Lyman 9mm 356637 bullets will not chamber.

[Confused x 2]

Fairly new to casting pistol bullets and reloading so take it easy on me. I bought a Lyman 356637 HP mold and am using wheel weights. Casting has gone really good once it realized that I had to keep the lead and mold really, really hot. Casted about 200 and powder coated them.
http://i926.photobucket.com/albums/ad104/mysticcreations2112/Bullets/20160106_213945.jpg

I loaded them along with some bullets I got from Extreme bullets. My OAL is 1.15. The Extreme bullets shot great. I was really impressed. Went through about 100 with no FTF at all.

http://i926.photobucket.com/albums/ad104/mysticcreations2112/Bullets/20160107_201436.jpg

Here is the problem. The Lyman bullets will not chamber. I first thought that the powder coat was too thick causing the problem so I loaded a dumby round with plain lead and it stopped at the same spot. I am using a Lee resizing die. It makes me think that the nose of the bullet is too thick. Only thing is that I have searched the net and can not find anyone else with this mold that is having this problem. I shoot a CZ 2075 Rami and I have tried it in a PT111 Millennium G2 with the same result. I know better than to reduce OAL because I can see that increasing pressure. BTW, they all go through my "go no go" gauge without a problem. If it is the mold I can get another mold. MP seem to be really good but all seem to be out of stock. Any suggestions to the problem or any other 9mm HP molds are appreciated. Here are two more pics.

http://i926.photobucket.com/albums/ad104/mysticcreations2112/Bullets/20160107_201629.jpg
http://i926.photobucket.com/albums/ad104/mysticcreations2112/Bullets/20160107_201451.jpg

[pergoman]

Looks like you are going to have to seat that bullet quite a bit deeper. The bullet with or without pc is hitting the lead in the barrel. Seat it until it chambers. Start powder charges low and work up. Use a chronograph and look for pressure signs. Federal primers will flatten out way sooner than CCI 500's.

[runfiverun]

yep...
measure the nose on those jacketed ones that work.
now measure in the same place from the base of the case on yours.
once you get to a point that is the same you'll see where your problem is.

I was making 9mm ammo at under an inch long [.098] at one point because of the boolit I was using.
it would function the guns just fine at just over 2grs of powder.

[petroid]

I have that mold and found that when seating the bullet, the nose of the bullet was expanding as the base was being seated. My Lee die want expanding wide or deep enough. I got a 38SW expander plug and all is now well

[tazman]

You list your OAL as 1.150. My Lyman 49th edition handbook lists the OAL for that boolit at 1.058. You may want to shorten your OAL and see if things improve for you.

[Confused x 2]

Well, here's how I fixed the problem.

http://i926.photobucket.com/albums/ad104/mysticcreations2112/MP%20Mold/20160209_203909.jpg

http://i926.photobucket.com/albums/ad104/mysticcreations2112/MP%20Mold/20160209_203849.jpg

Bottom line is, save up and get an MP mold. I can not even describe the quality of this mold. I almost want to get a gold chain and wear it as bling bling. If you go to his web site, all molds show out of stock. Click on the contact us tab and send an email with what you want. He got back with me very fast and sent a pay pal request. It only came to $106 with shipping. Trust me, well worth it. It took a few weeks to get here but it is coming from the other side of the world and had to go through customs. One thing to keep in mind is that it is heavy. Solid brass. I got the 2 cavity and am glad I did. I think the 4 cavity would be too heavy for me, but that is just me. It also came with two different HP inserts and a flat one for flat nose bullets. I just can not express the quality of this mold enough. Do not buy the Lyman for 9mm, save up for this one.

[35remington]

So you did not bother to even try seating the bullet deeper, huh?

[reddog81]

So you looking to get rid of the defective Lyman mold?

[Confused x 2]

Yeah, I seated it until it would camber. Had to be .97. I did not want to do that because of pressure issues. Plus it just did not look right. I am going to keep the mold. I do not think that it is defective, I think it is for a 38 special bullet. If you look at a 38 bullet and a 9mm bullet you will see a difference in the contour of the nose of the bullet. Lyman is just looking at the diameter and calling it a 9mm. I have casted some out of the MP mold and seated at 1.15 and they camber just fine. The Lyman mold casted very good bullets but are not shaped for 9mm. I can not believe that no one else has had this problem. Who knows, maybe it was packed wrong.

