Struggled with my reloads today

[Bruce Cartwright]

03RN:

Here are a couple of thoughts to ponder.

1. Are you shooting factory ammunition or reloads? If reloads, be sure your rounds are full length sized. Try loaded rounds in the cylinder of your weapon. They should, ideally, drop in and need no additional pressure to seat. The unfired rounds should literally drop free of the charge holes when the muzzle is elevated. One thing I do is check my carry ammunition by loading it into the charge holes of what every revolver I am using. If those rounds fail to seat without effort or fail to drop free , they are relegated to practice ammunition. Even if you are using factory loaded ammunition, you may encounter rounds that are quality control challenged. I have seen this with a variety of brands of ammo. The current high demand contributes to this.

2. During the match did you shoot both 38 Special and 357 magnum ammunition? If you shoot 38 Special rounds then shoot 357 magnum rounds, that may contribute to some seating difficulty but that usually requires quite a bit of 38 Special rounds to affect magnum cases.

3. If you are shooting reloaded ammunition, ideally your fired rounds should require very little force to eject them. I noticed that none of your cases fell out of your cylinder before you initiated the use of the ejector rod. That may be caused by high pressure loads or old brass that has been resized a number of times. Have you used the ammunition you fired in the match in any other revolver and experienced the same issues? If so, I suspect you have an issue with your ammunition. I also tumble my brass between each loading. I reload most of my ammunition. I prefer plated bullets for most of my training.

4. One of my most used accessories is GI bristle brush. When I shoot a revolver, I usually brush the face of the barrel (throat end), the face of the cylinder, and underneath the ejector star about once every one hundred rounds. A couple of unburned flakes of powder under the ejector star can be a vexing problem and I try to stay well ahead of the curve cleaning that area. A clean revolver is a happy revolver. Having a chamber brush handy and giving your chambers a quick brushing out is a good idea.

5. Safariland Comp IIIs are my favorite speed loader. One of the benefits of using Comp IIIs is that I can keep my revolver oriented towards the threat with the muzzle slightly depressed and still get the gun reloaded quickly. This lets me maintain my situational awareness instead of dropping the revolver to my belt line and using gravity fed speed loaders. I don't like taking my eyes off of a threat that I just fired a cylinder's worth of ammo at. Comp IIIs work well in this area.

Anyway, food for thought.

Bruce

[Spartan1980]

I like @BN use Bubberized Comp III's. I have a few Jetloaders I acquired in a package deal for my Mod 19 but I haven't played with them enough to say which are better. I hope to get back to shooting somewhat seriously before long. I don't cut mine down as far as Roger (Bubber) did but modifying them definitely helps a lot and they are definitely faster than Comp II's and so superior to HKS I don't even use them anymore.

[03RN]

03RN:

Here are a couple of thoughts to ponder.

1. Are you shooting factory ammunition or reloads? If reloads, be sure your rounds are full length sized. Try loaded rounds in the cylinder of your weapon. They should, ideally, drop in and need no additional pressure to seat. The unfired rounds should literally drop free of the charge holes when the muzzle is elevated. One thing I do is check my carry ammunition by loading it into the charge holes of what every revolver I am using. If those rounds fail to seat without effort or fail to drop free , they are relegated to practice ammunition. Even if you are using factory loaded ammunition, you may encounter rounds that are quality control challenged. I have seen this with a variety of brands of ammo. The current high demand contributes to this.

2. During the match did you shoot both 38 Special and 357 magnum ammunition? If you shoot 38 Special rounds then shoot 357 magnum rounds, that may contribute to some seating difficulty but that usually requires quite a bit of 38 Special rounds to affect magnum cases.

3. If you are shooting reloaded ammunition, ideally your fired rounds should require very little force to eject them. I noticed that none of your cases fell out of your cylinder before you initiated the use of the ejector rod. That may be caused by high pressure loads or old brass that has been resized a number of times. Have you used the ammunition you fired in the match in any other revolver and experienced the same issues? If so, I suspect you have an issue with your ammunition. I also tumble my brass between each loading. I reload most of my ammunition. I prefer plated bullets for most of my training.

