The boolits sized .357 worked flawlessly. I'll shoot up all the ones I have loaded that are .358 in my Ruger, then size all to .357...
Printable View
The boolits sized .357 worked flawlessly. I'll shoot up all the ones I have loaded that are .358 in my Ruger, then size all to .357...
I'm thinking about picking up the Arsenal 359-130-RF for my late model Glock 19 and 26. Planning to size to .357 and lube with Randy Rat's Tac-X. Anybody ever try this boolit or one similar in a Glock?
Ok guys.. I am interested in this thread but not interested in getting into a fight with glock owners.... I don't own one and am pretty sure I never will. but I reload for a lot of handguns and some rifles. I have been following this because a woman I know has a glock in 45 acp. She wants to get good with it but ammo here in California is really getting to be a pain. she had a mag with 4 rounds in it! that was it.
I gave her a box of 230 grain police HP rounds that I had a few boxes of because... even tho I shoot nothing but my own cast bullets and now coated... I was leery of giving her my cast loads with the whole lead bullet controversy. from reading this thread it seems the vast majority of you guys have little or no problems doing so. And.. that since the 45 acp is a low pressure round.... It should be especially safe? I will be spending some days with her showing her safety and shooting basic stuff. How to clean her gun (I guess I can look that up lol) and such. At this point... I am still erring to the side of caution. I Hi=Tek coat my bullets now so think that will also help? What I plan to do is take some cast and coated bullets and we can shoot 50 or so. then take the gun home and inspect and clean it. If I don't see any lead or anything that looks odd I am thinking I am good to go using those rounds in her gun?
There are two basic loads I like for my 1911's in 45 acp. one is a 200 grain cast SWC from a Lyman mold and the other is an Arsenal mold 230 grain round nose. The only glock 45 that I have tried (he tried) did not like the SWC round with mostly failures to feed. I did not bother to see why and maybe it just needed a little polish to feed well... I have easily fixed 1911's that did not feed that round.
Do any of you glock boys shoot the Lyman mold 200 grain SWC? I run mine around 950 fps or so.. . I use a Wilson flat spring on the 1911's which is of no interest except that it is a pound heavier... Do you glock guys play around with the recoil spring rate for different loads? I am seriously out of my element with these glock guns.
The main thing tho is to err to the side of caution in my opinion. Especially with a gun that is not mine.
lazs
If by "Lyman 200 grain SWC" you mean #452460, then YES I have run it through a Glock 21 successfully. The slide cycle had a bit of a hiccup with it and with an H&G #68 clone (also a 200 grain SWC). These both were seated with .020" of the bullets' front drive bands above the case mouth. The Lee 230 grain truncated cone bullet fed flawlessly, also seated with .020" of front drive band exposed above the case mouths. Lyman #452374 fed wonderfully as well, this seated to "book" OAL of 1.265".
I ran about 100 of each of these 4 designs through the Glock, 50 sized at .452" and 50 sized at .454". After 200 rounds of .452" bullets, there was no evidence of lead deposits within the bore. Metal was 92/6/2 alloy. I cleaned the barrel with patches and solvent, and did my usual after-shooting frame and slide clean-out. Next came 200 rounds of bullets sized at .454"--again, zero leading and easy clean up. I had slugged the barrel prior to the test phase--its lobes measured .453" across the peaks and .449" across the flats, 8-sided in form. Javelina 50/50 BW/Alox lube was used in all loads.
I have meant to test the 10mm, 40 S&W, and 9mm Glocks we have here with castings in their OEM barrels, but have yet to get aroundtuit. I am pretty confident that 45 ACP Glocks are generally lead-friendly, because the caliber is quite lead-friendly--low pressures, gentle rifling twists, not much dimensional poetry in their barrels. The smaller caliber Glocks use a 6-sided bore form, so I have no idea about their lead/friendliness or the absence thereof. These other calibers all use 4 turns/meter twists (1-9.8") and run at far higher pressures.
I am not understanding one part of your post. She could afford a 44 mag but only four bullets? Now she has a 45acp and you can not find ammo? Is this what your saying? I am not busting your hoha's just asking as I am getting ready to ship a buddy his R1 from NYS to Cal. He does not cast or reload but does shoot a fair amount. Is he going to have issues getting ammo? .40-.50cents a round is standard for good 45acp. A box a week should get her on target and doing well. Anything over just having a 44 that sits with 4 bullets. Glock boys. Got to love it. You have an interesting way of asking for help Lazs.
Does your friend already own the pistol? Is that model on the California roster? If the answer to both questions is no, he may not be allowed to take possession of it.
