It was a busy holiday season, no doubt! I don’t know if I will cover everything or not…

Ocotober was crazy, though.

Way back in October, before my last update even, I picked up a VibraPrime, an interesting device intended to help one spend less time filling primer tubes. As described, “The Vibra-Prime can load 100 primers into a primer tube in a matter of seconds with its unique motorized agitation mechanism.” For *that step* of the process, actually stacking primers in a tube, it works as advertised. However, in my experience with it, the entire process from a box of primers to a tube ready to load into the press, the VibraPrime is a fussy process with too many steps.

The VibraPrime tray is much like a standard flip tray. It is sized so that most primer packages will fit over it so that when you load it, you can shake it to flip any errant primers to the proper orientation, anvil side up. You then put slide the tray into the pistol gripped motorized vibrating thingy and attach what I am calling the intermediate tube to the bottom of the vibration unit. Now you activate the vibration unit by holding the trigger and tilt the unit to guide the bouncing primers to the mouth of the tube. You can optimize the angle and technique with just a little practice. This part of the process is indeed quick, 10 to 20 seconds at most. Then you remove the cap of usual primer pickup tube, mate it with the adapting sleeve on the intermediate tube, pull the wire pin and drop all 100 primers into the pickup tube. Replace the cap and you have a filled tube. With practice, you get the the whole process down to about 90 seconds

Orrrrr….

Use a standard primer flip tray to right the primers, place the cover over them, invert, remove the tray and pick up 100 individual primers directly into the pickup tube in about the same amount of time, maybe less. No batteries, no intermediary tools, more free brain cycles to use to think about the analytical algebraic topology of locally Euclidean metrization of an infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifold.

Where I think it could help is scaling. If you have a dozen tubes to fill, you could probably do them faster than by manual means. For me, however, I don’t think I gain much from the machine.

I already had some nice bright LED lighting on my press. The Inline Fabriction light mounts in the center hole of the tool head, shining directly down on the shell plate. This was a tremendous improvement over my clamp light, which provides a lot of light itself.

Now I have added the UFO 550 from KMS.

From this angle, it looks like I’m about to be vaporized in the evil scientist’s invention.

Note that the Inline Fabrication light is still there. More light is always better.

The UFO light, besides just throwing more lumens, also has a bit that goes down the front of the frame, on the right side in the pic above. This lights up the primer slide, which is normally in the shadow of the shell plate.

In mid-October came the Lone Star IDPA Championship, which was my first staff experience in a major match. In spite of being pretty much fully into the throws of seasonal allergy trigger asthma, I had a lot of fun and learned a lot about what it takes to put on a big match. I knew there was a lot to it, but some of the specific details were enlightening. I really enjoyed getting to see almost every single competitor shoot, other than the staff members that were on other squads on staff day.

As for my match performance, I have definitely done worse, 95th overall (which doesn’t really mean anything), 14th in my class and division and somewhere in the mid-20’s & 30’s for any given stage. I had 11 down on one stage, single digits on all others and no procedural errors at all.

Nothing much for me on the prize table, just some hot pink magazine basepad markers that I put on the the G19 mags.

October also marked the last match held at the financially troubled Total Shooting Sports. It was a nice venue and the Monday night matches we had there are missed and have not yet been replaced.

When I got my FX9, did a quick and dirty sight-in and actually shot a couple of indoor carbine matches with it, but it was not really on at all. Miss enough heads or hit a few non-threats and you’ll want to spend the little while it takes to sight it in. I eventually got a handle on it.

One of my coworkers lost his Dad. As part of the resolution of the estate, the family sold all the belongings in his house and the house itself. He had been an avid sportsman and woodworker, so there was deep sea fishing gear, firearms and a shop full of tools and supplies. The guns went pretty quick, but I did get a very nice Remington 700 BDL in 6mm Remington, my first bolt action rifle ever. At this writing, I have yet to fire it…

You may recall that I shot my chronograph some time back. It was really only cosmetic damage, but I secured a replacement case for it. There is not much to the inside of one of those…

It took me a while to notice it, but the magazine release on the FX9 was a little sticky. The lever pivots on a pin that I was unable grab and pull. Eventually, however, repeated operation of the lever worked them pin out enough to pull.

The red area is Sharpy stand-in for Dye-Chem I applied while the lever was still installed. The sticky bit was still unreachable inside the lower before the pin was removed.

