Considering Lead

[angle-0f-attack]

Hello all,

I've started doing some research on loading lead instead of jacketed 9mm. I think the key thing I've learned so far is that the BHN of the lead bullet is the biggest determiner of the charge behind it...for proper obturation...correct?

If so..my normal pressure of approx 30,000cup (115grn FMJ with 4.8grns of Win 231) will have to drop to around 13,000-15,000cup for a cast bullet with a BHN of 18-22....correct?

If so..hows this going to translate into felt recoil? Will it even cycle the slide of my S&W M&P 9mm?

Thanks to all.

[zxcvbob]

If the bullets fit right, they don't really need to obterate.

I shoot 135 grain LRN bullets (Magnus #505) using 4.5 grains of Bullseye. I bought a bunch of boxes of 'em years ago when they were cheap. Anyway, that's about 39000 psi according to QuickLoad. Recoil is pretty stout. I get very little leading with it. (I just put lighter springs in the gun, so I'm gonna have to back off a little)

I'm not recommending that you use this load, just using it as an extreme example.

[lwknight]

You would not that friction in the barrel would amount to much when we are talking 30,000 + PSI driving the bullet but , it matters a lot.
One reason for reducing the load for me was that lead bullets slammed the slide too hard because the lead boolits were getting out faster. Leading was not the issue at all.

I kept the same velocity and probably did get lower pressures with lead when I reduced the load like 20% or so. So part of the answer to working the slide is YES , it will definately work the slide just fine with enough powder in it.

I have found that harder boolits are best in 9mm and low power loads are not necesary with good lube and a tight fit. One problem that often comes up in 9mm is that even .002 over bullets may not always go into all chambers. I have a finicky 5906 that will soom get a chamber polishing to remove a couple thousands of metal from it.
In contrast my P-95 eats anything I put in it and the barrel slugs out to .355.

[chris in va]

Ah, welcome to 9mm...the scourge of casting.

Long story short, I ended up using a mold that cast a boolit at .362, sized to .358 and loaded it to low/medium charges. Oh, and water dropped.

Definitely watch for chambering issues with those fatter boolits. My CZ won't chamber until 1.01.:veryconfu

[lwknight]

Chris , You should use great caution seating bullets that deep.
Chamber pressures can be a real danger that way.

I was not about to sacrafice any of the very limited case capacity by seating
the bullets deeper. I will hone the barrel entry till it will take a .356 bullet.
As it is it will choke on a .355 bullet if the barrel is the least bit dirty.

I'm currently using Remington Golden Sabers for the reduced ogive bore rider. The only other reliable bullets so far are FMJ Israeli 9mm that mics out to .354 which by the way are very accurate but are not fit for SD situations.

My guns often look like they were on a tagline from the space shuttle when it re-entered the atmosphere. So they need to work dirty and eat whatever I want to put in it.

[sagacious]

Word to the wise: Folks should read both of Lwknight's above posts very carefully and thoroughly if they're getting into loading cast for the 9mm.

And yup, the Rem GS takes all the work out of finding an accurate and reliable jacketed load that works for many/most 9mm's. Good luck.

[Bret4207]

Hello all,

I've started doing some research on loading lead instead of jacketed 9mm. I think the key thing I've learned so far is that the BHN of the lead bullet is the biggest determiner of the charge behind it...for proper obturation...correct?

If so..my normal pressure of approx 30,000cup (115grn FMJ with 4.8grns of Win 231) will have to drop to around 13,000-15,000cup for a cast bullet with a BHN of 18-22....correct?

If so..hows this going to translate into felt recoil? Will it even cycle the slide of my S&W M&P 9mm?

Thanks to all.

Proper fit comes first, obturation can be a very bad thing with stout loads. Better to fit the boolit as closely as possible to the gun and see where that leads. You may need to alter your alloy to accuracy with your guns and loads, but you may not to either.

