a year, in slowly increasing frequency, which is just about the same amount of time over which I've been slowly adding Aguila brass into my supply.
Regardless, I didn't pay attention to high-primer versus once-fired status so the question is moot. I don't have the data to know.
This week's batch did, it may be worth observing, have an inordinate amount of once-fired Aguila brass. Normally my mix of brass is relatively homogenous but when I went to make up the ammo for this week, I grabbed the nearest containers of clean brass. On my recent trips to the range I've been shooting ball, the Aguila ammo, and those were in the containers I used in making the 300 reloads.
Interestingly, it is probably that anomoly of using a non-homogenous mix of brass that enabled the meaningful results from this week's testing. (Anomolies can be your friend?)
So, in preparation for the final round of testing last night, I divided the 300 rounds into three categories. First, there was the non-Aguila brass, all of which I hand-checked but found no high primers. Second, there was the Aguila brass that did not appear to have high primers, again hand-checked. And third, there was the Aguila brass that had eyeball-spotted or finger-felt high primers. That final batch had subsequently been run through the press a second time -- fully loaded -- to reseat the primers.
Yes, I was nervous about pressing primers deeper into fully loaded rounds. Of course, I followed all the usual safety precautions of eyes and ears, but I also kept my face and body shielded by the reloader itself. And while it is true that the reloader has (almost!) never set off a primer and I was careful to press the primers with a smooth steady pressure, I was still nervous about doing so.
Fortunately, I'm typing today with both hands and arms intact. Nothing went "Bang!" in the reloader.
Arizona |
Suffice to say, I was careful in reseating the high primers and although I pressed them very solidly home, it was not without some trepidation.
Afterwards, and with no explosions in the process, all the formerly high-primer Aguila rounds looked normal.
That's group three in this test, the reseated former high primers in Aguila brass.
With those three groups ready, I drove down to the range to try them out.
The last group (re-seated) and the non-Aguila brass all performed flawlessly. Only the middle group, the Aguila brass that appeared normal, had failures. In that group, the failure rete was 2 out of 80 rounds or about 2.5%, somewhat like the failure rate I had been seeing up until most recently.
I concluded that, for whatever reason, some Aguila brass was prone to high-primers. An unusually high amount of pressure was needed on the press to properly seat them but, once that was done, they would work correctly. Most, but not all of the remaining Aguila brass did not seem to need this extra pressure. Only about 1-2% needed it.
For the non-Aguila brass, this extra pressure was never required.
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Obsessed! In case you are wondering why I seem so obsessed with finding the source of this problem, let me just say it's an occupational hazard. Or, better still, I should say that it's a common characteristic of many successful software engineers, myself included. To put it as briefly as I can, in my work I love "having debugged." Software, as you probably know, sometimes has "bugs". Finding them, understanding why they cause the failures they do, and then figuring out how to correct them is my favorite part of the job. And the harder the "bug", the more gratifying the discovery of its solution. That carries over into my hobbies. Unfortunately, it doesn't help me shoot. On the contrary, that analytical "I can figure it out" attitude is counter-productive. And that's why I enjoy, why I need Bullseye. And it's probably why, when I shoot a good target, I discover that my mind has enjoyed a nice vacation. Don't think. Just shoot. |
Returning from the range, I then ran all of the fired brass through the Martindale gauge.
None of the non-Aguila brass failed.
Five of the 80 middle group (Aguila loaded but primers not re-seated) failed.
But then a whopping 22 of the 50 re-seated (former high primers Aguila) failed this final Martindale gauge. That's a 44% failure rate.
While it is certainly possible that only the newest batch of Aguila brass was faulty, the fact remains that as long as I've been adding Aguila into the mix, I've had increasing problems with high primers.
This was the final straw.
"Okay, all you Aguila, out of the pool!"
I'm done with it.
All of the Aguila brass will go into the club's recycling bin.
Of course, I've got to find it first.
I've been through the whole supply once this week already, to clean all the primer pockets. That took considerably more time than just looking at the head and tossing them one way or the other.
Still, it'll take a while to paw through 2400 pieces.
And following from a comment on an earlier item in this thread from Tony Silva which is also in keeping with the practices of other Bullseye shooters, I'm going to start separating my brass by headstamp.
