M&P 9mm with cast boolits

[45r]

Do the 9mm M&P's shoot cast well,what would be a good mold to get for one.Most reviews I've read about them have been good.Have no experience with these type of pistols.

[Walt]

I have a M&P 9 Pro. The model with the 5" barrel, fancy sights, and worked over trigger. I'm not real happy with its accuracy with anything I have put through it. All guns are different but mine dosen't care for heavy boolits, i.e. 147s. 122 LFPs have done better than 125 LRNs. This piece doesn't spray bullets it just doesn't make tiny groups. I can put most of 50 rounds into a round 4" group at 50' offhand with what it likes. With one of my better shooting 9m/m Glocks I might do 3". Like I said all guns are different, I have a couple of buddys that shoot IDPA with M&Ps and they love 'em.

[Piedmont]

I should be able to tell you but have shot so little lately that I can not. I picked one up over a year ago. I can tell you a couple of good things. The groove dimension on mine is .355" (real tight for a nine) and a twist of around 1-18", which is just about perfect for cast.

This is my first plastic pistol. The grip feels great in the 9 and 40 full size.

[MtGun44]

I haven't tested the Lee 356-120-TC in that particular gun, but it works really well in many
other brands of 9mms when sized to .357 or .358. Air colled wwts and conventional lube
are recommended.

Here is some useful into on setting up for a 9mm -

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=121607

Bill

[Walt]

I haven't tested the Lee 356-120-TC in that particular gun, but it works really well in many
other brands of 9mms when sized to .357 or .358. Air colled wwts and conventional lube
are recommended.

Here is some useful into on setting up for a 9mm -

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=121607

Bill

This is the bullet I speak of in my earlier post. Sized .357 on top of 4.5 Unique.

[GabbyM]

Agree with MtGunn44 on the 122 grain TC bullet in 9 x 19mm. I have the Saeco version. I've a handfull of 9mm / 380 molds. 95 grian to 147 grain. My simple outlook would be that if the 122gr truncated cone does not shoot well none of the others have a chance. It has a long bearing surface for rifling grip and best of all the shoulder provided by the TC design gives a positive data point where grove sized diameter and bullet nose transition. With a round nose ball profile. Your mold may become accidentally shimmed with a splatter of lead yielding an out of round bullet. Thus extending the sized diameter portion of the bullet forwards. You end up with a bullet that will not chamber or chambers tight. Nothing that can’t be culled out but is a possible quality control issue that is negated with a positive shoulder on the bullet. Look at the 45 caliber H&G 34 round nose with its slight shoulder. There are also 9mm bullets looking like shrunk down H&G 34’s. With the shoulder if you are going to have a head space issue the shoulder will have been wiped away in sizing down to the nose. That would be seriously out of round. You’d bee tossing boolits back into the pot way before you saw that.

Glocks along with Springfield plastic pistols do not like bullets with shoulders. Low barrel position causes them to hang up on the magazine lip. Truncated cone is the way to go over smooth profile round nose in those. Don’t think the M&P has this issue but can’t say with any certainty. There again with the TC design you don’t have to worry one way or the other. If your brother in law you can’t stand because he looks for a reason to criticize every thing you do shows p with a Glock . As most of them do lol. A smith will generally have as tighter chamber than any of the European pistols. If you load your 122 gr TC’s to a C.O.L. which places the shoulder short of the throat. Even if your sized diameter will chamber into your throat. Your loaded rounds will pretty much run in any gun out there. You can size to .357” even if you don’t need it for your gun then they’ll shoot well in most 9mm’s. S&W used to use a throat on there 39’s and 59’s that was longer than say a CZ. I’ve had both those and now shoot a 659. When I shot Blue Dot I thought it was a big deal to load the bullets out long so I could fit 7.7gr of BD powder into the case without heavy compression. It was but I just quit using BD powder and solved that.