[XWrench3]

you will be suprised how little powder you can use and still cycle the slide reliably. it really doesnt take that much. i can shoot loads so much below the starting load you would think there is no way it will cycle. i have only loaded 2 loads that wouldn't cycle a slide, and i was trying to get it to that point on purpose, just to see how low i could go. yes, i have stuck a boolit or two. no big deal. a little oil, a wood dowel, and out it comes with a few taps. lead is very forgiving. the only jacketed stuff i shoot from my handguns now is working up hunting or personal protection loads. when i shoot pistols, i usually shoot 200-400 rounds out of each gun i take. i can not even imagine how much that would cost me anymore with j bullets!

[44man]

I have taken PB boolits to over 55,000 psi in the .454 without a problem. Adjust the alloy.
Listen to the guys here.
Fit first, then alloy but first before anything you do is SAFETY!
I see no reason a cast boolit can't be shot the same as a jacketed, I do it every day in revolvers.

[casterofboolits]

Loading 9mm is no big mystery or black art.

I use an RCBS carbide Four die set. Always taper crimp as a seperate operation. COL and the amount of taper crimp is also critical to function and accuracy.

Boolit size is another area to pay close attention to. Slug your barrel and size .001 over. My HiPower would tumble at five feet if the boolit was sized .356, but would go into one hole at 15 yards sized .357.

Use a seater stem that fits the boolit nose shape.

Note that different boolit nose configuration will change the COL. A truncated cone will not work at the Same COL as a round nose. Try to seat a TC to RN COL and the TC Boolit will jam into the rifeling.

But, a .001 error on a nine is four times worse than the same error on a 45 ACP. Boolit size is critical to prevent leading. I load an H&G #275 09-125-SWCBB sized .357 over 6.5 grains of Blue Dot. No pressure problems and one hole accuracy at 15 yards. YMMV

IMHO a good set of mics and a dial caliper are essential reloading tools. I was trained as a machinist so I had those on hand when I started reloading.

Use good cases. check all your cases for defects and discard any with nicks, dents or large bulges.

Just use good loading practices and you will be golden.

[canyon-ghost]

When loading for my 5906, I used a Lyman Devastator mold. It's single cavity hollowpoint which keeps me casting for a few hours. Air-cooled wheelweight will work, and the ordinary properties of lead come into play. There's less blowby, recoil is almost straight back so muzzle flip is reduced.
Speer #13 manual warns that seating depth of bullets can (and will) drastically increase pressure in the tiny case. There's an entire section of lab notes on the 9mm but, that's the most important fact.

I bought a 9mm Custom Shop TC barrel for my contender, it's more finicky than the 5906. Twist rate is faster, so recoil is higher. Most 9s are going to have an 18.35 to 1 twist, the TC has 1 in 12!

When considering water dropping, I've noticed the revolver shooters go the other direction. They add pure lead to soften boolits and shoot a tad shorter range. Most 9mm is shot to 15 or 25 yards. In shooting it to 50 meters (or 100 on a sihouette range), Wheelweight that's been air-cooled has done well enough. It took 50 meters into a canyon wall (dirt) to expand the Devastator hollowpoint. That would mean it's too hard for close range defense. The only boolits I need to water drop are rifle and one 7mmTCU, both with the capability to shoot 200 yards. How hard you make your boolits is up to you, I just don't get all white-knuckled about alloy. Never had trouble cleaning lead from the barrel of the automatic either. 8-)

[ph4570]

My Sig 226 slugs at .358 and its chamber is fat. I use the Lee 6 cav 120 grain truncated cone mold (356-120-TC). I have beagled the mold to drop .360+ and size to .360. These chamber just fine. For the truncated cone design make sure the boolit is seated far enough so the cartridge headspaces on the case and not the boolit. Also, uniformly full length trim all cases. I use just enough taper crimp to get rid of the bell from the M die. Using blue dot I get a ragged hole at 15 yards and no leading. Velocity is 1075 so is is a nice plinker load. The BHN is about 15 air cooled with a mix of WW and lino.

