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Thread: 9mm skidding.....Harder lead?

  1. #21
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    FBJ,
    You have been one astute and observant lurker,

    I also appreciate the way you outline and document a question and answer.

    4 coats, wow. 1 coat will do the job but isn't pretty, HiTek is a stain, the first coat fills the pores and bonds to the lead, the rest is garnish. Most people go 2 coats, more if they want to fatten the boolit.

  2. #22
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    I want to commend the OP on his communication skills.
    he answered each suggestion with a reply about what he had previously tried and about his process making it easier to look at things from top to bottom.

    not being my usual sarcastic self here.
    but it also illustrates that these coatings are not a cover up or magic band aid for doing things right.

  3. #23
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    I’m agreeing with runfiverun, maybe a second coat!
    I shoot my 9mm boolits at 15 BHN or more. I PC and size after pc to .357.
    My major lead supply is this hard so I use what I have.
    PC works for me.

  4. #24
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    Thanks for the second set of pictures, easy to see the skidding. Obviously as you surmised and others have said the BHN 9 alloy is too soft. The WQ'd COWWs should be around 18 BHN so that is correctly understood now. Again, thanks for the additional explanation. As to the coats of PC on the bullets I can't say as I don't use the stuff. I prefer to just lube the bullets.
    Larry Gibson

    “Deficient observation is merely a form of ignorance and responsible for the many morbid notions and foolish ideas prevailing.”
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  5. #25
    Boolit Grand Master Outpost75's Avatar
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    Interesting thread... I'm not familiar with the RP9, nor am I with PC. My best results in 9mm with cast have been in NATO STANAG 4090 chamber, with conventional lubricant, shooting as large a bullet as will chamber, best being H&G#7 124 grain at 13 BHN sized. 358" with lightest charge of Bullseye or 231 which cycles reliably. Mostly shooting Beretta 92s and FNGPs, also had good results in SIG P210 and HK94 carbine, most often 3.5-3.8 Bullseye or 4.2-4.5 W231. Accuracy at 50 yds equal to or better than M882 Ball or Olin OSM 147-grain.

    Looking at your bullets the PC hasn't adequate shear strength and bullets are too small.
    Last edited by Outpost75; 11-19-2017 at 01:11 AM.
    The ENEMY is listening.
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  6. #26
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    Outpost75, I just wanted to know the reasoning behind you stating that my bullets are too small. If you look at the last two pictures in post 18 there is no indication that any gasses are getting g around the bullet. I’m I missing something or is gas sealing the only reason to make the bullets larger. The bullet itself is making a great seal in the barrel. It is sized .0015 over the barrel diameter right now and I did have them sized .0025 over before with the same outcome as the last two pictures in post 18. I am interested in learning so please let me know your reasoning.

    Also I am using Hitec coating not powder coat. A bit different but overall a poly coating over the bullet. They use it in rifle bullets too at velocity over 2500fps. My bullets are coming out of the gun at under 950fps. I personally think the lead is shearing. Just retested a bullet hardness tonight and it test at 20 BHN
    I might try to soften the lead a little and see if I still have the problem of lands taking off the coating.
    Last edited by flybyjohn; 11-19-2017 at 09:59 PM.

  7. #27
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    It's not the gas cutting, it's the lack of abrasion on the bore part of the recovered boolits. Too small & hard, side never touches the bore and effectively the same as rifling too shallow. I've recovered a few and looked at lots of pics.
    Whatever!

  8. #28
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    Both the lands and the grooves are touching the bullet. The bullet is being sized by the barrel. Here are a few shots of the bullet that was caught after being fired and a bullet pulled from the brass that was loaded. You can see where the crimp just dented the bullet right up at the top. This is the least invasive crimp possible with this bullet and barrel or the round won’t chamber. The top of the brass after crimping measures .380 and gives a friction fit in the chamber.

    FIRED BULLET

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    PULLED BULLET

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    The reason the mark in the pulled bullet base is that it was a dummy round without primer that I tapped the primer hole and pushed the bullet out of the brass. It was loaded on the same setup as all the other bullets I just did not prime and I dumped out the powder before placing the bullet.

