oregon trail lasercast in glock 31 357sig

[shu246]

ok, i've got a glock 31 (357sig) that i don't shoot much or reload much.
i guess i dont shoot it much *because* i dont reload much.
and i dont reload much, because the bullets are so expensive.

have not had much luck with plated bullets. tried rainier, west coast, and berrys.
they all seem to spew all over the place as velocity goes up.
jacketed work nice, but are expensive.

anyhow, i recently tried some oregon trail lasercast in 45colt and 45acp,
and liked them... so i got some for 38spl and 357mag, and they seem to
work well there.

so.... i ordered some in 9mm (.356) in a profile which looked like it might
be suitable for the 357sig (truncated cone on cylinder rather than round
nose.

figured i would get these for the beretta 92fs and maybe try them in the
357sig. have not loaded any for real yet, but i did mount one in an
empty 357sig case. it stayed on the cylindrical portion of the profile,
below the max c.o.a.l., and had good neck tension. hooray!

so if i wanted to try some of these in the glock 31 hexagonal barrel, at
1350+ fps.... would that be a *really* bad idea, or maybe just not
something that i could expect to work well? and what problems might
i look for?

thanks - shu

[dubber123]

A while back a guy came to our pistol shoot with a Glock and lead bullet .357 Sig loads at about 1,300 fps. (according to him), and they functioned perfectly and seemed to shoot well.

[Ron]

G'day Shu246, welcome to the board. I have a GLOCK 34 9mm and shoot my own hard cast TCone boolits in it. I have never had any problems with leading. Just load to safe specs and keep away from "hot" loads and you should be right.

[shu246]

thanks. i figure the leading, if present, would be visible and could be cleaned before it presented a problem.

am less clear about the hexagonal barrel (vice the conventional land-and-groove).

i conjecture the lead bullet might not get as tight a seal to the hexagonal rifling with possible result that: a) bullet would not spin up to proper rotational velocity; b) hot gas would bypass, eroding the bullet and possibly the barrel.

either would result in loss of accuracy.

if the hexagonal rifling were the only problem, the fix would be a replacement barrel with conventional rifling (about $100.00; would pay for itself in 4-5 thousand rounds at the difference between hardcast lead and jacketed bullets). but i'd like not to shuck up for a new barrel if the lead bullets just aint gonna work for other reasons.

-shu

[9.3X62AL]

Shu--

Welcome to the board, sir.

I got my first Glock about six months ago, and have been trying out cast boolits in its stock barrel since that time. For background on work up to a month or so ago, read the thread "Glock Demystification" that I started a while back. Note that the Glock 45 ACP barrels are octagonal, not hexagonal.

Summary--with .454" boolits, I could not make the pistol create lead deposits or chamber fouling--and I ran almost 500 rounds without cleaning. I am now about 200 rounds deep with .452" boolits, and same results so far--no leading, reliable functioning, good accuracy.

Some observations about the Glock barrel form......internet commentary would have you believing that Glock barrels had stop-sign angular profiles--not so at all, the contour is a lot more round than angular. I slugged the Glock 45 barrel, and its "flats" were widest at .453" and narrowest at .449". I'm wondering here if Glock barrels work in a different way than conventional land-and-groove forms, which appear to engrave bullets/boolits into their bores. Perhaps the projectiles in a Glock-form barrel distend into its confines rather than engrave. If so, alloy characteristics--diametric relationships--and their interfaces with varying barrel forms might need re-thinking.

I know next-to-nothing about the 357 SIG caliber, apart from its impressive ballistics. I have fired Glock and SIG-Sauer pistols in the caliber, and THAT was cool. My agency toyed with 357 SIG vs. 40 S&W as part of a review of our firearms situation, which pivoted on single-caliber and issuing arms--as opposed to the existing deal with a variety of calibers and deputy-purchased sidearms.

I am familiar with neck-and-shoulder pistol rounds like the 30 Luger and 30 Mauser, and with the challenges of getting dinky cartridge necks to retain bullets during feedramp contact without "telescoping". I'm also very familiar with the 9mm Luger--it can be a challenge to make it behave with cast boolits due to varying bore dimensions--relatively high operating pressures--and the ridiculously fast twist rates present in many 9mm barrels. My concern was that the 357 SIG might be a more intense dosage of the same complications. Add in that the 357 SIG supposedly headspaces on its case mouth (rather than its cartridge shoulder), and I said "That is Strike Three, it's out". When I was working, such diversions were good for dividing my attention from the social proctology that my career consisted of--retired now, I prefer shooting, hunting, and fishing--and don't need my attention divided from THAT stuff.

[shu246]

deputy al -
thanks for the information. i suspect i may not have satisfactory results with the 357sig because of the high velocity and probable rapid spin rate.
worst case, i'll just use them up in the berretta and maybe the glock 26 at modest velocities.
-shu