Bullets to weak - coat them and they will work???

[jayjay1]

Hey guys,
I´ve casted a couple of 9mm 120gr. bullets, which are to weak (barrel leading and keyholes on the target, spreading all over the place).

I´ve used my mold for 45 ACP which is almost pure lead (yes, I know...).


To safe those bullets and make them work, might it be, that they will fly well if I coat them?
Have you made such experiences with "to weak bullets"?

Best regards from Germany,
Jay

[Stephen Cohen]

I made some 250gr pure lead .378 projectiles for a friend to use in his 38/55, they were coated with Hi-Tek and did not lead his rifle. I have no idea of the velocity but they killed pigs and he was happy, don't know how you will go with 9mm as I have found it a bit of a pig at times. Regards Stephen

[GhostHawk]

Bullet fit is king. Period. Get this right first, then worry about other variables.

Keyholing, large groups, yes in my experience a larger bullet fixed both.
You want to do it with a coating, that is ok. May give you enough, may not.

I choose to go with a larger bullet ie .359 vs .356.

Good luck

[jayjay1]

Bullets fall out with .358.

Honestly I never slugged the barrel, but will do now.

I thought the barrel of the Walther is very tight, because the chamber is (I have to crimp the case mouthes under .378 to make it run).
Bullet flies around 1.050fps, so my guess was that almost pure lead would be to weak, not the dia to small.

Will slug the barrel now and report.

Thanks so far.

P.S.:
Humm, the moment I´m writing this I thought: "Dang! What if I´m downsizing the bullet when crimping the case?!?!
I will pull a crimped bullet also and measure it.

[Grmps]

You are remembering that the 9MM is a tapered case and any over crimping will downsize the boolit.

I would assume you are saying the lead is too soft.

What are you planning to coat them with?

http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Chap...Metallurgy.htm

[jayjay1]

Hi Grmps,
thanks for remembering me.

For years I´m loading a 145gr. bullet in my CZ 75 Shadow with great success.
That one, and my 200gr. bullet in my .45 ACP did very well with range ****, with velocities well under 900fps.

Unforutately my new Walther didn´t like those heavy bullets, precision was not as good as with factory ammo (the Walther is very precise with a lot of the factory rounds in the 124gr. section).
So I decided to give those selfmade 120gr. bullets a chance, which I´m having two molds on my hands.

The result was like said "subterranean".


So, I slugged the barrel and pulled some bullets.
I think I´m in trouble now.

The barrel is definetely a polygon one, which I heard about but did not know for sure until now.
The slug came out with a dia of .358" on its peak.

Like I said, the chamber is very narrow, I have to seat the bullets way back into the case, and it is small in dia at the throat too.
My pulled bullets came out with a dia of .356 to .357 inches.

Brass is S&B, which I´m using for over 10 years with good success in 9mm now.
I will try to open the crimp now as the next step, and take a look if they still will feed properly.

And I will try to find some "Walther boys" here in the forum, to get some advice hopefully.

Thanks for your support guys!
May there always be enough lead for you and the goodwill of the ghost of the target discs will guide you forever.

Cheers,
Jay

[Grmps]

These might work MOLD DC TL356-124-TC https://leeprecision.com/mold-dc-tl356-124-tc.html

I just got a 1944 Walther:P-38 i ac 44 series but haven't done anything with it yet.

[jayjay1]

Hi Grmps,
I´m actually using this one: https://leeprecision.com/mold-6-cav-356-120-tc.html

Why should the 124 micro groove work better here?

[GhostHawk]

There are some guns where the leade, that transition from the chamber to the rifling is too small. Smaller than the rifling. That will squeeze bullets, then they bounce around in the rifling, giving you leading, keyholing, lousy accuracty.

For such a gun you more or less have 2 choices. Shoot jacketed, or have a gunsmith open that leade up.

Start by making a dummy round, see just how large a bullet will chamber.

Soft lead does not much bother me, I have shot some very very soft nearly pure lead cast into bullets with no issues. But, you need to fit, helps to have a good known lube that works. Not all do.

9mm chambers, leade seem to be all over the place size wise.

Best of luck to you. Remember to try to enjoy the journey.

9mm can be tough.

[jayjay1]

The Walther Q5 has a very short and indeed a narrow chamber at the front end.

Brass comes out wider at the end, but sized at the front for a length of roundabout 1/4 of an inch.
You can see a "ring" at the front of the brass, from the case mouth starting.

The brass measures there somewhat under .38" dia. when flying out of the chamber.