    So with this info , is my bullet still too small?
    Last edited by flybyjohn; 11-19-2017 at 11:54 PM.

  9. #29
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    Interesting. flybyjohn, skid marks are usual with revolvers but rather rare with auto pistols. They explain it with the fact that bullet gains substantial linear velocity before engaging the rifling and requires large rotational acceleration then.

    In relation to your issue perhaps your barrel has longer than usual free bore.

    It would be interesting to see a picture of your unfired cartridge, and a chamber showing the leade.

    What OAL did you chose? I think you'd prefer longest OAL that works reliably for you.

    What powder do you use?

  10. #30
    Boolit Master Forrest r's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by flybyjohn View Post
    Both the lands and the grooves are touching the bullet. The bullet is being sized by the barrel. Here are a few shots of the bullet that was caught after being fired and a bullet pulled from the brass that was loaded. You can see where the crimp just dented the bullet right up at the top. This is the least invasive crimp possible with this bullet and barrel or the round won’t chamber. The top of the brass after crimping measures .380 and gives a friction fit in the chamber.

    FIRED BULLET

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    PULLED BULLET

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    The reason the mark in the pulled bullet base is that it was a dummy round without primer that I tapped the primer hole and pushed the bullet out of the brass. It was loaded on the same setup as all the other bullets I just did not prime and I dumped out the powder before placing the bullet.

    So with this info , is my bullet still too small?
    Sounds like you have a couple of things going on at the same time. IMHO

    You have too light/soft/low pressure load
    Too many coats on your bullets and the coating is failing
    To much coating that's making you're already short chamber (no leade) even shorter causing you to seat the bullet even further back (shorter oal) in the case.

    All's increasing the alloy's hardness did was aid in the knife cutting (scraping) of your coating when the slid rammed the nose of your bullet into your non-existent throat/lands. If you look closely at your excellent pictures you've posted above of the side view of your fired bullet. You can clearly see a cone shaped land mark (wide at the nose of the bullet/normal at the base of the bullet). That's telling you that the base of the bullet sealed but the load didn't have enough pressure to fully expand the entire drive body of the bullet.

    Hitec is a polyurethane (hard) coating, the dry powder coat coating is a polyester (soft) coating. I don't use hitec but I've driven bullets coated with pc in rifle loads well over 2800fps and loads 50,000+psi. Both coating can be scraped off, I just find the pc coating more forgiving when it's slammed/forced into a non-throated bbl that has sharp edges.

    I've showed this picture before[IMG][/IMG]

    That's a taurus pt111 9mm, taurus is known for their large bbl's, that pt11 slugged out at taurus's normal .358". Those are home case 125gr Mihec bullets using nothing more than 8bhn/9bhn range scrap and sized to .356". While the load was not p+ by any means it easily expanded the soft bullet enough to seal the bbl and the hp worked as it should. You're getting 975fps from a 4.5" bbl and 18bhn bullets that have the nose skidding on them. I'm getting around the same velocity from a 3.5" bbl with a 2/1000th's undersized bullet. The difference:
    hot load vs light load
    8bhn vs 18bhn

    If it was me I'd try less coats on your bullets, less coats ='s smaller nose diameter/better for non-throated bbl. Increase the load and seat the bullets a little deeper. Most people see a picture of the plunk test and load them with oal's for "the most accurate"/flush oal. I like to run my oal's +/- 15/1000's below flush (keep the nose of the bullet from being jammed into the throat of the bbl), especially when using an oversized bullet. I'd also use a softer alloy, I've shot countless 1000's of 9mm over the decades using nothing more than range scrap in several different firearms. I do try to keep my loads in the 25,000psi+ range.

    Just something to think about.

  11. #31
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    wimms, I have read through my research that autos with a fast twist and shallow lands do sometimes have a tendency to skid. From what I have read,for lead, 1:10" is a little too much of a twist for lead.

