MP 359-125 hp 9mm expansion

[glockky]

Have a 359-125hp mold coming from miha. Was hoping to find some info on what alloy to use? I plan to PC this bullet and would like to get reliable expansion.

And do you recommend the way Penta pins or the regular hp pins?

I realize I will have to do some testing and I look forward to it. I would just like to find a good starting point. Thanks

[tomme boy]

20:1 would be ideal I would think. I don't care if they expand. I just want them to shoot well and they do.

I have the mold and love it. I like the round pins over the penta. Make sure to heat cycle it at least 5 times before you use it. And back the pins off a 1/2 turn to prevent them from sticking in the mold.

[popper]

IIRC OS_OK has the stuff for his 38s. ElvisAmmo did 9mm tests with 50/50 and got no expansion from a RN in Gel. I'm running some near pure tests with 40sw, expansion is good on a 3/4" fiber siding backer, when they tumble you get a rectangle vs a sideways TC with L.G. Don't think I need a HP.

[OS OK]

Working on a HP load...'Barrel Lengths Matter' (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?318639-Working-on-a-HP-load-Barrel-Lengths-Matter)

A bit of a long thread but all the velocities, Pb blends etc. are listed here, empirical evidence with many inputs and best of all pictures and details from other members. You'll see all kinds of tested HP's here.

Learning to blend for a particular HP design and handgun combination is very rewarding...I prefer the round cavities because they mushroom more evenly without the problem of fragmentation from the penta's angled edges inside the HP.

Good Luck . . . Kentuk!

[glockky]

I'll have to come up with some type of good test media that is easy to use and not as expensive as gel.

[jmort]

Wet paper best second choice. Water is hard on bullets and really provides little real world information, except straight line penetration. For hollow-points/soft-points water is fun but not useful. It will open up bullets that will never ever open open up in real world situations. Water is a good measure of the penetration of non-expnding bullets. But regardless, shooting water is fun.

[OS OK]

Wet paper best second choice. Water is hard on bullets and really provides little real world information, except straight line penetration. For hollow-points/soft-points water is fun but not useful. It will open up bullets that will never ever open open up in real world situations. Water is a good measure of the penetration of non-expnding bullets. But regardless, shooting water is fun.

I disagree about the water being useless...when elvis ammo tested my .38 Special SWC-3-wing HP's with the initiator tips they opened exactly in the gel as they did in the water tube.
He published the live test on you tube and the link was included in my post.

[BK7saum]

I disagree about the water being useless...when elvis ammo tested my .38 Special SWC-3-wing HP's with the initiator tips they opened exactly in the gel as they did in the water tube.
He published the live test on you tube and the link was included in my post.
I think the initiator tips were the main reason the gel test mimicked the water test. Typically HP open much more in water than gel or less dense/fluid medium.

My experience mimics what others have seen. A hollow point will open more in water that in wet paper, gel, etc. Not useless, but if all your testing was in water, and you expect the same expansion in tissue or other medium, you will be sorely disappointed.

[OS OK]

I'm not arguing that it is the same. At the limitations I tested under using 750 FPS as max. I could achieve in the .38 Snubbie and having to make the Pb blend so soft...the results were the same.
At higher velocities starting around 1,200 FPS I think the water 'harsh' factor goes up exponentially. I haven't tested up there.

I don't want to turn this fellas thread into an argument so I'll just rest my case right here.

[jmort]

In the video from Elvis that you linked, around minute 11, he shows a disintegrated bullet that he says you sent him from water testing, and concludes that it is most like the disintegrated bullet fired from the 5" revolver. So water disintegrated your bullet and Elvis said the bullet disintegrated from the 5" revolver at the higher velocity was the best comparison. Not sure what we learn other than the alloy used comes apart at higher velocity without the HP being plugged in gel, and at lower velocity, water will disintegrate the bullet alloy used with the HP plugged.

Again, I see results from wet paper as being the best alternative to ballistic gelatin.

