9MM OAL for 356-120-TC

[MtGun44]

Bill

[Jkrem]

At risk of revisiting ground well plowed, I’m trying my first attempt at reloading 9mm with the Lee 356-120 TC bullets that I traded for with a member here. I read every thread and sticky on this I could find, and ended up with a COAL of 1.076 that fed flawlessly in my 92S magazines, and does not appear to contact the threads. Bullets were .357-.358 and I ran them through the .358 sizer and tumble lubed with ALOX. I’m using Hornady dies (also bought from a member here), and crimped the bare minimum I needed to for them to drop into my 92S barrel. Loaded 3.4gr Bullseye, and am using Winchester small pistol primers. I unfortunately don’t have a bullet puller to check bullet diameter after crimping. I’ll check back in after I shoot these later in the week. Please PM me if there is something obvious I have missed for this first try.

[Ed_Shot]

Sounds like you have all the bases covered. Some like ALOX and some don't. Let us know how they shoot.

[Jkrem]

Some goodAttachment 221851 news, the load cycles the action of the 92S just fine and it appears all 25 rounds were accounted for at 10 yards. I was shooting by myself and lost every single case so I couldn’t check for pressure signs. Saved the rest to try again where I can capture the cases. The backer of my target was full of holes so I’m not sure if some of these are keyholes. More work needed.

[Ed_Shot]

I doubt you had any pressure signs with BE 3.4 gr. at your OAL. Does your barrel show signs of leading.....light streaks are normal. In my experience every 9MM barrel is a little different animal. Great start! Keep it up!

[Landshark9025]

I have shot many thousands of rounds of this bullet. A lot of that over Bullseye. None using Alox though. Some Powder Coated, some traditional lube, some Ben's Liquid Lube. My absolute cleanest bores, hands down were lubed and sized through a Star with medium/soft lube and then two coats of BLL. The rest of the gun wasn't excessively dirty. But I got better accuracy with PC. YMMV.

3.4g is a good place to start- especially for function test. If you do a load workup, you'll likely find a sweet spot that will give you satisfactory groups. This is a favored 9mm bullet of many here for a reason.

I found Bullseye to be a good powder for it. HP-38/W-231 to also be a good powder.

[sigep1764]

I have a similar boolit that is an exact copy of the Lyman. Tom at Accurate makes it, the 358 120B. My very first mold was the Lee 356-120tc and it dropped undersized for me. Awesome operating mold otherwise with the sprue cutting handle and the ability to drop a ton of boolits. The Accurate mold is a 5 cavity and it drops 359-360. I seat the entire bearing surface in the case at 1.060 over 3 grains of red dot. That boolit feeds in every 9mm I own. Easy on the lead and powder reserves. I don't know about you guys, but I love the look of the TC boolit.