jumping in the Glock 17 frying pan

[gutpile]

i am getting ready to try this with a miha 359-125hp acww i have sized at .358 with TAC and use a .359 expander from NOE
in my 17 with a stock barrel is that a good start? looking at 1050 to 1150 fps to start with oal to just fit an function......am i barking the wrong way???

gutpile

[Ed_Shot]

Sounds like you have good components and methodology. Do your loaded rounds pass the plunk test in your weapon's chamber?.....if so, go shoot them and tell us how they performed.

[dverna]

There is a ton of info on the 9mm buried in here.

It will work but it may not be easy. Then again, you could luck out on your first try. My opinion is to use a good lube or powder coat, be sure the bullet is large enough, and use a hard alloy.

Don Verna

[W.R.Buchanan]

Also your taper crimp needs to be right. You can't have boolits being pushed back into the case during feeding. (Very Bad!) This is a must do step despite what some may say. Case Neck Tension on the boolit is not enough to hold boolits in place and especially when you are sizing it .001 over boolit size to begin with.

Randy

[Electric88]

Also your taper crimp needs to be right. You can't have boolits being pushed back into the case during feeding. (Very Bad!) This is a must do step despite what some may say. Case Neck Tension on the boolit is not enough to hold boolits in place and especially when you are sizing it .001 over boolit size to begin with.

Randy

This would be performed using something such as a Lee Factory Crimp die, correct?

[gwpercle]

The taper crimp die that comes with your dies will work , just adjust it correctly. I might take some trial and error on both crimp and OAL , the 9mm can be, umm , shall we say , a pain in the buns to get sorted out.

[gloob]

i have sized at .358 with TAC and use a .359 expander from NOE

I'm not sure if that's what you're planning to buy, or if you already have it. In case of the latter, sure. If the former: that expander is too small. 356/360 is the biggest one they have, and even that is barely adequate to get a 358 bullet seated into a 9mm case without shaving. But since AFAIK it is the largest expander you can get, off the shelf, 356/360 is the one you want.

On other note, please don't call this a 359 expander. It is a 359 flare, not expansion. It is a 355 expander.

355/359 is the actual dimension of the plug, itself. When it is withdrawn from the sized 9mm case, it leaves ID of the case at a nominal 353/357. Maybe a smidge larger. That is obviously not large enough to seat 358 bullets without shaving, unless you chamfer your case mouths. And unless your alloy is super hard, it will also cause some amount of bullet swaging. It will more than likely shoot just fine; but this is because 358 is probably more than 2 mils larger than your bore size to begin with... so you could probably shoot 356-357 bullets just as good or better, using a 356/360 expander.

If you already have this 355/359 expander, give it a try using regular jacketed bullets at 355 diameter. The bullets will take less force to seat compared to using your standard expander plug. But try setting them back by pushing them on your bench. Then try pulling them. I bet you can't tell any significant difference in neck tension from the standard expander plug. Ideally, you want expander to be same size as the bullet, not 2 mils smaller. When expander is exactly the same diameter as the bullet, the bullet gets nearly all of the elastic "hold" that ends up as neck tension.. without having to do any permanent deformation of the brass to open it up, which is what exerts the highest swaging force on the bullet.

Here's another test you can do. When expanding a case, notice the amount of force it takes to push the plug in and to pull the expander plug back out. Now push the expander back into the same case u just expanded. Notice how much easier it was going in compared to the first time. But withdrawing the plug you will notice the same amount of force/drag as the first time. This drag doesn't go away no matter how many times you expand the same case. Think about that. Withdrawing the plug requires the same force, either way. But inserting the plug, it is different. First time is much greater force. In your head, replace the expander with your cast bullet. Which scenario do you want? Both end up with same neck tension, but one puts more force on the bullet during seating. Why do you want your bullet to finish the expanding process, exerting great force on the bullet, if this does not gain any significant difference in neck tension?

[dverna]

This would be performed using something such as a Lee Factory Crimp die, correct?

There is mixed thinking on the Lee FCD. I do not own one and have been able to reload excellent ammo without it. Some swear by it, others at it. Be careful using it. If it swages the bullet down too far, you will lose bullet fit. So pull a few bullets to check their diameter after crimping.