Once it was out, it was a simple matter to remove enough material to stop the scrape.

All reassembled and reliable, with any of the magazines I have, regardless of brand. Woohoo!

A lot has happened in the nearly 4 months since my last post.

Polycase is now selling their lead free projectiles for handloading. Sadly, they are not particularly cheap, 18 to 22 cents apiece for 97 grain 40/10. The minute (literally) that I read the notice from MidwayUSA that they were selling them, I ordered 1000 for $188. That was with an introductory discount. They are $207/1000 as I write this.

To get them running at least 125 PF, I had to crank up the Winchester 231 powder to 6.1g. Depending on the cost of brass, they ran from 25 to 32 cents per round. Performance is good. That big ol’ charge of powder makes a pretty good boom and flash, but recoil is essentially the same as my other competition loads. The peanut gallery complains about their ears, though. 🙂

Interestingly, the bullet weight had less influence than expected on velocity. I started with the default 4.25g to 4.35g charge that I use for 180g bullets. The 180s run about 790fps for 144PF. However, that same charge under the 97 grain lead free was not very much faster, just over 800fps. To make 128PF, they need to be pushed to about 1300fps, thus the increase to 6.1g.

They have served me well. They make clean holes in paper, knock down steel reliably and generate conversation occasionally. I don’t have many of that first order left and while I probably wont shoot it all the time due to cost, I also understand that the price will never come down if nobody buys them.

I picked up a  Freedom Ordnance FX-9 9mm carbine in a group purchase. The quantity discount was such that rifle, shipping and FFL fees were still less than the listed price for just one. It appears to be generally well made. Some of the other people in the club have upgraded and accessorized way more than I have. I added a Vortex StrikeFire 2 and MagPul MBUS and later an M-Lok rail and a flashlight for the first ever CTASA low light carbine match.

The only trouble I have had with it was that it doesn’t seem to like fully loaded 30 round magazines. My first trip to the range with it, I had two issues with the supplied SGM magazine. The first issue was that after a couple of rounds were fired, the floor plate came loose, dropping 20-something rounds and magazine parts all of the floor, resulting in an RO stop of the range to retrieve the parts. The tube remained in the gun, but all the internals fell. Later in the same range trip, the magazine fell out two or three rounds into a full one. I declared the magazine to be junk and just used the collection of magazines for my Glock 19. They seem to have worked fine. In one match, I loaned it to someone and it dropped a mag on them, but we blamed it on a lack of familiarity with the platform.

Recently, however, I have discovered that the magazine release button/lever is a little bit sticky. The self-disassembling first time use of the SGM magazine would not have been caused by that, but other times when the magazine has fallen out could be that release button. I will address that for sure.

Ammo-wise, it runs on almost everything I’ve put in it. All the factory ammo I have used, all 115g, and my 147g handloads for the G19 run perfectly. Some really soft 147g had a couple of FTEs per magazine, so that’s definitely too light. Some really soft 135g handloads ran reliably and recoil is similar to or maybe less than the 10/22. I have not chronographed those as yet, but since IDPA PCC requires a minimum of 135PF, I suspect they will come in too light.

Speaking of chronograph, my poor chrono was shot twice within three weeks. First time, a buddy came out to work up and load a bunch of 45 Auto. One time, the pistol was pulled a bit to one side and the bullet caught one of the screen supports.

It only bent the wire; about one minute on the anvil and it’s good as new.

Only last weekend, I had my turn. I tried out my usual competition load in the little Kahr CW40. The Kahr has a reeeeally long trigger pull and having immediately before shot the Zev in the G20, I pulled it down a bit, enough to hit the body of the appliance.

Happily, it is only cosmetic damage and it works just fine.

I found a heck of a deal on bullets. Xtreme Bullets has a discount house called Reloading Valley that sells, among other things, pulled bullets. I ordered 10 bags of 250 mixed 165/180 and mixxed RNFP/HP. They work out to about 6 cents apiece.

Since they were mixed in both weight and type, I commenced to sorting them manually.

The distribution was essentially 99.9% 180g, maybe 20-30 165g bullets in 2500. Of those, about 1/3 were HP and 2/3 were RNFP. The pulling hardware damaged a few, mostly the HPs. Most of the RNFP have only a faint mark from the case crimp.

I have loaded about 500 thus far. There have been a couple that didn’t pass QA and at least a one that didn’t feed right. All in all, I’m pretty pleased with them.

