9mm mold question

[miner49r]

Long time lurker/ first time poster,

Dug out my olde dads casting equipment which is mostly old Lyman and is still very servicable.

Well... I am looking to cast hollow points for a Ruger SR9C. I have pretty much decided on the Lyman 125grHP mold. (356637) I will need to slug the barrel, but reading a lot of threads on casting for the 9mm, it would seem many people are needing a larger diameter boolit for their nines.

That being said... after I slug my barrel... I should want a bullet sized .001"-.002" larger. Yes?

[M Hicks]

Ideally yes. Most of my handguns like them .001" over groove diameter.

[miner49r]

Thx M,
Now that I have my head around that... I just finished slugging the barrel. Slamming a .38 special wadcutter down the bore netted .354"-.355" respectively. It looks like a .356" sizing die is in order.

[Blammer]

bingo! should be good to go miner49r

water dropping them may be a good idea.

[miner49r]

Quenching hadn't yet crossed my mind. I was thinking of whether to use wheel weights or mix up something more scientific.

It's going to be at least a month before the tooling comes a vailable. Grrrrrrr!

[nhrifle]

I usually go as big as I can without causing function/chambering problems with any cast boolit. Aside from my paper patch, black powder rounds, I quench everything I shoot. Adds a little more hardness to keep it from getting chewed up during cycling. Straight wheel weight alloy should work just fine. Keep it simple and just have fun shooting!

[MtGun44]

IME, air cooled wheel wt alloy is fine, have never needed hardening with 9mm.
I have had excellent results with Lee 356 120 TC conventional lube in many
different brands of 9mms.

This may be helpful.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?121737-Setting-up-for-boolits-in-a-new-9mm



Bill

[Dusty Bannister]

In the past the Lee 356-120-TC has been my favorite. But my Ruger LC9 requires a different bullet due to the aparently longer throat. In that one, I am using the 358-125-RF and so far so good. Sized appropriately of course. If you are going to shoot a HP bullet, you will want them soft. Perhaps even WW will be too hard for expansion if that is the goal.

[miner49r]

MtGun,
It is your article that I referenced to confirm which size/lube die I would need. Thx.

[miner49r]

Everywhere I looked the HP mold was out of stock so I settled on the standard mold with dual cavities and make a pin for one of the cavities. The mold will be here in a few days.

At this point of the game I couldn't say whether the boolits should be quenched or not. I think I'll start with air cooling and see if there is any deformation during feeding.