100 % of Bullets Tumbling at 10 yards

[Allay]

:(100 % of Bullets Tumbling at 10 yards on max charge
Help is needed here’s the facts.
Just started casting this fall for a 9mm Beretta 92FS using a Lee TL356-124-2R 6 Cav sized down to .356 using a Lee sizing die. Casting from wheel weights and water dropping produces .3565.
Hardness starts off at about 13.4 BHN and ends up at about 22.7 BHN within 2 weeks using a Lee Hardness tester.
Lubing with Lee’s Liquid Alox
My honest opinion about Lee is you get what you pay for and for me here up in Canada ordering direct from LEE with their $60 plus service charge for a feign order to Canada makes them the same or more than say Lyman or RCBS, so LEE products are not the way I want to go.
Using Bullseye and HS-6 have tried min to max no luck.
Near minimum seem to have the best results (20% tumble rate)but failed to cycle reliably and then there’s the power factor I need for defensive pistol matches. (125000) Velocity X Bullet Weight in grains
I slugged the bore finally here what I got.
.357 to .3575 in the grooves
.3485 in the lands
Now I have ordered a Lyman’s # 356637 4 cav which is about $20 cheaper than a Lee’s 6 cav
The interesting fact is in the fall the tumbling rate was about 20% now in the winter (10 – 5 F) outside it is 100%. So I guess bullets are another thing that shrinks in the cold ;)
And leading up the wazoo but it brushes out easily or I just chase it out with store bought ammo which does seem to mind the cold??????
The bigger question is the Lyman mold going to solve my problems??
Or should I just change to revolvers no more picking up brass for me!!!
Thx

[stubshaft]

Boolit fit is more important than BHN numbers. Based on your measurements your boolits do not fit the bore of your gun properly. The fact that the lower velocity loads seem to shoot better would support this as they would not strip as readily. I am confused about why the temperature would induce the boolits to tumble? Maybe the loob is freezing?

Unless the Lyman mould casts boolits of .3575" it will probably not solve your problems. You might try using boolits "as cast" and air cooled ( a softer boolit may bump up to fit the bore better).

Is your bore totally clean of copper fouling?

Changing to a wheel gun creates a whole slew of different fit requirements such as throat fit, forcing cone fit and bore fit.

[Jim]

Wouldn't hurt to take your foot off the gas just a touch.

[NickSS]

Your bullets are too small for your bore size. Check the size of the lyman bullets when you get the mold with the dimentions you quote for groove diameter you need bullets that are 357 - .358 diameter. One way to get them is beedling your mold to cast bigger bullets There are posts that tell you how to do this. Try not sizing your bullets and shooting them as is. This may help as I see you are sizing them down to .356.

[Bass Ackward]

I slugged the bore finally here what I got.
.357 to .3575 in the grooves
.3485 in the lands
Thx


Nick got the problem for ya. Going to a bigger bullet will stop the tumbling. Question is will it cause another problem?

Is your chamber of sufficient size to chamber a loaded round with a 358 bullet? Especially when it gets dirty.

Assuming it does, the bigger bullet is going to contact your throat sooner and seal way quicker. This can cause the gun to define new maximums for all powders, compared to when you were venting gas before. So watch using your old data you already tried.

Don't ya just marvel how slugging works so many times for so many people? :grin:

Is it really cold up in Canada? Always warm when I am up there.

[cbrick]

From your measurements a larger diameter and a SOFTER boolit should help a lot. Why are you quenching? The term "Hardcast" has ruined the spirit of many a new caster and purchasers of commercial cast boollits. Harder does not mean better, often it means worse. Make the boolit fit your firearm and forget that "hardcast" nonsense.

What are you measuring your boolits and bore slug with, a caliper or a micrometer?

Rick

[Texasflyboy]

Exact same problem with a 9mm High Power, and solved it by using a .358" sizing die:

Bullets tumbling in 9mm High Power (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=4738&highlight=High+Power)

[EMC45]

Drop you powder and fatten up your bullet! I had a Beretta and it wouldn't shoot anything at all worth a hoot. Sold it! Now have a Browning Hi Power and run my bullets at .358 like Texasflyboy.