Along with PCC, IDPA now has a provisional Carry Optic division. As luck would have it, I already had a suitable optic and just had to reinstall it on the slide it was on when I got it.

The Sunday of Memorial Day weekend brought the 2017 Republic of Texas IDPA Championship Match. We had a great squad and there was much enjoyment.

The day started pretty well. I got there early enough to be 4th in line at the check-in. That is not my usual experience. We got started about on time.

We started on Stage 9 and I started with 28:49 and 1 point down. The rest were 4 or 5 down, with one 10 down, but there were no misses. There was one hit on a non-threat. There were two stages with a steel activator in front of a paper non-threat. If you don’t hit the steel on the first shot, it’s pretty much guaranteed to have a HNT. All in all, about 30 down for the whole match at that point.

By now, we have rocked around to Stage 3.

Pretty straight forward 5 threat targets, including the disappearing popup and all paper targets require 3 rounds each. However, there is one tricky caveat. Since you are addressing the targets from SP in barricade order, you must engage the activator steel, then the popper, THEN you can move to the other position to get the popup target. Ironically, I did ok on this gamey bit. On the other hand, three headshots on the first target all hit just in the hard cover, so 15 down there. I hit the activator, but missed the popper, so I would have to go back for it later, but it was engaged so no PE. I made it to the pop-up in time to get it with a 0 and two 1s, but for some reason I only sent two at that other other paper target on that side before running back to make up the steel. So I scored 4 on it, plus 5 for the “miss” plus 3 for the PE. Add in the 1s on the other targets and suddenly this stage that I shot in 17:65 is 34 down.

I figured at that point it was probably not recoverable and I was out of any running for 1st or 2nd (needed for a bump) and was now just there to shoot. We broke for lunch, and when we came back, I was back to normal, mostly getting 5 down in reasonably short time on the remaining stages.

We finished and packed up and enjoyed some tailgate fellowship while we waited for the scores to be compiled.

That gave us plenty of time to beat ourselves up for our various performances. Finally they announced that they were posting the scores. A couple of us decided we would wander on down there and check it out anyway. By the time we walked down to the leaderboard, a polite mob had formed. It look a few minutes to drift through the throngs, only to discover that I needed to be about 5 feet to the left to see the right sheet.

When I got close enough, I had trouble finding myself on the list. Turns out I started too low.

It took quite a while to convince myself that it was correct. It was.

First Place, ESP Marksman. With a bump to SharpShooter.

There has been a lot going on, enough so that I haven’t had time to catch up with the updates…

I placed in a major match for the first time ever. Fifth place, but placed!

In following tradition, here’s a semi-artsy photo of my award and still-dirty gun. 🙂

Regardless of the semi-miserable cold and muddy conditions, the pistol has a tiny bit of mud on the grip and the Polycase Inceptor ammo burns pretty cleanly.

The ammo ran absolutely trouble free, too. As expected, there was a bit of conversation at the chrono table and mock resistance as they had a nice chart of common bullet weights and the minimum velocities required to meet power factor. There was not a chart entry for 97 grains, so a bit of math ensued. 1288 fps required; 1388 and 1401 achieved for 135 PF.

It never really *rained*, but we had mostly constant drizzle from about 9AM until about 1PM. For me, the peak of misery was around Stage 12. By then, no targets were dry, no tape would stick and every step added a pound of sticky mud to the bottoms of my shoes.

The start position for stages is often marked with foot-shaped cutouts for the shooter to stand on. Believe it or not, there is a set of them in this picture.

Match results were not too shabby, especially considering my recollection of my previous run at Silver Dollar in 2014. However, upon closer analysis, the 2014 scores were maybe not as bad as I remember. Raw and final times were actually similar, though the rules in effect in 2014 meant that it took 137 points down to be similar to only 80 points down in 2017.

In any case, first wood is still first wood and I am very happy about it and the weather only made it more valuable.

The rain was gone, but it was pretty windy on Sunday, too.

In preparation for Silver Dollar (and just because), I ordered a Zev trigger for my Glock 20. I ordered the Fulcum Professional Ultimate package, which is the non-adjustable version with all the related parts. It was hoped that it would arrive in time for me to install it and shoot in a local match or two before Silver Dollar. When it still had not shipped by the Thursday before the match, I contacted Zev about it. Turns out that they were backordered from their supplier on parts for the non-adjustable trigger. They upgraded my order to the adjustable version and credited the shipping charges. While it was the Monday after the match before I received the trigger, I ended up with the arguably better version for less money.

