Browning Hi Power

[RU shooter]

I find that Hi-powers tend to have rather large bores. Both barrels I have measured, were just under .358. Slug your barrel and see. Fortunately Hi-power barrels tend to have a lot of extra room in their chambers, so .358 bullets are likely to chamber, even if there is a slight bulge in the loaded round. At least mine do. You might want to try a 38 caliber expander, so you don't swage the bullets down upon seating.

Fortunately, my 9mm molds cast large, a Lyman 121 gr truncated, and a 147 gr truncated also. Both cast 357 plus in diameter, which gets me in the ballpark. Also I have a Lee 38 caliber 125 gr SWC mold, which casts plenty big for the 9mm.


Attachment 261472

That's the Hi Power I've always wanted right there ! Beautiful gun , who did the beaver tail and bobbed hammer ?

[Outpost75]

Cross posted from the Cast Bullet Assn.Fouling Shot by permission of the author:

Tales from the Back Creek Diary - Loading Cast Bullets In the 9mm Luger/Parabellum
C.E. Ed Harris

Lately, with ammo supplies in retail stores either drying up entirely, or becoming frightfully more expensive, combined with widespread fears and speculation of whether imports of Russian ammo and primers may be cut off, MANY people have been asking whether they could successfully load cast bullets in 9mm for practice ammo. Until recently my advice was that reloading 9mm ammo wasn’t cost-effective, compared to “readily available and cheap” surplus ammo... The good news is that you can reload 9mm successfully. Here is how:

In the 1980s I loaded tens of thousands of cast bullet 9mm rounds for testing purposes. While it was always Ruger policy to neither recommend nor condone ANY use of handloaded ammunition, it was necessary from a safety and engineering standpoint to know what the guns would or would not function safely with. In particular they wanted to know if firing jacketed +P+ law enforcement loads in a heavily leaded barrel would cause any safety problems.

For testing purposes bullets were cast from salvaged backstop lead, alternating between two RCBS 20-lb. pots, and a pair of 4-cavity H&G #7 molds, casting bullets hot enough so they were uniformly frosted, and water-dropping them into a 5-gallon bucket of water to quench-harden them. X-ray diffraction analysis of backstop scrap used at that time averaged 3% antimony, 0.6 tin, <0.006 copper and < 0.01 arsenic, the rest lead. Hardness of bullets after quenching was 24+ BHN. Bullets were loaded as-cast, unsized, tumble lubricating to deposit a light film of 55% calcium soap solids in a mineral spirit carrier, which later became Lee Liquid Alox. The final step was profiling loaded rounds to ensure they did not exceed SAAMI max. cartridge dimensions, using what would be sold commercially as the Lee Factory Crimp Die.

Moulds were cooled periodically by resting them briefly on a large wet sponge, to regulate block temperature. The melt temperature was maintained at 700-730 degrees F as measured with a digital thermocouple thermometer. The routine is to fill one mold, then set it down, then pick up, open, dump and refill the other blocks, alternating continuously. You get good bullets, without having to wait for the sprue to harden, or worrying about semi-liquid lead smearing across the blocks when cutting the sprue off. A man working an 8 hour shift could cast 100+ pounds of bullets in an 8-hour day.

A Dillon RL550B was set up to throw 3.6 grs. of Bullseye which we loaded with a 124-gr. truncated cone bevel-plainbased bullet of shape, the H&G #7. Bullets dropped from molds at .358 and were loaded as-cast and unsized. Once-fired commercial brass was reloaded using Federal 200 "small rifle and magnum pistol" primers because they were "hard" like military 9mm primers and we wanted to be sure the guns would set them off reliably.

A very important factor when loading cast bullets in small autopistol cases, especially 9mm, is to have a lube bleed hole in seater and crimp dies, so that bullet lubricant buildup cannot cause an increase in seating depth, which results in a dangerous increase in chamber pressure. www.hollowpointmold.com can drill a 1/16" bleed hole in the Dillon or RCBS seater dies. If you are loading thousands of rounds. I recommend that you do so!

If you are a firearm manufacturer wanting the equivalent of 9mm "proof" ammo to run "accelerated endurance tests" by improvised proof loads in the new design Ruger pistol you are trying to destroy, without having to dip into the limited supply of very expensive "real" proof loads needed for testing the production guns you are selling, all you need to do is take standard GI Ball M882, crack the asphalt bullet sealant with your seating die in your reloading press and reseat the bullet 1/16th inch deeper, for +15,000-18,000 psi~ ! PLEASE! ----DON'T DO THIS AT HOME!!!!

Paying strict attention to seating depth, proper crimp and testing for "bullet push," no more than 0.005" shortening of cartridge OAL after 5 secs. at 50 pounds compression pushing against your bathroom scale, is very important. This should be a routine test precaution when setting up the loading machine and is essential to be repeated whenever you change lots of brass or bullets!

I don't know how many rounds we loaded in that setup, but we were buying case lots of Bullseye, four 8-lb. kegs at a whack, and primers by the skid, loading and shooting several 5-gallon buckets of test ammo every week. We had one guy who did nothing but cast bullets for 8 hours a day, and another who loaded the ammo to feed the trigger pullers who fired a 5000-round endurance test on a random gun selected every day for about six months solid. So, do the math....

