That Combat Master is too neat and rare of a gun to go plugging holes in, shaving things and skating end mills across it, glad you decided not to do non-reversable mods to it. The repair looks pretty good too! Good job on that powder review!
+mytmousemalibu Yeah, I'm reluctant to do any non-reversible mods. The magwell, with its additional length and weight do make the gun easier to handle, but I think I'm going to go over the parts weights again, and see if the plastic MSH, plastic trigger, and maybe some lighter grips don't get it down to 29oz. Adding or removing the magwell is literally a 30sec job, so it would be easy to switch between BUG and CCP.
Absolutely, I feel the same way about my guns, I'm not at all afraid to do "bolt-on" mods that can be reversed but some of the other stuff....my reluctance is based on what it is. I shoot club-level USPSA Open Division with a full built M&P 9L Performance Center, it has just about all the stuff a guy could do to it without permanent mods. It isn't a rare gun by any means. I doubt it will down the road, it's not like the PC guns of yesteryear. I'm not opposed to more work but I haven't found a reason to do so. It took a while to get it tuned and running 100% reliably, now chipping at the fine tuning details. Trying to flatten out the muzzle more. I'm about to have some custom compensators cut!
I appreciate the powder comparison. The volumetric information is especially valuable to shotgun reloaders who use fixed powder bushings. I bet the companies deliberately toned down the powder as a safety factor for just that reason.
+Rumblestrip.NET My fear is removing as much weight as is reasonable, via parts swapping, and still being a tenth or two overweight. Check out episode 237. If I drilled holes, or opened the windows under the grips, I might be able to get there. I saw pics of a pistol that had had the front strap checkered, and then drilled with eight or ten lightening holes. With the stainless mag showing through the holes it looked pretty cool. Rick
+kimisdaman Gunsmith who built my Single Stack gun did the bit about opening up the window and grinding the back of the grips to get another person's Springfield down to weight for BUG.
+RabidMortal1 Extreme spreads were extreme. But if the high and the low were removed, the spread for all three powders was about 25fps. I literally had enough of the new powders to load only 20 rounds each, and powder measures don't work well with tiny quantities of powder in them. I tried to choose the ten rounds that I thought would be the most consistent - not the first ten, rounds that were loaded when the shell plate had four cases in it, etc. - but it was still only ten rounds. Clay Dot was 667-725, 58fps extreme spread, but toss out the high and the low and the spread of the other eight rounds was only 13fps.
Average velocities and powerfactor for the loads featured (mixed brass, 230gr Rainier plated RN, Tula primers, 1.65" OAL):3.8grs old Clays: 746fps, 171pf 3.8grs new Clays: 709fps, 163pf 3.8grs Clay Dot: 696fps, 160pf Same volume of new Clays as 3.8grs of old Clays: 775fps, 178pf Same volume of Clay Dot as 3.8grs of old Clays: 723fps, 166pfSorry, this is difficult to read. I can't format it into any sort of columns. Rick
+kimisdaman The variation on the new clays more than doubles compared to old clays. From your data it goes from 12fps to 29fps. Even with limited data that doesn't look good. I just managed to get some new clays and now I'm wondering. Thank you very much for the information.
"Power factor" is a competition term that is essentially a measurement of momentum; bullet weight in "grains", times the muzzle velocity in feet-per-second, divided by 1000. "Major power factor" is greater than 165, and "Minor" is between 125-165. To "make major", I shoot a 200gr bullet at 850fps for a power factor of 170. "CCP" stands for Compact Carry Pistol, one of the six divisions in International Defensive Pistol Assn. (IDPA) competition. Having different divisions that define the size, weight, and power of the guns used in competition helps ensure that it's the shooter and not the equipment that is deciding the competition. "Back-Up Gun" is the smallest and lightest, CCP is slightly larger, heavier, and more powerful, etc. Rick
