Bad leading in both my 9mm

[fishingsetx]

I've been fighting leading in both my 9mm's since I started casting. I'm using 100% lead because I get it for free and that may be some of my problem. Another is that I've been using Lee alox tumble lube. These are 124 gr round nose tumble lube sized to .356.

First off, the guns:

Taurus 709 slim
Beretta 92 fs

Here are some pics I took of the beretta barrel. Just bought the gun today so this was my first time shooting it. These are after about 75 rounds:









I am currently working on perfecting my powder coat technique to see if I can cure my leading problem but wanted some input from the experts on any other ideas.

[jcren]

Lead is probably too soft, need to slug the barrel, but 356 is usually too small for 9mm. Slug them and size 1 or 2 thousandths larger than grooves. If you want to use soft lead, the powder coat would probably help but you will need to harden them up a little for tumble lubing.

[curator]

9mm Luger is a difficult cartridge to cast for. As jcren writes, you may need a larger bullet, 1 or 2 thousandths over groove diameter. My 9mms all shoot best with .358 diameter slugs, anything smaller results in bad leading. 9mm is a high pressure round and you'll need a harder bullet to resist pressure melting. Pure lead is only good to about 10,000 psi. I cast my 9mm slugs from water-dropped wheel weight alloy and keep velocities down to just under 1000 fps.

[454PB]

I agree with jcren, 9mm is a high pressure round. You don't say what your load was, but you generally need 1000 fps. for a 124 gr. boolit to cycle the action. That's high velocity for pure lead in a pistol.

[RobS]

Free is great (your straight/pure lead supply) however as you can see there is no free lunch when trying to work with 9mm. I would try and trade some straight lead with somebody else on the forum for something that you can use with better results.

[DougGuy]

Also don't size too large for the throat in the barrel. If this happens, you will have to seat deeper so the boolits will even chamber, and this creates yet another separate problem which causes you to have to alter published load data to compensate for a shorter OAL than is listed.

Many times the barrels need throating so that you CAN size .001" or .002" over groove diameter, this is pretty common however if those barrels are hardened, usually a black oxide finish, they are near impossible to throat with a common HSS throating reamer because they are too hard! I do not take these hardened barrels in for throating work. If they are stainless or blued and not hardened like a Glock, I can throat them for you.

Yes you are asking a bit much out of soft lead, and a bit much out of tumble lube. You should be shooting no softer than air dropped wheel weight or air dropped Lyman #2 which runs about BHN12 or so, and you would need a boolit with a decent lube groove and some soft lube which should give MUCH better performance than what you are getting now. You may even find water dropping coww is the best alloy for your calibers, although it is about as hard as you should go with the alloy.

[Bzcraig]

As mentioned probably too small, definitely too soft and I suspect your powder coating needs refining.

[tazman]

I have 2 92FS barrels and they both slug at .357. I shoot boolits sized .358 and tumble lubed in my barrels. I use range scrap that I water drop for extra hardness. They come out about 15-18 BHN. I have never used tumble lube versions of boolits. Just standard lube groove boolits that I tumble lube.
I seldom need to clean my barrels since I get almost no leading at all. Your mileage may vary but this is what works for me.

[Bullwolf]

My 92FS requires boolits at least .358 in size or else I get barrel leading.

There is an excellent sticky on Cast Boolits by MtGun44 about setting up for boolits in a 9mm linked below.

Setting up for boolits in a new 9mm.

I've shot cast lead boolits sized to .358 in more than one Beretta 92FS (friends and family members) and even a Taurus clone of the 92 (PT92) and experienced no leading lubed with Lee Liquid Alox, or lately Recluse's 45-45-10 mix.

I would look at your sizing first. That being said I also use a somewhat harder alloy than pure lead. I would expect 9mm cases to squeeze a soft pure lead boolit even smaller than .356

Take some measurements. I would also suggest pulling the boolit from a completed loaded round, and measuring it to see if you are getting any case swaging.


- Bullwolf

[Springfield]

I use pretty soft lead in my nines, about 12 Brinell, and they never lead. Basically half pure/half WW, air cooled. They are also sized to .358.

[Schrag4]

I agree with jcren, 9mm is a high pressure round. You don't say what your load was, but you generally need 1000 fps. for a 124 gr. boolit to cycle the action. That's high velocity for pure lead in a pistol.

Maybe my gun is different than most, but it cycles fine with 124gr boolits going well under 900fps. It's not that I'm aiming for that velocity, that's just what the lowest chargest I tested for a couple of powders produced recently.

Sorry, OP, I don't have any advice. I size my PC boolits to 356 and they work fine for me. Maybe I'm the odd-ball in that situation too. I am using WW which are a bit harder.

[runfiverun]

the Taurus for sure is too small unless your 358 or bigger.
pure lead is too soft.

the powder coating is not a patch to get away with whatever you want to try,,, powder coated boolits still have to follow the same rules as naked cast boolits do.

[NC_JEFF]

Def too soft of a boolit and unless you have an usually "tight" barrel that .356 boolit is probably undersized. Powder coating can help with the boolit size but you could easily get another .001 from your mould from some of the techniques outlined on this site

[11B-101ABN]

Of the 10 replies you have so far, 7 mention sizing.......Pay attention, if anything in your loading process makes the boolit smaller than .357 you need to address that. I use soft lead in 9mm, BUT I do not use fast powder. There are loads in 9mm that use AA#7 and even Blue Dot. Not the most efficient but will work. If you add your location to your info, you may find a reloader near you that can help with finding a solution.

