Ruger SR9C keyholes!

[FergusonTO35]

I bought my Ruger SR9C in 2011 and have put around 1500 rounds through. The pistol has always been a great shooter. Reliable function and more accurate than I can hold. My pet 9mm load is 3.5 or 3.7 grains Bullseye under a Lee .356-120-TC as cast (.357) with 50/50, put thousands of them through many differet guns. Unfortunately the last few times I have fired it I have been getting keyholes and huge groups at 20 feet. Switch to the Glock 19 and get small groups with neat round holes. Switching the ammo to FMJ helps but still there is no reason for the pistol to suddenly reject ammo that gave no problems previously and all my others still eat up no problem.

Switch to FMJ and the problem seems to go away, but we all know thats not an acceptable solution! I'm thinking maybe the barrel on my pistol was kind of marginal to begin with and has now progressed to keyhole city. Sounds like it needs to go back to Ruger for a new barrel. What say you guys?

[tazman]

I have owned a couple of pistols that had thin rifling in the barrels. They invariably had trouble with cast boolits. Seems the boolits skid over the thin rifling causing all kinds of inaccuracy problems including keyholing.
I wouldn't expect a barrel to wear down to the place it would no longer shoot well in just 1500 rounds unless, as you said, it was marginal to begin with. First thing I would try is a slightly larger diameter boolit with a harder alloy if that is available(or water quench) just to see if that makes any difference. If not then a new barrel sounds in order.

[Magana559]

Had the same issue with my sr9c, turns out it really hates cast boolits.....unless i powder coat them.

[kungfustyle]

Not to kick a hornets nest, and from your post it looks like you know what your doing, but is this the first time that you've shot that load in the summer???? Sometimes, loads will very a vast amount from winter to summer from heat and humidity levels. Living in Florida this is a part of life. Just an idea. If this has been a progressive thing, send it back....
Did you slug the barrel when you started? Does it key hole right off the bat or after it heats up?

[FergusonTO35]

Hey there Kung Fu. The keyholing starts two or three rounds into it. I'm really not getting much lead out of the bore when I clean it, no more than usual it seems. If the bore is oversize then the rifling just may not be able to engrave the boolit enough to get it spinning. I do most of my pistol shooting in the summer 'cause its too hot for rifle shooting. The Glock 19 and Kel-Tec PF9 are still shooting this load just fine. Today we had an unseasonably mild day and the keyholes still happened. Ruger has had some barrel problems the past few years. Mostly it has been peening or odd wear in the area where it locks into the slide but it wouldn't surprise me some of them were overbore.

i'm going to to have my dealer send it back this week, we shall see what happens.

[kungfustyle]

Good luck on the gun. Post what happens. I'm interested to see what the outcome is. They will probably re-barrel the thing and get it back to you. Keyholing usually is a sign of the boolits being to small for the bore. Barrel may be expanding after 3 or for rounds and then throwing everything off.

[dubber123]

I have a few 9mm's, but none as new as your Ruger. 3 get .358" boolits, 1 gets .359" The bores on these are as big or bigger than any of my .38's or .357's I think loose bores in 9mm is much more common than believed. Good luck.

[bedbugbilly]

I'm shooting the same boolit sized to 357 over 3.5 gr of BE in my SR9. TL in paste wax/alox. I don't have a leading problem and haven't had any key holing. I've never slugged my bore as these seem to work so well out of it. I'll be interested in seeing what Ruger has to say about your SR9c.

Just curious - do you have any idea how many cast rounds you've put through it? It seems odd that all of a sudden you'd have a problem . . I.E. it wasn't a progressive thing. It will be interesting to see what Ruger has to say about it. Good luck and we look forward to hearing what they do.

[Ben]

If he mentions that he is firing cast bullets in the pistol, I KNOW what Ruger will say ! !

[FergusonTO35]

Don't worry, not gonna tell Ruger about the boolits. There are factory boolit rounds available, and I dont see how Ruger could prohibit you from using them. Thing is, the pistol has shot boolits for three years now no problem until just the last month or so. The Ruger P95 I had ate 'em no problem, as did the SR9C until now. I would say I have put at least 900 rounds of boolits through it and until now the pistol shot them very well.

[FergusonTO35]

Update: I decided to clean the barrel really good and put 25 rounds through the SR9C today, 3.4 grains IMR 700X under the Lee 356-120-TC as cast with 1.055 OAL. The first few groups were awesome, nice little cloverleafs on point of aim. After that the groups opened up alot and I got some more keyholes, though not as many as last time.


