Trouble Ejecting a Live Round

[zubrato]

Hi all,

This is for a 9mm pistol, boolits sized to .358 (slugged .357 barrel) and 1.13" OAL (book min 1.125)
Many thousands down the pipe with no issue in my G19.
My real issue: I cannot eject a live round. If I do, the boolit remains lightly wedged in the barrel, the extractor pulls the case off the boolit and powder spills everywhere. Racking the slide forcefully will dislodge the boolit.

For my own practice, this is OKAY. However, I'd like to compete and take come classes and I know this is going to be an issue.

What do you guys recommend?

[ReloaderFred]

The bullet is being jammed into the leade of the chamber. I'm betting there are marks on the bullet once you get it pushed out. You'll need to shorten up your Over All Length (OAL) of the loaded round, and if you're loading near maximum for your load, you'll need to start over again with your load workup.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[Love Life]

Shorten OAL, possibly rework load.

[bcp477]

A very common problem with 9mm. Many 9mm pistols have rather short chambers - so OAL of loaded cartridges is critical. You do NOT want to load long enough that the bullet is jammed into the rifling upon chambering, irrespective of difficulty in ejecting such rounds - because this can increase chamber pressure dramatically. So, in certain circumstances, this could cause an over pressure situation. In other words, it is NOT safe. You will need to seat the bullets deeper, thus reducing the OAL. However, if you are loading to the hot end of the scale, seating the bullets deeper could cause an over pressure situation in and of itself. So, you need to take that into account - and drop (the charge weight) on the shorter loads, then work back up.

[DougGuy]

I am going to be putting a pair of 9mm throating reamers on board this coming week, both .3575" and .3585" this would lengthen the amount of freebore in your throat so that you can safely chamber the round at the COA you are loading at now. Usually I will offer a package deal, throating the barrel, crowning the muzzle, radiusing and polishing the feedramp.

Some people seat deeper to avoid this issue, but all that does is create a second problem as a workaround for the first, because now you have to drop back and start over with your load data. 9mm pressure is SAAMI spec'd at 36,500psi, which doesn't leave you much room for error, even seating the boolit .010" deeper can create a dramatic rise in pressure.

Throating the barrel reduces pressure, increases velocity, and in most cases you will see a noticeable decrease in groups as well. Crowning the barrel at 20° helps groups also, as now there is a precision cut crown that is square to the axis of the bore, and concentric to the bore. Many factory crowns are passable, but done on production machinery so there is usually a bit of room for improvement by doing it by hand with precision tooling that is a lot more accurate than factory tooling. It definitely helps reel in the flyers.

[Love Life]

Utilizing the plunk test before mass loading will eliminate the issue just as sure as throating. However, I'd rather have a barrel throated.

[zubrato]

Thank you, thats what I thought, rework up the load.
I have been loading titegroup at 3.7-3.8gr for a 124gr boolit, max load is 4.0gr.

I will be working up a new powder Longshot for the 124gr very soon, but I have a feeling I will have to seat very deep in the case to 1.1" or maybe even deeper.
I am a little concerned as the new powder range is 5.0 min and 5.7 max, and I'm wondering how much I can compress this powder safely.
Where should I draw the line, and should I even work up to the full 5.7 grains, or back off to 5.4 to 5.5 grains max just to be safe?

Thank you for letting me know about the reaming options, however I have two guns I want this to work in without modification. The g19/g26 are my CCW and I will not be modifying them for this purpose.

This will be my first time working outside the posted "safe" min OAL and load book data, so I am being cautious.

[Love Life]

I load my 124 gr bullets to 1.1 and sometimes deeper. YMMV.

[birddog]

I went the avenue DG recommends. my 45acp had the same issues and a throating reamer cleaned things up nicely. My Ruger had a sharp angle to the lands and the throat was a shade tight as my .452" boolits were not seating clean.
Charlie

[MtGun44]

Shorter LOA or a different boolit.

[Handloader109]

I can't use anything nearly that long in my g17 that I cast. Take out barrel and plunk test to insure the max lengthen your gun can use. I test every loading session with several rounds during session to insure they will work

[Groo]

Groo here
A quick and dirty way to find OAL is to drop the boolet in your barrel , measure from the base to the hood[where the case should stop
when you chamber a Factory round] and add the length of the boolet.
This will be "max" unless you are making "target" loads where the edge of the SWC is used to set headspace[ super target type loads]
and check to be sure that the round fits the mag and feeds.
If not go SHORTER [ you are at max to start]

[DougGuy]

I have 9mm, 10mm/40 S&W throating reamers and expanding mandrels in house, zubrato if you are still having issues with your rounds hanging up in the barrel throat I would be glad to help cure it if you send me a PM.

[MtGun44]

Try Lee 356 120 TC (truncated cone). RN are much more likely to
have issues with sticking in the rifling, which is why I always recommend
against them unless you have proof that your particular gun is throated
deeply enough - such as testing with some purchased boolits.

[zubrato]

Mtgun that's exactly the mold I have, but I feel like the shoulder on the tc gets jammed in the rifling. It worked for many thousands of rounds now flawlessly, lol
I just wanted to eject a live round for reload practice and to show clear.
I found the sweet spot oal for my g26 and g19 at 1.08
Loaded a few dummies, going to pull them to check for swaging at the base, and start working up at a little below min load for titegroup and longshot.
Should've worked it up correctly the first time, and wouldn't have this problem. Didn't understand the plunk test fully back then the way someone explained it to me, and thought: it feeds, fires, and hits exactly what I aim at with zero leading. Success!

[Ed_Shot]

Look at the Lyman 4th Ed. CB Handbook. The Lyman 356402 (truncated cone) and the Lee 356-120-TC both weigh 120 gr (+/-) and both have the same amount of bearing surface in the bore. The 356402 boolit is .624 long and the 356-120-TC boolit is .560 long.

Lyman spec's an OAL for 356402 at 1.110 which puts .264 of the boolit inside a .750 long 9MM case. That said, you can load the 356-120-TC to an OAL of 1.046 and have the same amount of boiler room inside the case as with the 356402.

Determine what the MAX OAL is with 356-120-TC is for your weapon's chamber (you should be able to turn the case with your fingers to confirm you are not touching the rifling). Then, back off .01 to allow for loading variation and try that for your OAL.

My CZ 75B has a MAX OAL of 1.065 with the 356-120-TC and I load to an OAL of 1.055.

The Lyman data for 356402 with Titegroup is START 3.3 gr and MAX 3.7 gr.

[NavyVet1959]

I have a couple of loads in .45 and 10mm that do that on some guns, but not on others. One of these days, I'll probably get around to sending the barrels to DougGuy and getting the leade increased a bit. Until then, I either just put up with it on load the rounds slightly shorter.

[wv109323]

Dougguy PM sent