Resizing my .357 for 9mm use

[Thekid937718]

I wanted to try using a heavier boolit for 9mm. I cast 150 grn RN using a Lee mold (.358) for cowboy shooting and decided to run them through the 9mm sizer (.356) to see how they would work in my pistol and AR9 rifle. The problem I am having is finding load data for using Titegroup powder and this 150 grn boolit. Anyone have any info, I would really appreciate it.

[JimB..]

3.2gr to 3.4gr of TG under a 147gr RN is what I use for suppressed in my AR-9.

[Kraschenbirn]

That boolit, after sizing and PC, finishes at 148 gr. from my 50/50 (RS/COWW) alloy. My buddy loads it over 7 gr. of Blue Dot for a subsonic in his .38 Super. For TG, the 4th Ed Lyman Handbook shows 2.5 gr. as starting and 2.8 as max. for a 147 gr. RNFP.

Bill

[Tatume]

Welcome to the forum.

Hodgdon has 9x19mm Titegroup data for a 147 gr Hornady XTP bullet. With care, you should be able to substitute your lead bullet without a rise in pressure. Be careful of seating depth, and use only the minimum charge. Increase with caution.

http://www.hodgdonreloading.com/

You should start with 0.358" bullets, load a dummy round, and check for chambering difficulty. If it is too tight, try 0.356" next. When your loaded ammo chambers smoothly, load some starting loads and start working on accuracy.

And yes, I know 9mm ammo uses 0.355" bullets. You should use cast bullets that shoot well, and they will usually be larger.

[bangerjim]

Watch the seating distance! There ain't much room in those silly little 9mm cases! That is why I LOVE 357 and 45 Colt big roomy cases!!!!!!!!!

I load various 357 boolits in 9mm all the time using various powders especially TG. And there is data out there as said above. I just do not publish my load data on public forums.

Good luck. What you are trying to do can be done............with good loading practices.

banger

[trapper9260]

In one of my 9mm I need to use .358 in it too much slop and problems with .356.I use my 357/38spl dies in some of the reloading and Now in that one I get better groups and also load nice. In a different 9mm I have they take .356

[bstone5]

Cast a 125 grain round noise, powder coat. Size to .357 and load same cast bullet in 9 mm and 38 Special. Use 4 grains of Trail Boss in the 38 Special, my wife and her sister shoot this load in their revolvers at the gun club a lot, hardly any recoil and accurate out to 25 yards.
The 9 mm is shot in a Beretta auto pistol and a Beretta Storm rifle. Both of the 9 mm guns shoot the powder coated cast bullet very well and there is never any lead in any of the fired guns.

[joebaja]

I didn't have a lot of luck wit that bullet and Titegroup. I had to load short to chamber (1.055) and at that length, didn't want to go above 2.8 Titegroup. I don't think I was getting near the velocity I needed since it was keyholing badly enough that I didn't run it across the chrono. That same bullet shoots great with Power Pistol though. I plan to try it with Blue Dot as well, since that is sort of my goto powder for heavy 9s. I size to .357 btw. I might try again with Titegroup sized to .358 and see if that stabilizes a little better, but I still thing that the slower powder is the way to go.

[Thekid937718]

Keyholing was a problem I ran into also. It didn't happen every time, but once is enough. I'll try .358 and see if they chamber.

[gwpercle]

Keyholing was a problem I ran into also. It didn't happen every time, but once is enough. I'll try .358 and see if they chamber.

Through trial and error I discovered sizing boolits to .357 worked best in four different 9mm's .
If you find .358 too much of a good thing try .357 and see how that works for your gun.
For me .356 wasn't quite large enough and .358 required deep seating and two pistol's had very little throat and wouldn't chamber fully.
Gary

[marek313]

I loaded as a fun experiment 164gr (158gr Lee 358-158-RN + PC) in 9mm. I can only shoot that out of my sig p320 as it wont chamber in any other 9 but its a fun subsonic load. I use 3.5gr of HP38/W231 in that load. I was considering using TG but wanted something slightly slower burning because of small case space available I was afraid of pressure spikes. That actually worked out just fine so I'm guessing 3.0-3.5 of TG is going to be your range to test and see how it cycles.

[samari46]

Had some serious leading with standard hard cast .355 bullets for my Beretta 92fs. Slugged the barrel three times because I've always been led to believe that 9mm cast bullets. Nope, no way. Actual diameter was .357. So bought some of the Remington 125 grain jacketed hollow points to try out. No pressure problems with the load I was using. So have been using the .357 jhp's ever since. Used to know a dentist who loved the 92fs and he had 4 of them. I asked if he had ever slugged his 9mm barrels. He did one and that was enough. Outfitted them all with Bar-Sto barrels and accuracy greatly improved. He was always up near the top in steel plate matches. Frank

[tazman]

I have slugged the barrels of my Beretta 92fs pistols and both slug at .357. The Beretta barrels I use in my Taurus PT92 pistols also slug at .357. I found that the Taurus barrels had rifling that was not deep enough to grip cast boolits well. The Beretta barrels cured that problem.
The chambers on these barrels are also slightly large. They will accept boolits sized to .360 without issue. That is undoubtedly why they feed anything so reliably.
I am not a great shot with a handgun. That said, I can get the same group size with .357 or larger sized boolits as I can with jacketed or plated. I can hold the 10 ring on a B27 silhouette target at 10 yards with no problem.
I mostly tumble lube and simply don't get leading with these sizes.
I use water dropped range scrap for alloy.
A couple of my 9mm handguns(Springfield Armory Range Officer 1911) have tighter chambers and barrels. They prefer smaller diameter boolits and will not reliably chamber boolits larger than .358. Even the .358 sized are a tight fit. They also prefer longer OAL and have issues feeding boolits with short, flat noses(think Lee 356-95-RF). With the Lyman 356402 that drop from my mold at .356 shoot extremely well in these pistols.
All but one of my 9mm handguns will function and shoot reasonably well with light loads but prefer near max loads for best accuracy. The lone exception to this is my S&W 929 revolver that seems to like everything. It will shoot light loads and full power loads equally well. Boolit diameter seems to make no difference. If it fits in the chamber, it will shoot well.