So What's Really Happening with the 9mm

[beagle]

It seems that more people have more trouble loading the 9mm than any other cartridge. I'm not saying I've mastered it but me and the 9mm have reached kind of a handshaking agreement in two BHPs and two Ruger Blackhawk convertibles. The BHPs are fairly easy as I suspect they have generous chambers. The Blackhawks are really fickle.

Here's what I think is happening and we'll get some discussion going.

I size my 9mm to .357", well .3575" to be exact as I made a custom sizer years ago. This works well accuracy wise in all my guns.

I'm using a Lyman TC sizing die and I suspect many of you are in one brand or another.

The OAL of the loaded round seems to be the biggest problem and me and Wally have been bouncing ideas back and forth all winter as to the fix.

Now this all starts with the sizer and being tungsten carbide, in most dies is a small carbide spacer about 3/16" thick which is cemented/staked into the mouth of the sizing die. I haven't measured one but I have measured several hundred heads and the all fall well below .391" which is the 9mm head dimension.

After loading, I checked several hundred 9mm cases loaded with a .3575" 358480 through my 9mm cylinder and has four which failed to seat easily and during shooting and loading would have tied my cylinder up. Measuring these loaded rounds gave me right at .384" OD at the base of the bullet which is a bit oversized but after another trip through the taper crimp die, they chambered fine. These would have fired in the High Powers.

Now, the case mouth on a loaded 9mm should run .380". Doing a little subtraction here, I'm getting .023" for the difference between the loaded round (.380") and the sized bullet (.357"). Half of this is .0115" and I'm pretty sure 9mm brass don't run that thick.

It looks like to me, we're sizing, expanding, seating a bullet which expands the case and then we come back with a taper crimp die and squeeze the whole mess back down to where it chambers.

Now, this is well and good if it chambers and the accuracy is there.

If this is happening, we're using a bullet with a .357" diameter or .357" driving band diameter at the front end and the rear end is swaged town to .356" or maybe as low as .354". If this is happening, the bump upon firing is expanding the rear to chamber diameter to give good accuracy.

Kinda think this is happening. Discussion?????/beagle

[Ben]

Poor brass and bullets, kinda sound like both are being jerked around quite a bit.

[Bwana]

My Blackhack requires large, at least .358", boolits and they must be hard. I lay this to the shallow rifling in the Blackhawk. It is too much work to mess with so I very rarely shoot cast out of the 9mm cly. In fact most of the .357 rounds are tipped by my Hybrid bullets made from 9mm, 380, and .223 cases. It is very accurate with them.

[Idaho Sharpshooter]

What did the cases you miked work out to for case wall thickness:
1. at the mouth, before and after seating the boolet?
2. at the base of the boolet (outside diameter) in the loaded rounds?

The 9mm is not considered a truly accurate cartridge, nowhere near the 38 Super or 45 acp.

Rich

[ssnow]

I think you have it right. So many variables. Add a longer bullet, or seat it deeper, add some thicker brass, or a new reloader applying too much crimp, and it all goes south pretty quick.

[williamwaco]

My first 9mm was a Ruger BH convertible over 40 years ago followed immediately by a Browning HP and a delightful little Star. I have had at least two 9mms ever since. Currently have 3. All 1911s.

In my experience the 9mm is no more trouble to reload than any other handgun cartridge. 90% of the problems I read about on this site are cause by too much research and too much reading about and looking for problems and trying to solve obscure problems that sometimes may occur occasionally - before they ever size a case. . .

The only problem I have ever had with the 9mm is leading caused by over-hard, undersized bullets. Now let me remember, I have had that exact same problem with a couple of other cartridges:

.32 Long Colt
.38 S&W
.38 Special
.357 Mag
.40 S&W
.41 Magnum
.44 Special
.44 Magnum
.45 ACP
.45 Colt

If you will forget all the esoteric rocket science warnings and concentrate on the bare fundamentals, common to ALL cartridges, you will find the 9mm is easy and fun.


.

[beagle]

Most of the stuff I measured was RP and WW.

I intend to cut a case and measure the actual case thickness but got to wondering and was out of the shop.

For sure, something is happening to the bullet base during seating and taper crimping and I fell like it's being sized inside the case and for sure isn't .357 anymore. Pulled, cast .30 Carbine measures .308" from loaded .310 bullets so I know it's happening with them.

I once had the opinion too that the 9mm was not accurate with cast until I shot with a gentleman at the club and he used 125 grain RN cast in a M39 Smith and he could hold 2" offhand at 25 yards. Not occasionally but he did it week after week and that made me think I was missing something so I started loading 9mm when people scoffed at us and factory 9mm was $6 a box.

I find that 9mm is just as accurate as a .38 Special if loaded properly.

