9mm XD & 124gr cast

[singleshotbuff]

Gentlemen,

I have a new SA XD Tactical 9mm, 5" barrel. It shoots great with 115gr factory loads and handloads using 100gr boolits. Yesterday I bought some cast 124gr LRN boolits at a gun show, from a guy that I buy quality boolits from all the time. I loaded them with 4.9grs of HP-38 and headed to the range last night. Groups were HORRIBLE and some of the boolits went through the paper SIDEWAYS! Just to be sure, I measured the boolits when I got home, .356" just the same as my 100gr cast that shoot good.

I looked on Springfields web site and could not find the twist rate on this pistol.

I've never had boolits tumble from a 9mm before, what did I miss?

I'm at a loss, any ideas?

SSB

[45 2.1]

Lots of threads on this exact thing, do a search and spend a lot of time reading them. It boils down to the fact that most guys shoot 0.3574 to 0.358" boolits to get them shooting good.

[KTN]

Some time back,on another thread,there was same problem with .45 acp using cast boolits.If I remember correctly,problem was exxessive taper crimping.
My favorite load with 124gr cast boolit is 4.0gr of Vihtavuori N340,this is starting load for 9mm from Lyman no:48 manual,and it shoots more accurate than I can hold my G17.Also try with other brand of brass,as some brass is thicker than others.I have had similar problems with few brands of brass.


Kaj

[Lloyd Smale]

one thing i do when shooting cast out of autoloaders is to cast em hard!! either straight lyno or 5050 ly. ww. bullets have a tendency to get dammaged feeding if there soft and most autoloaders have shallow rifleing that needs a hard bullet to grab well.

[Four Fingers of Death]

I don't know that powder as it is not available here. Are they going fast enough? The slide wouldn't cycle if not I suppose. Most of my 9mm shooting was shop bought, but I also cast many thousands up to a few years ago. I was told to size at 356 and thats what I always have done and virtually all comercially cast will be 356 and I don't ever remember anyone complaining about it. I'd be slugging your Bbl to be sure.

I has a friend years ago that had all sorts of trouble and another friend and myself went over to his place to help him and we found that he was applying too much taper crimp. If you overdo it apparently the boolit will be squashed by the case and when released the brass will spring back, but unfortunately, the lead won't to the same degree.

I use 231 with the recommended load from Winchester and it works a treat.

[woody1]

Gentlemen,

I have a new SA XD Tactical 9mm, 5" barrel. It shoots great with 115gr factory loads and handloads using 100gr boolits. Yesterday I bought some cast 124gr LRN boolits at a gun show, from a guy that I buy quality boolits from all the time. I loaded them with 4.9grs of HP-38 and headed to the range last night. Groups were HORRIBLE and some of the boolits went through the paper SIDEWAYS!

SSB

First of all, I think you may be overloading. Slow the boolit down, use a reasonable starting load and try again. Slug the bore. If these boolits are very hard and undersize, you may be getting gas cutting. I run all my 9mm's and 380's thru a .357 sizer and shoot. I'm not a good enough handgun shooter to tell you if they're super good, but they don't hit sideways. PM me if you like and I can send you some boolits that work for me. Regards, Woody

[txpete]

in my XD-9..
my cast 124 lrn .356
3.8 grs of bullseye
win brass
win sp primer is my best load.
I also think you were just pushing the bullets to fast.
pete

[singleshotbuff]

Gentlemen,

Thanks for all the input. I don't think I was pushing them too fast, as I duplicated that load a couple days ago with a different boolit and they shot fine. I think I just had a bad batch of boolits, or they were too soft. I did try backing off on the taper crimp with the suspect boolits, it didn't help. I may retry them (I have a couple hundred left) with a greatly reduced powder charge, to check if they are too soft. As it is though, I think I have found a boolit that'll work, I just need to buy the mold and make them from my alloy.

4fingermick,

HP-38 is the same as W231, I think I read that they're even made in the same plant. There's usually less difference between the 2 powders than there is between differnt lots of either.

SSB