boolits tumbling in the air

[squid1230]

I am perturbed. I went to the range today to try out my newly cast 9mm boolits from my lee mould. Nearly every one of them tumbled and hit the target sideways. My only guess is that they are too small and not sealing against the rifling and not spinning up. I also noticed an inordinate amount of smoke ( gasses?) exiting the barrel ( see possible explanation above). Am I on track with my thinking? I measured one and it was .363 across the middle.

[geargnasher]

??

How do you know they were tumbling?

Are there any engraving marks on the boolits, especially the .363" one?

How did they group?

Did your barrel lead?

Were there any flecs of lead in the target or left in your barrel?

What load were you using?

What kind of lube? (most boolit lubes smoke a little to a lot, depending on what you use).



Gear

[garandsrus]

squid1230,

The most common cause of tumbling is too small a boolit. Having said that, if your boolits measured .363 (I assume this is before shooting it) then they are a lot bigger than what would be the "normal" size for a 9mm. I believe that jacketed bullets are .356 and that most folks size 9mm cast to .357 through .359, based on their barrel and chamber dimensions.

Did you size the boolits or shoot them at .363? If you did size them, make sure that you measure them after sizing. I would also suggest pulling a boolit from a loaded round and measuring it also. It is possible that the boolit is being sized by the brass or one of your dies, such as a Lee FCD.

What alloy did you use for the boolits and what velocity are you shooting them at?

John

[jmar254]

That is awfully big, I just measured mine and they are 356/357.

I'd check your powder load, I had horrible tumbling when I loaded them on top of 4.3 grains of Win 231. I have backed that off to 3.9 and that helped 100%.

I do miss the tumbling sometimes, I scored in USPSA a couple times when they went in sideways looked like two hits. SSSSSHHHHHHHH don't tell anyone.

[Slow Elk 45/70]

Squid, I doubt that your mold is dropping .363 boolits, Typo ?? more likely .353, which would mean that they are under size for most 9mm that I have ever seen. which is a cause for your problem which can be compounded by really hard boolits that won't bump up to fill the bore.

Check your measuring device . Also more information will help you get better assistance with your questions. Which Lee mold/ did you slug your barrel, what is the grove size / what alloy are you using/ Powder / lube / sizing diameter or no sizing for starters and then maybe we could help you out.

[squid1230]

Hi guys,
Thanks for the responses. I measured late last night after a long and decidedly disappointing day so it would be reasonable to assume I measured wrong. I will check again. I used range lead but hardened it with tin ( perhaps too much) and water dropped.

The bullet very obviously turned sideways and punched through the target so. Very clearly so in fact. I never recovered a bullet ( I tried) to check for rifling marks. Barrel was clean with no flecks.

I am using 4.2gr of titegroup. I used Lee TL356-124-TC double cavity. It claims no sizing required. I tumble lubed with liquid Alox ( hate the stuff). I'll double check the size again and pull some bullets from cases.

btw, I never slugged the barrel

[Ian Robertson]

I used one of these and it always tumbled. I got on to Lee and they said they couldn't figure out why that one always tumbled and the single groove version did not. They sent me the version with the single grease groove and it was okay as they said. They still sell it however so it must be okay in some guns.

[HeavyMetal]

After reading Ian's response I'm going to suggest two things.

First take a magnifiying glass and examine the muzzle crown area of your barrel. Yuor looking for Nicks, dents or simply a mis-aligned "relief" area on the crown.

If the muzzle checks out my second suggestion is to try another boolit!

If that cures the problem send that TL mold back to Lee.

Never been a fan of Liquid alox either! Good to get you shooting but messy! Save some money and buy a good lube sizer as soon as you can.

[geargnasher]

Squid 1230: 4.2 grains of Titegroup seems a litte hot to me, especially for a starting load, Hodgdon's data says 4.0 as max for a 125gr lcn.

Slug your barrel, and make sure your measuring device is accurate. Calipers are not good enough, you need a c-clamp type 0-1" micrometer, properly calibrated, measure at room temp, hold the mic at the correct place to avoid transfer of body heat and distortion of the mic frame.

Range lead can be anything, but usually runs a bit soft for me (j-word projectiles have almost pure lead cores) but that's ok if you add 2% tin or so, just remember that water-dropping only makes them harder if there is a percentage of antimony and/or arsenic in the alloy, usually found in ww.

BEFORE WORKING UP A LOAD, WEIGH YOUR CAST BOOLITS. There can be dangerous differences between rated mould weight and actual cast weight due to alloy composition. Your boolits my be 105 grains or they may be 133, who knows, but it makes a big difference in how you develop your load.

Try for .001" or better over groove diameter, you may need to buy a push-through sizer to get it right, but do a search on this site for 9mm issues, some guys have a lot of trouble with leading, lla, and the nine. Some don't, see what they do.

To recover your boolits, check out JIMinPHX's thread on boolit traps (skip to page 5 to see his condensed results) he did a heck of a lot of really good research and was kind enough to share all for our benefit.