It took longer to clean the gun before installing the trigger than it did to install the trigger. Well, unless you count the time spent looking for the tiny striker spring cup half that I dropped. It seems like it might be a good idea to have spares of those.

The stock trigger on that particular pistol is/was well polished and broken in and had already been tweaked as much as possible, so the Zev trigger did not make much difference in the pull weight, 3 to 3.5 pounds. The new trigger does have a crisper release, a shorter reset and the trigger shoe itself is nice and wide and flat, so that 3 pounds feels like less. A lunchtime trip to the range on Tuesday revealed that it works very well.

I have a new toy, er, tool. I have wanted a force gauge for a while. I have a couple of practical uses for one, but mostly I am just curious about everything and want to know.

This one is a Reed SD-6020, a 20 Kg capacity force gauge. Anyone of a less scientific bent would probably call it an overpriced digital scales. 🙂 Due to what I can only call a fluke in the pricing structure at Amazon, this unit was listed at about $144 instead of the usual $535. The listing did not indicate that it was used, though admittedly, there was none of the usual new device additional packaging, like poly bagging around the device, and it had a battery installed. Doesn’t matter to me!

The first practical use I have for it is to verify the weight of the recoil springs in my various pistols. For proof of concept, I took a quick measurement of the stock spring in my Glock 19. I used the hole in the front of the slide as a guide and pressed the gauge against the other end of the captive spring assembly. I found that just short of full compression, it read just under 16 pounds, which is about what was expected. I have not found a lot of really authoritative info about the stock spring specifications other than in the description of aftermarket parts. There does seem to be a consensus that 16 pounds is likely.

I could not remember whether the reduced spring I have been using in my G20C for low recoil 40S&W was the 11 pound or the 13 pound. Holding the slide in a rubber jaw vice freed up both hands to compress the spring, and after several attempts, I was able to compress the spring then carefully use my left hand to snap a pic without moving the gauge two millimeters and having the spring launch across the room.

I took several measurements that ranged from 13.49 to 14.1 pounds. I presume those could be within expected tolerances of 13 pounds or maybe it’s really a 14 pound spring that was in the 13 pound package. It is definitely not 11 pounds. With the 11 pound spring, I may be able to experiment with ammo running less than 125PF, particularly if I want to tweak ammo for use in a BUG gun, assuming I can adjust my Kahr CW40 to comply with the new rules. In any case, I will locate and measure all the recoil springs I have. Expect a future post on the subject.

Last Wednesday was the first Low Light match at Defender Outdoors and so far as I can tell, the first one at all since August 2016. Except for one stage which allowed a rail mounted light on a gun, I held my light in my left hand and shot strong hand only. There were a couple of misses, but generally, it was not a bad plan.

I am pretty comfortable with my current 40S&W load 180 grain bullets on 4.35 grains Winchester 231. It’s a pretty solid 800 fps for 144 power factor and 256 ft/lbs muzzle energy. It runs the pistol well, too.

I set up the chronograph and got ready to play with the powder measure. I threw 10 loads of powder, weighed it and divided by 10. When I set the measure up, this method showed the charge to be 4.35 grains. It came out this time as 4.25 grains, so I ran it again and got 4.25 grains again. Now, the whole assembly had been moved to the loaner press and back, so a small change might not be surprising. Then again, I should have spot checked it at least after each move. Next time.

So, I reduced the charge, weighed it and failed do document the weight for it and the next three charges. At least I did document the average velocities for 5 shots.

773 fps = 139PF = 239 ft/lbs

762 fps = 137PF = 232 ft/lbs

750 fps = 135PF = 225 ft/lbs

735 fps = 132PF = 216 ft/lbs

I landed on 3.85 grains for 724 fps, 130PF & 209 ft/lbs. I ran about 20 rounds through the chrono to verify that it was stable at this velocity.

I like to experiment with loads and bullet weights, so I left the charge at 3.85 grains, but loaded ten 155 grain plated bullets. The average came out to 643 fps, 99PF & 142 ft/lbs. As it turns out, 142 ft/lbs is not enough to run the pistol. In fact, it exactly zero rounds ejected, though a couple did open the slide a bit. The brass showed soot smudging on the outside. I think the surprisingly large drop in velocity and the sooty cases indicates that the pressure dropped significantly, maybe because the 155 grain bullet is quite a bit shorter than the 180, but I have them seated to the same OAL, leaving a larger space in the cartridge.