    Here is a picture of the chamber and lead. I KNOW BEFORE ANYBODY SAYS ANYTHING that the barrel has a flaw. It is being sent back today to get looked at. These bad tears in one groove of the barrel are not showing any signs of capturing bullet debris or marking the bullets up in any way. The uneven machining of the lands might be a different story. I will get a picture of an unfired bullet tonight but here is the chamber.
    I am loading with the following:
    Lee Mold .356 lead round nose 125gr, 4 coats hitec coating, sized .357"
    Winchester small pistol primer
    3.4 gr. w231 powder
    1.09" OAL ( 1.070" with bullet sized to .358)
    950 fps average velocity
    taper crimped to just allow brass to friction fit into chamber.
    Pulled bullet from brass measures .357"

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    Last edited by flybyjohn; 11-20-2017 at 10:53 AM.

  12. #32
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    Forest r, I am trying to wrap my mind around what you are saying. The Hitec coating is not very brittle that I can see. For the bonding test, a hammer is used to flatten a bullet and the coating stays attached to the bullet even after being deformed. I think the coating is shearing off with the lead.

    I also don't think the bullet is hitting the lands when it is chambered. I have looked at many of the chambered, unfired rounds very closely trying to figure out why my .358" sized bullets were not going all the way into the chamber when they were seated to 1.09". On carful inspection, looking specifically for land marks, I did not see any marks on the bullet when pulling them out of the chamber. I never did try to pound one into the chamber but the slide spring slamming the round into the chamber did not leave any marks on the bullet.

    I am using a very light load of powder charge. It is only about .3 gr above the charge needed to cycle the pistol. The brass falls right at my side, a 5 gallon bucket one foot from my leg would catch 95% of the brass being ejected. I agree with you that the charge is not enough to expand the entire bullets length.

    I assumed the bullet was skidding because of the following:
    1. The bullet being a smaller diameter and faster projectile was shoved forward into shallow, high twist rate, rifling. The bullet is shoved out of the brass straight forward with no twist, then it hits the rifling and has to start twisting. Being a smaller diameter bullet (than say a .45) the rifling would not have as much leverage to start twisting the bullet, it also is doing it under a higher velocity.
    2. The softer lead along with the shallow, high twist rifling would allow the bullet to skid farther before finally getting the bullet up to twist speed and catching fully on the rifling. This skidding created wider channels than the lands, the full length of the bullet allowing gas to bypass the bullet and melted lead in the bore.

    My initial idea to fix this extreme skidding (shown in the first post) was to use harder lead so that the lead would catch better on the rifling and to use a slower powder so that the bullet would start down the barrel at a slower velocity, catch on the rifling, and then pick up more speed the farther it got down the barrel after the rifling had fully engaged in the bullet. I did not try a slower powder as of yet.

    I hardened the lead alloy and the bullet skidding completely disappeared at the bullet base but as you can see in the pictures there is still is a little skidding up at the nose. The coating with a little lead is being sheared off the bullet by the lands as it rides down the barrel. On the latest recovered bullets, only half the lands took off the coating. I might need to mark my bullets that I catch before firing and see if the same lands are taking off the coating. Maybe it is confined to only a couple lands.

    I have always been at the bottom end if not below the starting powder charge. At this point, I can see that a softer bullet and/or more charge may allow the bullet nose to deform easier so that the coating may stay attached to the bullet.

  13. #33
    Boolit Grand Master popper's Avatar
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    That's telling you that the base of the bullet sealed but the load didn't have enough pressure to fully expand the entire drive body of the bullet. I have the same problem with 30/30, tight bore at neck and loose down the bore. Did you mike the front band and the base? My solution is jacketed, really hard alloy or GC on soft alloy. First clue is the back edge of the front band, lands move metal but bore doesn't. If the barrel is to be replaced, nothing to worry about now. A faster powder might help. I'm using WST (3.7gr) in my 9 instead of W231 (4gr) for a 138gr boolit. Mine is a XDs sub and WST gives better recoil response. IMHO, PC is a little more forgiving than HiTek when you have a problem.
    Last edited by popper; 11-20-2017 at 12:30 PM.
    Whatever!

  14. #34
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    My first try would be to use a slightly larger bullet, mebbe .002"-.003" larger (as long as the finished round will chamber and a Lee FCD is not used). Eliminate one possible cause at a time...