[Bullwolf]

Dunno if this helps all that much, but regarding the power level needed to cycle a 9mm...

I started out casting for my 9mm pistols using the Lee TL356-124-2R in the 90's. I was casting boolits from a mix of Linotype and Wheel Weight lead, and tumble lubing with straight (undiluted) Lee Liquid Alox, and letting the boolits dry on waxed paper.

My Lee mould cast a .358-.359 diameter boolit (alloy dependent) so I could shoot them as cast, and I originally started out doing just that. These days I size all of my boolits to .3585 using a honed out Lee push through sizer die for consistency sake.

Used the Speer #11 handbook, and The RCBS Cast Bullet Handbook number 1, with a starting load of Unique for a 124 grain boolit.

RCBS Cast Number 1:
Had a range of 4.7 to 5.2 grains of Unique with a 124 grain cast lead boolit.

Speer #11 Manual had data for a 125 lead boolit, and a 124 grain jacketed boolit:
Cast Lead 4.1 to 4.5 grains of Hercules Unique.
&
Jacketed 5.5 to 5.9 grains of Hercules Unique.

I went with a starting load of 4.1 grains of Unique, and kept increasing the powder charge by a tenth of a grain until the Beretta 92fs would consistently cycle and lock back the slide after every shot.

After I had found reliable results, I would try the same load in the Ruger P89, and Browning Hi Power also looking for reliable slide cycling and feeding. I even intentionally limp wristed the pistols a few times to see if I could get it not to cycle the slide.

I found maximum reliability around 5.2 grains of Unique in MY guns with my components, at an a OAL of 1.10. This load also chronographs over 1100 FPS.



I've shot this load quite a bit, and varied the components and recipe while trying other things.

It works coated as well and sized to .358, (boolit fit rules still apply however) although I loaded it somewhat lighter while testing that.




I use remarkably similar Unique load for a Lyman 356402 9mm TC boolit, sized to .358 with a 4500 lube sizer and using Orange Magic lube, at an OAL of 1.15



The Lyman 356402 boolit works fine when tumble lubed as well.

I shoot the Lee Round Nose TL356-124-2R boolit more often though, (mainly because I have a 6 cavity Lee mould, and can cast more of them easier) but the Lyman 356402 shoots and feeds fine in my Beretta 92fs.



- Bullwolf

[bangerjim]

Agree with the others................pure is toooooooooo soft! Get some Sb alloy to mix in....and sum Sn while you are at it. Might as well do it the right way like all the rest of us do.

Free.................is usually NOT free!

Also you may be too small for you gun barrels.

Check out powder coating as pictured above. I PC everything I shoot now days with ZERO leading, no smoke, and usually only 2 patches after several hundred rounds thru a barrel.

Good luck solving your lead mining problem.

[Char-Gar]

A man shoots pure lead, because it is free, in a 9mm and gets leading! That is what happens when a fellow does that. The solution is: Don't do that anymore!

[NuJudge]

You can alloy your pure Lead to get a great deal more hardness with a little high antimony Lead shot, and a little Tin, and drop bullets from the mold into a bucket of water. Tin improves surface finish and reduces the melting temperature a lot, but does not harden much by itself. Dropping bullets from the mold into a 5-gallon bucket will harden a lot more than air-cooling, keep the bullets from denting each other, and keep you from burning yourself handling hot bullets. Do not put wet scrap back in the pot, or you'll get an explosion.

All my Beretta barrels are about .3575" groove diameter. All but one of my Beretta barrels have chambers that will admit a cartridge loaded with a .358" bullet. If your bullet is smaller than that as it drops from the mold, you need a bigger mold.

[Handloader109]

I'll agree that you most probably are way too soft on lead. I'd harden up with Tin. Water drop will help, but not pure lead. Now I'll say that I size my 9mm down to .356. And no leading to any degree. I hate the smell of Alox, not going to buy a regular lubsizer, so I started powder coating...now that brings into the mix the added thickness of the pc....I've been working with an Alox based lube - BLL, which is Alox and Johnson's liquid wax. Way less Alox smell, I guess covered up by the wax. And it works way better than straight Alox. You might try that too.

[RobS]

I'll agree that you most probably are way too soft on lead. I'd harden up with Tin. Water drop will help, but not pure lead. Now I'll say that I size my 9mm down to .356. And no leading to any degree. I hate the smell of Alox, not going to buy a regular lubsizer, so I started powder coating...now that brings into the mix the added thickness of the pc....I've been working with an Alox based lube - BLL, which is Alox and Johnson's liquid wax. Way less Alox smell, I guess covered up by the wax. And it works way better than straight Alox. You might try that too.

A lead/tin binary will not water quench harden. I don't know if that is what you were stating or not but I wanted to point this out. The presence of antimony is what makes hardening possible and arsenic acts as the catalyst to make hardening happen at a faster rate than just a lead/antimony mixture. WW alloy is nearly the perfect alloy to water quench due to it's properties.