[Forrest r]

I cast that bullet in the 9bhn/10bhn range and pc them. That hp preforms extremely well in a short bbl'd (3.2" bbl) 9mm/1050fps load.

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t242/forrestr-photo/9mmtaurus_zpsnlqcm8kg.jpg (http://s162.photobucket.com/user/forrestr-photo/media/9mmtaurus_zpsnlqcm8kg.jpg.html)

[OS OK]

In the video from Elvis that you linked, around minute 11, he shows a disintegrated bullet that he says you sent him from water testing, and concludes that it is most like the disintegrated bullet fired from the 5" revolver. So water disintegrated your bullet and Elvis said the bullet disintegrated from the 5" revolver at the higher velocity was the best comparison. Not sure what we learn other than the alloy used comes apart at higher velocity without the HP being plugged in gel, and at lower velocity, water will disintegrate the bullet alloy used with the HP plugged.

Again, I see results from wet paper as being the best alternative to ballistic gelatin.

It's obvious by your half baked comments and conclusions that you didn't follow the thread...as usual. Your just pulling 'your opinions' right out of your 'spinster' and trying to get them to stick.
There were 17 pages of changes and slight modifications that went hand and hand in making a successful HP.

Roll out some links of posts you have done and show your empirical evidence so we all can get to be as smart as you Mr mort.

[glockky]

Let's keep this post going so we can all learn from it. I plan to post my results here. I won't get to do any casting till next weekend.

[jmort]

You said

"I don't want to turn this fellas thread into an argument so I'll just rest my case right here."

Then on you go.

You said

"when elvis ammo tested my .38 Special SWC-3-wing HP's with the initiator tips they opened exactly in the gel as they did in the water tube.
He published the live test on you tube and the link was included in my post."

I watched the video. I just stated the facts from the video. Just the facts.

You should be arguing with Elvis, not me. But I forgot you "rested your case" and stated the intention to cease arguing. I was never arguing. Just stating the facts.

[jmort]

Let's keep this post going so we can all learn from it. I plan to post my results here. I won't get to do any casting till next weekend.

Please do so.

[OS OK]

Roll out some links of posts you have done and show your empirical evidence so we all can get to be as smart as you Mr mort.




Sorry for the diversion here Glockky... I'll back out. I just get tired of seeing post like this get ruined by some 'drive by poster' like this mort. Always full of comments but never doing any of the work himself...bla-bla-bla.

[jmort]

You are one touchy dude. I was minding my own business and you commented on my post. Again, I was minding my own business. I just stated the facts. Nothing personal. You seem to have some weird personality disorder. You said you were not here to argue, and then you become unhinged. Leave me alone. This is not The Pit.

[Drew P]

I wonder if small bags of jello or ballistic gel suspended in water would give the benefits of the gel without the cost of a larger amount. Use the mass of water to support the gel.

oh ps, keep up the fight it's entertaining.

[jmort]

This seems reasonable and affordable

https://www.clearballistics.com/?gclid=Cj0KEQiAgJTGBRDLr5_az_Ouk44BEiQAIxaA4kfc2bD LOp4XXHbSFfcze5AhdtO3b1v0rIJPJXspC64aArKq8P8HAQ

[Drew P]

That doesn't seem affordable to me. 550$ for a torso!

[jmort]

This is what I would get
Reuseable and $255
Seems fair to me.
2- 10% BALLISTIC GELATIN FBI BLOCKS W/ (1) FREE FBI BLOCK MOLD
$255.00

[glockky]

That's a little expensive to me. I think I'll start with water or wet pack.

Are you guys who use water for testing just shooting water jugs or are you shooting into some type of barrel or pipe?

[Boolseye]

I used to gather together a bunch of phone books and such and soak them. Complete mess, but it did the job. In my various testing, I found that an alloy that was around 7-9 BHN and at least 900 fps was necessary for good expansion, to give you a ballpark.