There's something we're missing on teh 9mm and I'll be darned if I know what it is and want to get some opinions.

I know that the loading dies are a kind of band aid and are made to load acceptable ammunition and not precision ammunition byt we will have our carbide sizers and that's not economical to make a carbide sizer for the whole case. We size the head and right in front of the head, expand the mouth and the remainder of the case takes care of itself. This, in itself is not a correct practice but the best the die manufacturers can come up with on an economical basis./beagle

What did the cases you miked work out to for case wall thickness:
1. at the mouth, before and after seating the boolet?
2. at the base of the boolet (outside diameter) in the loaded rounds?

The 9mm is not considered a truly accurate cartridge, nowhere near the 38 Super or 45 acp.

Rich

[beagle]

You're preaching to the chior here. I've loaded thousands of 9s over the years and have no problems but others are and I'd like to see what opinions are as to what is really happening in a 9mm case.

I can load GC'd PB 9mms and get no leading in any of my 9s and get darn fine accuracy but I've been at this on the shady side of 50 years and some of these people haven't./beagle

My first 9mm was a Ruger BH convertible over 40 years ago followed immediately by a Browning HP and a delightful little Star. I have had at least two 9mms ever since. Currently have 3. All 1911s.

In my experience the 9mm is no more trouble to reload than any other handgun cartridge. 90% of the problems I read about on this site are cause by too much research and too much reading about and looking for problems and trying to solve obscure problems that sometimes may occur occasionally - before they ever size a case. . .

The only problem I have ever had with the 9mm is leading caused by over-hard, undersized bullets. Now let me remember, I have had that exact same problem with a couple of other cartridges:

.32 Long Colt
.38 S&W
.38 Special
.357 Mag
.40 S&W
.41 Magnum
.44 Special
.44 Magnum
.45 ACP
.45 Colt

If you will forget all the esoteric rocket science warnings and concentrate on the bare fundamentals, common to ALL cartridges, you will find the 9mm is easy and fun.


.

[beagle]

Bwana...it's the challenge of the 9mm Blackhawk that attracts me. I hav etwo now and have them pretty well dialed in but it was a hassle but now, they're as reliable as a .357 Blackhawk. I want to see these other guys suceed too./beagle

My Blackhack requires large, at least .358", boolits and they must be hard. I lay this to the shallow rifling in the Blackhawk. It is too much work to mess with so I very rarely shoot cast out of the 9mm cly. In fact most of the .357 rounds are tipped by my Hybrid bullets made from 9mm, 380, and .223 cases. It is very accurate with them.

[honus]

For accuracy with the 9mm, stick with bullet designs having a long bearing area such as SWCs or TCs.

[Harter66]

I'm a simplton on this matter beagle.

Shoot your R-Ps in the autos and shoot another headstamp in the revolvers. No more sizing issues.
There is also the option of turning or reaming the cases for the revolvers.
I made a few cases for the "see if its worth it" factor from 223/5.56, they required substantial turning to chamber, but function fine and hav a substantial anti-set-back shoulder.

Like I said im a simpleton.

[Larry Gibson]

Since the early '70s i've shot thouasands of cast bullet loads through a lot of verious 9mm handguns and a few sub guns without any problems at all. After the intitial load development with a M39 I've setteld on 4 gr of Bullseye under any commercial cast of .356+ or my own cast at .357 or .358 of 115 - 125 gr weight. For my own cast I've use 356402, 358242 (121 gr), RCBS 09-124-CN and Lee's 358-105-SWC and 356-120-TC (what I currently use) all with great success. I've used Javelina from day one but sometimes now I'll use BAC. I've never had any leading with my own cast bullets. I have had minor leading with some commercial cast due to the poor hard wax lube that was used. When the lube was removed and the bullets relubed with Javelina I got no more leading. Most of my 9mm cast bullets have been with WWs + 2 tin added during the last 20 years.

I've had no more "problems" loading cast bullets in the 9 mm than with any other cartridge and I've never found anything "finicky" about it.

Larry Gibson

[DaveInFloweryBranchGA]

A few years back I picked up a Bulgarian Arcus 94, a clone of the Israeli Browning Hi-Power clone. Essentially it functioned and had internals identical to the Browning Hi-power. The only major difference was a squared off trigger guard and a more blocky appearance like a Sig. The gun was very inexpensive and curious, I picked one up to give it a try for fun.

It was obvious to me out of the box the gun was manufactured to be reliable and "combat" accurate, with fairly loose tolerances. This was okay for my original purposes for the gun. I took it out and shot it with FMJ's and it shot okay, with typical 1.5 to 3 inch groups at 25 yards.