The other bullet I like in 9mm is the Lee revolver bullet in 125gr rnfp. Crimp grove is right where you want it for a 9mm case which makes it more tolerant of case length deviation as the case if over crimped just goes in the grove instead of deforming the bullet. Has a fat meplat and nose heavy design so I’d think it would penetrate straight with little or no tumble. Mine drops WW lead at around 129 grains. Nice hog hunting bullet but who hunts hogs with a 9mm? 122 TC is almost the original 9mm bullet. Loaded to a C.O.L. with the shoulder short of the throat. You can use the Lyman data for there 122 TC bullet. With a Saeco #377 that’s 1.050 to 1.060” but the Lee IIRC has a longer nose. To find your chamber throat load a bullet upside down in a unsized lose fit case and sand the bullet base down flat. Insert in chamber then measure how much bullet extends from the case by using calipers to get a O.L. then measure the case length and subtract. You need a bullet fat enough to stop at the throat not extend through to the rifling. That will tell you how much shoulder on any bullet you want showing out the case mouth. 9mm case length varies widely so get a measurement from the base to the shoulder and that’s your max O.L. Subtract about .020” for a die setting and go for it. With the TC design you can notice if your seating die starts to gum up with lube causing bullets to deep seat by viewing the position of the shoulder above the case mouth. My practice is to do a full quality control inspection after I fill the Dillon primer tube which holds 100 primers. Package the 100 bullets in the bin then continue. That’s pretty minimum QC but at worst I can have 100 round to break down. A friend I cast 45 acp bullets for loaded up 450 rounds of ammo a couple months ago. From a box of 500 boolits he’d loaded and shot fifty. Good results so he loaded the rest. When setting his crimp die seating and crimping in one step. It was pushing lead in front of the case mouth. No CQ and rounds would not chamber in his 1911. He had to pull down the entire 450 rounds and we melted down the bullets. 70 year old eyes peering through trifocals aren’t much of a QC program. As a machinist I’ve already made those mistakes years ago. As an old machinist with bifocals my eyes are not the inspection tools they once were. Thus with 9mm. I use the pistol barrel separated from the gun as a check gage. Calibers for C.O.L., Micrometer (calipers would do) for diameter dimensions. The micrometer and caliper measurements are to detect any deviations due to dies gumming up with lube or floating out of adjustment.
Not that unusual for a lock nut to come loose. After a hundred rounds It’s not all that bad to take a break to do a few measurements and sip on a drink. Dillon progressives run a leisurely pace of 350 rounds per hour so you’re looking at 15 minutes between a break with a two minute inspection time.

If I was getting paid by an employer by the hour with an obligation to produce to a standard which my pay rate was set to I’d probably be able to run the numbers Dillon gives for there machines. IIRC I’ve done it years ago just to see. I hit it hard at work. But at home I slack big time. Back when I shot trap I had a home with an attached garage. My loading bench was setup next to the door which was about eight feet from my Lazy-Boy recliner I watched TV from. When a commercial would come on I’d get up and load rounds for about five minutes then go sit down. Commercials being 20 minutes of every hour or so on TV there was no shortage of time to load shells. My children barely noticed as it’s not like they missed the experience of watching commercials with you.

[45r]

shot the M&P Pro today.it shot around 2 and one half inch at 20 paces with pmc 115 fmj.no problems and my wife likes it.it is the 4 and a quarter inch with nite sites.357 inch 180 xtp's would barely go into fired brass with a little shoving.think it would need 357 inch boolits at most for size.I really like this polymer pistol.I wish they made a 10mm.I'll get a TC type mold.wonder if RD's 9mm mold would work well,it's on sale.Could get half PB now also.thanx for the replies.

[thehouseproduct]

Agree with MtGunn44 on the 122 grain TC bullet in 9 x 19mm. I have the Saeco version. I've a handfull of 9mm / 380 molds. 95 grian to 147 grain. My simple outlook would be that if the 122gr truncated cone does not shoot well none of the others have a chance. It has a long bearing surface for rifling grip and best of all the shoulder provided by the TC design gives a positive data point where grove sized diameter and bullet nose transition. With a round nose ball profile. Your mold may become accidentally shimmed with a splatter of lead yielding an out of round bullet. Thus extending the sized diameter portion of the bullet forwards. You end up with a bullet that will not chamber or chambers tight. Nothing that can’t be culled out but is a possible quality control issue that is negated with a positive shoulder on the bullet. Look at the 45 caliber H&G 34 round nose with its slight shoulder. There are also 9mm bullets looking like shrunk down H&G 34’s. With the shoulder if you are going to have a head space issue the shoulder will have been wiped away in sizing down to the nose. That would be seriously out of round. You’d bee tossing boolits back into the pot way before you saw that.

Glocks along with Springfield plastic pistols do not like bullets with shoulders. Low barrel position causes them to hang up on the magazine lip. Truncated cone is the way to go over smooth profile round nose in those. Don’t think the M&P has this issue but can’t say with any certainty. There again with the TC design you don’t have to worry one way or the other. If your brother in law you can’t stand because he looks for a reason to criticize every thing you do shows p with a Glock . As most of them do lol. A smith will generally have as tighter chamber than any of the European pistols. If you load your 122 gr TC’s to a C.O.L. which places the shoulder short of the throat. Even if your sized diameter will chamber into your throat. Your loaded rounds will pretty much run in any gun out there. You can size to .357” even if you don’t need it for your gun then they’ll shoot well in most 9mm’s. S&W used to use a throat on there 39’s and 59’s that was longer than say a CZ. I’ve had both those and now shoot a 659. When I shot Blue Dot I thought it was a big deal to load the bullets out long so I could fit 7.7gr of BD powder into the case without heavy compression. It was but I just quit using BD powder and solved that.