The 165 grain poly-coated bullets did a little better, 748 fps, 123 PF & 205 ft/lbs. The pistol ran just fine, but that power factor is a little too low. I should be able to tweak the charge for all those 155 and 165 grain bullets I have left from when I started loading 180’s. 🙂

Man, you can’t believe anything those guys say. First, they say it will be 2-3 weeks turnaround. They received my press on April 4 and I got FedEx notification that it was shipped back on April 7. THEN, FedEx says it will arrive on the 12th, but I had it on the 11th. How am I supposed to complain now?!?

If you look really close, you can see the color difference on the replacement crank and links. The frame has some slight yellowing on it, making it ever so slightly greenish.

There was a list of the parts replaced, including the clearly labeled primer shield and many small bits.

Before I reinstalled my press, I cleaned up the borrowed press within an inch of it’s life.

Before:

After:

Swapping the presses out was largely trivial; afterall, I’ve done it a few times now.

I added one accessory that I had ordered before the old press broke, a JW Systems Primer Track. This is basically just a replacement primer track bearing (which is a steel plate that sits under the primer slide) but it has a ball bearing roller added to help stabilize the primer slide.

As expected, I did not have to adjust anything on the top end to begin loading again. It just works, ya know.

I had the afternoon off last Friday and one of the things I tackled with that free time was to disassemble a pretty good sized bin of loading errors. They were mostly 40S&W and a lot of them predate the Dillon press, and thus most of them were primer issues from the Lee Press. I used a Hornady collett puller for most of them. That is by far the quickest way to pull a lot of bullets. Once adjusted for what you are pulling and getting into the groove, it’s about 5 seconds per cartridge.

Some of the primers were crushed into the pockets crossways and thus would not slide into the shell holder for the collett puller, so I had to use the intertia puller. Happily only a dozen or so needed this special care.

I pulled a few 155’s, a few 165’s and a bunch of 180’s.

The scrap brass bucket grew, too.

Here’s a couple hundred grains of TitePowerWinGroupPistol231.

Between the damaged brass and the damaged bullets, I had roughly what was needed for about 150 fresh cartridges. 🙂

While I had the interia puller in hand, I tried once again to pull one of the polymer bullets from the Inceptor lead free ammo and much to my surprise, it worked this time! I didn’t count, but it was about 50 strikes of the puller against the end of a 2×4 in the framework of my workbench. The previous unsuccessful attempt was struck against the concrete floor. Maybe the deadblow effect worked better than the rigid bounceback.

As I plan to shoot this ammo in the upcoming Silver Dollar Championship, I think I will keep this bullet or see if I can pull a couple others to include with my chrono samples. I have already spoken with the Match Director about the possible difficulties in pulling a bullet for the test and he said to bring it on!

Last week, I’m crankin’ out some 40S&W, minding my own business when suddenly…..

It was sudden, but not violent. No snap, no pop. The handle just twisted a little weird. My first though was that the nut had worked loose, but I put a little pressure on it to test that and there is was, swinging in the wind by the handle.

I contacted Dillon about the replacement part, which even if I had to purchase it would only be $40. Of course, they intended to replace it under warranty. The only question was which version I had. One connects with E-clips, which you can see in that picture above. The other has locknuts.

While I had him on the line, I asked about their (legendary) refurbishment service. It’s only $68 to send them the whole press and they will repair and update everything on it, with about a 3 week turnaround. I’m in!

During the week, I removed it from the strong mount, removed the bits that they didn’t need for the work and boxed it up. It actually shipped on Thursday.

Meanwhile, a friend has a spare RL550 that needs a little work of its own. I arranged to borrow it in exchange for the work it needs. He learned the hard way that you can’t keep your reloader in the same enclosed space with pool chemicals.

The rust on the main shaft was enough to prevent it from operating. I used carburetor cleaner and steel wool to remove most of the surface rust.

I put it in the ultrasonic.

I love the way the muck flows off the parts.

Unfortunately, I was in a bit of a rush from this point forward and did not take any more pictures of the progress until it was finished. Really, it was just more cleaning except that there was still some dimensional enlargement from the rust on the end of the shaft. I used a fine file to gently draw file the part, being very careful to avoid causing any flat spots.

I put it all back together, with my handle, dies and shell plate.

