Hi everyone!
I went to my reloading room looking for what to load and I noticed I was out of the 200gr Lee clone of the RCBS boolit.
While thinking of what else to load, I logged in to "CastBoolits" and check the 350 Legend discussion and after reading a few responses, I thought if I can use 9mm bullets in my 358 win and/or my 35 Whelen. I check the 9mm bullet against the muzzel and I noticed that it had sufficient surface for the bullet to spin.
Needless to say, before too long, I was putting together some loads. I started with the 35 Whelen and I figured 11.7gr of Unique should be sufficient for the 115gr JHP 9mm bullet.
Took it to the range and I was really surprized! I was able to print some ragged decent groups at 50 yards but would also get some flier groups from time to time. I came back home and loaded some 358 Win, basically same load as I did for the whelen. The results: just about the same. Some good groups almost ragged holes and then some groups that created like two diferent groups from the same 5-shot groups.
Anyway, I am sure this had been done by other already but for me it was a great experiment because I did not have boolits made and this is a great alternative for paper punching while having fun.
Have a great weekend.
Camba
The first two target pictures show the results with the 9mm bullets. Some of the lose bullet holes are from sighting the rifle until I was in the orange dot. I did not have pictures of all the groups I made but that shown is what was typical.
Last picture is a 5-shot group using the same load but with the Lee 200gr FP boolits.