The other bullet I like in 9mm is the Lee revolver bullet in 125gr rnfp. Crimp grove is right where you want it for a 9mm case which makes it more tolerant of case length deviation as the case if over crimped just goes in the grove instead of deforming the bullet. Has a fat meplat and nose heavy design so I’d think it would penetrate straight with little or no tumble. Mine drops WW lead at around 129 grains. Nice hog hunting bullet but who hunts hogs with a 9mm? 122 TC is almost the original 9mm bullet. Loaded to a C.O.L. with the shoulder short of the throat. You can use the Lyman data for there 122 TC bullet. With a Saeco #377 that’s 1.050 to 1.060” but the Lee IIRC has a longer nose. To find your chamber throat load a bullet upside down in a unsized lose fit case and sand the bullet base down flat. Insert in chamber then measure how much bullet extends from the case by using calipers to get a O.L. then measure the case length and subtract. You need a bullet fat enough to stop at the throat not extend through to the rifling. That will tell you how much shoulder on any bullet you want showing out the case mouth. 9mm case length varies widely so get a measurement from the base to the shoulder and that’s your max O.L. Subtract about .020” for a die setting and go for it. With the TC design you can notice if your seating die starts to gum up with lube causing bullets to deep seat by viewing the position of the shoulder above the case mouth. My practice is to do a full quality control inspection after I fill the Dillon primer tube which holds 100 primers. Package the 100 bullets in the bin then continue. That’s pretty minimum QC but at worst I can have 100 round to break down. A friend I cast 45 acp bullets for loaded up 450 rounds of ammo a couple months ago. From a box of 500 boolits he’d loaded and shot fifty. Good results so he loaded the rest. When setting his crimp die seating and crimping in one step. It was pushing lead in front of the case mouth. No CQ and rounds would not chamber in his 1911. He had to pull down the entire 450 rounds and we melted down the bullets. 70 year old eyes peering through trifocals aren’t much of a QC program. As a machinist I’ve already made those mistakes years ago. As an old machinist with bifocals my eyes are not the inspection tools they once were. Thus with 9mm. I use the pistol barrel separated from the gun as a check gage. Calibers for C.O.L., Micrometer (calipers would do) for diameter dimensions. The micrometer and caliper measurements are to detect any deviations due to dies gumming up with lube or floating out of adjustment.
Not that unusual for a lock nut to come loose. After a hundred rounds It’s not all that bad to take a break to do a few measurements and sip on a drink. Dillon progressives run a leisurely pace of 350 rounds per hour so you’re looking at 15 minutes between a break with a two minute inspection time.

If I was getting paid by an employer by the hour with an obligation to produce to a standard which my pay rate was set to I’d probably be able to run the numbers Dillon gives for there machines. IIRC I’ve done it years ago just to see. I hit it hard at work. But at home I slack big time. Back when I shot trap I had a home with an attached garage. My loading bench was setup next to the door which was about eight feet from my Lazy-Boy recliner I watched TV from. When a commercial would come on I’d get up and load rounds for about five minutes then go sit down. Commercials being 20 minutes of every hour or so on TV there was no shortage of time to load shells. My children barely noticed as it’s not like they missed the experience of watching commercials with you.
Like mentioned the lee 120gr TC and Lee 125gr RNFP work great in my standard size M&P9. I have several thousand of the TC thru it. I size both of these to 0.358" so they can do double duty in my 357. I use 4.6gr of WST with either boolit. I can't really speak for accuracy beyond they smash a 8" steel plate at 15yds.

[Walt]

shot the M&P Pro today.it shot around 2 and one half inch at 20 paces with pmc 115 fmj.no problems and my wife likes it.it is the 4 and a quarter inch with nite sites.357 inch 180 xtp's would barely go into fired brass with a little shoving.think it would need 357 inch boolits at most for size.I really like this polymer pistol.I wish they made a 10mm.I'll get a TC type mold.wonder if RD's 9mm mold would work well,it's on sale.Could get half PB now also.thanx for the replies.

45r,
That's about the best my 5" Pro model will do for me from a rest with the several factory loads that have been tried. I'm sure some younger eyes could do better. The 122 TCs mine favors are sized .357. The piece does feel good in the hand. I prefer the small grip insert but can actually live with any of them.
Walt