4. One of my most used accessories is GI bristle brush. When I shoot a revolver, I usually brush the face of the barrel (throat end), the face of the cylinder, and underneath the ejector star about once every one hundred rounds. A couple of unburned flakes of powder under the ejector star can be a vexing problem and I try to stay well ahead of the curve cleaning that area. A clean revolver is a happy revolver. Having a chamber brush handy and giving your chambers a quick brushing out is a good idea.

5. Safariland Comp IIIs are my favorite speed loader. One of the benefits of using Comp IIIs is that I can keep my revolver oriented towards the threat with the muzzle slightly depressed and still get the gun reloaded quickly. This lets me maintain my situational awareness instead of dropping the revolver to my belt line and using gravity fed speed loaders. I don't like taking my eyes off of a threat that I just fired a cylinder's worth of ammo at. Comp IIIs work well in this area.

Anyway, food for thought.

Bruce

Thanks Bruce,

1. Reloads, in much used brass that have not been clean. I'm just getting home from work I'm going to try dropping a few speed loaders of this ammo in a couple guns to see if I can replicate it.

2. Just .357

3. I'll pay closer attention to see how easy they fall from chambers instead of trying to eject them forcefully all the time.

4. I keep a brush as well.

5. I think a tumbler and a few comp 3s might fix this issue

Eta, of course everything thing is dropping in like it should now.

I've never had to seat rounds like I did today. Weird

[fatdog]

I don't even know if they are still made but K frame Jetloaders solved similar problems for me in IDPA many years ago, the comp III's are certainly good but not the same forceful performance I got out of the old Jetloaders.

I did use a properly sized bore hone and oil on my hand drill to polish out my old S&W M15 chambers which was my IDPA competition gun, and I always tumbled my brass, made sure I had chamferred the cylinder mouths to break edges.

I also started case gauging every single round of .38 or .357 and if it did not literally gravity fall out of the gauge I put it in the practice pile. I was always surprised that 20% of my .38 special or .357 rounds loaded on my dillon 650 which were perfectly adequate to shoot did not fall free just from turning the gauge upside down, a tap or shake would dump them but if it was not simple gravity they went to the practice, not match, pile. I found that using the case gauge caused me to fell the primers on each round and I know I detected too high primers in many cases that probably would have slipped by me visually.

[JCN]

Moooooooooooon clips

[03RN]

I don't even know if they are still made but K frame Jetloaders solved similar problems for me in IDPA many years ago, the comp III's are certainly good but not the same forceful performance I got out of the old Jetloaders.

I did use a properly sized bore hone and oil on my hand drill to polish out my old S&W M15 chambers which was my IDPA competition gun, and I always tumbled my brass, made sure I had chamferred the cylinder mouths to break edges.

I also started case gauging every single round of .38 or .357 and if it did not literally gravity fall out of the gauge I put it in the practice pile. I was always surprised that 20% of my .38 special or .357 rounds loaded on my dillon 650 which were perfectly adequate to shoot did not fall free just from turning the gauge upside down, a tap or shake would dump them but if it was not simple gravity they went to the practice, not match, pile. I found that using the case gauge caused me to fell the primers on each round and I know I detected too high primers in many cases that probably would have slipped by me visually.

Thanks

I guess I need to be more careful with my reloads. I've been loading since I was 14 but have never needed to.

[03RN]

Moooooooooooon clips

I'm thinking about it. At least with .357 I don't need to use them. Do you know if they fit in safariland cd-2 pouches?

[john c]

I use a squirt of liquid car wax (I forget which one) in my tumbler media to put a thin coat of wax on my brass. It smooths things up a bit, and is extremely thin.

Why are you using .357 brass? Are you shooting .357 loads for competition?

If not, try .38 spl brass for less friction in the cylinder.


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[JCN]

I'm thinking about it. At least with .357 I don't need to use them. Do you know if they fit in safariland cd-2 pouches?

I’m not familiar with those pouches but if you post a picture of it with the speed loader next to it I might be able to tell.

I would imagine that it would have to fit but might be recessed below the lip of the pouch depending on how it’s designed so you might have to Dremel cut notches to be able to grab them.

[03RN]

I’m not familiar with those pouches but if you post a picture of it with the speed loader next to it I might be able to tell.

I would imagine that it would have to fit but might be recessed below the lip of the pouch depending on how it’s designed so you might have to Dremel cut notches to be able to grab them.