9mm Lone Wolf 124 LRN Leading Issue

[rototerrier]

I recently got back into reloading and casting and have been trying to work out some leading issues with a lone wolf barrel.

I am casting with a Lee 356-125-2R mold with WW and water dropping. BHN comes out to around 20-22 using the Lee tester.

I have been LLX tumble lubing for some time and started out with pretty bad leading until I mixed up a batch of the Johnson Paste wax stuff. Between that, sizing to 357, and getting my Win 231 load just right, I was completely able to eliminate leading. But, this required a pretty heavy coat of lube and the smoke is pretty bad. I mostly shoot indoors and am not happy with the amount of smoke I am getting. It was pretty obvious that it was coming from the lube.

So, I just recently purchased a new old stock lyman 450. Got myself a 311 top punch along with the 357 sizing die. After researching, and being a big fan of this site, I ordered up 4 sticks of BAC from White Label. I don't have a heater and researched to determine BAC seemed to be less smokey and could be used without a heater.

Spent some time getting to know my new sizer and started churning out 50 rounds of good lubed and sized boolits. Loaded them up with the exact same Win 231 charge (4.3 grains) and proceeded to the range.

Finished up and the verdict was just slightly less smoke and a fair amount of leading toward the end of the barrel. Since I was finally able to get my home brew lube working and I know for certain that I can shoot hundreds of rounds and come out with a spotless barrel, I know it's possible. I just have a couple questions and am open to any and all suggestions.

1) I slugged my barrel to .356 and am sizing at .357. Could it be that I have been masking the problem with lots of lube and that I might need to go to .358?

2) Max for Win 231 on this boolit is 4.4 from Hodgdon website load data, but my BHN is rather hard. Should I go ahead and bump up to 4.4 or more just to see if that solves it or will I do better trying to bump it way down? From my experience with this hardness boolit, going down doesn't ever do me any good.

3) Does anyone here have experience with the barrel and already know the proper size and best lube for the application? Where best, for me, would be less smoke.

Again, here are my specifics so all the information is on the table.

LEE 356-125-2R
WW Lead
Water Dropped
BHN 20-22
Win 231
4.2-4.3 grn
1.125 OAL
Lone Wolf 9mm Barrel
Sized to 357 with Lee Sizing Die
JPLX No leading

Same as above but using Lyman 450 with WhiteLabel BAC and sized and lubed to .357 I get light leading from half way forward of the barrel.

I am pretty new to posting. Been lingering around for a while. I just now have hit the point where I need to ask some questions and am hoping some of you experienced folks might be able to help me out.

Thanks - Patrick

[Sapper771]

Roto,

I was going through the same thing a few weeks ago. I am getting close to fixing it.
Here is my thread:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=117957


I recommend u make several dummy rounds, pull the bullets and measure their diameter. The 9mm case was swaging my boolits from 0.358" to 0.355". You could also try air cooled wheel weights. I am using BAC lube and it is working well, just dont like the stickiness.

BTW, Welcome to the board. There are a lot of good people on here. They helped me out a lot.

[fredj338]

I found W231 smokey w/ lead bullets. You might try something else. I prefer WST, but not a lot of data for 9mm. WSF is another good choice, but works better above midrange vel levels.

[MtGun44]

Softer is needed, don't water drop. Try 10 rounds of air cooled WWts.

Bill

[rototerrier]

Man, looks like I have a lot of work in store. I switched to 231 from unique because of smoke. I had originally been shooting plated. 231 on plates turned out to be pretty smoke free and very clean. So I purchased 8lbs of the stuff of which I haven't yet started using. Unfortunately, switching powders is not going to be an option at the moment. My wife would kill me.

I will pull a couple boolits and check their sizes to see if I am having that issue.

I have loaded up 3 sets of 10 at 3.9, 4.2, 4.4 grain charges. Going to start low and work my way up and see how each charge affects leading. Figured this would be a quick and easy way to get an idea of how the load is affecting things.