[Freightman]

Why size them? I have 1911 Colt 9MM I use 357 boolits as cast and if I do my job it will put them all in the same place at 25 yds. If it will fit the chamber I do not size. Shooting at paper why hot rod them unless your Canadian paper is tougher than our Texan paper is.

[blaster]

I have a beretta 92 that shoots like a laser. I have run that same boolit through it a lot. I recomend that you don't size and try that. My mold drops at .357 though. Also heay leading will cause keyholes so make sure that you really clean that barrel between expiriments/changes so you can get reliable results. There isn't much room for leading in the shallow grooves typical of a 9mm bbl.

[Edubya]

Add a little tin to your mix and size to .358.
EW

[Allay]

What are you measuring your boolits and bore slug with, a caliper or a micrometer?

Rick[/QUOTE]

Here's a link to the micrometer I use...

https://www.cabelas.ca/index.cfm?pageID=71&section=1187&section2=1285&section3=1462&ID=1038

thx

A

[Gohon]

The term "Hardcast" has ruined the spirit of many a new caster and purchasers of commercial cast boollits. Harder does not mean better, often it means worse.

Amen to that. Might even go so far as to say harder does not mean better, more often than not it is worse. Out of a 357 mag rifle I'm driving a plain base 158 grain FP as dropped from the mould at .360 at 1736 fps with great accuracy and no leading. Alloy is WW with a little of tin for 12-13 BHN.

[Dale53]

An easy way to determine the largest bullet that will fit your gun, is to see if you can seat the bullet with your fingers in a FIRED case. If you can do so, it is not too big. That supposes that your case mouth is not damaged by ejection (those pesky autos:sad:). If the bullet is TOO large in diameter, it can refuse to feed properly (most likely fail to allow the slide to go into battery).

The rule of thumb is to use the largest bullet you can (you are really sizing to the throat, not the barrel for) best results.

All of the above pertains to CAST bullets, not jacketed.

FWIW
Dale53

[stubert]

Your bullets are way to hard, get the bhn down to 15 at the most. I shoot a #2 alloy, air cooled, in everything I cast for, 44 spec. 44 mag. 35 marlin, 303. brit, 45-70, and 458 lott. never water drop, and no leading. keep em soft, keep em fat.

[HeavyMetal]

Think you've gotten some good advise here.

My experience with the 9mm, particularly with Foreign makes, size to fit the bore, most seem to prefer 357 to 358 diameter.

Then soften your alloy. 12 to 13 BHN is what you want in a finished boolit. Sound like the WW your using has a goodly amount of Antimony in it this is why they harden up to 22 BHN after a couple of weeks!

If you can lay your hands on some "pure" lead or stick on WW ( type with glue on the back of them and flat) I would cut a batch 2 to 1 with pure lead. Cast and check the BHN after a couple weeks

[chris in va]

My 9mm is tumbling too, at 75 yards. I've been using a FCD to make sure they all feed properly, but I found that it sizes the boolits down too much as my barrel slugged out to .356 (the best I can tell anyway). What I'll try is NOT water dropping and just turn up the crimp on the seating die and nix the FCD on some test rounds.

Right now my patterns at 25 yards look like a bad buckshot spread out of my carbine. The thing usually shoots like a laser.

[montana_charlie]

What are you measuring your boolits and bore slug with, a caliper or a micrometer?

Here's a link to the micrometer I use...

https://www.cabelas.ca/index.cfm?pageID=71&section=1187&section2=1285&section3=1462&ID=1038
That is a caliper...not a micrometer.

CM

[Char-Gar]

I don't pretend to know much about loading for the 9mm. I have a NEI mold that drops a 125 grain SWC, that looks for all in the world like a scaled down version of the famous Hensley and Gibbs 200 grain SWC for the 45 ACP.

I cast this bullet from ACWW and size them .358. I load enough Unique or AA5 to get between 1,000 and 1,050 fps. I would have to check the books to tell you how much.