I hope he gets it, gun laws over there change like the weather. Sounds like he went from one bad situation to another.
lazs,
When I'm testing a boolit in a Glock, I fire one mag. Then push a dry patch down the bore. Glock bores have a glass smooth finish and leading is really easy to see. I've found that if it doesn't lead with 10-15 rounds it's good to go. I've also found that every one of my Glocks want water-dropped boolits or they lead.
I don't PC.
Cat
I don't pc. I lube all of my bullets with White Label Lubes carnauba red. I've had three Glocks, a 17, a 19 and a 30. All were Gen 4. I traded them or sold them, but they were the most dependable pistols I've owned. Thanks to neuropathy I got to where I couldn't break down the last one to clean it, nor shoot it accurately any more, so I sold it. However all of those pistols came and went with the original barrels and never did I get leading. They would gobble up anything that would fit into the chamber, the 9mm using a .358 sized boolit and the .45 using a .452 sized boolit. I've found that if you use the bullets sized .002 oversized it did better.
Thanks guys.. I may have not been clear... her gun is a 45 acp glock.. not a 44 mag.. she only had 4 bullets cause that was what was in it when her ex turned it over and she is a bit clueless... which.. I am thinking I might be too.
Yes... I was thinking that the 45 acp would be especially cast friendly since it is low pressure.. .453 seems pretty big to me tho.. my 1911's all run .451-452... I am sizing at .452... and HT coating... but... as you all know there is some 'springback' after you size so maybe all will be well. \
On the 200 swc loads... Yes.. I seat with a smidge of front band above the mouth. I have not found the HG round to actually feed better than the Lyman even tho the HG has a longer nose. if my guns will feed one they will feed the other. The Arsenal 230 rn mold is perfect.. 5 hole and makes very reliable cast bullets.
I am somewhat confident at this point that at the least the 230 grain cast and coated bullets will feed and not lead in her glock. I will try the 200 swc tho cause I think it is a great round for target and defense at almost 1,000 fps with it's sharp edges.
Ok... I can't resist.. I really appreciate you guys input and help but... it is sooooooo hard for me to be completely nice to glock guys... I am gonna teach her to hip and point shoot... I am gonna bring a SAA and a 1911... I am actually kidding in a way.. if you get used to the glock grip angle it is no big deal. I just have so many non glock guns that I am just toooooo old and tooooo set in my ways to learn another system.
lazs
I have Storm Lake barrels for my 19 and 26, they are superbly accurate with boolits. The OEM barrels do extremely well with plated and jacketed. They do ok with boolits sized .357, never had a problem with leading. I don't load this cartridge hot or even warm. Around 1000 fps is good enough for me.
Remember, I sold my Glocks for something I could break down, and had a hammer. A CZ 75 SP-01. The only striker fired pistol that I could warm up to, and keep, was my Ruger LC9s Pro. But they were dependable.....
Lead doesn't 'springback' from sizing. Old wives tale.
Cat
you may be right on the springback thing but even my electronic calipers believe that old wives tale to an extent. I think bullet hardness may have something to do with that?
Anyway... I appreciate you guys letting a non believer into the thread and being patient.
Ferguson... good to hear that the stock barrels do good with plated bullets. I think the HT and especially the PC bullets act very much like plated.. maybe a tad better. good news being that all my bullets are coated these days so maybe there will not be an accuracy issue with the stock barrel?
Tom.. yeah... I am can't warm up to the current striker fired which... is also a myth in a way because lots of guns with single action like triggers are actually striker fired... My 1907 savage 32 for instance. or the various Colt pocket guns. the striker firing is not the issue with me although... like you I want to have a visible hammer and love the CZ 75 and its clones. It is not striker fired per se that bothers me it is the neither fish nor foul trigger. Not a single action trigger but not quite a double action trigger either.. but that is not here nor there and many like and use all systems well.
What I do like about glocks is there is no safety... well... nothing you need to manipulate. Heck... I never use a manual safety anyway and I am a 1911 guy. unless you count the grip safety... I carry the thing with hammer down on a chambered round. for DA semi's I do the same. Heck... if they made a DA/SA semi auto rifle I would probly buy one.
Anyway... thanks guys... I feel better about preceding ................but.........you know I am gonna try to get her to sell that glock
lazs
Tell her to trade it for a CZ 97 B
Anybody put cast through a gen. 5 Glock yet? I examined one at the fun store the other day and was pretty impressed. The trigger pull feels more like a single action, at least to me.
Will not be close to single action with stock 3.5 pound pull. Getting close to the best out of the box trigger I have seen which is the LC 9 s Pro, at 5 pounds. The Gen 5 is 6 pounds out of the box.
