black powder and 9mm auto how to?

[barnetmill]

.38 S&W never did have very much upmf to them. And they were originally a black powder cartridge. An old Lyman Ideal reloading handbook, #38, from 1951, had load data for the 38 S&W. Not black powder data, but Unique, and Bullseye, powders I was using when I started reloading for my own .38 S&W revolver, an Iver Johnson Break-top. 2-3 grains of Bullseye worked well for the shot capsules I usually loaded, and 2 grains was supposed to give about 580fps with a 158gr bullet, 3 grains gave about 800 fps with the same bullet. At least according to the copy of that handbook I have now. My ex got that pistol over 40 years ago, and lost it. Left it in her car, and it was stolen. Not by me, either. There was not a great deal of recoil with those loads, IIRC. I can see a 9mm auto not doing all that well functioning with BP.

And that cartridge was why the US Army switched to the .45 Auto when they came out, as the .38 S&W was too anemic for the little Moro tribesmen in the Philippines a few years before.

I believe it was the .38 long colt that was being used.
But fact is even without the improvised wooden body armor that was being used by the moro juramentados, people that are really hopped up on rage and perhaps drugs are hard to stop with a pistol for a lot reasons. A third hand story I was told that while they stumbled a bit after being hit with a .30-40 krag, they would still attack.
I heard this story second hand from about 55 years ago of Philippine troops attacking a muslim town. The troops used the town's gas pump to burn down the town. Out of the smoke came a man with just a large kris. Two man both emptied their M16s at the charging muslim. I have no idea if they hit him. But he did not stop and the first man raised his rifle to fend off the downward blow and was struck on the head and killed. The one that told the story ran away.

[delftshooter]

they were making 44 special ammuniton loaded with black powder and 246 grain FMJ projectiles in world war 1.

Anyway, due to the needs of the auto cartridge, youll NEED to use heavy charges of 777 powder subsititutes. Or youll want to be using correct granulation in 3f.

cleaning that semi auto is gonna be a bitch becuase youll want to clean inside the mechanism in the handle too, and not some quick wipe down. but a for real take it all apart take down clean

[firefly1957]

IF you are thinking of making your own black powder you may look at two things for the higher pressures usable by the 9mm .
A) you can lower the sulfur content and raise the charcoal content for more energy . This is how they made the old blasting powder that was considered to strong for period guns and it was as low as 2% sulfur by weight.
B) You may look at forming a pellet of the powder right in the case before priming and seating the bullet ,It would need a hollow center and the size of that hollow would be the way to control amount of powder . As someone said on page one this was used in Europe for some cartridges .