I shoot this load in my Browning Hi-Power, SIG P 239, S&W 59 and 1913 DWM Luger with nice round groups the same size as good hard ball ammo. Feeding is excellent and there is no leading to speak off. Plenty of snap to work the actions. I also used this in a 1950s vintage Walther P-38 with the same results. I got rid of that pistols as for some unknown reason it bite my trigger finger.

To be honest, this is the only bullet and only powers I have tried. I guess it was dumb luck to stumble over this load, but I have never had any reason to experiment any more.

[Allay]

Is it really cold up in Canada? Always warm when I am up there.[/QUOTE]

Different parts are warmer in winter like BC...

I'm in Ontario near Ottawa which isn't as cold as Winterpeg, Manitoba..

cheers off to the range to test a fresh batch...

[Allay]

Sorry about that I meant caliper must be the cold.

[405]

Likely they're not tumbling just very unstable and yawing around the axis.

Use caution and pay attention to all the details when re-loading for semi-auto handguns!!!! Including OAL, crimp, case length and the like! Pay attention to any backed out primers in fired cases. Anonymous forums yield all manner of cavalier recommendations. Use as clean a burning powder as you can find in the burn rate, velocity/pressure range your gun needs to cycle reliably and shoot accurately. Don't try to overpower the competition with high velocities in the semi-autos! Avoid ball powders. Use reasonable hardness alloy, avoid baking, heat treating, water quenching, etc. Use a fairly soft lube like a modified Felix or slightly oil softened Carnauba Red, Bue Angel or whatever. Avoid really hard alloys. Alloy hardness in the 11-15 BHN range will work for 99% of all these type applications. Pay little attention to those who must use .0001" accuracy micrometers to measure cinder blocks. Pay attention to the groove diameter of your bore. Size bullets from groove diameter up to about .001" larger than groove diameter (fat bullets in semi-autos can work but check for reliable function and free chambering!!!). If you use a lubrisizer you'll have to pick a die that will work. Pick one that is your objective diameter either groove diameter or +.001 groove diameter. Shooten'em AS CAST may get interpreted as running the bullet thru an oversized lubrisizer. That will yield bullets which will likely vary in diameter- what's the point if you have to run them thru the unit anyway? Good luck

[HangFireW8]

First he says



I slugged the bore finally here what I got.
.357 to .3575 in the grooves
.3485 in the lands


Then he says



And leading up the wazoo but it brushes out easily or I just chase it out with store bought ammo which does seem to mind the cold??????


Ever wonder why your bore is oversized?

BTW Once you get rid of your leading problem, I'll bet your keyholing will go away too.

-HF

[NuJudge]

I've recently had excellent results with the Lee 358-125-RF, cast with scrap wheelweights and a bit of Tin, waterdropped so they were hard. It has been marketed as a Cowboy mold. The pictures on sales websites and on the box show a really short bullet with a big flat on the nose and a bevel base. What the mold cast for me is a bit longer bullet with a longer nose, smaller flat, and flat base. The as-cast bullets I measured were .3595-.3600".

I ran them through a Star lube/size machine with a die marked "358." They came out .359". I loaded a few with increments of WW231 (3.7gr to 4.3gr), and I've never seen such small groups from an unmodified 9mm (in this case a Beretta 92SF). I ran some of these bullets through a .357" Lee die, and they came out .357", and with the same powder charges they did not shoot quite as well.

CDD

[Cherokee]

Welcome to the forum and good luck in the learing curve. Let us know how it works.

[HORNET]

Alay, as recommended earlier, do a search on "Beagling" and cast something bigger than the bore. Try that out, then look up "Lee-Menting" and search for mold lapping threads (there's a bunch of them). Get those boolits bigger than the groove diameter and they should work. You might also check out threads on polishing out Lee sizers to larger diameters.

[Bucks Owin]

Is it really cold up in Canada? Always warm when I am up there.

Different parts are warmer in winter like BC...
[/QUOTE] You could've fooled me! I've "weathered" many winters in Prince George of -30F (or more!) temps. Shovelled many tons of snow after school too as a whippersnapper up there...Brrr! Don't miss those winters at all!! ;-) Dennis