Good luck

Don Verna

[Electric88]

There is mixed thinking on the Lee FCD. I do not own one and have been able to reload excellent ammo without it. Some swear by it, others at it. Be careful using it. If it swages the bullet down too far, you will lose bullet fit. So pull a few bullets to check their diameter after crimping.

Good luck

Don Verna

I assumed this die to be administering the taper crimp. I guess I hadn't looked into it too much.

[9.3X62AL]

9mm (include 40 S&W and 10mm here as well) get fairly hard alloy and somewhat soft lubes at my house. In short, treat 9mm like a rifle for purposes of cast bullet load development, and you won't steer yourself too far off the path of reliability--accuracy--and safety. I size to match or slightly exceed barrel throat diameter in my pistols (SIG P-226, P-228, and Ruger P-89X), which all run between .3565" and .357" (conveniently enough). The Lyman Multi-Charge Die #38AP mics at .3545" or thereabouts, and this seems to do good work on my Rem brass in terms of securing bullets--both jacketed and cast. I finish the work with a light taper crimp--be cautious with these dies, lest you reduce cast bullet diameter via over-application of radial compression force. Taper crimp is applied with a discrete die step AFTER bullet seating is accomplished--the RCBS taper crimp/seater dies have not been repeatable for me, causing varying OAL when the two actions are combined. HTH.

[gloob]

The Lyman Multi-Charge Die #38AP mics at .3545" or thereabouts, and this seems to do good work on my Rem brass in terms of securing bullets--both jacketed and cast.
Of course it does. If you ever tried a 356 expander, you would find out it also does a good job of securing 355 and larger bullets (essentially all 9mm bullet are 355 or larger, if you avoid Amscor :)). And you might also find you do not need to use hard alloy for 9mm. If you size your bullets bigger than 356, you can even go larger than that, but you have to switch expanders to load jacketed. IMO, the entire reloading industry has got expander sizes wrong.

[Catshooter]

Then again, you might end up needing hard. When I started loading for my Glocks (9mm was first) I could go no larger than .359 as they wouldn't chamber. But they would lead nicely. This was air cooled wheel weights. When I water dropped them and they went from 12 BHN to 22, the leading stopped.

Sometimes, hardness matters.


Cat

[gloob]

^ That's probably because your cases were swaging the base of your bullets. I would bet $100.00 against a glazed donut.

When you water drop them to harden them, they are not being swaged by your undersized cases. Or at least not as bad.

Call me ignorant, but I went thru all the problems you ever saw with cast bullets and a glock, and I solved them all. And I have $100.00 bill to pay for my foolishness. You got a donut? I can send you some sized and properly expanded cases, and you can load them however you want.

I have shot ACWW in Glocks in 9mm, 40SW, and 45ACP with no fouling. Over 1k straight in a continuous stretch with my stock G19 barrel with zero cleaning. Yes, if the cases are not expanded correct for the bullet, the harder alloys will solve or greatly reduce fouling issue. Difference is certainly night and day. But the hardness of the alloy is not the reason; it's the size of the bullet... the size in the case, not the size you make it before you seat it. How the hell do you think you can stuff a 359 bullet into a 9mm case without wrecking it? No one makes an expander that size, off the shelf, so I'm curious what size custom expander plug you used.

My ACWW 3565-357 bullets were swaged down to as small as 353 at the base using stock expander. Yeah, this made insane amount of fouling. A harder MBC bullet at 356 was miles away better; base of bullets at 3555 or so, just a small dent. This left full length streaks of lead from shot number 1, but this was miles better than the ACWW, which left probably 10% of the bullet weight in the bore. But with proper expander, both bullets are great. The ACWW are cleaner, though. MBC leave gradual buildup at the muzzle, which is not evident until after maybe 50 rounds (and doesn't need to be cleaned until after maybe 300ish+). Doesn't matter if it's 356 or 358, the MBC are not as clean. Same thing happens in all my other Glocks in other calibers, too. I still shoot a lot of MBC, because they're cheap and cleaning the bore is easier than casting my own bullets. (I think the MBC fouling is antimony wash, due to big leade/freebore in glock letting all the lube shoot off the bullet. Softer low antimony bullets don't need as much lube.)