When I began to attempt to cast and load lead for it, I ran into a problem. The groove diameter of the pistol's barrel bore was a bit over .358" while the lands ran right in with most 9MM's, maybe even a bit tighter. (I apologize, can't remember their measurement, been too many years.) So the barrel shot good with FMJ's. The problem was the over sized groove diameter made the pistol very hard to match up a bullet to what you could size and reload.

If I took a bullet that matched well in the groove dimensions, sized/lubed it and loaded it, by the time it was in a cartridge and ready to shoot, the bullet dimensions had been swaged down enough by the process I now got tumbling bullets with keyholing at 25 yards.

I tried a number of cast bullets, even those from other casters on the board and none of them worked, all keyholing. I finally gave up and sold the pistol, getting my money back out of it. It was a shame, the pistol was forged steel with forged steel parts and I really liked it.

Upon reflection, I realize now I was using a Lee Deluxe die set and was using the factory crimp die as my crimp die and I may have been swaging my cast boolits down too far using that die without realizing it. I wish I had the gun back now so I could run some more experiments and perhaps try other brands of dies or other crimping dies or perhaps just less crimp.

Be interesting to try again. At the time, I felt it was the significant difference in groove diameter vs. land diameter the problem. Then, I used a friend's S&W M39's barrel as a basis for comparison. The Smith's barrel was a good bit smaller in groove diameter and likely would have been easy to cast and reload for.

Since the Arcus 94 is the only 9MM I've ever owned, I can't say if other 9's would be easier to reload for, but I suspect that would be the case.

[ku4hx]

I've been loading 9mm since sometime in the early '70s. I didn't know I was supposed to be having problems until I found this forum.

I have had some minor leading along the way but proper boolit size and appropriate lube has always fixed that. Just yesterday I fired 170 124 grain cast loads through my BHP. Every round chambered, fired and extracted perfectly. At 7 yards I could cut one ragged hole in the X-ring; at 25 yards that opened a bit but I still peppered the X.

Only problem I had was getting the feel of the BHP and then shooting my Glock Gen4 19. The BHP may be old technology (bought it circa 1969) but even with the factory trigger it's still the smoothest most accurate autoloader I own.

[beagle]

Larry, so have I. I also have used Javalina. It's not a lube problem. Sure, you can make anything work with cast but you shouldn't have to.

The problem doesn't come with the 356402 or the 358242 but comes with long base bullets like the 358480 and 358345s. The SWCs. Now, I can make them feed in the Brownings but they do cause a ruckus in the Blackhawk with it's tighter chambers and require some special work to get reliable chambering.

I'm thinking it has to be the design of the loading dies that are causing it. Here we're trying to load a tapered case with a set of carbide dies that supposedly only sizes straight wall cases. The guns, most of them, require a bullet that is a miniumum of .357" for good accuracy and then we come back and taper crimp the bullet in the small end of a tapered case to squeeze it back to dimensions that will fit the chamber. On top of this, case thickness is increasing from the head end of the case and this bulges the case with these larget diameter bullets.

I know we make it work but there has to be a better way. I've been loading 9mm for over 50 years starting out with a Lathi, then a Luger, then a P-38 and then a High Power covered with swastikas and finally a POlish Radom and they shoot and feed but what we have to do to accomplish this is not right and I think we're shooting ourselves in the foot by our loading methods.

I'm asking that we get our heads together and figure it out for posterity./beagle

Since the early '70s i've shot thouasands of cast bullet loads through a lot of verious 9mm handguns and a few sub guns without any problems at all. After the intitial load development with a M39 I've setteld on 4 gr of Bullseye under any commercial cast of .356+ or my own cast at .357 or .358 of 115 - 125 gr weight. For my own cast I've use 356402, 358242 (121 gr), RCBS 09-124-CN and Lee's 358-105-SWC and 356-120-TC (what I currently use) all with great success. I've used Javelina from day one but sometimes now I'll use BAC. I've never had any leading with my own cast bullets. I have had minor leading with some commercial cast due to the poor hard wax lube that was used. When the lube was removed and the bullets relubed with Javelina I got no more leading. Most of my 9mm cast bullets have been with WWs + 2 tin added during the last 20 years.

I've had no more "problems" loading cast bullets in the 9 mm than with any other cartridge and I've never found anything "finicky" about it.

Larry Gibson

[ku4hx]

I'd have to ask, what exactly is a "problem"? Coming from a scientific background, I see problems as steps in a process. At least non lethal ones or those that cause damage of one sort of another.

In my 40+ years of casting and loading, I've had many "problems". The overwhelming majority of which I worked through and reached a satisfactory conclusion. The thing is, sometimes the "solution" for me is to simply abandon the effort. Case in point are SWC boolits in my Glock 20 and 23 with both OEM and LW barrels. The LW barrels have had the chamber reworked by LW but for months no matter what I did chambering was not reliable.