[fecmech]

Doesn't lyman have col and load data for that bullet in the new cast bullet handbook??

[tazman]

Doesn't lyman have col and load data for that bullet in the new cast bullet handbook??

Yes they do. I posted the COL number in post number 5.
I think the powder coating is making the boolit shape a bit different than an uncoated boolit would be and would need to be seated even deeper than the book listed COL.
The COL he tested with an uncoated boolit was too long according to the book.
I suspect that if he loaded an uncoated boolit to 1.058(the COL recommended by LYMAN) it would work or at least be close. He would then have data from Lyman available to use.
Unfortunately, I don't have access to his weapon and can't test the theory.

[rsrocket1]

The extra 2-3 mils of powder coat on the nose can do that. I've heard that CZ's have very short throats so unless he gets the throat reamed (he would have to do that with his PT111 to although maybe to a lesser extent), he won't be able to use that mold with powder coated bullets. If the mold is for a 38/357 gun, use it for that. I tried to see if my Lee 358-158-RF would work in 9mm also and it was a no-go with my S&W M&P guns. Simply too long and the nose was too fat.

[gwpercle]

Don't get hung up on not reducing OAL, sometimes you have to. 9mm barrels with no throat, to speak of, will require seating deeper.
I've run into the " no throat" thing with a Springfield. Make up a dummy , seating a little deeper , until the round will chamber, use the gun's barrel as your gauge. As long as you are not compressing powder you will be fine. Drop back a few tenths if it looks close. I had to seat the boolits so deep for the Springfield, I thought the base was on top of the powder, but a little measuring showed there was more room in that little case than it looked.
Bottom line is the round has to chamber, the OAL listed is a starting point...not a measurement set in stone that can't be adjusted.
Lyman Cast Bullet Reloading Guide #4, shows the OAL for 356637 as 1.058"
Lyman tested this in a universal receiver , which isn't a real pistol at all. No telling how much throat the UR had.
If your OAL is 1.15 " they would appear to be too long. Lyman Book is a great source of info, might want to get one.
Gary

[Confused x 2]

I took a picture of 3 bullets that would just seat in the chamber. Left is an extreme store bought, center is the lyman, right is out of my new MP.

http://i926.photobucket.com/albums/ad104/mysticcreations2112/Lyman%20mold/20160214_171556.jpg


You can easily see that the Lyman is shaped differently. You can see where the crimp scraped the bullet as I seated it to chamber. I think that it was just tooled wrong at Lyman in 38/357. It just does not look right to me. I'm not confident enough to start messing with reducing loads. Ya'll are probably right in what you are saying. I am sure you have a lot more experience than I do. Anyway, the MP is over twice as fast, works great and is easier to use. I do appreciate the advice and have learned a lot from the replies.

[tazman]

If the one in the center is the Lyman 356637. It doesn't look like any 356637 I have ever seen before. The nose should look like the one on the right. It almost looks like the boolit nose was deformed while seating it into the case.
The earlier pictures of the boolits after powder coating look normal.
Sometimes when baking the powder coat, the heat softens the boolit enough that it can deform on seating(don't ask how I know this, bad experience). This depends on the particular alloy you are using. If this is the case, the nose will expand and reshape itself to the shape of the seating punch. It will almost certainly be too big right in front of the case to feed properly.
The only cure I know of is to drop the boolits into cold water directly as they come out of the baking oven. This would return them to their original harness before baking.

[noisewaterphd]

The important thing to learn from this:

Your chamber/throat/barrel do not care about tip-to-tail OAL measurements. Only your mags do.

The measurement that matters is the length to ogive. This is also how your dies seat the bullet, by the ogive (assuming you have a proper seating plug for the bullet).

Length to ogive is also the measurement that matters for accuracy.

I switched to using ogive measurements entirely a few years ago, even for pistols. It's the measurement that makes sense.


"Yeah, I seated it until it would camber. Had to be .97. I did not want to do that because of pressure issues. Plus it just did not look right."


What pressure issues?