My Makarov barrel spits out weird stuff! What the heck?

[SteveK]

I loaded 100 cartridges for my Polish Makarov to plink using Starline brass (new), 93 grn. cast lead boolits, Win. small pistol primers and 7.3 grns. of Reloader 7 powder. (This also happened with some Vit. powder I loaded up for the Makarov last season.) I used published recipes both times although I don't recall which books it was from.

When I fired the gun, there wasn't really a bang... it was more of a gassy, pop. The cartridge did not eject and it looked as if the barrel was spitting something out behind the bullet which, by the way, barely hit the steel at 5 yds with the wimpiest clang I've ever heard. After a few rounds of manually ejecting the spent cases, I tipped the barrel down and about 2 or 3 grns. of light, greenish/tanish, granules emptied into my hand. Huh???

This freaked me out. So I sat down and thought about what might have gone wrong here. Bad powder? Nope the 9mm luger bullets with the Reloader 7 worked just fine. Bad primers? Nope. They too worked just fine in the 9mm luger. Was the bullet crimp insufficient? Maybe... but the bullets didn't seem loosely seated in any way. So what else takes away the bang and leaves almost 1/3 of the smokeless powder transformed into barrel vomit? Another possibility would be that the barrel itself is messed up and if so, I am clueless as to what the problem is since it looks fine to me.

Any thoughts?

Anybody want to buy a vintage Polish Makarov?

[fatelk]

I think Reloader 7 is way too slow for a 9mm Mak. It's just not building enough pressure to burn. I use 3.5 gr of W238 in mine.

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

Too slow a powder for the application resulting in an incomplete burn due to lack of resistance that would increase pressures to where that powder is designed to operate.

[John Boy]

... and put a hard crimp on the case. Soft crimps allow incomplete ignition

[marlin39a]

I would not recommend Reloader 7 in this application. I load a coated 93 gr. bullet over 3.6 grns of Hodgdon HP-38.

[Ben]

I have NEVER seen RL-7 listed for reloading the 9 mm Mak.

[Wayne Smith]

And the MAK uses .363" boolits - your .355" boolits were bouncing down the barrel providing resistance or pressure.

[SteveK]

Too slow a powder for the application resulting in an incomplete burn due to lack of resistance that would increase pressures to where that powder is designed to operate.

That sounds reasonable. Thanks for your thoughts.

[SteveK]

... and put a hard crimp on the case. Soft crimps allow incomplete ignition

What is a hard crimp? These cartridges headspace om the case itself Do don't mean a roll crimp, right?

[SteveK]

And the MAK uses .363" boolits - your .355" boolits were bouncing down the barrel providing resistance or pressure.

I didn't use the luger boolits in the Mak. those were fired from a different gun.

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

What is a hard crimp? These cartridges headspace om the case itself Do don't mean a roll crimp, right?

You should use a taper crimp on cartridges that headspace on the case mouth. Just enough to remove the bell. You also need proper case tension on the bullet. After seating a bullet, but before you crimp, you should not be able to push the bullet into the case with anything less than maybe 10 lbs of pressure. The crimp can't do it all. A bullet without proper tension can be shoved further down into the case when being cycled into the barrel. Reducing OAL raises pressures drastically.

[runfiverun]

your .0010 undersized boolits are not able to provide any resistance to get the powder burning.
secondly RL-7 is a rifle powder.
your load sounds more like an accurate #-7 load.
but the symptoms sound like a combination of too small a boolit and too slow of a powder.

definitely not enough pressure to efficiently start or maintain a burn with your powder.

[nannyhammer]

I think you need another powder since RL7 is used primarily in rifle rounds. Have you possibly gotten RL7 mixed up with AA#7?

[fatelk]

Was the data you used for Accurate #7 by any chance? I've heard of people confusing the two before. AA7 is a VERY different powder from Reloder 7. I imagine that a case full of Reloder 7 would do exactly what you describe. BTW, how did you fit 7.3 gr of powder into the little 9x18 case?

AA7 is a pretty good powder for the 9mm Luger, but is too slow for the 9mm Makarov. Something like Winchester 231/ HP38 (these two are the same powder) works great.

Edit: you guys just beat me to it!

[kayala]

As already been mentioned - wrong powder for the application. I've only loaded Mak with fast powders (HP38, TG) and all my Maks eject cases with authority.

[Yodogsandman]

I've always liked AA#5 in the Makarov.

[swheeler]

Reloder #7(rifle powder) and Accurate #7(pistol powder)have very different burn rates, your published data was for Accurate #7

Page 90 Accurate Manual #2
9x18 Makarov, 3.75 ich barrel
95 gr lead bullet, .955" OAL
Accurate #7 powder, start 6.5=921 fps, max7.2=1047fps

[Virginia John]

Be happy you didn't really f*** things up. Use some reliable load data and powder. Remember the 9X18 is a variant of the 9mm and all of them are different. I personally like Bullseye, HP-38 or W-231 in my CZ82 and that .363 bullet really needs a snug crimp.