Whenever I am working through an undesirable situation, I always consider alternatives as a viable solution. Sometimes the investment in time, money and effort are just not worth it. My solution to the SWC 10mm/40 cal. problem was to switch to a TC boolit profile, melt down all the SWCs and cast no more. In my case, and by my definition ... problem solved. Others may see it differently.

I don't limit myself to cast boolits only. I like options and I choose those that suit my needs best as I define that. That means I also load and shoot a lot of jacketed bullets in various applications. In those cases, that was my solution to my problem. Others are free to disagree or agree with my problem resolutions.

[fecmech]

I have not had any problems loading the 9MM and it may just be my expanders. When I load on the turret press I'm using the Lyman "M" die and the expander on my CH Auto Champ for the 9MM is almost identical. I run .358 on my 120 TC bullets and just taper crimp enough to turn the case bell straight. I loaded for a Star, 2 BHP's and a Khar with the polygonal barrel. In each gun I could equal or better factory jacketed velocities and accuracy with cast of equal weights. For lube I've used Zambini and Magma hard lubes, leading was never a problem. The two best powders I found for max effort 9's were Longshot and BlueDot.

[Iron Mike Golf]

beagle,

I have not shot a whole lot of cast through my SR9c and and really just getting into it. I am using a SAECO #383 that drops for me at 140 gr. That boolit has a long, graceful cone shaped nose and a tiny SWC shoulder. It feeds beautifully. Accuracy is spotty. I size to .358 and lube with CR. No leading issues.

I have loaded 115 gr JHP from Montana Gold over 6.4 gr Power Pistol for more than 2 years and had nice accuracy without sorting or trimming brass.

I am finding that during loading, there is a huge variance in neck tension among different headstamps. I don't have the proper tools to measure case wall thickness, especially at different depths inside the case.

I also have not trimmed brass to common length. I am going to make up some batches of same headstamp and trim them to common length. I am also going to really figure out the COL needed to just kiss the lands.

Magtech brass (CBC headstamp) gives me the most problem. If I don't get the M die deep enough, the case will spit the boolit forward. The boolit won't expand the case. I have a handful of those to pull and mic.

With .45 ACP and .380 Auto, I don't sort or trim brass. I am thinking with this long boolit, I may need to.

[Larry Gibson]

Larry, so have I. I also have used Javalina. It's not a lube problem. Sure, you can make anything work with cast but you shouldn't have to.

The problem doesn't come with the 356402 or the 358242 but comes with long base bullets like the 358480 and 358345s. The SWCs. Now, I can make them feed in the Brownings but they do cause a ruckus in the Blackhawk with it's tighter chambers and require some special work to get reliable chambering.

I'm thinking it has to be the design of the loading dies that are causing it. Here we're trying to load a tapered case with a set of carbide dies that supposedly only sizes straight wall cases. The guns, most of them, require a bullet that is a miniumum of .357" for good accuracy and then we come back and taper crimp the bullet in the small end of a tapered case to squeeze it back to dimensions that will fit the chamber. On top of this, case thickness is increasing from the head end of the case and this bulges the case with these larget diameter bullets.

I know we make it work but there has to be a better way. I've been loading 9mm for over 50 years starting out with a Lathi, then a Luger, then a P-38 and then a High Power covered with swastikas and finally a POlish Radom and they shoot and feed but what we have to do to accomplish this is not right and I think we're shooting ourselves in the foot by our loading methods.

I'm asking that we get our heads together and figure it out for posterity./beagle

Yes, it certainly is obvious that some are having problems. Mostly when they used a wrong alloy, insufficient lube, size the bullet too small or use a bullet design that is not correct. Like several others I don't percieve those as problems endemic to the 9mm as they are problems with any cartridge. I've used several different sets of 9mm loading dies over the years (RCBS, C&H, Lyman, Dillon and Lee) and never had any problems with any of them. I don't use the Lee FCD simply because I haven't found that extra step necessary.

I've also loaded other SWCs that were heavier like the 358477 and the 358156. If there are feeding problems with any correctly seated cast bullet (drop fit test into the chamber) then it is the gun and not the 9mm cartridge. We have been throating semi autos for 60+ years to feed such and should understand the problems.

I guess what I'm saying is; is it really the 9mm cartridge or is it the loader or is it the gun that is really the problem? Interesting quandry isn't it

Larry Gibson

[Echo]

My Blackhack requires large, at least .358", boolits and they must be hard. I lay this to the shallow rifling in the Blackhawk. It is too much work to mess with so I very rarely shoot cast out of the 9mm cly. In fact most of the .357 rounds are tipped by my Hybrid bullets made from 9mm, 380, and .223 cases. It is very accurate with them.

My BH won't chamber .358 boolits, and accuracy with .357 is marginal, so I haven't switched from .357M to 9mm in years.