Wednesday, July 27, 2016

How to Use a Collet Bullet Puller

Reloading ammunition or "rolling your own" takes a little a little time but can be a big savings when compared to buying new ammo all the time. However, attention to detail is paramount. A tiny mistake could cause damage to your weapon, injury to the shooter or even death. However, attention to detail can negate these issues. However, the more subtle things may not cause injury or death. More likely you will just run into failure to chamber or fire issues with you home grown ammo.

In this video I show one of the pitfalls of NOT properly resizing the shoulder on a rifle case. Over time my resizing die had backed out of position with the lock nut coming loose. That tiny bit of movement caused the case to not get properly sized and caused the shoulder to not line up with the chamber. The product was a finished round that would not fully chamber and would not fire. Not too mention I had to "motar" the AR15 rifle to get the round out of the chamber.

Now I had a handful of ammo that was useless. The solution was to pull each bullet, pour the powder out and resize the brass. For pulling the bullet I used a collet puller seen in the video. They are inexpensive and simple to use. It's just a time consuming process.

Now when I start a big reload session of rifle ammo, I take the resized case and test it in the rifle I will be using. If the resized brass case does not fit, something is wrong with my sizing die and I make adjustments. This tiny little step will save you hours of suffering.

As always, I'm glad to share and allow you the opportunity to learn from my mistakes.



Monday, July 25, 2016

Beretta M9-22 10rd Mag Conversion into 15rd Magazine

I recently acquired a Beretta M9-22lr pistol. This pistol is a Umarex replica of the 92FS / M9 handguns found in the US Military. I shoot a 92F in 9mm on a pretty regular basis and when this pistol came out I was very excited to get may hands on one. To start with the gun actually feels and functions like the 92 series center-fire pistol I use. All the controls are the same as well as field stripping procedures. This is a no brainer for training with low cost 22 rim-fire and seamless transition back to my 9mm version. Below is a detailed review on the M9-22.



In addition, the M9-22 comes with 15 round magazines! This is very rare for a 22 caliber pistol to come from the factory with more than 10 round mags. There are many after market kits you can buy for various 22 pistols that allow additional rounds in your 22 magazines (YOU CAN FIND THEM HERE), but it is a nice change of pace to see the manufacturer provide these direct from the factory. However, in some states 15 bullets in your gun is more than the law will allow. So Beretta offers 10 round magazines for these oppressed states. If you have some Beretta factory 10 round magazines, chances are the basepad is glued together and not allowing disassembly. This can be a problem for cleaning dirty magazines. The steps below will help guide you to overcome the glue and disassemble your magazine for cleaning.

Beretta M9-22, M9, 22LR, Basepad, 92f, 92FS, 90-Two, Trainer, DIY, Hi-Cap, Capacity, Nictaylor00
NOTE THE GLUE OOZING OUT OF THE CRACKS (SEE ABOVE)

Beretta M9-22, M9, 22LR, Basepad, 92f, 92FS, 90-Two, Trainer, DIY, Hi-Cap, Capacity, Nictaylor00
USING A HEATGUN, APPLY HEAT TO THE PLASTIC BASEPAD. DO NOT GET THE GUN TOO CLOSE OR TOO HOT SO THAT IT MELTS/DEFORMS THE PLASTIC. YOU ONLY WANT TO HEAT THE BASEPAD ENOUGH TO LOOSEN THE GLUE AND ALLOW THE ROUND PIN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BASEPAD TO BE DEPRESSED (SEE ABOVE)

Beretta M9-22, M9, 22LR, Basepad, 92f, 92FS, 90-Two, Trainer, DIY, Hi-Cap, Capacity, Nictaylor00
ONCE THE GLUE IS HEATED AND BECOMES LOOSE, YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO DEPRESS THE ROUND PIN TO WHERE THE TAB ON THE BACK OF THE BASEPAD WILL STICK UP (SEE ABOVE)

Beretta M9-22, M9, 22LR, Basepad, 92f, 92FS, 90-Two, Trainer, DIY, Hi-Cap, Capacity, Nictaylor00
NOW YOU CAN SLIDE OFF THE BASEPAD TOWARDS THE FRONT OF THE MAGAZINE TUBE. TAKE CARE WITH THE SPRING AS TO NOT LET IT GET AWAY FROM YOU SINCE IT IS UNDER PRESSURE. (SEE ABOVE)

Beretta M9-22, M9, 22LR, Basepad, 92f, 92FS, 90-Two, Trainer, DIY, Hi-Cap, Capacity, Nictaylor00, Field Strip, Cleaning
ONCE THE BASEPAD COMES OFF YOU CAN REMOVE THE SPRING AND SPRING RETAINER CONTAINING THE SPACER (THE ALUMINUM TUBE GLUED TO THE SPRING RETAINER). AT THIS POINT YOU CAN NOW EFFECTIVELY CLEAN YOUR MAGAZINE AND ITS COMPONENTS. IT WOULD ALSO BE HELPFUL TO SCRAPE OFF AS MUCH GLUE AS POSSIBLE WHILE YOU CAN. (SEE ABOVE)

Beretta M9-22, M9, 22LR, Basepad, 92f, 92FS, 90-Two, Trainer, DIY, Hi-Cap, Capacity, Nictaylor00, modification, alter, restriction
IF YOU LIVE IN A STATE THAT DOES NOT HAVE MAGAZINE CAPACITY RESTRICTIONS, THIS IS WHERE YOU CAN REMOVE THE SPACER AND ALLOW AN ADDITIONAL 5 ROUNDS TO BE LOADED INTO THE MAGAZINE. WHILE THE GLUE IS STILL HOT, PLY OFF THE SPACER AND REASSEMBLE THE MAGAZINE WITHOUT THE SPACER. YOU SHOULD NOW BE ABLE TO FIT 15 CARTRIDGES IN THE MAGAZINE.(SEE ABOVE)