Love Life
03-09-2014, 09:44 PM
Fun with the 10mm
Let me start this off by saying that I am no High Master when it comes to shooting pistols. I know my limitations!!
Recently I picked up one of my “Must own someday” guns. One of the big S&W autos in 10mm. I love the old S&W autos. They have proven to be accurate, reliable, rugged, and they make chicks dig you. This pistol also came from a man I have a deep respect for so putting the old girl into the lineup for mountain lion protection duty gives me a big smile on my face, and I hope it gives him a smile to know that this old warhorse is being called upon to protect my family as well.
99120
Unfortunately I haven’t had much time to play with it yet. So, with the morning being so nice, I decided to load some ammo and hit the range.
I loaded both jacketed and cast bullets. Ya’ll are thinking “Ewwwww. Jacketed bullets are gross!!” but this isn’t my first rodeo with the 10mm so I like to have some 10mm jacketed bullets in stock. In this case the jacketed bullets were 180 gr Hornady HAP bullets. I have found these bullets to be accurate, consistent, and cheap-ish through the years. Plus they look cool.
The cast boolits were RCBS 200 gr SWC that weigh 210 gr after 2 coats of HI-TEK super coat bullet coating. There really is not much to say about the bullet as the RCBS mould casts like a dream and the bullet looks good.
I’ll get to the shooting:
Jacketed bullets: As you all know, data for the 10mm Auto is all over the place for all powders and bullet combos for the cartridge. So I referenced several load manuals, the powder manufacturer, etc. Earlier this month I had worked up to 11 gr of AA#7 under the Hornady HAP bullet. The most accurate charge was 10.4 gr so far. Now, with the 10mm I like to run on the ragged edge with jacketed bullets. I mean, come on, it’s the whole purpose of the cartridge. If I wanted to shoot 40 S&W level loads then I would buy a 40 S&W, but I digress.
What I wanted to accomplish today was work up to the max charge in the Speer #13 manual and establish a charge weight ceiling. I accomplished both of those, and it just so turns out the max in the Speer manual is the load ceiling I am comfortable with using this powder. The targets are here and I’ll stick with 11.9 gr of AA#7 for my max load for this bullet/powder combo.
99117
Cast bullets:
After shooting all the jacketed bullet loads I cleaned the barrel with Hoppes #9, patched it dry, and then ran two soaked patches of Butch’s bore shine through the barrel. I let it soak while I changed targets and had a smoke. I then patched the bore completely dry.
The bullets fired today were sized to .401 and coated with 2 coats of HI-TEK Supercoat bullet coating. The alloy is of unknown hardness and makeup as I just add stuff to it over the years. It smushes the same against wheel weights though. Now, I did slug the barrel and it measured at .402. Why am I shooting boolits sized to .401 then? Well…I’m a methodical individual and wanted to shoot these to see the results before I opened up my Lee sizing die (again) to .402. Some interesting things occurred and I may pursue the results further someday…maybe.
On to the shooting!!
As you can see from the targets, the groups were immediately better with the cast bullets. Go figure. Now here is the oddity. My hypothesis before shooting was that the HI-TEK coated bullets would be an epic fail and result in SEVERE leading due to the poor fit and pressures of the cartridge. I know this is getting long winded, but stick with me here.
At the starting charge (8.6 gr) the bore was SQUEAKY clean. It looked like I had just shot jacketed through it (typical results with HI-TEK coated bullets). I was pretty happy. Now as I moved up in charges you can begin to see the HI-TEK fail in the barrel…I think. What happened at 8.8 gr all the way to 9.5 gr is at the end of each 10 shot string there were some streaks in the end of the barrel. It truly looked like lube failure from wax lubes. It looked like the lube was running out. Odd, huh?
Between each 10 shot string I hit the barrel with a dry copper cleaning brush followed by one patch. That was all it took and the streaks in the end of the barrel were gone and the barrel looked like a mirror. Now, I know you are all asking how I know it was coating failure and not powder fouling. Well, the recovered bullets show where the rifling stripped the coating off at the edge of the rifling which is where the streaks were. I am going to assume this may be from skidding due to the undersized bullets. However; the accuracy doesn’t tell that tail. Interesting indeed.
Here are the cast bullet targets:
99118
Here are the recovered bullets:
99119
Now some will assume that HI-TEK is an epic fail. Not the case at all here. The coating protected the bullet, and kept accuracy, even though it was undersized with an unknown alloy and in a high pressure cartridge. I love the stuff!
Next time I hit the range I will be shooting bullets sized to .402, and I will be working up to the book max (or whatever the brass tells me is max) with AA#7. Hopefully the accuracy continues.
