My new shadow, reloads and first range trip

[Roosniper]

Hi guys,

After a veeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryy long wait, I finally have my new shadow (customs here in Australia can be a PITA). Anyway, I LOVE THIS GUN! picked it up from the dealer and after the customary clean and inspection, had to take it to the range, so I grabbed 100 rounds commercially reloaded ammo and headed for our range (Tried to get some video, but it was so shaky I thought it may induce seizures). The first mag of ammo all functioned correctly, second mag had a couple of feed failures and the rest went smoothly. When I looked for the reason behind the failures it was easy to see that this ammo was slightly too long to feed correctly. When I got home I field stripped the gun and made up some dummy rounds to check length of the chamber and found that I had to seat the bullets slightly deeper to give and OAL of 28.30mm/1.114in with the 135gr RN coated cast bullets I am using (.356dia). Using ADI AP70 powder and backed off the listed 9mm load by about 15% due to the deeper bullet seating and started with 3.6gr of AP70 under 135gr RN cast bullet using starline brass and Federal small pistol primers with the following results (vel is avg of 20 shot strings):

Powder Charge    Avg Velocity    IPSC Power Factor
   3.6gr               1008ft/sec        136
   3.7gr               1023ft/sec        138
   3.8gr               1035ft/sec        140
   3.9gr               1053ft/sec        142
   4.0gr               1066ft/sec        144
   4.1gr               1090ft/sec        147

I will be using these for production division IPSC, 3.6gr makes power factor easily and shot best for me (I am a beginner and not a particularly good shot yet  here are some pics, if I can get this photo bucket thing to work. They were fired from a sandbag rest at 10m.






Take Care
Adam

[CZ Bob]

Good start, Adam !

Let us know how things settle out once she's broken in.
Planning on changing out the stock springs at some point ?

Bob

[Roosniper]

Thanks Bob,

Have loaded up another 300 of the 135gr RN bullets and will train with them for a while to see how they go. I am also working up some loads for a 120gr SWC projectile which I really hope shoots well. I will see how the stock springs go once the gun is broken in before experimenting, once I have a bit more experience I will be in a better position to see which mods improve performance. For now I'm just happy shooting her

take care
Adam

[tekarra]

Hello Roosniper and welcome.  I think you are on the right track and with a few hundred rounds it should improve.  Let us know how it runs later.

[Bundy]

Congrats there mate,

Just got mine last week also, threw 100 rounds of factory (125 projectile 3.7 powder) into it with impressive results. On the 25m target - 9 into center 1 outside (bloody decocker-first shot longest pull) on each 10 round mag, than moved up to the IPSC end of the range and shot 200 of my loads (135 projectile with 3.4 powder) and was totally hooked that all but 15 rounds were Alpha.

Saturday here I come...