I loaded 4 rounds just to test it out and it’s ready to go!

When I get my own press back from Dillon, I’ll just swap it around and return this one better than when I got it!

There are two main reasons to hand load your own ammunition. Most people approach reloading for reasons of economy. All situations being otherwise equal, reloaded ammo designed around cost tends to run about half of what commercial ammo might cost. There are firms selling commercially remanufactured ammunition for close to what you can load your own for, particularly if you watch for sales and/or free shipping is offered, so if you are reloading for economy only, reloading may not actually be your best option. After all, for $600+ investment in a press, accessories and reloading components makes that first box of ammo run at least $12 a round. It gets much better from there, though.

The other, perhaps even more compelling, reason is to customize ammunition performance. Action shooters benefit from controlled recoil for faster followup shots and consistency. While economy *is* a factor, it is custom performance that drives my reloading/handloading efforts.

There are revolvers and other semiautomatic cartridges in use, but the majority of action shooting competition is done with semiautomatic pistols in 9mm, 40S&W or 45 Auto. The focus of this blog article is about the effects of customizing recoil in semiautomatics for the competitive shooter.

There are energies released and absorbed throughout the operation of a semiautomatic pistol (or just ‘pistol’ from here on). One could go completely crazy plotting them all. The displacement of a 1911 in reaction to the swinging hammer would be mathematically predictable and physically measurable. It would likely be buried in the noise, but it could be accounted for. Indeed, sniper rifle design accounts for dampening or reacting such forces because in that application, it can matter.

The forces that matter most to action shooting reloaders are the actions and equal but opposite reactions that are initiated by firing the cartridge. These are also the big forces, big enough that we can largely ignore everything else.

Power Factor is a simple measurement that action shooting sanctioning bodies use to ensure their competitors meet a minimum expected level of power. Power Factor (PF) is calculated simply by multiplying the bullet weight in grains by it’s velocity in feet per second, dividing by 1000 then discarding the digits to the right of the decimal. For example, a 165g bullet going 900 fps would be 165 x 900 = 148,500. Dividing by 1000 and discarding the digits to the right of the decimal is practically the same as just dropping the comma and those digits, PF = 148.

Common minimum power factors are 125 and 165. For example, in IDPA, all semiautomatic divisions except CDP is 125 and CDP is 165. In USPSA, PF is a scoring modifier in some divisions, like a golf handicap. Shooting major PF (165 or more) reduces the penalty of non-A zone hits.

Power factor, or momentum, is a simple and linear method that is adequate for comparing different ammo between different shooters. Recoil is a more personal effect, felt by only the shooter. Less recoil generally means an easier to control firearm. Ideally, you have the least possible recoil while meeting the minimum required power factor.

Recoil is really the reactive force to the bullet’s acceleration. The easiest way to measure that is by the velocity of the bullet, presuming it has lost a negligible amount of energy between the muzzle and the measuring field. Scientifically, they are different things. Practically, they are close enough.

Momentum is derived from a fixed mass moving at a fixed velocity. Muzzle energy is derived from the acceleration of the mass. Remember that acceleration is any change in velocity, not just speeding up but also slowing down.

Unlike momentum, the relationship between muzzle energy and velocity is thus not linear.

Bullet weight (in grains) X (velocity ^ 2) / 2 X 32.174 X 7000

The 7000 is to convert grains to pounds and 32.174 is the acceleration of gravity in fps. Note importantly that the velocity is squared.

The same 165g bullet above at 900fps has 296.7 foot pounds of energy.

Here is where the handloading magic starts to happen. Raise the bullet weight to 180g and obviously the PF and the muzzle energy will also rise, 162 and 323.7 ft/lbs respectively. However, now you can keep the heavier bullet, but slow it down. At 825fps, the 180g bullet still makes 148 power factor, but now the muzzle energy is only 242 ft/lbs. Keep reducing the velocity to 695 fps and you get exactly 125 PF but only 193 ft/lbs energy. That translates to 35% reduction in recoil while still meeting minimum power factor.

Now, shooting for exactly 125 PF doesn’t allow for the inevitable differences in powder drops or ambient temperature, either of which can make any given bullet run faster or slower. It will likely be the ones that the match officials chronograph that will be slower, so it’s best to build in a little margin to allow for that.

