With the first competition of the new "season" next Saturday (1st September, the first day of spring Down Under) I had 650 rounds of 9mm ammo loaded and chamber dropped a few weeks ago. As the competition is one day IPSC and one day Speed on Tuesday I spent several hours at the range practicing with my 9mm 1911 Kimber and fine tuning the sights. On Wednesday I stripped the pistol down and gave it a good clean and a bit of lubrication.
Thursday two new 10 round 9mm magazines arrived by courier, so at lunchtime I grabbed the new mags and 50 rounds of the ammo calling into the range for my afternoon break.
Loading both mags I set myself up, loaded the pistol and proceeded to function check it was working correctly. First round chambered and fired, second round hung up on the feed ramp.
Checking the offending round I saw that the projectile had been pushed back into the case quite a bit by the feed ramp. The rest of the magazine fired off without a problem but with the second mag I had three more hang up with the bullet pushed inwards.
After getting home tonight I went out to the shed and tried to load up some dummy rounds to play with the mags a little bit. That's when I found that my just loaded dummy rounds were also pushing projectiles back into the case. Obviously the crimp was not strong enough to hold the rounds securely in the case!
Now the lock ring on the crimp die was still tight and the adjustment knob, set in place with locktite also had not moved. But after loosening the lock ring and turning the die down rounds are now crimping properly and running through the pistol.
And I have also discovered that one of the new mags will only just take 10 rounds withthe top round failing to feed properly. It is really a 9 round mag with incorrect markings. I'm not sure why as the other three mags of this brand are very reliable with 10 rounds.
I have run the rest of the 50 function test rounds through the crimp die again and will test fire them tomorrow.
Just as well I decided to function check everything again, as I would not have had a very good two days next weekend with badly crimped ammo. In the meantime I now have 600 rounds of 9mm to run through the crimp die again before next Friday.
Thursday two new 10 round 9mm magazines arrived by courier, so at lunchtime I grabbed the new mags and 50 rounds of the ammo calling into the range for my afternoon break.
Loading both mags I set myself up, loaded the pistol and proceeded to function check it was working correctly. First round chambered and fired, second round hung up on the feed ramp.
Checking the offending round I saw that the projectile had been pushed back into the case quite a bit by the feed ramp. The rest of the magazine fired off without a problem but with the second mag I had three more hang up with the bullet pushed inwards.
After getting home tonight I went out to the shed and tried to load up some dummy rounds to play with the mags a little bit. That's when I found that my just loaded dummy rounds were also pushing projectiles back into the case. Obviously the crimp was not strong enough to hold the rounds securely in the case!
Now the lock ring on the crimp die was still tight and the adjustment knob, set in place with locktite also had not moved. But after loosening the lock ring and turning the die down rounds are now crimping properly and running through the pistol.
And I have also discovered that one of the new mags will only just take 10 rounds withthe top round failing to feed properly. It is really a 9 round mag with incorrect markings. I'm not sure why as the other three mags of this brand are very reliable with 10 rounds.
I have run the rest of the 50 function test rounds through the crimp die again and will test fire them tomorrow.
Just as well I decided to function check everything again, as I would not have had a very good two days next weekend with badly crimped ammo. In the meantime I now have 600 rounds of 9mm to run through the crimp die again before next Friday.