Of course all of our test firing was not with cast reloads. We test fired everything out there, good, bad and ugly, foreign and domestic factory ammo was in the mix. Buyers scoured eastern Europe obtaining WWII German steel-cased ball '08 mE by the CONEX box full. Much of it came from warehouses where the roofs had leaked for decades, the crates had fallen apart, and loose rounds were scooped up loose off the floor with front-end loaders, mixed with pigeon droppings, rusted pieces of corrugated metal roofing and cement dust. The gleanings were then loaded via conveyor into 55 gallon drums, shipped to a warehouse in UK, where the ammo was visually sorted and screened to remove large chunks of debris, then tumble-cleaned first in dry sand, following de-gritting in ground corncob using a cement mixer! The “cleaned and sorted” bulk ammo was repacked in plastic bags inside cal. .50 M2A1 cans and palletized for transport by ship back to the US. Certainly NASTY stuff, but the majority of it still went BANG~!!

Cast loads fired in the Ruger P85 pistol then in development would outshoot most ordinary factory FMJ ball ammo, about 2 inches at 25 yards with a velocity around 1050 +/- 30 fps. and run the guns like a pony trotting. I also fired thousands of them in the Mk2 STEN, Walther MP1, Swedish K and Uzi we had in the engineering dept. at the time.

When loading cast bullets in the 9mm you are best-off using the lightest powder charge which functions reliably. A 124-135 grain flat-base or bevel-base which does not protrude into the powder space any deeper than factory FMJs is the best choice to maintain adequate recoil impulse. Heavier bullets work better with the minimum powder charge which cycles reliably. Of current designs the Accurate 35-129E, 35-130D and 35-135A bullets are most effective on game and feed reliably in most modern combat autopistols.

[onelight]

Good post !

[winelover]

Mid seventies vintage. Millet adjustable rear. Cylinder & Slide ambi safety. Frame was hard chromed. Magazine disconnect removed. Over 6K reloads with jacketed, before switching, exclusively to cast.

Cast bullets were RCBS 125 RN GC or Lyman 120 TC. Unique or Bullseye were my preferred powders.

Hardly, shoot it anymore, since I prefer DAO nines.

Winelover

[pworley1]

Mine shoots just about anything that will fit in the magazine. I size to .358.

[HP9MM]

I have fired about 8,000 cast bullets through my HP. I use the truncated Lyman cast bullet. For the last 3,000 or so load I have been using 4.2 gr. of Universal. No failures to feed or other problems.

[GBertolet]

The magwell, 40 lpi checkering,and beavertail, were done by a friend, who is a local gunsmith. The hammer was not bobbed. I put a SFS kit in it. With this I can carry cocked and locked, with the hammer down. My friend never worked much on Hi-Powers, and just wanted to see if he could do it. He only charged me a couple hundred dollars for everything. That's what I call a good buddy. I was there when he installed the beavertail. He tacked it on, and adjusted the fitment to suit me, before final welding and blending. I also have another top end, having Bar-sto barrel, Bo-mar sights, flat topped and serrated, with front cocking serrations. This setup really shoots good. Here is the dual setup, showing the additional slide.

[pietro]

Pietro, When you decide to change it,you might take a look at Cylinder & Slides safety. It was drop in in my FN. Here it is at Midwayusa, but I'm sure you can find it other places. It made a world of difference on mine. https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1030413867

Muchas Gratias, RKJ !

.

[sixshot]

Outpost75, thank you, outstanding reply!

Dick

[Greg S]

I've got an ID FN P35 Mk lll. The barrel slugs at .357, slug your barrel and size accordingly.

[samari46]

Could never afford gun show prices for a high power. So when the Israeli high powers hut the market and either Coles or copes were selling them I lost no time in Getting one. They were made by FN and mine is is nice shape. just about the time I decided to get another one the dealer that I bought mine from suffered a major fire which basically destroyed all of their firearms and records. So they went out of business. At this point am looking to install a Cylinder & Slide safety and no pinch hammer. So used to the safety on a 1911. Just bought a S&W M&P 2.0 in 9mm. The mag release is on the left side but easily changed to the right.Same for my Beretta 92FS. Did a couple swaps for the members at my gun club. Probably forgot how to do it now. Frank

[FLINTNFIRE]

I had a nice one stolen years ago , when those Israeli ones first started coming in I waited to long , so a few years ago when they came around again I bought 3 , bought one was a 1966 year of manufacture , pitted from where it was carried and sweated on for a long time other 2 were a lot better later 70's made , had owned a few Fegs over the years and bought a Kareen a year or so back .

I do like the hi powers , them and 1911 pistols , a certain nostalgia and classics , to the original post I shoot cast only in them , and am using NOE hollow point mold and a MP pair of molds one hollow point one solid no lube grooves .

[mattw]

My FM Hi-Power wants and gets all of the 147 WFN it can eat. I really does not like bullets down in the 120's at all.

[Patrick L]

I had a HiPower back in the 90s, a new commercial model. I was disappointed that it didn't shoot my Lee 124 TLTC bullets (well, it was accurate but keyholed terribly) but it did shoot commercial cast 124 RN bullets fine. I didn't know then what I do now about bullet fit, I'm confident I would have sorted it out or just moved onto a different mold. I ended up selling the gun to finance others (always a mistake, I know) before I got that far.

HiPowers rock, if ever I have another 9mm that will be the one.