So, this final pass, the "Great Aguila Purge of 2009," will be used to kill two birds with one stone. I'll purge the Aguila and, at the same time, separate the rest by head stamp.
Tonight I'll be sitting on the floor for a couple of hours watching TV and going through the brass, shell by shell. There will be Winchester to the left of me, Aguila to the right of me (in the recycle bin), and Federal, Midway, Starline and TZZ arrayed in front of me.
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"Kampai!"
Oh, wait, that's Japanese.
Anyone know what the Belgians say when hoisting their mugs and tossing brass?
(Click for larger image) |
I made 300 rounds of wad ammo to test at Nighthawks tomorrow evening. Previously I was seeing a couple of high primers per hundred so if all 300 shoot OK, I'll pronounce the "cure" complete.
Here are the load details. (This is my normal "wad" load.)
| Parameter | Setting | Tolerance |
| Bullet | 200 gr LSWC | n.a. |
| Primer | WLP | n.a. |
| Brass | Mixed | n.a. |
| Hodgdons Clays | 3.8 gr | ±0.1 gr |
| OAL | 1.240" | ±0.003" |
| Crimp | 0.469" | ±0.002" |
Late Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Nope, dirty primer pockets were not the cause of the high primers I've been having.
In fact, testing today revealed a huge number of high primer failures. Previously I was seeing one, two, maybe three per hundred but earlier this evening I fired fifteen rounds but more than half of them took multiple strikes to fire!
Fortunately, two other very capable Bullseye shooters were there and, in the finest of traditions, they turned their complete attentions to my problems.
First, we disassembled my 1911 and inspected this, that and the other.
"Nope, the firing pin isn't bent."
"And the firing pin hole looks round and its tunnel isn't jammed up with dirt."
"Here, Ed, shoot some of my wad ammo in your ball gun."
Ten rounds later we pronounced my gun as working normally. We turned our attention to the ammo.
"Hey, these primers look high -- that's a lot if you can see it!"
"And yeah, there's a whole bunch like that in this box alone."
We concluded that the ammo was, indeed, at fault. I said I'd call Dillon tomorrow and talk it over with them to see what they suggest.
An hour after talking with Dillon I had checked and tweaked everything they suggested but had not found anything out of whack. The reloading machine was completely in tolerance and working fine.
So I pulled out the ammo and set aside all the visible and feel-able high primers. Out of the 300 rounds I had made, I pulled more than 50 that were instantly suspect.
And that's when I saw it: all the suspect rounds had the same headstamp, Aguila!
Thinking back, for several months now I've been buying that brand of ball ammunition since I hadn't yet worked up my own load. And after firing, I had been adding that brass into the general supply.
Since I travel a lot, shoot a little and reload only once every couple of months, the Aguila brass was originally a very low proportion of my overall mix, maybe 1-2%.
Months later, after shooting a lot of ball a lot of Aguila brass had accumulated at the top of the brass bin -- and that's mostly what I reloaded for this test batch.
I think that explains the sudden increase in high primers.
So with this recognition in mind, I seperated all the Aguila reloads from the rest -- they constituted 50% of the test batch.
Now things were starting to make sense.
The last check was to look at the now empty brass from what I had fired last night. Sure enough, 11 of those 15 were in Aguila brass. I felt sure that explained the "more than 50% failure rate" I experienced.
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Above are two of the reloads.
If you look carefully at the picture on the left -- in Aguila brass -- you can see white-space between the steel straight edge and the brass in the "high" primer round. But for the "normal" primer round on the right, there is no gap. (Sorry, I did not record if it was Aguila or not when making this picture.)
I'm satisfied with this explanation.
All the evidence fits.
What remains now is to do some final tests to confirm that it really is the Aguila brass that's causing the problem.
So I've set all of the Aguila reloads aside. More than half have abnormal looking or feeling primers. If fired, I should experience the classic high primer failure of needing multiple strikes to make them go "Bang!"
And of the remainder in non-Aguila brass, they all appear to have normal primer heights. They should fire on the first strike.
My next trip to the range will be Thursday.
If testing confirms that the Aguila brass is the culprit, then I'll go through my entire supply of brass and purge all of it.
Are we having fun yet?
Oh yeah, you bet'cha. I love debugging!
Stay tuned.