I guess I will go ahead and cast up some softer boolits. I have both WW and about 20lbs of range lead. The range lead is very soft. BHN of around 10. I can mix that in if necessary. I will start off with air cooling first. I would prefer not to have to go mixing. I was saving the range lead for some 38 special loads and was just going to harden it up slightly by adding WW's.

With over 200lbs of ingots, I have to get this stuff sorted out so I can get to casting.

[Shiloh]

I finally got a 9mm to run after a lengthy process.

The nines I have been shooting are accurate at .357. No leading. Even more accurate at .358.
At .358, a LEE 125 RN just barely grazes the size/lube die. For me, and I have three 9mm molds, the only one that drops large enough is the LEE 125 RN. The other molds, both LEE, drop at less than .3565. Tumbling and hitting sideways at 50'

The finished rounds almost drop fit in a 9mm case gauge. A gentle push seats them.

Shiloh

Try sizing at .358

[rototerrier]

Will do. Will get a die ordered today so I can give that a shot. Thanks for the advise.

[HammerMTB]

Plain ACWW should come out in the 11-13BHN range. They should be hard enough for your 9MM. If I had to use only 1 guess, it would be size. Every one of the lubes you have used should work. I bet your brass or loading practice is sizing your boolit smaller. Are you using the Lee FCD? If so, stop! It will pinch your boolits down every time!

[rototerrier]

Shot the 3.9 / 4.2 / 4.4 loads today and the 3.9 were too light and smoked a little more but accurate but still leaded.

4.2 were very accurate but still leaded a bit.

Finished up with the 4.4's and they were all over the place. Not even remotely accurate leaded badly.

4.2 still looks to be the magic number for me. Very accurate but still light leading. I could probably shoot hundreds or more without issue, but I am really striving for perfection. I want a everything to remain nice and shiny and clean....and have less smoke of course.

My 358 sizer die will arrive in the next day or so and I will try these same hardness boolits at that size and see how it works out.

If that doesn't solve it then I will cast up some new ACWW and see if that does the trick.

Also, I extracted 8 boolits to make sure they weren't gettin swaged down from the sizing die and they are not. I can see how that could occur, but in my case, it isn't. 7 were .357 on the money and 1 was actually 358. Not sure how that happened, but I couldn't get a measurement on it lower than 358.

With that out of the way, looks like sizing and hardness are still in question.

[Cherokee]

I use ACWW+2% tin for most all handgun bullets up to 1400 fps. I use Lar's CR. Some loads lead slightly, some don't. Does not seem to impact accuracy so I don't worry about it. Trace leading cleans up easily.

[Bullwolf]

Not sure how helpful this will be, but...

Assuming that you have your boolit fit already worked out.

I have had better success using a slower burning powder with that boolit combination.

Win 231 is just too fast for me with cast 9mm boolits.

I would suggest trying Unique, or even Blue Dot.

I know you said changing powders was not really an option, but it's another variable to keep in mind, along with sizing and hardness, since you have 200 lbs of lead to use in that caliber.

If you have some Unique on hand still, try loading some using it, and see if your leading goes away.

I personally have used that same boolit, tumble lubed with Alox, loaded at 5.2 grains of Unique, with no leading problems in my 9mm handguns. I tend to use a somewhat hard alloy for 9mm though.

In my experience Blue Dot is even more forgiving in that caliber. Things have to be near perfect for Win 231 to function for me with a cast lead boolit in 9mm, and I stopped using it in that application a while ago.

I have nothing against Win 231 in general, and I have used many many pounds of Win 231, loading various different calibers with it using jacketed bullets.

I am not saying that Win 231 is bad for cast boolits. I am just saying I have had bad results using it in this caliber with cast boolits.

231 is a great powder for all around economy, and it works just fine in 9mm for me, when using J-word projectiles.

Others experience may be a bit different than mine, but it's one more thing you could try.


- Bullwolf