No real point to this long winded post, but I just wanted to share a day with the 10mm.
Let me start this off by saying that I am no High Master when it comes to shooting pistols. I know my limitations!!
Recently I picked up one of my “Must own someday” guns. One of the big S&W autos in 10mm. I love the old S&W autos. They have proven to be accurate, reliable, rugged, and they make chicks dig you. This pistol also came from a man I have a deep respect for so putting the old girl into the lineup for mountain lion protection duty gives me a big smile on my face, and I hope it gives him a smile to know that this old warhorse is being called upon to protect my family as well.
99120
Unfortunately I haven’t had much time to play with it yet. So, with the morning being so nice, I decided to load some ammo and hit the range.
I loaded both jacketed and cast bullets. Ya’ll are thinking “Ewwwww. Jacketed bullets are gross!!” but this isn’t my first rodeo with the 10mm so I like to have some 10mm jacketed bullets in stock. In this case the jacketed bullets were 180 gr Hornady HAP bullets. I have found these bullets to be accurate, consistent, and cheap-ish through the years. Plus they look cool.
The cast boolits were RCBS 200 gr SWC that weigh 210 gr after 2 coats of HI-TEK super coat bullet coating. There really is not much to say about the bullet as the RCBS mould casts like a dream and the bullet looks good.
I’ll get to the shooting:
Jacketed bullets: As you all know, data for the 10mm Auto is all over the place for all powders and bullet combos for the cartridge. So I referenced several load manuals, the powder manufacturer, etc. Earlier this month I had worked up to 11 gr of AA#7 under the Hornady HAP bullet. The most accurate charge was 10.4 gr so far. Now, with the 10mm I like to run on the ragged edge with jacketed bullets. I mean, come on, it’s the whole purpose of the cartridge. If I wanted to shoot 40 S&W level loads then I would buy a 40 S&W, but I digress.
What I wanted to accomplish today was work up to the max charge in the Speer #13 manual and establish a charge weight ceiling. I accomplished both of those, and it just so turns out the max in the Speer manual is the load ceiling I am comfortable with using this powder. The targets are here and I’ll stick with 11.9 gr of AA#7 for my max load for this bullet/powder combo.
99117
Cast bullets:
After shooting all the jacketed bullet loads I cleaned the barrel with Hoppes #9, patched it dry, and then ran two soaked patches of Butch’s bore shine through the barrel. I let it soak while I changed targets and had a smoke. I then patched the bore completely dry.
The bullets fired today were sized to .401 and coated with 2 coats of HI-TEK Supercoat bullet coating. The alloy is of unknown hardness and makeup as I just add stuff to it over the years. It smushes the same against wheel weights though. Now, I did slug the barrel and it measured at .402. Why am I shooting boolits sized to .401 then? Well…I’m a methodical individual and wanted to shoot these to see the results before I opened up my Lee sizing die (again) to .402. Some interesting things occurred and I may pursue the results further someday…maybe.
On to the shooting!!
As you can see from the targets, the groups were immediately better with the cast bullets. Go figure. Now here is the oddity. My hypothesis before shooting was that the HI-TEK coated bullets would be an epic fail and result in SEVERE leading due to the poor fit and pressures of the cartridge. I know this is getting long winded, but stick with me here.
At the starting charge (8.6 gr) the bore was SQUEAKY clean. It looked like I had just shot jacketed through it (typical results with HI-TEK coated bullets). I was pretty happy. Now as I moved up in charges you can begin to see the HI-TEK fail in the barrel…I think. What happened at 8.8 gr all the way to 9.5 gr is at the end of each 10 shot string there were some streaks in the end of the barrel. It truly looked like lube failure from wax lubes. It looked like the lube was running out. Odd, huh?
Between each 10 shot string I hit the barrel with a dry copper cleaning brush followed by one patch. That was all it took and the streaks in the end of the barrel were gone and the barrel looked like a mirror. Now, I know you are all asking how I know it was coating failure and not powder fouling. Well, the recovered bullets show where the rifling stripped the coating off at the edge of the rifling which is where the streaks were. I am going to assume this may be from skidding due to the undersized bullets. However; the accuracy doesn’t tell that tail. Interesting indeed.
Here are the cast bullet targets:
99118
Here are the recovered bullets:
99119
Now some will assume that HI-TEK is an epic fail. Not the case at all here. The coating protected the bullet, and kept accuracy, even though it was undersized with an unknown alloy and in a high pressure cartridge. I love the stuff!
Next time I hit the range I will be shooting bullets sized to .402, and I will be working up to the book max (or whatever the brass tells me is max) with AA#7. Hopefully the accuracy continues.
No real point to this long winded post, but I just wanted to share a day with the 10mm.