358-155-TC ELCO in 9mm? Work for anyone?

[Dutchninja]

Anyone get this boolit to work in 9mm? i'm powder coating, sizing to 356 but i can not get them to check out in the case gage or LF aftermarket glock barrel. Is the ogive to long for 9mm? I'm seating well below. 1.100 and the round is still contact the rifling. My thought is the powder coat is adding thickness to the ogive area causing an already long bullet to be a few thousandths bigger. Even the Lee 150-1R is to much.......

Thoughts?

[tazman]

I think you are right about the powder coating being the issue.
Most of the powder coat users that had success with this boolit used a spray system that gave a thinner coating.
The nose taper of this boolit is shallow enough that adding thickness would require the boolit to be seated very deeply. Possibly too deeply to function well. It was originally designed so it could be seated long and give extra room inside the case for powder. The extra thickness of the powder coat removes that advantage somewhat.
I size mine to .358 because that works in my Beretta 92FS. My bore slugs at .357 and the chamber has plenty of room for this boolit at .358. I use a 1.130 OAL but do not powder coat.
This thread may help you out a bit.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?278539-Elco-tc-hp

[sigep1764]

Tazman is right. Someone else on the forum was powdercoating this boolit and ran into the same issue with the it adding to the width of the nose. At the speeds 147 grain bookits are usually shot at, you could prolly get away with tumble lubing to try it without the powdercoat. I run mine thru a star sizer at 358. If youd like me to send you a few to try, pm me. They are lubed with lyman supermoly.

[Dutchninja]

Appreciate it sigep1764, I've got a friend that's going to tumble lube some. However if I can't get them to pc tumble I'm going figure out something else, possible a Lyman 147 fn bevel base. That nose looks shorter and might fit when pc'ed. Just have to find someone with that mold for some samples.

[Dutchninja]

Tazman read though that thread, that's some info I was looking for, thank you!

that lone wolf barrel has such a short lead which is causing me trouble. My beretta eats everything as well.

[Bzcraig]

Contact member DougGuy. He can throat the barrel so it'll shoot almost anything. I've had him do 3 or 4 of mine.

[tazman]

Tazman is right. Someone else on the forum was powdercoating this boolit and ran into the same issue with the it adding to the width of the nose. At the speeds 147 grain bookits are usually shot at, you could prolly get away with tumble lubing to try it without the powdercoat. I run mine thru a star sizer at 358. If youd like me to send you a few to try, pm me. They are lubed with lyman supermoly.

I have been tumble lubing mine with White Label X-Lox or 45-45-10. Works great with no leading in my guns. I shoot a lot of these in my 929 Smith as well as my Beretta. The fun part about the 929 is I don't have to worry about OAL since I have all that cylinder in front of the chamber.

[yondering]

Tazman read though that thread, that's some info I was looking for, thank you!

that lone wolf barrel has such a short lead which is causing me trouble. My beretta eats everything as well.

I've always had trouble with tight/short throats in LW barrels, but you don't have to settle for that. Have it throated long, or lap it out yourself. Throating it longer is a relatively simple job that makes a wide variety of cast bullets work a lot easier in the barrel. No regrets for me on any of them; done right they still shoot very well afterwards.

[tazman]

The whole point of this is to get a heavy powder coated boolit to work in your 9mm, correct?
If that is the case, try to find some boolits from the Lyman 358212 mold. This is a 145 grain as cast that has a stepped nose such that powder coating it should not cause the issues you are having with the taper on the front of the TC ELCO boolit.
I have used the 358212 and it was my go to for heavy 9mm boolits before I got the ELCO mold. I may even still have that mold here. I will need to check.

[Dutchninja]

I was thinking Lyman 356 147 flat nose bevel base. I have a post on the boolit exchange. Nothing came up for that 358212. I am hesitant to buy more Lyman products as trying to get to their customer service is IMPOSSIBLE.

[tazman]

The 358212 is an older, probably discontinued mold. It was originally designed for 38 S&W I believe. It works well in the 9mm. You would need to locate one used to get one at all.
It is very similar to the 356 242 except in a heavier design.
I had issues with the 356637 that you are asking about. It needed to be seated deeply into the case to be used at all in my guns. The nose was short so it could be used in the 357 Sig cartridge. Also, when powder coated the same issue you have with the ELCO boolit cropped up due to the nose shape. Other boolits worked much better. Your mileage may vary.
With heavy boolits in the 9mm, it is best to get as much of the boolit as you can out of the case. You need the room for powder and to help decrease the pressure for a given charge.
One of the things I liked about the 358212 is the nose is so long, you can load it at magazine length and it worked fine. Not a lot of boolit inside the case.

[Dutchninja]

ughhhhhh....... might just go with a lee 125g RN

[yondering]

This is a 145 grain as cast that has a stepped nose such that powder coating it should not cause the issues you are having with the taper on the front of the TC ELCO boolit.


Yeah, a step at the front driving band is always my preference for semi-auto pistol bullets; not just for powder coating but it helps when molds end up oversized, or need to be sized down more than normal, etc.



With heavy boolits in the 9mm, it is best to get as much of the boolit as you can out of the case.