I wasn't really talking about the weight, but rather how it seems to break further back in the pull with less travel after you hit the wall than compared to my gen. 4 19.
I have no clue about that. I would expect/hope it had an improved trigger if Glock took the time to come out with a new generation.
I got the Arsenal 359-130-FP mold. It drops around .3585 for me, I size to .357. With 3.5 grains Titegroup, accuracy is superb. However I think my lube is too hard as I am getting some streaks of lead and no lube star on the muzzle. I'm seeing the same thing with my .38 Specials so it isn't just the 9mm. I have been using Randy Rat's Tac-X, which is an awesome rifle lube, however I think it is too hard for my pistol use.
I had a tube of RCBS 80008 pistol lube on the bench so I emptied out the lube sizer and put that in it. This one feels softer and more greasy than the Tac-X, so hopefully it will coat the bore well.
I already have a fair number of these boolits lubed with Tac-X so figgered I would try something I've been meaning to try. I dipped them in liquid alox and let them dry, as if they were surface lube boolits. Let them dry and loaded 'em up with 3.5 grains Titegroup. I tried the boolits out in my Glock 19 today and got excellent accuracy. The alox seems to have kept the fouling off the surface of the bore quite well too.
Poured a bunch of the aforementioned Arsenal boolits last night. This batch I am going to size to .358 and load with the Lyman M die.
I had pretty bad leading in my G20 with Buffalo Bore 220 gr TC cast boolit ammo. With the oem polygonal rifled barrel. Also got quite a guppy belly on the brass.
I put in a LW oem length button rifled barrel and got very little leading and no guppy belly. Chronographed both barrels and velocity was very similar between the 2 barrels.
I did have a case rupture some months ago when shooting 215 gr TC cast factory ammo from another manufacturer.
However , I blame myself for not cleaning the gun after shooting a couple hundred rounds of 40 S&W factory jacketed ammo in that barrel.
Gun was having a hard time going fully into battery so I helped it along by smacking the rear of the slide with the heel of my support hand.
Attachment 240658
If the pic gets posted , you can see it blew the case just above the extractor groove.
The blast dumped the mag and vented some out the gap between the slide and frame. Felt like someone smacked my trigger finger with a hammer.
The top front of the mag got chewed up a little.
I took the gun apart. Really cleaned the barrel and the rest of the gun. I visually inspected the frame , slide and barrel very well and can't see any other damage. However I haven't shot it since. I would like to have a Glock Armorer look it over to tell me if its ok to go back to shooting it.
I'm Kind of thinking certain215 - 220 gr cast boolits fit too tightly into the leade and that its not a good idea to think of a G20 as an autoloading 41 magnum.
As I live rural and there are no Glock Armorers within 100 miles of me. I haven't done taken it to one yet.
I'm also thinking of designing an Accurate mold to drop a 210 gr boolit from coww with a reduced diameter down to the case mouth. To give it a little room to let pressure build a little slower.
Pic of the ammo.Attachment 240659
I think once I get it checked out I will shoot standard factory 180 gr TC ammo in it and save these cast factory ammo for in case I get a 10 mm GP100.
But I do believe the fault and blame lies with me for not cleaning my pistol and forcing a round into the chamber.
A member here, Doug Guy, will throat your Glock's barrel. Because it's Tenifer coated, he has to use a carbide reamer so it costs a bit more, but he can fix the throat. He does excellent work.
Cat
I have settled on 3.8 grains HP-38 with the Arsenal 359-130-RF seated to 1.068. It clocks around 980 fps in my Glock 19 and is as accurate as anything else I have ever tried.
I wanted to share my experience with cast boolits and glocks.
The long and short is, that boolit fit is *almost* everything.
I had very poor results with early attempts to use lee molds and others in 9mm that did not cast big enough. With regular boolits dropping at .355-6 and lube grooves or tl grooves it literally looked like a lead mine after the first few shots. Even with BLL or Powder Coated, the boolits made a mess and were super inaccurate. The leading even happened with a Lone Wolf barrel. The LW barrel looked like it had the rifling cut with sand paper, I will never buy another.
These are all powder coat molds from Arsenal molds. These are by far the finest molds I have ever used. Jared is a master craftsman, and I will not buy any other brand mold from here on out. Plus he's fast, will make them custom for you, and its not too expensive. He is not paying me to say that, I have paid full retail for mine and will continue to buy only from him.
The Arsenal 358-130rn I had Jared make without lube grooves and casts around .359 for me. I size to . 358, powder coat and then size again to .358. Which just irons out the PC. Seated to 1.07 or so.