Size matters -- until I went fat on the bollits leading was horrible and no accuracy. This load is the most accurate I have gotten out of the Sig including jacketed loads.

[Larry Gibson]

I concur with casterofboolits; casting and loading for the 9mm is not difficult nor basically different than loading for any other cartridge.

I've been shooting cast bullets (mostly WWs + 2% tin) of 356402, 356634, 358242 (121 gr), 358477 and 356-120-TC in numerous P35s, M39, M59s, Sigs, Colts, a couple MACs, MP40, MP35, a lot of m9s and several CZ75s. I used to size the bullets at .356 but then just started using a .358 sizer for all 9mms. I lube them with Javelina and load them all over 4 gr of Bullseye (except the 358477 which was loaded with Unique). All functioned fine and gave excellent accuracy with no leading, even in the full auto subguns. The only problems I ever encounter with cast bullets in the 9mm was when using various makes of comersial cast with the hard wax lubes. Leadin occured with those regardell of the load. When the hard wax lube was removed and they were tumble lubed in LLA or rlelubed with Javelina there was no more leading.

Larry Gibson

[sagacious]

I concur with casterofboolits; casting and loading for the 9mm is not difficult nor basically different than loading for any other cartridge.

Larry Gibson
True. Some folks seem to make it hard on themselves, though. Usually, when someone says they've tried it all, and nothing works..... they invariably haven't tried it all. Just stick to the basic problem-solving solutions as with other cartridges, and it's a straightforward matter. Good luck.

[lwknight]

The 9mm is so ever pervasive and popular they just about everyone and their dogs it
seems are mass producing them and the variations in chambers and bores are
phenomenal.

I guess its not really much different than making revolver cylinder throats match the bore. It just seems that there are more potential things to deal with in 9mm than other auto loaders.

[MtGun44]

No need to do weird stuff for the 9mm. Air cooled wwts are plenty hard enough in my
experience. Some 9s are reported to have exceptionally shallow rifling, and the claimed
fix is harder boolits. I have not seen this problem myself.

I load .001 to .002 over groove diam with Lee 356-120-TC conventional lube groove and
the 357-105 SWC at full power and have zero problems with Ber92, HiPower, SIG P6 and
other 9mms. Feed, function, accuracy and lack of leading are all fine.

No magic. I think the biggest thing is to size to .357 or .358 most problems come from
sizing to .356. Use a separate TC die, avoid TL designs.

Bill

[angle-0f-attack]

Thanks for all the input guys.

So..calipers tell me my bore is .351 at the muzzle groove to groove. Is this viable or do I need to slug it and measure the o.d. of the slug?

If the .351 is correct and I have some Meister Bullets that state they are .356 in dia. with a BHN of 18 then what am I looking at for a load? I'm thinking 4 grains of Win 231...?

If the .356 is too large, how do I resize them?

[sagacious]

Slug the barrel. Comparison of the barrel ID (measured with calipers) to the OD of your bullets is not likely to give a true reading. What you need to do is compare an actual bore-slug measurement to the bullet measurement. Then you'll have a valid and useful comparison. No point worrying about .356" being too large (seems mighty unlikely) until you slug the barrel. Good luck.

[GabbyM]

You don't have a .351" grove diameter. I'd about bet a lunch on it.

[jdgabbard]

I second gabby. You don't have a .351 barrel on that nine. If so I'd be sending it back P.O.'d... My guess, like many many others...anywhere between .355 and .359... There seems to be a lot of variances...

[lwknight]

The .351 could happen.
My son has a Tuarus 24/7 Pro with a 5" barrel that slugs .352
I have not found any bullet/boolit or load that has any accuracy to speak of thus far.

[MtGun44]

Don't even trust calipers to measure the slug. You need better than the available
accy of calipers (+/- .001") to tell what you have. You need a micrometer. Search
on micrometer - there are real deals out there on mics that read to .0001".


I also will bet at least one lunch that you do not have a .351 groove diam.


Bill