Very true. Just for kicks (hopefully the OP won't mind the slight thread drift?), here is a long flat nose bullet I made for 9mm, using an old Lee 6 cavity mold as a donor and grinding my own reamer. It drops at 170gr, and occupies the same case capacity as commercial 147gr cast bullets when loaded to maximum OAL. The purpose of this one was for a maximum weight suppressed woods load; it seems to work pretty well.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/zthang43/Bang/molds/IMG_2213.jpg

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/zthang43/Bang/molds/IMG_4070a.jpg

[ioon44]

Nice looking bullets, looks like you done some nice work, I would like to try these my self as I am leaning toward heaver bullets for 9 mm.

[Dutchninja]

Yondering - That is pretty awesome. wanna send some samples????? What lee mold did you use? Any load data for the 170?

[yondering]

Hey guys, sorry for the late response, been busy the last few days.

Thanks for the compliments. I'm pretty happy with this bullet, it seems to shoot well and makes a nice quiet suppressed subsonic load for my Glocks. The load data is pretty specific for this bullet of course, but I settled on 3.3gr of Green Dot for 900 fps from a Glock 19. That choice is based on noise level for suppressed shots; without that criteria, it can be pushed to 1,000 fps or a bit more in the same gun.

Because of the length of bullet in the case, it's a little sensitive to brass type due to the internal taper. FC brass works really well, Win brass is the worst because the taper starts too soon.

I used an older Lee 125gr tumble lube 9mm mold that I didn't like very much. The donor mold cavities didn't matter though, as long as they're 9mm or smaller and not longer than the new bullet.

I don't have any more cast up that aren't already loaded right now, sorry.

[Intel6]

I have had great luck with my bullets from my NOE ELCO mould in both my autoloaders and revolver. I coat then with HiTek and they run great in my glocks and my 9mm 8 shot revolver. I size them to .358" for both applications and they shoot great.


In the pic below from L to R:

8 shot moon clip loaded with 9mm revolver loads for my S&W 929
Same bullet loaded in nickel 9mm cases for autos
Unloaded bullet coated in HiTek Bronze 500



http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/medium/9mm_ELCO.jpg

[tazman]

Beautiful work.

[yondering]

Intel6, you must have had your Glocks long throated to fit that load? That won't fit any standard 9mm chamber I've ever used.

It might help to explain to the OP what you did to the barrel to get those rounds to fit.

[Shingle]

I am using this boolit with Hy-Tec coating and have to seat to 1.095 to get it to work in my Glocks,Camp 9,and 5 AR 9 carbines. It is a very accurate boolit.

[Intel6]

Intel6, you must have had your Glocks long throated to fit that load? That won't fit any standard 9mm chamber I've ever used.

It might help to explain to the OP what you did to the barrel to get those rounds to fit.


Not sure why you think this won't fit any 9mm chamber you have ever used when don't know the LOA? I actually loaded the auto rounds in nickel cases to 1.145" which is slightly over the usual 9mm LOA (1.135") but the Glock mags are slightly longer front to back and permit a LOA of 1.150" so I just went slightly short. They loaded and fired fine in my stock factory G17 and G17L and I also fired them in my KelTec Sub 2000 gen 2 that uses Glock mags.

This bullet has a tapered nose which lets it be seated and fired to normal lengths. It is easy to spot when you size the bullets because you can see where the sizing of the bullet stops. I guess there may be some 9mm's with short leads in their barrels but they work fine in my two factory Glock barrels and the KelTec. I can only guess that the OP is having issues because he is powder coating and PC turns out with a much thicker coat than HiTek and the thick PC coat is making the tapered nose of the bullet larger than a cast bullet. The OP appears to have solved it on his own, the LW barrels do have very short throats and do have problems with lead bullets. That is why I switched to KKM barrels in all my Glocks years ago. In his case all he would need to do to see if it was the PC coating is to make up a dummy round with a non-lubed bullet and see how far out he can seat it.

[yondering]

OAL has nothing to do with fitting in a chamber.

You answered your own question, explaining why it doesn't fit in some chambers.

[Boolseye]

I use this boolit (ELKO 358-155)in both 9mm and .357 SIG. very similar OAL for both, since most of the boolit is in the case for the SIG (by design). I had wondered whether it would work for the bottlenecked cartridge and did some loading recently. The ogive allows for seating to the proper length, then a good firm crimp holds everything in place. Very versatile bullet.

[dragon813gt]

I use this boolit (ELKO 358-155)in both 9mm and .357 SIG. very similar OAL for both, since most of the boolit is in the case for the SIG (by design). I had wondered whether it would work for the bottlenecked cartridge and did some loading recently. The ogive allows for seating to the proper length, then a good firm crimp holds everything in place. Very versatile bullet.

What OAL are you loading the 357 Sig rounds to?

[Boolseye]

1.140", possibly a little longer. I shot them all so I can't measure, but they were max OAL.

[dragon813gt]

1.140", possibly a little longer. I shot them all so I can't measure, but they were max OAL.

Thanks, I figured they were at max since pretty much every round for that cartridge is loaded to it.