    I have cast for my 3, 9mms and tried many alloys, 12 to 19 BHN, coatings and sizes, but it's more involved to make 9mm shoot well with cast. I have succeeded, but I have to use 3 different processes on the bullets for the 3 different guns (my Ruger can shoot nearly any bullet cleanly with 45-45-10, my old Tokerev likes fat bullets w/C-Red lube , .359"+, and my HMK likes hard bullets sized to .357" with any wax based lube). For my "just in case" stash of ammo I just went with 124 gr JHP which works well in all three.
    Last edited by mdi; 11-20-2017 at 12:58 PM.
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  15. #35
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    after looking at this again, and thinking back on some other issues and going from my past results.
    I think before I got too worked out of shape I would try another powder.

    231 just seemed wrong to me in the 9mm.
    I mean it seemed right on the surface, but it just shot,,, I dunno too soft maybe?
    anyway I am not a fan of it in the 9mm [with cast or reduced it seems fine with jacketed at top speeds] and have always had better luck with a faster powder.

  16. #36
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    The 3.4gr w231 over the 125 gr makes my 9 mm feel like my 45acp @760fps.

    I tried a few rounds with 3.0 gr VV n310 970 fps and it definitely was more snappy feeling. 3.4 gr pushed it at 1050's but was to snappy for plinking steel targets. I think I was getting pretty high with pressure.

    Doing the research, many people use the w231 in 9mm for light loads.

    I am sending this barrel back due to the bad machining in the groove but I suppose I will have to figure our these same problems whether or not I get a new barrel.

    I have some 50/50 COWW/stick on WW in the pot now that I was making 45 with. I will mould up a few 9mm with it and, coat and try them out again using a bit more powder to see what difference more pressure and softer lead will make.

  17. #37
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    What caught my eye is the full length shearing. Thats not how I understand it's supposed to happen. If you consider how the boolit goes into rifling, it almost immediately starts to experience rotational torque that increases as the rifling cuts into the body. So the skid marks of initial rifling engagement necessarily have to be converging towards the base, and usually are with very short converging distance.

    But in your case, soft boolit seem to have sheared the initial engraving while already fully in the rifling. This seems to indicate very violent acceleration of the boolit at some point. I assume you do not see any overpressure signs?

    Perhaps the boolit was driven into the rifling by the primer alone, completely stopped there as the powder did not ignite properly, sticked with rather high static friction, then powder developed the heat and pressure so fast that when it overcame the static friction the boolit experienced extreme acceleration that caused more rotational torque than the soft lead could handle and that displaced the engraving grooves.

    Internal ballistics is a tricky balance between rapidly expanding gases, accelerating boolit and expanding volume behind the boolit. Boolit being in wrong place at a wrong time can cause unexpected pressure and acceleration spikes.

    You may have better results with heavier boolits or slower powder. Also increasing powder charge should make its ignition faster and more consistent, ensuring that the boolit doesn't stop after leaving the case. You want smooth and limited boolit acceleration.

    Generally faster powder is used with heavier boolits and slower powder with lighter ones.

  18. #38
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    As far as overpressure signs, the primers don't look any different than the factory Federal ammo I fired. The brass is not oversized after shooting and the recoil with the lighter loads is much softer. The powder fouling gets dirtier the lighter the load, which I think would be the opposite if it was extremely high pressure. Here is a bullet that was shot at a very low velocity, too low for the gun to cycle. It did not skid or loose any coating. No sure of the velocity as I was just trying to find the lowest load that would cycle. I am pretty sure it was the harder lead though.

    Click image for larger version. 

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  19. #39
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    I am going to make up a few softer alloy bullets again and shoot it at different powder charges and catch the bullets. I will start at 3.2 gr which is the absolute minimum it needs to cycle and work 5 round up in .2 gr intervals. Then I can look at all the bullets in succession and see just how the skidding varies by speed at that bullet hardness. I will document a bit better this time to make everything more consistent. Maybe then we can see what might be happening.

  20. #40
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    I guess that I missed it when you said how your catching those rounds so undamaged?

    How'd you do it?
    a m e r i c a n p r a v d a

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check