<Sigh> Lee 9mm Tumble Lube boolits.. well, tumbling...

[Salmon-boy]

I've been casting boatloads of boolits from a Lee TL356-124-2R 124 Grain Tumble Lube mould. :castmine: The lead is 5% Antimony, 1% Tin, damp towel dropped, no heat-treating..

I've sized them to .356 Dia and lubed with LLA. Loaded on top of 4.7grains of Bullseye to 1.056 OAL for feeding to a Browning Hi-Power that I've measured the grooves at .350 with a set of calipers. I have to say, the Hi-Power eats them up readily, with a nice bang and throws shells quite far..

Unfortunatly, it's spitting the boolits out sideways more often then not... :Fire: :(

I have to admit, I got impatient and loaded some (about 20) without lube that were keyholing the target, I thought it was a lack of lube, so another couple of days and 100 more loaded... Still keyholing..

I can't seem to find any resources on the 'net to read about the causes of boolit tumble, but it seems to me the root cause is a lack of gyro stabilization. Lack of spin can be caused by oh so many things, I'm not sure where to start.

Is my alloy too soft? Am I driving them too hard? Do I need to heat treat? Not enough lube to aid in sealing? Have I sized them too small? ARRGH! (Sorry, had to vent!)

At this point, I'm tempted to stop by the grocery store and pick up a case of Jello so I can recover a spent round... :-? Worse case, there's always room for Jello!

At least I'm getting in some good practice at the trigger!!

[Leftoverdj]

Tumbling is almost always severe base damage, either from undersized bullets or excessive pressure. In your case, I suspect a combination. Try loading some as cast, lubed with Liquid Alox or Johnson's past wax, and over 4 grains of Bullseye.

I also don't think much of dropping them on a damp towel. One side is going to come out harder than the other. I have no idea what that does, but it can't help.

[454PB]

"I've measured the grooves at .350 with a set of calipers."

Can you clear this up for me?

Are you saying the grooves in the boolit or the grooves in the barrel?

I own a WWII Hipower, and like many semiautos, it has shallow rifling. I use a fairly hard alloy and size .357". While it's no tack driver, boolits don't tumble and no leading at 1100 fps.

[Buckshot]

[QUOTE=Salmon-boy;271422] Browning Hi-Power that I've measured the grooves at .350 with a set of calipers. QUOTE]

...............I doubt that. Auto's are easy to slug. Take the barrel outand get one of your as cast boolits. Squeeze it with pliers till your caliper says' it's about .360". Smear some lube on it, then drive it through your barrel from chamber to muzzle.

Now what does it measure?

...............Buckshot

[EMC45]

Salmon,
I have a Browning HP MK3 just like the one in your avatar. I was sizing all my bullets to .356. They were a Lee bullet at 124 gr like yours, but not the tumble lube, mine have the grease groove. I shot and shot a bunch of these and got good accuracy. But I also got leading. I slugged it as I should have from the start and found my groove was .357! Soooo....... I now size all of them at .358. My load for that bullet is 3.5 gr. Bullseye. Kicks 'em out, makes a tight group, and mild recoil. Give it a shot. I bet that mold drops right about .358ish anyway. Mine drops at around .360!!

[Salmon-boy]

Ok, some good info there. Also some good questions. Thanks to everyone for the help. While I'm not trying to create a tack driver here, I AM trying to get a reasonable size grouping at 25 yrds. would 2 1/2 inch be too much to ask without sending it off to Cylinder & Slide?

Leftoverdj, I tend agree with you, one hard side can't be much help.

P54pb, Buckshot, I measured the barrel grooves at the muzzle end. Very un-scientific, yes, but I thought it might give me an idea within a couple thou. I agree it might be off as much as 3-4. I did a quick fit-check when I started sizing to .356 with an as sized boolit. It lodged in the throat pretty well - to the point that I was afraid of causing barrel damage with the tools I was using. How should I support the muzzle end - would eastern white pine be too hard to use?

EMC45, The mould was pretty good straight from the factory. Guess I got lucky! Sizing them isn't too hard, so I guess I'm taking no more than 2 thou off each side. I'll have to crank some out today to do a test load of as-cast so I'll measure a random handfull.

On saving the 3K or so I have, should I heat treat? I'll load up somewith a smaller load of Bullseye and see how they go, AND slug the barrel before I test.

Thanks again!
Chuck.

[Leftoverdj]

Salmon, if you have already sized them to .356, your best bet is melt them down and recast. We've all been there and done that in some form or another. It just does not pay to do a large batch of anything to do with reloading and casting without doing a small batch and test shooting first.

Group size is too dependent on your shooting ability for your question to be answerable. I'd be pleased with 2.5" groups at 25 yards with my best pistol on my best day.

[USARO4]

You might try using a slower burning powder. If you can find a copy of Ken Waters' book "Pet Loads" he has an excellent article on loading cast for 9MM. I've had good results with Herco. Are you taper crimping your loads? All the above advice on sizing is right. Usually bigger is better as long as you can seat the bullet without crumpling the case. My 9MM loads all tumbled until I went with a slower powder, bigger diameter, and taper crimp. Cast 9MM is a challenge but that's part of the fun.

[Salmon-boy]

LeftoverDJ - Yeah, I know... I had some time on my hands so I broke in the mould... :-) As for groupsize, at this point I'll be happy with a gun that outshoots me!

