9mm six cavity advise

[Kitika]

I'm looking at getting a 9mm 6 cavity mold for making a lot of boolits fast and i'm interested in getting a tumble lube design so I can shorten the process of getting them loaded. Do you use/prefer the round nose 90465 or truncated cone 90402 or would you avoid them all together? They'll be used in a Glock and a Tanfoglio and get shot alot!

[MGD]

Have used Lee 124 RNTL, Lyman 356402, and H&G 331. I have used these in a Colt 38 Super, Glock 17 with Bar-Sto barrel, and a MK 760 sub-machine gun. All have worked very good. Had acceptable accuracy with all. Got my best accuracy out of the pistols with the H&G. The loads with the Lyman do look neat. Some of my best loads for the sub-gun were with the Lee TL bullet, and they worked great out of and Uzi and Sten also. My advice is to get the style that appeals to you and go for it. If you are like me you will wind up with the other molds sooner or later.

[rintinglen]

I'd go with the conventional lubed 356-120 TC, over the TL versions. You can tumble lube any boolit, but TL boolits don't work well with conventional lubes.

[Kitika]

I didn't think of the 120grainer. It does look like a nice little bullet. I haven't had any experience with tumble lubing. Will it work well with a standard lube groove design from your experience? I would lube them in my lubrisizer but i am getting time poor and i'm loading 9mm for 3 people aswell as all the other reloading/casting i'm doing for other calibres.

[MtGun44]

+1 on rintinglen, I started with a 2 cav and then moved up to a 6 cav of this design. It works
great in all my 9mms WITH CONVENTIONAL LUBE. Not a fan of TL system, and we get a
lot of complaints on it, primarily from 9mm users. Do yourself a favor and start out with
conventional lube. Once this is working, if you want, give tumble lube a try and see how
it works when you know everything else is working properly.

Plan on sizing to .357 or .358 for best results in 9mm.

Check the sticky on "Setting up a new 9mm for boolits"

Bill

[Kitika]

Thanks for the advise fellas. If I need to size them to .357/.358 should I use a .38 special expander die for the cases instead of the 9mm expander to prevent lead shavings?

[MtGun44]

Not shaving that you are worried about, it is squeezing down the boolit. Just try the
normal stuff and pull a loaded boolit and measure it. Most do not have a problem.
If the boolit is squeezed, harder boolit or bigger expander is needed.

Bill

[Kitika]

Looks like I'm going to have to wait. All the online shops have backorders on all the lee parts I'm after. Must be pretty bad over there for all you reloaders! When is the shortage going to end?

[MtGun44]

When people stop hoarding. As far as I can tell, the issue is that the systems are
set up to match manufacturing capacity very accurately to demand, and demand has
been steadily growing (MANY, MANY new guns have been sold in the last 3-4 years)
and apparently not much capacity increase. I know that Winchester has been having
a problem with the unions and is in the process of moving ammo production south
the get into a gun friendly and right to work state (no union). I can't imagine
that this would help their production output.

Add in the fear of some sort of ammo/gun ban and people are worried. My guess
is that folks that might have kept 3 or 4 50 rd boxes of .22 LR on the shelf, and
maybe one or two boxes of pistol or rifle ammo on their shelf, are now wanting
much more in storage. With about 100,000,000 US gun owners, if 1% would like
to put 5 "bricks" (10 - 50 rd boxes) on their shelf in the year of 2013, this requirement
alone is for 5,000,000 bricks or equal to or greater than the total production capacity
of .22 LR ammo in the US - NOT considering what is being shot during the year.

I think the problem is similar for other cartridges. I have been approached personally
be 3 different people that have never reloaded, asking about getting into reloading -
ONLY due to their inability buy ammo. So, the ammo shortage is pouring "downhill"
to reloading.

Until there is a substantial increase in ammo production capacity, I think it will take a
LONG time to meet the needs of those that are currently shooting (and seems like
more of that, too) and those that want to store some ammo for "a rainy day".

Bill