Lead Hardness for Sig P6

[JRHYS]

Has anyone had any luck with cast boolits in a Sig P6 that has a hardness of 12 to 14 BHN, with good accuracy? Thanks, Jerry

[MtGun44]

How about this?



Don't try to find SP8, it is a Vectran French powder that I got cheap and ONLY works for
9mm (I know that sounds like BS, but actually true).

This load also works great in many other 9mms.

Strongly recommend aircooled wwts in Lee 356-120 TC, NRA 50-50 lube and about .357 or
.358 diam, full normal loads. Moderate TC.

Bill

[JRHYS]

Bill, Thank you for the reply. What hardness was the lead? Was it 12 to 14 BHN or closer to 16 to 18? Many Thanks, Jerry
Bill, What would be a good powder for me to work with? Presently I'm using W231.

[Gswain]

air cooled wheel weights should be between 11 and 13.

[MtGun44]

What Gswain said. This was the same as I use for almost everything - air cooled wheel
weights, which run around 12 BHN when I check, which isn't too often.

Please try not to get too wrapped around the axle on BHN - it is actually
not particularlly important. Plus the diff between 12 BHN and 18 BHN is not likely to make
any real difference if you have the other variables like fit, design and lube correct.
If you are spending a lot of time sweating hardness that closely, you are wasting
a lot of effort. Use air cooled wwts and you will be fine if you get the rest of it sorted
out.

As to powder. I have had excellent results in 9mm with Unique, but I switched to SP8
due to getting a fantastic deal on 8 lbs. Since it really won't work in other calibers,
and Vectran has NO other cartridges listed as "suitable" for SP8 (and being hard headed,
I tried 2-3 others with very iffy and non-linear performance, so I stopped - I guess it really
is just a 9mm powder) - I am only using SP8 in 9mm now. I have dropped down to about
6.5 gr now, due to one pistol not liking the pressure of 6.8, although many others were
just fine with it. If you think about it, 7000 gr per pound means over 1000 rounds per
pound, so the 8 lbs I traded for is about 8500 rounds of 9mm. I don't shoot 9mm in super
high quantity, so this will cover my 9mm needs for quite some time.

In any case there are a lot of powders which can work, but the main issue with the 9mm is
that you have a lot of variations in the guns over the years - throats, chambers, groove
diameters are all over the place and rifling depth varies a lot, too.

THE biggest issue with 9mm is to not have an undersized boolit. Usually, this means at
least .357 diameter and some find .358 necessary. Make up a dummy round to set the
LOA, TC and make sure that a .358 (if you use it) will chamber in your gun with your
brass.

Bill

[firefly1957]

Some sigs have oversize bores my Browning BDA/sig P-220 has a .453 bore and will not shoot cast/swaged lead bullets. It does do a nice imitation of a shotgun pattern and shoots jacket great.

[rintinglen]

I have had less success, due to a .3575 bore, with a tight chamber, but I still get decent groups with 358-242 round nose, sized .357, lubed with the Recluse formula 45/45/10 liquid lube over 4.6 grains of new Unique. I tried going to .358 but ran into occasional problems with rounds not quite feeding all the way. Since the gun shoots very well with jacketed rounds (much better than me these days--darned aging eyes), I am content with the 3-4 inch 25 yard bench groups I'm getting.

Fit is the critical element with the 9mm. .356 boolits in my old S&W M-39 will shoot side by side with any jacketed round I have found, but the same rounds scatter like falling pennies from my P-6, not to mention leading like crazy. Going up two thousandths to .358, the groups shrink by over half, leading disappears, and if tools could smile, my Sig would be grinning, except for the odd attack of indigestion trying to swallow the bigger boolit.

[MtGun44]

I'll bet that Sig 220 will shoot .454 diam boolits just fine. That is the advantage of
making your own, you can fit them to the bore.

Rintinglen - any chance that slightly decreasing the LOA or adding a touch more TC would
help your 'indigestion"? Use the dismounted barrel as your gauge. A loaded round should
ideally fall all the way in flush with the hood. Max about 1 lb fingertip force to seat it flush.

Bill

[Ozarklongshot]

Several p-220's here and they all shoot cast amazingly well. Some of the best most dependable cast shooting guns I have.

[pdawg_shooter]

All my Sigs love cast. Can't remember when I last shot a jacketed bullet in a handgun.

[firefly1957]

MtGun44 I tried .454 bullets and the cases would not chamber so not only do I have a loose bore but a tight camber! The gun is a "house gun" in case the worst happens so I load it with jacketed bullets and gave up on cast My Sig P-245 shoots cast just fine along with my 1911.

[MtGun44]

firefly - what a bummer! that is the one serious dimensional issue that will stop success.
Sometimes soft enough or HB will slug up yet fit the chamber, but your combo is pretty
difficult.

An application where jacketed is not a hinderance (since it won't digest large numbers0
is a good place for it.

Bill

[RobS]

Bullet hardness does matter if you are not using reloading dies that will keep a boolit from swaging down in the case. There are many ways to compensate for having a sizing/decapping die that sizes the brass too much (just about all of them these days are designed for jacketed) for a cast boolits. 1) A person can get themselves an expander die with a spud .001-.002 under the cast boolit diameter and as long as the seated bullet is going to be. 2) size boolits to a larger diameter in anticipation of case swage. 3) Cast harder boolits the right diameter that won't swage.

It doesn't matter what you believe with those three options but what does matter is when the boolit leaves the brass case and enters the bore there is almost always better results when the right diameter boolit runs down the bore. My advice is to load a dummy round, pull it, and measure the edge of the base of the boolit. If you slugged your bore then use the same measuring tool to measure the pulled boolits. .001-.002 over groove diameter should work fine.

Too many times people say, oh sure I use 8, 10, or whatever BHN boolit hardness/alloy with no problems but they don't give the full workup of what they are doing.

[MtGun44]

Good points, the boolit DOES have to be the right diameter, and this requires proper
dies, and preventing the softer boolit being damaged, as you pointed out.

It is just tha so many say it can't be done, and just don't know that it isn't even
very hard, let alone impossible. Not trying to make any particular statement,
jsut that some of the alloy I buy is range lead and I wanted to see if I could
use it as is, or had to alloy it up to make it harder. Works for me with my normal
methods.

Bill

[RobS]

I see you Bill and agree that many people don't think softer alloyed boolits can be done in higher pressure, short case rounds like the 9mm and even the 40 S&W. This is simply because some individuals can't duplicate which is not an alloy issues nor is it directly the person attempting to replicate the same success. It is rather the other factors that go into the entire process of taking the boolit and reloading a finished round with it; some individuals don’t go through the same steps and procedures and that is where things falter. Softer boolits i.e. air cooled WW or similar alloyed PB boolits can be shot very well in deed and in many handgun cartridges. The journey from a sized/lubed boolit to one being loaded in the case (the entire reloading process) is where the translation many times fades off into the distance because it is simply not brought up in discussion.