USARO4, Thanks for the info! I'm using the dies that came with the Lee Pro 1000 9mm kit, NOT the Lee FCD.

All, I just finished slugging the bore. Would you believe .356? So I guess I should size to .357. In examening my press, I noticed quite a few 1/2 moon shaped shavings around the seating die. I think I need to open up my cases a little more!! I THINK if I do that, and load a little lighter, I might be in the ballpark.. That's what makes this hobby fun!!!

Thanks all!
Chuck

[Harry O]

I had the same problem with the same gun and same boolit. However, the lead I used was harder. I found out that by using them totally unsized (approx 0.357-0.358") the tumbling was less. The loaded case looked a little strange with a "step-down" in the case below the bullet. However, it fed and shot. I also heat treated some boolits and that was better, too. I tried a little slower powder (Unique instead of W231) for some more improvement. I never did, totally get rid of the tipping, though. The pressures used for the 9mm (30,000 to 35,000psi) are a bit much for lead bullets.

[Ricochet]

At that kind of pressure, they'll work better if fairly hard.

Although I get pretty good results with full loads of WC820 or 296 under rather soft plain base boolits in the .44 Mag. Similar pressures, maybe a little higher. Much slower rifling twist and probably deeper grooves than most 9mm, though.

[35remington]

Salmon:

What leftoverdj said is dittoed here. Don't size them.

Try them as cast. As long as they chamber freely, there is no need to do so, and you may be needing that extra bit of diameter. Even slightly undersized bullets often keyhole.

A lot of nines run to the large size in barrel interior dimensions; couple this with fast twist and you've got difficulties, especially if these dimensions are not known.

[Salmon-boy]

Ok, everybody that's helped. THANK YOU!!

Interesting note.. As cast and sized, BNH hardness of these boolits was around 13-14 as noted by my Lee Hardness kit.

I spent a couple hours today heat treating boolits. 450deg for 1 hr, water quenched direct from the oven.. I AM NOW A CONVERT!!! Doing so, brought the BNH up to 23 to 24 depending on how you cheat the reading, er read the dent. (edit - Ok I can't count. Another measure puts it more like 20! Still impressive difference.). According to the pressure data included in the kit I'm now getting into the range of a full 9mm load. I see another 20 round test loading in my future!

Chuck

[armoredman]

Hmm, maybe I should try that too...

[Crash_Corrigan]

I am having similiar issues with my BHP (1985). I was sizing the cast boolits to .355 and wa having a big issue with carbon buildup in the chamber real fast! By the time I got into the 3rd mag the semi would not go into battery by about 1/16th of an inch. Clean the gun and get another 2 1/2 mags off and same problem.

I ordered a .357 sizing die and with a slower powder I will see if this problem stops.

[Salmon-boy]

Results of the latest test with Lee 125gr TL:

100 rounds of as cast, water dropped, no heat treat loaded on 4.9gr Bullseye - shot well, slight leading.

20 rounds of .356 sized, heat treated loaded on 4.3gr Bullseye - 10% tumbling. No leading found.

In between tests, 20 rd of factory FMJ was fired to "clean" the bore. Checked visually afterwards.

Now, I'm still having problems getting the POA of this puppy down. Darned fixed sights!

Next test will be .356 sized Heat Treated on top of 3.5gr Bullseye. Yes it's a big drop, but with the last results I figured it'd be better to work up from there. I expect that the final load will be close to 4gr.

Anyone with more experience want to chime in on my thoughts?

[redbear705]

I load up my 124 lee rn sized to .357"with 3.7gr titegroup.

I get about 1050 ft p/s out of a 3.6" barrel on the baby eagle.

The baby eagle seems to have a short chamber and when COL was at 1.100" so I ended up seating to 1.080" and they worked flawlessly after that.

I am now using the same load in an XD9 5" and they work good. get about 1100fps now tho.

so far so good!

JR

[454PB]

You are headed the right direction, but try a slower burning powder. My favorite in 9mm is HS-6.

[oso]

You are headed the right direction, but try a slower burning powder. My favorite in 9mm is HS-6.

Yep, and there's oceans of powders between Bullseye and HS-6 (also a fav of mine.)

[rbstern]

Sorry to be late to the thread, but I wanted to chime in and say that bullets from that same mold, air cooled wheel weights, either as dropped at 358 or sized 356, fired from an EAA Witness 9mm with a .356 bore, tumbled on me. Plenty of leading, too. Powders used were HP38, HS6, Red Dot, and probably some others I am forgetting now. I finally gave up on that mold. I used the 358-105 SWC mold instead, sized 358. Worked much better, although I could never totally solve the leading problem. Finally realized that 9mm tends to be happier with jacketed bullets (the Witness makes tiny little groups with just about any jacketed ammo). Got out of casting for 9mm. It's just too easy and too fun to cast for calibers that don't complain about cast boolits to waste time on the harder calibers, IMO.

[Myron]

Salmon-boy,
I was having the same problems with the same Lee mold. I was getting on line to post when I seen your post.
I was using 4.3 gr. of HP-38 with as cast size. I had more key holes than a Las Vegas motel.
First I water dropped to harden. Tried 20 rounds with 4.3 gr. HP-38. What an amazing change. 2 keyholes in 20 rounds and fair accuracy. I then tried 20 rounds with 4.0 gr. of HP-38. 20 round holes and very good accuracy. With a little sight adjustment I'll be right on.
Thanks to all for the great advice.

Myron