[reloader28]

We drink alotta milk so I use milk jugs. Some say that water is a worthless test, but a body is about 90% water and according to my testing, my varmint boolits work pretty darn close to my milk jug results so I will stick with it.

[glockky]

I figure the water will be the easiest place to get initial results. Data gathered from that testing will allow you to eliminate some variables before moving to wet pack.

I figure if a bullet won't expand in water there's not a chance of it working good in gel or wet pack. The 9mm should be easier to work with than some of the 38 special testing I've seen, due to the velocity increase. Should have about 300 fps velocity window to play with. I'm shooting for around 1100 fps.

[41mag]

When I started pouring HP' s I found out real quick that dead soft isn't always the answer.

My main alloy uses those large iso cores which usually run around a 1/3/96. On it's own it is great for solids, but it's too brittle for HP' s resulting in the noses blowing off.

So I downloaded the alloy calculator and started brewing up small batches and testing on my own. Due to the antimony content my first goal was to reduce the percentage so I added in pure lead. Then I needed it to be malleable so I added in some pure tin to equal the calculated antimony and things started working really good.

Since then I have settled on two different blends which work great depending on the velocity I run them at. One works awesome up to 1000fps and the other does as well up to around 1350'ish depending on the caliber or cavity.

Don't be afraid to try different blends but do so in small 5 pound batches and keep good records of amounts and temps you pour at.

Hope this helps

[fredj338]

Water is always a poor test imo. It can show fragmentation from a bullet that opens nicely in gel or tissue. It can also expand a bullet decently that fails in gel or tissue or wetpack for that matter. My poor mans gel has always been proper wetpack.
The penta HP point or such always gets things going a bit better than HP. Better for lower vel bullets IMO. I am a fan of 25-1 for bullets under 1200fps. I like 20-1 for bullets going faster than that.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/fredj338/9mm-136-1200.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/fredj338/media/9mm-136-1200.jpg.html) http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/fredj338/136hp-1050.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/fredj338/media/136hp-1050.jpg.html)http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/fredj338/45-215gr.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/fredj338/media/45-215gr.jpg.html)

[tomme boy]

Factory jacketed has about 5% antimony and no tin. It makes the lead flow instead of fracturing.

[yondering]

Have a 359-125hp mold coming from miha. Was hoping to find some info on what alloy to use? I plan to PC this bullet and would like to get reliable expansion.

And do you recommend the way Penta pins or the regular hp pins?

I realize I will have to do some testing and I look forward to it. I would just like to find a good starting point. Thanks

I've done a lot of testing with this bullet, and used it on critters as well. What level of loads are you wanting to use it for? (mild/subsonic, FMJ equivalent, or hot loads?)

I use the standard deep round pin for my subsonic/suppressed loads. Cast from air cooled wheel weights, it expands well out to at least 50+ yards; sometimes parts of the expanded nose will fracture off but that's not a bad thing, and helps kill critters a little faster in my experience.

For full power +P loads I use a modified pin that creates a much shallower hollow point; also cast from wheel weights these don't open up as far but that's necessary for them to hold together at higher velocity.

I've experimented with various alloys softer than ww, all the way down to pure lead and including lead/tin alloys like 20:1, 25:1, etc, and never found any other alloy to work better than WW for this bullet, when considering both accuracy and expansion. Some guys will claim you need a 20:1 or 30:1 alloy for hollow point expansion, but not with a well designed hollow point like this one, air cooled wheel weight or equivalent works great. YMMV

Subsonic load performance in wet pack:
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/zthang43/Bang/molds/IMG_3755.jpg

+P load at 1300 fps:
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/zthang43/Bang/molds/IMG_2349a.jpg

[glockky]

Those are some good results yondering. I had plans to shoot this bullet around 1100 fps but I'm sure I will have to adjust velocity to the alloy.

I am hoping to find a good expanding load for my glock 43 and also my 5" barreled M&P 2.0. I'm sure I will have to use different charges for each pistol but I'm fine with that. I have lots of different powder to try but will most likely stick with unique or my favorite power pistol.