My reward is not being right. It's not a donut. If your Glock "needs" a harder alloy, I would like to understand how/why harder alloy makes a difference. I don't see cause/effect, here. I've heard only one theory and I know it's wrong. Theory was that Glock leade is so long and gradual, and 9mm twist rate so high, that a soft bullet skidded through the rifling before it could start twisting. 9mm is not special.* If I can shoot ACWW with max charge of H110 in my 357, I can shoot it in my Glock 9mm.

*Well, it is special. 9mm and 40SW both have very short stubby cases and thick brass which can absolutely destroy cast bullets.

Here's the main thing that is objectively different about a Glock barrel: very large grooves and very small lands. If your bullet is NOT larger than the groove diameter, it is not going to fill the bore, period. In a button cut barrel, you have maybe ~80% land and 20% groove. In a Glock barrel, you have something more like 70% groove and 30% lands.

In a button cut barrel, the bullet will squish out a little bit into the tiny grooves, if it's slightly too small. You might even get a soft bullet to bump up a little, when it hits the leade in some guns... not in a Glock.

When a bullet is slightly too small in a button cut barrel, you have just a small gap in the end of one groove, which can't get bigger until the entire groove of the bullet is melted out. In a Glock if you have a small defect in a groove, it will open up bigger and bigger, right away, since that one single groove is relatively huge.

All you have to do is start with the bullet big enough, and Glock barrels love soft cast bullets. This I know. Perhaps the rifling skid actually does happen to some degree in a Glock, tending to distort the leading edge of the driving band. I dunno, mebbe. I can't rule it out. But if this is the case, it puts more importance on keeping the base of the bullet intact particularly with softer alloy. Reform your 9mm Parabellum cases into 9mm Pb using the correct expander, and all Glock problems go bye bye.

[Thompsoncustom]

There is mixed thinking on the Lee FCD. I do not own one and have been able to reload excellent ammo without it. Some swear by it, others at it. Be careful using it. If it swages the bullet down too far, you will lose bullet fit. So pull a few bullets to check their diameter after crimping.

Good luck

Don Verna

I really like the FCD but just a modified version of it. If you plan on running bullets .358 you would also have to open up the carbide ring in the die with some diamond lapping compound so I would just stay away for the FCD for now and run a standard crimp die.

[9.3X62AL]

The 9mm has historically had a great deal of dimensional variance among its chambers--barrels--brass--and bullets. I chose ONE make of brass to hopefully remove one of those poetry elements, buy 1000 of them at a time as new brass and have lived happily ever after ever since. Step-daughter has a Glock 19, and I haven't progressed to cast bullets with it (yet). I haven't gone the cast route in the Glocks in 40 S&W or 10mm either. Those might get aftermarket barrels, since the 40s are the Glocks that have kB'ed historically. 20 years ago, I might have run this question down via live-fire......today, I'm lazier. Having a CZ-75B that DOTES upon the Lee 175 TC, there just isn't as much vigor in pursuing the minutiae for me. Thankfully, the 40 S&W and 10mm don't seem to have the same level of dimensional poetry in platforms and fodder as have the 9mms.

[fredj338]

This would be performed using something such as a Lee Factory Crimp die, correct?
Not really, any taper crimp is fine. FWIW, I run 0.357" bullets in all my 9mm, seems to be a good balance of fit vs accuracy. My tight match chamber 1911 is fussy with 0.358" bullets.

[W.R.Buchanan]

This would be performed using something such as a Lee Factory Crimp die, correct?

Or a Regular Taper Crimp Die from almost any other manufacturer. The Lee Die has the added feature of a sizing ring at the bottom, which can be problematic when dealing with oversized Cast Boolits, however they are an excellent tool for the money.

Excellent Write up Gloob! pretty much tells the whole story on Glocks and Cast Boolits.

In fact here is a "Sticky" on the whole subject at the top of the Handguns Forum.

Randy

[Engieman]

I have shot lead bullets from both my HK 9mm and Kahr .380. Never an issue in regards to the polygonal rifling, then again...I always clean my guns after each range session.

