Help me decide on the best upper for me

[commander faschisto]

Thanks for the info, Ghost Dog...I've emailed the interested parties, hopefully they'll join us in the asylum!!

New one on me: The 16" complete carbine went "out of stock" while I was looking at the webpage for it!

[Texas Sheepdawg]

Thanks everyone for the welcomes and advice.

Im going to talk to james at trident on monday about the possibility of an upper.

All this Rainer talk is Murphy's law. I reload my 45acp with 230gr fmj Rainer bullets. Ha. Figures.

Will I damage a barrel shooting those bullets at high velocities?

Don't use Rainier or Berry! They don't have a jacket. They have a plated coating. WC has told me he's seen them turn into a blue puff of smoke right out of the muzzle.
It's best to stick to the MagTechs and the Hornady. Speer and Sierra may be okay too but I have not personally tried them yet.

[Hic28]

I'll save the rainers for the .45acp!

This weekend will be the first time I'll have some free time to take the .450b to the range and after that I'll start reloading with some 230gr mag techs I have sitting on my bench.

[LlindeX]

If you already reload for the 45ACP, try the "Tightneck" technique with those Magtech 230gr. rounds. It's working out great for me with the Hornady 230gr RN FMJ's. I'm getting almost as good in the accuracy dept. with them as I do with the 250gr. FTX's. However, I must admit that I'm theoretically holding their velocity to about the same as that of the factory 250gr FTX loads. Not trying to break any land speed records with them or shoot thru any 1/2" steel plates. As Hoot has said, I'm not trying to shoot thru two or three animals standing abreast. I just want to put one down really quickly with a single shot.

[Hic28]

LlindeX - I loaded several 230gr loads using the Hornady ftx bullets. Starting at 38gr lil gun all the way up to 43grs. Then tried no crimp(advice from James at trident) heavy crimp and the tight neck technique. I'm a bit confused since some of my non crimped 41gr loads went through the chrono at 2950! This was not a single shot that registered that speed. Cool thing was, the only pressure sign was a slight ejector mark on the case head. No worse than the 5.56 I run through my 5.56 upper. I haven't tried for accuracy yet but that 230 gr FTX sent a 12"diameter by 1' long log of oak tumbling pretty well.

My midway blems came in on Saturday and I have some data to load those up. 250gr and 300gr fun to come!

[Hoot]

...snip... I'm a bit confused since some of my non crimped 41gr loads went through the chrono at 2950! ...snip...

IMHO, move the chronograph futher away or check it's position WRT the sun. Glints off the bullet can cause abnormal readings. I could not even get the 160gr TAC-XPs up that high. I used to set my chrony up at 10 ft, but got occasional odd readings. Now, it's 15 ft and they don't happen as often. Yesterday, I shot at the same time as a fellow next to me as we hadn't worked out our shot spacing and I got 23.56 fps. Go figure...

Hoot

[Hic28]

Hoot, I'll try moving the chrono back, it was as far back as it would go while still allowing me to read the remote on my bench, I didn't measure it exactly. I also shot factory hornady loads that chronod right between 2150-2200 fps, my 223 loads were at 2850 and my 45acp loads were at ~950.

We were shooting at 8am so I dont know how the sun would affect the machine. I'll try someone else's chrono to see if I'm still getting those speeds.