Also read some of the threads here on LLA, some love it, some hate it, (I was once advised that it's like Ford vs. Chevy), often more a matter more of opinion than science. I use it with good success in some applications.

Another thing to double-check is seating depth (oal). Try to get the boolit a close to the lands in the chamber as you can and still get them to feed (load unprimed dummies and cycle them through the gun by hand, check for land marks on boolit noses). Some guns like the Glock reportedly have very short leades if I remember correctly (I have no experience casting for them, only for the 9mm XD) so I'm not much help, but depending on what gun you have there may be a problem. Again, answers to those type of questions are already here, just dig!

Hope this helps.

Gear

[fredj338]

What pistol? How does the pistol shoot w/ jacketed bullets? Have you tried any commercial cast lead bullets? There can be several factors, undersized (possible w/ Lee molds) is just one. Did all the bullets tumble or did they start after a few rounds? Leading is certainly possible w/ soft range scrap & tin. Tin doesn't give you much hardening & range scrap/tin alloy gtes no benefit from water dropping. You need antimony & arsenic, which is in lead shot & clip on ww.
A couple of thoughts on the load. Many shooters complain about TG & leading, it burns very hot (excess smole). You load is pretty far over book max & while may be fine in your pistol, TG is NOT a powder I want to flirt max pressures w/.

[squid1230]

You know what guys? I misread and used the load from 115g bullets. I see now that I am at max or close to it. Would that make the bullet tumble?

Not all the bullets tumbled, though I would say the majority did in a completely random fashion.

I measured again using my Starrett 1" caliper and they are .356

The gun showed no nicks or other obvious "trauma" at the muzzle.

I'm using a Norc np-28. Fired quite a few jacketed bullets with nary a problem. There is no evidence of leading, though once I realized they were tumbling I stopped shooting and had only fired 8-10 rounds.

[squid1230]

Jmar254 - I'm going for my first ever ipsc match tomorrow. Maybe I should use this load and score double "A" hits?! ;)

[243winxb]

Same Lee type mold here, leading problem. The TL's just don't seem to shoot well in 9mm. Seen it a few time now on different boards. http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=55276 Make sure your alloy is hard enough. 24BHN Check that the loaded round is not being sized by the bullet seating die, or a FCD. Pull a loaded bullet and check bullet diameter.

[squid1230]

.356 was from a pulled bullet so I don't think the seating die is sizing it. I will tone down the load somewhat and see if that makes a difference. Now I have 150 rounds to pull - should keep me busy till the rain stops. Thanks for all your help gentlemen.

[squid1230]

Well, I reduced the load and every shot runs true. Thanks for all the help guys!

[Ian Robertson]

I find it hard to believe that too hot a load can cause tumbling?? I would expect it the other way around and have seen that. I suspect your problem may not be solved. Was the temp way different or anything like that? Did you change more than one thing at a time?

[Leftoverdj]

I find it hard to believe that too hot a load can cause tumbling?? I would expect it the other way around and have seen that. I suspect your problem may not be solved. Was the temp way different or anything like that? Did you change more than one thing at a time?

BELIEVE!

Plain base bullets have very definite pressure limits, and base damage is the usual cause of tumbling.

[MtGun44]

9mms very commonly tumble with .355 or .356 boolits. You need to size them to .357 or
even .358, then you will get good accy. If you mold won't throw that big, read up on
"Beagling" the mold to increase as cast diam, or change alloy to more lead.

I have yet to see a 9mm that didn't need .357 or larger boolits for best accy, and have
seen MANY that will tumble commercial cast .356 hard boolits.

Bill

[shotman]

He didnt say what gun but I found that the hotter loads in a glock dont shoot like they do in a sig or S&W . 4g of titegroup in a 9mm is a hot load. I load 3.3 and It does good

[Bret4207]

I find it hard to believe that too hot a load can cause tumbling?? I would expect it the other way around and have seen that. I suspect your problem may not be solved. Was the temp way different or anything like that? Did you change more than one thing at a time?

AS DJ said, believe it. Too hot a load and resulting pressure wave can do all sorts of nasty things. In this case he didn't get any apparent leading in 8-10 rounds. At 12-20 rounds who knows what might have happened.

[wallenba]

Slug your bore, recheck the bullet diameter. Were these these Lee Micro-band bullets? The smoke could be from Alox, if thats what you are lubing with

[44mag1]

Interesting, The only bullets Ive ever had come out of a pistol and hit the target sideways were lee tl and were lubed with lla. [lee 175g 10mm tl using unique out of a kkm precision barrel and lubed with lla] Changed powders and cured the problem.

[squid1230]

Indeed these were Lee micro-band TL boolits. Reduced to 3.4gr titegroup and they all run true.

Coincidentally my Para has started to throw the odd jacketed bullet sideways too. Must be me.

[TAWILDCATT]

why is it that most seem to want to load maxim,I load 45 to target and have excelent results.I must try my lee six cavity mold. have not cast any yet.to busy with other loadings.and I will try WW with out any additions as the WW work fantastic in my 1903 at 1680fts.I have a browning Hi Power and a Hi Point,also a tokoreve,in 30/9mm.