[Lloyd Smale]

lots of good info here. Ill add one thing. 9mms can give me troubles. Mostly because there tiny and I load them progressively. You have to make a conscious effort to start the bullet into the seating die with the bullet straight. If you get going to fast and just stick a bullet there and drop the handle you can get bullets started slightly crooked and you will see one side of the case bulged more then the other. It will definitely cause feeding trouble. With ammo like 9s feeding and reliability trump accuracy every time and I tend to use a factory crimp die on them to insure feeding. Some of my guns don't need it but the tight chambered ones benefit from it and I don't want to load 5k of 9mm and have it only fit certain guns. not a problem if you have only on 9 but last count I have 8.

[Catshooter]

I agree with Randy gloob: nice write up.

Mmm. You're making me wonder here now. I have had to water drop for all my Glocks, 9mm, 40 and 45 GAP. I have multiple of each caliber. Water dropping is easy for me with the set up I have, but it still made me feel put upon. :) I know lots don't need to.

Well, I happen to loading for the 9 just now, so I went downstairs after reading your post. After sizing the ID of a random piece of brass (happened to be Federal) measured .361 from the case mouth to down to just about the base of my boolit. I'm using the Lyman 356637 (?) which drop from my moulds at .360 and 140 grains. A lot of that boolit has to be in the case or it hangs up on the wonderful Glock throat.

I pulled one of my boolits and the straight section measures .3585 all the way to the base. ( So I lied about the .359. :) ) The boolit was sized in a Lyman ".359" die. I looked sharp at the base and it's not at all scrunched down. This is also after the Lee Factory Crimp die. I use an old Lyman 9mm M die for flaring.

Bummer. I really wanted you to be right, as your thoughts made sense to me. Well, they still do. I would load an air cooled boolit just to help test it all out, but I gots none!

When I said leading by the way, I mean nice streaks the full length of the bore, all the way around in ten rounds. If I load them down to where they won't reliably work the action the leading is less, but still way more than I'm comfortable with.

Thanks for trying to help a guy out. I will keep your thoughts in mind and as I do more loading I'll experiment a bit more and measure more too.

Your $100 is safe, though. To get glazed donut I'd either have to make one or drive to the next town over, 'bout twenty miles. Can't buy one in my town. :)


Cat

[gloob]

I agree with Randy gloob: nice write up.

Mmm. You're making me wonder here now. I have had to water drop for all my Glocks, 9mm, 40 and 45 GAP. I have multiple of each caliber. Water dropping is easy for me with the set up I have, but it still made me feel put upon. :) I know lots don't need to.

Well, I happen to loading for the 9 just now, so I went downstairs after reading your post. After sizing the ID of a random piece of brass (happened to be Federal) measured .361 from the case mouth to down to just about the base of my boolit. I'm using the Lyman 356637 (?) which drop from my moulds at .360 and 140 grains. A lot of that boolit has to be in the case or it hangs up on the wonderful Glock throat.

I pulled one of my boolits and the straight section measures .3585 all the way to the base. ( So I lied about the .359. :) ) The boolit was sized in a Lyman ".359" die. I looked sharp at the base and it's not at all scrunched down. This is also after the Lee Factory Crimp die. I use an old Lyman 9mm M die for flaring.

Bummer. I really wanted you to be right, as your thoughts made sense to me. Well, they still do. I would load an air cooled boolit just to help test it all out, but I gots none!

When I said leading by the way, I mean nice streaks the full length of the bore, all the way around in ten rounds. If I load them down to where they won't reliably work the action the leading is less, but still way more than I'm comfortable with.

Thanks for trying to help a guy out. I will keep your thoughts in mind and as I do more loading I'll experiment a bit more and measure more too.

Your $100 is safe, though. To get glazed donut I'd either have to make one or drive to the next town over, 'bout twenty miles. Can't buy one in my town. :)


Cat

Full length streaks is exactly what I see in my glocks when bullet is just slightly undersize from case swaging. To be more exact, full length streaks covering better part of one single groove. You can see it follow the rifling, exactly. As u fire more bullets, the remaining 5 clean grooves get their turn. To some extent the last bullet partially clears the previous leading, so one groove will have the thickest fouling, and at first it wil be something of a game of musical chairs where there are 2 or 3 fouled grooves and 3 or 4 cleanish ones, but eventually they all get a share of lead.

