I was looking at the Lyman 44th handbook a while back and decided to try the heavy boolit in my 9mm handguns.
I decided to use the Bullseye load as listed in the manual. They didn't have an overall length listed, so I went with my gut and left about .050 of the front drive band outside the case.
This left at least part of the crimp groove showing on the majority of the cases. This length fit in the magazines with no issues.
At this OAL, the base of the boolit was sitting on the powder charge. In a couple of the pieces of brass, the boolit was pushed a bit out of the case and had a longer OAL than the rest.
These were sized to .358 and tumble lubed. I had made them up for my 38 special quite some time ago. They were cast from range scrap and water quenched from the mold. I don't have a hardness tester so I can't speak to the BHN.
After seating and before the trip through the Lee Factory crimp die in the fourth stage on the turret press, the cartridge was showing a definite bulge where the base of the boolit would be.
The Lee die cleaned that up so all the cartridges plunked nicely in my pistols. Undoubtedly, the base was swaged down. I didn't check to see how much since this was in the nature of an experiment and I didn't want to do anything special. I may check that if I do this again.
At the range, I fired part of them through my RIA 1911 9mm and the rest through my SA XDm 9mm. All fed and fired without issue and no signs of pressure. There was no trace of leading in the barrel of either gun.
I really wasn't expecting much in the accuracy department. I was pleasantly surprised by the results.
In the RIA(which is definitely NOT a match gun) they shot(20 rounds) about 3 inches at 12 yards for me. That is usually what I do on an average day.
In the XDm, 15 shots went into about 1.5 inches at 12 yards. This was outstanding for me.
I didn't load a lot of them(35 rounds) because I wasn't certain how it would work out. With the results I got, I will need to try this again and see if I can repeat the results.
Next time I will take a couple more pistols with me as well along with a chrono.
|
   
   
|
|
Reply With Quote
