Removing crimp groove from mold.

[Thompsoncustom]

I was just wondering what everyone's thoughts were on if my new little project will work or not. I am planing on getting the Lee 150-358-1 mold and removing the crimp groove and possibly one lube groove and shooting it in my 9mm. How much lube do you really need? do you think I can get by with one groove?

The lee 9mm molds I have right now drop bullets at .358 is that about the same for the 357/38 molds or are they closer to .360? I size them bullets down to .3565 so if there gonna be really shallow i might have to run two.

[Willbird]

I would get somebody to send you a few bullets (I do not have that mold or I would) and see if you can even seat them in 9x19 without a case bulge, looks like an awful long bullet to me ??

[zuke]

Let us know how it all work's out for you.

[DLCTEX]

Why remove the crimp and lube grooves? I would just lube one groove and crimp where ever I wanted. You should be able to size that .358 to .356 with no problem, if your chamber requires it.

[runfiverun]

ditto dales post.
i have just shot heavier boolits at .358 in many 9m's.
they work just fine as swc's in the 38, the 9's bbl don't know the difference.
if they'll feed they'll shoot with the extra grooves in the boolit.
the grooves give displaced lead someplace to go anyway.
and one lube groove is plenty of lube for 5" of barell.

[Thompsoncustom]

I shoot 173gr SWC out of my 9mm's right now with no problems but one thing I dislike is the crimp groove gets packed will lube and I don't need it anyways so I figured I'd just remove it. My reasoning for removing one lube groove in just to gain more weight if I don't need the groove anyways. If I removed the crimp groove and the middle lube groove would that cause problems with lead displacement?

[runfiverun]

it has to go somewhere.
the grooves also lower the amount of friction you have to overcome to move the boolit down the bbl.
look at what barnes done to lower fouling and pressure with their copper bullets.
same principle.
if you were generating enough velocity/pressure that you needed to overcome skidding then adding stronger bands would help,i just don't think that's needed here.

if you just want more weight yeah have some of them cut out.
i'd try to make things balanced though, and not just add a lot of weight to the nose.

[Thompsoncustom]

My only worry about removing the rear groove would be not sealing as well or would it make no difference which groove I removed as far as gas sealing the bullet? If so ya I would probably keep the middle one and removing the crimp and rear would give better balance.

[runfiverun]

i always prefer my lube at the rear of the boolit.
it's job there is to help seal the rifling and stop gas cutting.
making the base band a bit bigger hurts nothing,and making a middle drive band bigger wouldn't hurt either.
you could shift some weight forward and retain the balance by reshaping the nose.
look at a rnfp design versus a swc design of the same weight.
you don't need that much of a lube groove,but you need enough to do the job.
whittling a little here and a little there and even adding a little diameter up front could gain you 5-6 grs.