These weigh 134 gr and with a mid load of titegroup. Not even a hint of leading. One pass of the bore snake and it wipes all the soot out and the bore is totally shiny. I use this in my factory G19 barrel and in the factory G34 barrel. Accuracy is very very good for what I want. I do a lot of transitions on steel plates from 5-35 yards, and its very good for that. No more jacketed or copper wash bullets for the reloads. Im sure when I put it on paper it will be as good as anything I have shot. From custom order to my door was only about a week or 10 days.
I also have an Arsenal 403-200 WFN PC for my G40 10mm.
Same thing, fit is everything.
I run them 1.250", over a stiff charge of aa#9 in starline brass and fed lp primers.
I they drop nice and big at about .404, I size to .4035, PC and size to .4035 again to iron out the PC.
Absolutely scary accurate as far as Im concerned. Mind you I have a vortex red dot and done just a little trigger work.
Sitting in a short camp chair with my hands resting between my knees I can do a 2-3" group on a steel plate at 75 yards as long as I do my part..... thats as good as I need. Plus the boolit is moving so fast, its basically point of aim from point blank to 75 yards, and when I get good enough at 75 to never miss I will start at 100 I bet its nearly the same POI.
Shiny bore after hundreds of rounds, and the aa#9 is super clean and the brass doesn't need tumbling. I hardly even need to clean it, but I do.
I have sent about a thousand rounds this way now in 10mm, and it's far exceeded my expectations.
Were I to do any other glocks in the future, the recipe would be the same, a couple thousandths larger than normal, powder coat a smooth sided boolit, and send it!!
Dan
Arsenal is the best kept secret in molds, I'm going to buy the 358-100-TC for my .380's.
Well, no, fit isn't everything. It's really close, it's King, but don't forget the Queen (hardness). She can matter. I've Glocks that insist upon both being paid attention to or I pay the penalty in leading.
If mama ain't happy . . .
Cat
I have had a glock 34 for about 6 yrs have shot nothing but cast bullets ,(with the exception of the 3st box of Hollowpoints to get a baseline),with 147 gr flat points Get about2 to 2 1/2 inches from rest. Any other weight opens up.Prefered powder is power pistol.
I load a 188 grain boolit from NOE (HTC402-188-WFN) I load this under 7.9 grn of AA#7 and with the factory barrel, I get poor accuracy. I also get some mild leading but not a lot of buildup. But in the KKM drop in barrel, it is very accurate and NO leading.
Just my experience.
I have shot mostly NOTHING BUT Magma Engineering 147 grn FP sized 0.356" or 0.357" in my Glock 19.
I add 2% tin and 3% antimony to range salvage ingots, using foundry type as the alloy. Bullet are are around 14 BNH, w/o looking at my records; fairly hard.
My G19 has over 15K rounds thru it and looks as new on the inside and outside. Make sure to change out the trigger return spring every 5K rounds. It WILL fail before 10K.
Every once in a while I shoot one or two jacketed bullets to "clean up" a bore which I am not sure needs cleaning.
I use a sub maximum load of @231. It smokes, but miraculously leaves the firearm pretty clean. I clean the Glock every 600 or so rounds, just for fun; it would continue to operate properly way beyond that.
What more can a shooter ask for?
These rounds are accurate. Accurate. Accurate.
I tried 4 grains of HP-38 under the Arsenal 359-130-RF sized to .357 and seated to 1.075 and was shocked at how good it shoots in my 19.
Here are some results from wheel weights, MP 115gr RN and White Label 2700.
Shot them in a Sig P320 too. One Glock barrel is factory stock and one aftermarket. Saw no difference in the amount of leading between barrels.
Attachment 260205Attachment 260206Attachment 260207Attachment 260208Attachment 260209
There has been buckets of cast 45gap,357,40,9mm & 22tcm ran through my 23 & 38 glock. Both bought used,the 23 was a ex law enforcement FBI model. It came from a gov sale in Charleston Wva. I’ve bought and ran lone wolf conversion barrels in it since I bought it in 2009. The 38 45Gap was a Union Sportsman’s fest auction prize,it too has had buckets of cast 45gap through it. Neither of my glocks have shown any ill effects or symptoms in either factory chambering or my conversions
How did you run .357s in your 38?
You can chamber down but not in the 10mm and up. I miss spoke there and I do apologize. I was talking about my 23,thinking about my 23 and conversions. The 38 is straight up 45 stubby lol again I apologize for my error,lack of sleep and a sick baby are no excuse for not proof reading. I will redact that ASAP. Thanks for catching that my friend.
I have a g19 with a ported barrel. There’s significant streaks of leading in the barrel after the ports in line with the ports. I’ll probably have to get a n aftermarket non-ported barrel, but finding one not threaded and affordable is tough