cast boolits and jamming

[soldierbilly1]

recently, I ran some 356 125 TL's out of my Beretta 92. Prior to today, I have never had a jam with this pistola. I was running them with much LLA and unsized. I did notice that the inserted bullet was a little fat! The jams I got were the FTF variety, that is, the slide did not go totally home, about 90%. I had about 3 in 100 rounds. The jam was a bear to clear, they look like the famous "3 - point jams" that I see on Youtube, primarily for 1911's. I was not limp wristing and unfortunately, I did not examine the bad rounds. I just pulled them and shot through. All of the Jword bullets ran fine, no problems.
Since then, I sized my boolits to 0.357 and they are running just fine, about 100 or so.
So, what caused this sort of thing? B92's I hear are hard to jam (??).
any assistance in helping me understand this will help. thanks a lot
billy boy
I guess my question is what causes 3 point jams????

[pearcetopher]

Ive run into this a bit before too with that same pistol

I find I have to use COAL of 1.065. Mine 6 cav mold drops them at .358 and I load them unsized.

I'm thinking maybe you didnt flare the cases enough and that extra pressure bulged the brass and thats why they are not going into battery completely.

If mine are badly bulged they will not chamber, I figured out my problem was my sprue was worn and was leaving little peices attached to the tail of the bullet which therefore caused the cases to bulge out when loaded.

[soldierbilly1]

Interesting. My 50/50 mix of WW and scrap runs about 0.358 - 0.360 as dropped from the Lee 6 banger. When I size, they slip fit nicely through my case gauge. I use a Lyman M-die, this guy really flares well. Maybe, I did not use enough crimp? Or, the crimp makes no difference as the boolit is too fat. I think the oversized boolits created the bulge. Its gone now that I have sized. Does a bulged cartridge cause a 3 point jam?

[tazman]

On my 92, if I load my boolits unsized, anything over .358 will fail to load in the chamber. At .358 or below it feeds like water.
I typically size to .357 to avoid the whole issue. I get slightly better accuracy at .357 as well.
I am not using any special dies. Just standard Lee carbide dies.

[soldierbilly1]

Taz: thanks for the response. I think we got it! billy boy

[prs]

This is a situation where some folks use post sizing to assure the loaded round will fit the chamber. That may well remedy the immediate problem, but it may also cause other problems such as leading of the barrel or reduced accuracy. I think what the OP did is a better solution, he adjusted the fit of the boolit to the pistol.

prs

[rsrocket1]

If you are saying 3-point jam like with 1911, that is where the bullet jams going up the ramp and never even enters the chamber straight in. That has nothing to do with the diameter of the brass. It's often because the shoulder of the bullet makes a sudden jump in diameter. That happened all the time with my 1911 when using SWC bullets. It never happened with RN bullets or TC bullets so that's why I bought the Lee TL452-230-TC and also use TC moulds for 9 and 40 bullets.

If you think the bulge is causing the jam, paint a round that caused the jam with a magic marker and do a "plunk test" with your barrel, not a case gauge.

If you mean you are using the TL356-124-2R, that bullet has a shoulder between the nose and the body.

If the bullets plunk fine, then it's the shape of your loaded round that may be causing the feed problems. You need to play with the seating depth to see how much of that TL shoulder needs to sit above the case rim. That's easy to do by seating bullets into uncharged/unprimed cases and loading them into your magazine and hand-cycling them to see if they jam. Do this with lots of bullets in the magazine because the tension is different between a full mag and an empty mag.

[mdi]

Let's see, a .358" bullet will not fully chamber? A .357" bullet fits fine? I think you found your problem; the .358" is too big! Either the bullet is hitting the end of the chamber or the rifling and not allowing the cartridge to fully chamber. Use the plunk test and I think you'll see what I mean... 99658 Bulged cases from over crimping may also be happening, but try the plunk test first.

[MtGun44]

Try more taper crimp with the .358 diameter, this can be the problem
on failure to close. Your ammo, so it is your fault - and you CAN fix it
using the chamber as your gage as shown above.

Bill