lead bullets in your luger ??

[zorro]

howdy , thinking about reloading for my 1939 vintage luger , has anyone tried cast lead bullets ???
many thanks zorro

[tinsmith]

Zorro
I've shot jacketed 115 grain bullets out of my 1936 Luger. I loaded them with light loads of Unique powder (5 grains wotked well in mine). The Luger is particular as to bullet nose shape and O.A.L. I have not tried cast bullets.
There are two excellent articles about shooting Lugers:
"Making the Luger Shoot" American Rifleman January 1981
"The Luger is a Shooter" Handguns September 1996
One suggestion given in both articles is to be sure to use the late style firing pin with three gas grooves in case you have a pierced primer.
Jeff

[dubber123]

I was fooling with lead in my Luger just a week or so ago. I was using a heavier 150 grain boolit to get mine to shoot to point of aim.

Lead seemed to be fine, I did get a few malfunctions, but I was shooting one handed due to a recent accident, so I may have been "limp wristing" it, which I hear is a common cause of Luger malfunctions. Overall length was very important.

[miestro_jerry]

I have shot round nose and truncated conicals through a Luger with no problems. I kept the load kind of mediocre because I didn't know how strong the action was.

Jerry

[txpete]

I just tried cast in my stoeger american eagle 9mm.
my 124 gr lrn .356
3.8 grs bullseye
win brass
CCI sp primers.

shot great no problems:-D.I haven't got a die set yet for the 30 luger but thats coming soon.
pete

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/txpete/luger.jpg

[dahermit]

howdy , thinking about reloading for my 1939 vintage luger , has anyone tried cast lead bullets ???
many thanks zorroI have fired lots of RN home cast bullets in my Luger and other 9mm's. However, I use 125gr. round nose gas check bullets. I have never experienced any leading with the gas checked bullets. The mold is available from RCBS.

I use gas checked bullets because a Luger needs a little more "push" than a lot of other actions. Remember that Lugers were designed to use hot military loadings...plain based bullets may lead at the required velocity.

[zorro]

howdy , sounds like lead is not the way to go with my luger, many thanks zorro

[txpete]

howdy , sounds like lead is not the way to go with my luger, many thanks zorro

my above load was with a PB 124 gr bullet.I had no leading and that load worked the action just fine.just a heads up.
pete

[rojo]

hi , I read thru this post , so can you shoot lead bullits in a old Luger without leading spray into the toggle action ??
is it a chore to clean the Luger after using lead bullets , just curious as i have been eyeing my old Luger and would like to shoot it again, rojo

[Jbar4Ranch]

I've shot cast bullets in my 7.65 Luger... RCBS's 32-77-RN is what comes to mind...? I don't remember it being a problem.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v93/jbar4ranch/Luger1911.jpg

[rojo]

hi , so you pistol packers have tried and used lead bullets in your Luger without any problems and minor mess and clean up??

[NuJudge]

Lately, I've been using a SAECO 147gr bevel-based round-nose with a flat tip. I've been using Bullseye, mostly because I want to burn the powder up.

Because there's bullet lubricant present, there is more muck about the receiver than with jacketed bullets, but the price of the bullets is effectively zero.

[rojo]

hi guys , great lead is ok for my luger , what diameter do you use to size the bullets ??
also has anyone tried IMR 700X in a luger ??
many thanks rojo

[RogerWatsonfromIdaho]

I tried three cast bullets in the Luger. H&G#52 154 grains cast with wheelweights with NO tin added.
H&G#115BB 124 grains cast with wheelweights with NO tin added.
Saeco#383 140 grain cast with wheelweights with NO tin added.

H&G#52 shot closest to the sights at 25 yards.

I worked up loads with HS-7.
The Speer #14 manual has a 147 grain load for HS-7.
My load is 1.4 grains BELOW the starting load. I wanted a load, which would function the action reliably.

I was finding rings of lead in the action with bullets sized to 0.357”.
This stopped when I sized the bullets to 0.356”. I figure the bullet was shaving lead going into the bore.