While cleaning the pistol I noticed some streaks of lead in front of the chamber. That suggests to me the load has too much pressure for the bullet. I looked at Hodgdon's data and found that they list an OAL of 1.150. 700X is a fast powder and about the only one that can be found here. I've used 3.2/3.3 grains before no problem, maybe is just too much for these slugs. I'll try my pet load of 3.5 grains Bullseye. If it won't shoot that one perfectly then the pistol is for sure going back to Ruger.

[bedbugbilly]

Thanks for the update! It will be interesting to hear if the 3.5 BE load gives you better results. If the 3.2/4/3 gr load worked before - have you any changes in batch of what your boolits are cast from? All out of the same batch of lead or different?

[FergusonTO35]

Got up early this morning to celebrate the 4th with my favorite kind of fireworks. B

[kungfustyle]

Try letting the sit and cool for a bit in between volleys.... I know that the Ruger isn't a 1911 but some are made to be deadly accurate for 5 rounds then the bbl swells from the heat and about seizes the gun. That may be happening, aka barrel swelling. If that solves the problem, send it back. The 1911's issue is due to a tight bushing but not the Ruger and that would be a pain in the @$$.

[williamwaco]

I have had keyholes with that bullet.

It has always been caused by light loads with .356 sizing.

[HeavyMetal]

Steaks of lead in front of chamber suggest to much pressure for the boolit?

Partly correct you have to much pressure for the alloy it's skidding a touch before the rifling take effect. Hence good groups going south as you shoot the load.

Have you made or changed your alloy recently?

A lube change? is your 50/50 a tumble lube?

Will suggest trying some a bit harder, water drop next casting session ands maybe try another lube.

My thought is it worked before and now it won't so something your doing has changed and 1500 lead boolits won't wear out a barrel!

[FergusonTO35]

Yesterday I put some 124 grain FMJ through it with excellent accuracy. Then I tried 3.5 grains Bullseye/122 grain LTC. No keyholing although the accuracy wasn't as good. Upon cleaning I found no lead deposits of note. My boolits drop out of the mold at a little over .357 and are pan lubed with 50/50, no sizing needed. I think that the recent keyholes were caused by the undersized Speer boolits and then too large a charge of 700X.

I'll put some more known good loads through it and report back. The guys on the Ruger forum are all telling me to switch to FMJ or plated. Sorry guys, that just ain't gonna happen!

[petroid]

If you're switching between cast and jacketed, could copper fouling be stripping lead from the cast boolits and causing leading and therefore poor accuracy, skidding, and keyholing. I know you have said before that it keyholed with cast without mentioning any fmj, but could it have had copper fouling that wasn't removed prior to shooting cast? Just trying to figure out all the possibilities

[FergusonTO35]

Prior to when the keyholes started I had strictly fed it boolits for about two years. The recent use of FMJ was to see if it would also keyhole them as the pistol has always been super accurate with the 124 grain FMJ.

[44MAG#1]

Water quench some bullets cast in a fairly hot mold and wait 4 or 5 days and then try them. Not saying super hard will turn the trick but if you haven't tried that what will it hurt? Harder for the bullets to skid with super hard. Now the " soft is better" boys will come out in full force on this and I am not going to argue with them but if you haven't tried brick hard bullets try them. Cast hot, drop them from the mold just AS SOON as the sprue gets hard enough to prevent smearing into a bucket of cold water.

[Old Caster]

Soft bullets are better but only if you aren't swaging them down with the brass when you are seating the bullet. You need to expand your cases a bit more. Shooting a harder bullet might be the way to go if you don't want to expand your cases because if the bullet is hard enough, the case won't swage them down. Measure one of the bullets after you remove one with a inertia bullet puller. They might be swaged down to as small as .354.

[FergusonTO35]

Update: it looks like the crappy Speer boolits and too much 700X were the culprit here. Over the past week I've fired a bunch of my own boolits with 3.3 grains of 700X. No keyholing although accuracy is still better with jacketed bullets.


Overall I think that the SR9C would do way better with a 1:16 twist barrel. The 1:9, 1:10 or whatever it comes with does really well with jacketed bullets, which I understand most owners use. My Glock 19 has a Storm Lake 1:16 twist barrel and will shoot groups half the size with the same ammo at the same distance, all day long. Storm Lake told me they are considering making barrels for the SR series so if this is something you also would like to see, contact them and say so.