That "ring" at the front end of the chamber is meant for better accuracy, what I know.

I have to seat the shoulder of the bullet almost totally into the case.
Might be 2/100" in front of the case mouth, you can barely see the shoulder of the TC bullet sticking out.

Bullet length is 1.035" with the LEE 120 TC bullet.
With an OAL of 1.04" I begin to touch the grooves, or whatever is there.

[DougGuy]

I don't know that I wouldn't sell or trade the gun. If the groove in the barrel is .358" and the chamber is tight as you say, you will never get it to chamber a .360" boolit which is what is needed to seal in the barrel. The chamber and throat are a bottleneck for which there is not much cure. The chamber would need to be .384" and the freebore in the throat would need to be .360" which no one makes throating and finishing reamers those sizes.

The Q5 has what I believe to be the Tenifer finish on the slide and barrel, this is a salt bath hardened barrel, only carbide reamers would cut the chamber or the throat, you would need custom reamers made that would cost equal to what the pistol cost. Time to sell that one or use it with jacketed bullets only.

[jayjay1]

Dang!

I actually decided to bring that barrel to a gunsmith and let him ream out the chamber.
Not to make it wider, just a bit longer, 1/15 of an inch or so, to be able to seat that Plumbumsmartie further out.

Humm,
I´m making my own boolits for quite a while with pretty much success.
It would be a hard thing for me to have to buy jacketed bullets.

Unfortunately I like this pistol, it is an awesome shooter - and - it is not that easy to buy or sell guns in the EUdSSR.
Once sold it is pretty hard to get the permission to get another one.

To be absolutely sure, I think I will pour some cerrosafe in that finicky chamber to figure it out.

If that isn´t leading to another conclusion, I think I will shot some FMJ for a while.

Thanks a lot for your support guys, I highly appreciate that.
Very good example for "Two know more than one, three know more than...".

Good forum, great infos.

[Shingle]

Sounds like too small boolits is your issue. Size each boolit, lee molds have a habit of dropping undersized boolits and over crimping can cause this too. I have shot 9mm hp that were so soft the nose would deform from seating them and never had a leading or keyholing issue. They were hy-tec coated also. Good luck.

[jayjay1]

Hi Shingle,
yes, it is very probable that the bullets were undersized.

And yes again, those LEE molds could drop a bit bigger.

Therefore I coated them now, so that the dia should be fine now.

But then there is my "pistol-issue" with a chamber, that is extremly short.
I have to set the shoulder of the TC-bullet right to the case mouth.

That means, that the bullet sits extremly deep in the case and gets downsized there ("conisized").

[Grmps]

I wouldn't worry about downsizing the boolit because you are seating it deep, I'd be worried about compressing the powder.

9MM is a tapered case, bigger at the base. The trick is to only crimp hard enough to keep the boolit from moving in the case.

[jayjay1]

Yes, I know, I´m just doing a friction crimp.

But I pulled the bullet, it is downsized at the bottom.

[OldBearHair]

Jay Jay1 I bought a used SCCY 9mm pistol. Had about the same problems you have. The rifling came all the way to the brass where it headspaces. Boolits were hard to go to battery and cause failure to fire. Finally called the company and they were very apologetic about the barrel and said that it was a very early model and please let them send me a new barrel and it was reamed to size from the headspace into the barrel seemingly the length of the first band forward of the crimp groove. Now it feeds everything just about. Also the grooves were reamed on an angle forward instead of being 90 degrees . We have a member here by the name of Doug who fixes these problems. I am old enough to still be amazed at being able to just click a button and you over in Germany can see the message already.

[jayjay1]

Yes, it really does.

Saw and read your message, thought about it and do know that this would be the best solution.

But hopefully I can fix it without reaming, because it isn´t that easy over here, but that´s another story.
Today I tried to expand the COL a bit, and I tried some harder cast bullets.

I got some better stray circles today, without keyholing, but not as good as with jacketed bullets.
And I bought a bunch of different jacketed bullets which I want to try a bit.

A lot of greetings to the lone star state from Freiburg, South-West of Germany.
Cheers!

[Grmps]

Sorry mate, DougGuy is an expert on that and it sounds like you need it throated to shoot cast

[GONRA]

GONRA's not sure but jayjay1's POLYGON BORE may make it a Real Problem to ACCURATELY shoot cast any lead bullets.

My rule is to use jacketed bullets ONLY in polygon hammer forged barrels.
Am scared that a speck of sand (or wotever) in my cast bullet handloads
will scratch the brilliant shiny hammer forged bore.