You can also reverse that logic and load up a 9mm bullet hot enough to be major PF. A 147g bullet at 1125 fps meets 165 power factor, but at the cost of 413 ft/lbs of recoil (and probably dangerously high pressures in the cartridge). You can go nuts and push a 115g bullet at 1440 fps for 165PF, but a whopping 529 ft/lbs energy, which is at the lower end of the 357 Magnum neighborhood. Plus, I’m pretty sure neither your warranty nor health insurance will cover that.

The other thing to consider is that unless you are shooting a Desert Eagle, your semiautomatic pistol is probably *powered* by recoil. Turn it down too much and there may not be enough energy left to operate it, especially if some of that energy is also lost in a loose grip.

There is a reasonable solution for that: lighter recoil springs. I had to tune the recoil spring weight in my Glock 20. Using a LoneWolf 40S&W conversion barrel, heavier bullets and lighter loads, I was able to greatly reduce recoil while meeting power factor, but before I could get all the way down, I started having stovepipe jams or sometimes, it would just fail to extract at all. The stock spring on the G20, and I think all base models, is 17 pounds. The G20 and G21 have heavier slides, as well. So the stock spring and big slide took more energy than was left after throwing a bullet downrange. I ordered a 13 pound and an 11 pound spring, each with a stainless guide rod. Turns out the 11 pound spring runs best with my softest 180g handloads, which is 4.2g Winchester 231 (or Hodgdon HP38; they are essentially the same powder from the same manufacturer, with different labeling). I can sometimes run the pistol on as low as 3.9g W231, but with the occasional jam and it’s only about 119PF.

One should be be able to determine mathematically what weight spring would be needed to run a given slide with a given ammo power. I may tackle that just for the fun of it.

The stock trigger on my Glock 19 can be fairly described as harsh. The measured pull is only about 6 pounds, but the feel is not nice, particularly compared to the G20 and G21. To me, it feels like you are bending a piece of plastic inside and it finally breaks. All three are Gen 3 pistols, with only the slightest trigger work done, replacement of the connector. The G20 and G21 have had many thousands of rounds through them, so there is probably some degree of surface polishing having thus been done.

I decided to try an aftermarket trigger. I ordered a Pyramid trigger from GlockStore.com.

I chose the Complete package for $180 because it included alternate striker springs and the firing pin block plunger, but no lightened striker. Personally, I am not sure the addition of a lightened striker is worth $70 more. Perhaps one day I will add that, but that package is roughly half the cost of the pistol.

The installation is pretty straight forward. The trigger assembly itself requires driving out the three pins for the locking block, the trigger and the trigger housing and basically dropping the replacement parts in and putting the pins back.

This kit also comes with a replacement firing pin block plunger and spring and a selection of striker springs. I opted for the lightest, a 2 pound spring. Again, installation is pretty straight forward, especially if you have ever taken the slide apart for deep cleaning, which is a good idea while it’s apart anyway. There are many resources online describing the details. It is not difficult, but there is a tricky first step to it.

Once the striker is out, there is a delicate operation to removing the spring. It would be wise to consider doing this with the striker within a plastic bag to retain the spring retainer cups. Assembly is basically in reverse order.

The black trigger with a red safety pawl just looks right to me. The trigger is available in a large variety of color combinations.

The pull weight of the trigger is not much less, 5 pounds compared to the stock 6 pounds, but the feel is a thousand times better. Much shorter pull, much sharper release and a short reset. The trigger shoe is wider and flatter than stock, so it feels like less than 5 pounds. I am looking forward to shooting it.

While I was working on the pistol anyway, I decided to address a minor irritation that is not necessarily caused by this pistol, but it did bring it to my attention. Until I got this pistol and shot it in a match, I had not noticed that frequent shooting has caused an accumulation of terminally undifferentiated keratinocytes in the outermost layer of the skin on the middle finger of my right hand.

Since it does what a callus is supposed to, protect that spot from repeated friction, I had not noticed it. However, the Glock 19 grip is smaller than the G20/21, so that spot lands a little differently. The same spot on the bottom of the G19 trigger guard hits the edge of the callus and it’s kinda uncomfortable by the end of a match. Rather than wait however long it will take for the callus to expand, I decided to smooth off the trigger guard.

Although the mold seam is clearly visible here, that’s not what causes the discomfort but rather the nearer edge of the trigger guard.

I used primarily 1 inch wide 150 grit sanding strips to reform that edge, then smoothed and polished it with finer strips and sanding pads.

I haven’t fired it yet, but it certainly feels better in the hand.