Lee 9mm Tumble Lubes any good?

[35 Whelen]

I've always shot jacketed in my 9mm just because I shoot it so little. But the wife and I fired it quite a bit over the weekend and replacing those expensive jacketed bullets made me realize that for not much more than the price of 100 bullets, I can buy a Lee 9mm mould.
I shoot tons of cast in my .30 caliber rifles, so my lubrisizer stays set up to size and lube those bullets. Not wanting to hassle with changing sizing dies it occurred to me that I could just tumble lube my 9mm bullets. I honestly hate the mess of tumble lubing, but not as much as having to change dies in my sizer.
So do either the RN or TC tumble lube bullets shoot well? Anyone here have any experience with them?
Thanks,
35W

[Willbird]

Some love TL bullets. I HATE them myself. For one thing you have to live with the as cast diameter, which in semi-auto pistols may be overly large. YES you CAN size them, but if you have to size them you might as well be lube sizing them :-). Also if your picky you will wipe the TL off the bullet bases. Then there is the issue of it building up in the bullet seater die.

All things considered I hate TL :-).

Bill

[35 Whelen]

I've tumble lubed some standard bullets, and like you, the lube drove me crazy. I hate any kind of lube on the bullet base, so I'd have to wipe them off as I picked them out of the lubing cup. Then after they dried and were loaded, I'd wipe the lube off the noses because cast bullets with that dried, brown goo on the noses were...well.... just ugly.
35W

[Reddot]

...I'd wipe the lube off the noses because cast bullets with that dried, brown goo on the noses were...well.... just ugly.
35W

Does the brown goo on the nose affect leading of the barrel or is it just a pain because it is unsightly?

[Junior1942]

Does the brown goo on the nose affect leading of the barrel or is it just a pain because it is unsightly?It builds up inside the seating die stem. It's easy to remove from the bullets' nose. Just swipe the nose across a rag before you set the bullet in the case. I'm a big LLA and Lee size die fan for both TL and regular cast bullets in 44 mag pistol, 357 rifle, and 30-30 rifle. When I discovered Lee push-through dies and LLA, I took my Lyman 450 off my bench.

[Scrounger]

Some love TL bullets. I HATE them myself. For one thing you have to live with the as cast diameter, which in semi-auto pistols may be overly large. YES you CAN size them, but if you have to size them you might as well be lube sizing them :-). Also if your picky you will wipe the TL off the bullet bases. Then there is the issue of it building up in the bullet seater die.

All things considered I hate TL :-).

Bill

I hate Broccoli (Good Lord!! Something in common with Geo Bush! Oh, the shame of it all...). Also Cauliflower, Asparagus, Liver, and numerous other objects.

[Kuato]

Well, I seem to be the exception. I use the LEE tl tc boolit in all my 9mm & can load em as cast in 38spl as they drop at .358. I TL, size to .356 & tl again. Never had any issues with sticky boolits. I don't drown em in LLA. Just 2 light coats & never had any leading problems.

The LEE 9mm TC shoots very well out of all my pistols, my Sub9 carbine & my MPA Mac11. The pistols used are, German Luger, S&W mod 39, Sig226, & Browning HP.

I run the boolits through a LEE push sizer with zero problems. All rounds feed perfectly & shoot very accurately. I load with either AA5 or Universal. Both have worked very well for me..

[KSCowboy]

I'm with Kuato. I use the round nose 9mm tumble lube bullet in both 9mm and 38 special. For volume shooting of these two calibers by the wife and kids I think it can't be beat. Combine that with the six hole mould and you get a lot of bullets ready to shoot in pretty short order.

The build up of lube in the seating die is a little annoying but the time I take to periodically clean out my seater die is nothing compared to the time it would have taken me to send all those bullets one at a time through my luber/sizer.

The "unsightly" look of them doesn't bother me a bit. These are simply mass produced plinking bullets for tin cans and such.

[timkelley]

I had a learning curve difficulty with my TL 124TC Lee boolits when I 1st tried them, turned out to be the oversized bore of my PT111. Fired unsized but tumblelubed once in LLA and one day later in JPW they go thru that pistol real fine. They are also real good in my XDm9.