If bad enough case swaging, bore is completely fouled with thick lead with a single shot, so bad I scrape it out with a brass tube before chore boy will touch it. But same exact bullets shoot fine in other barrels, and perfect in glock when case is opened up. Went thru this in 9mm glock. Went thru exact same thing when I bought my first 40 sw glock. Namely that soft cast bullets were horrendous, totally unshootable. Commercial cast were better, but still unacceptable (by my new standards, anyway; I actually shot 2k commercial thru my 9mm before figuring out the expander thing, just dealing with the fouling). In 40, I actually had to make my own expander.* I never had a problem in 45 acp, but my size die is fairly loose in 45 acp ( i actuallly have to scrap some headstamps due to insufficient neck tension), and the 45 acp brass is thinner. Now, all my glocks shoot standard size cast bullets, soft alloy, just fine. I don't need to go more than jacketed +1 in any of them.




*that is why it took me probably over a year later, before I started loading cast bullets for 40SW. Hours of searching to find the right size. Eventually accepted that it didn't exist, and I bought Lyman M die. Didn't work. After contacting Lyman and having a talk with them, they informed me every plug they had was same diameter as I was measuring, but they immediately sent me another 40SW plug, anyway (which was exactly the same 398, so my original plug wasn't bad) AND a plug for a 40WCF rifle (I think that is right; something like that). So with the 40WCF, I eventually turned out a custom plug for 40SW at 401/404. Instant 100% success.** And yes, I have linotype, and I even make hard rifle bullets. And i knew about water dropping... (I dont like it for various reasons). I just knew I could fix the actual problem better, imo, with the expander. And to be honest, I never even pulled and measured a 40 bullet. My 40 die is so tight my ammo looks like snake swallowed a pig, and the symptoms were exactly the same as with my 9mm. So I was THAT confident. (Well, I was completely sure that IF the expander alone didn't fix it, that I wanted to know about it; so I could systematically isolate what ELSE was wrong. Patience, I have... afterall what difference if I shoot my 9mm Glocks or my 40SW in the meantime? :)) After sorting out the expander, I eventually stumbled across my very first batch of cast ACWW 40SW bullets. Loaded e'm, shot 'em, and just as predicted, they were perfect all along.

Yes, all this took probably over a year. Maybe two. I don't go shooting but maybe 6 times a year, tops, and I don't load ammo every time. It is a slow process to learn anything since it might be months before you get to test one thing before the gun is fouled beyond safety. It is for this reason I am so meticulous when I share this experience/information that I have carefully accumulated. So if I have come off as overly redundant or obnoxious or insistent beyond reason, I apologize. But nothing you have said actually contradicts what I have theorized. I don't portent to know for sure that ACWW will shoot in your particular gun if you were to use, say, a 356/360 NOE expander. Or even better, a custom 358/361 expander. But at this point it is still my best prediction, in which I continue to hold a high degree of faith.

**well, I ran into one other hiccup which is a red herring and tangent to the topic at hand, but I would be glad to elaborate if asked.



Next time u cast some maybe u will try leaving some to air cool. But fyi, even with my ACWW, I can't see any deformity with naked eye. And you really need to rotate the bullet and measure the base at multiple points. Because if minor, it will only deform at one single point - and it can be quite unconvincing at that. (Half mil undersize at one spot? What could that possibly do? I would TOTALLY think that when it goes into the rifling, that it would amount to absolute nil. And cmon, half a mil? That is probably just measurement error anyway! Maybe this is part of reason I never bothered to check my 40 cal.) Your WDWW bullets maybe hard enough you don't have any swaging, at all. Or at least not enough you can measure it without a micrometer.


Your $100 is safe, though. To get glazed donut I'd either have to make one or drive to the next town over, 'bout twenty miles. Can't buy one in my town.
From sound of it, maybe I should be sending you the donuts, lol. :)

[gloob]

Delete

[Catshooter]

gloob,

Yes, when next I cast for a Glock, I will be letting some air cool. This is interesting to me. I was disappointed to discover that I had to water drop. My WDWW come in at about 24 BNH.

Oh, don't worry, when measuring, I'm using Starrett Snap Gauges, and mics only. When I was measuring or checking for swaging I do so in multiple spots around the boolit. I pushed the boolit up against a Starrett square against a strong light to check for swaging. I'm about 1/10 of a real machinist, so I have an idea of what accuracy consists of and most of the tools to measure it.

I'll try to keep you posted.


Cat