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Thread: 9x25 Dillon forming / reloading / shooting

  1. #1
    Boolit Buddy gnappi's Avatar
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    9x25 Dillon forming / reloading / shooting

    I have a LOT more 10mm brass than I'd use in two lifetimes so I bought and fit a 9x25 Dillon barrel (Wilson feed ramp) for my long slide 10mm. I am a .357 Sig fan so this caliber just seemed a natural to explore, and so far I'm very pleased. A few weeks ago I began forming, shooting and reloading 9x25 Dillon as follows.

    In a Dillon 450

    Station 1. Size, decap and prime with an RCBS 10mm FL carbide die (makes pushing the neck in station 2 easier)
    Station 2. Form the neck and push the shoulder down to form the case.
    Station 3. Powder dump and bell the case mouth.
    Station 4. Seat the bullet.

    Offline on a single station press taper crimp.

    I "could" try rigging an RCBS 9mm, 9x21, 9x23 taper crimp seating die and just may wind up trying it to get double service out of that fourth station and save the buckazoids on another press, but I've had less-than-wonderful experiences with this type of die.

    Here's what I've discovered in forming several hundred 10mm's and a half dozen reloads using 139 and 149 grain home cast PC'd bullets.

    The 9x25 isn't quite as fussy about bullet selection and crimping as the .357 Sig but it's nothing like a straight wall cartridge. The bullet tip is more important than the rest to get a decent crimp without bullet setback from a poor crimp during feeding from the mag. So far short blunt round noses work best. Case capacity isn't as much as I'd expected and I think any slow powder will be compressed. For economy sake I'm sticking with fast to medium fast powders as they work well and I have a lot on hand.

    1. I tried lubricating and not lubricating to form with both the .357 Sig and Dillon 9x25 dies and sizing to 10mm first makes the lubing before forming a wasted step as lubrication doesn't aid sizing (some presses may be more difficult than others) appreciably but I did get several case dents with sizing wax. If I wear out / scratch the steel Sig sizing die, it's a small price to pay for not lubricating the case. It's too bad the Dillon sizing die rots, I'd be able to use four stations rather than five, maybe Dillon can re-work the neck of my die, I'll see.

    2. Though I tried it, annealing after forming was a waste of time as case attrition been near zero from neck cracks without annealing. So far, I've had one case with a minor neck split out of 300 rounds with brass with an unknown number of previous 10mm firings. Not bad.

    3. I have Dillon 9x25 dies but cannot use the size die as it under sizes the neck by quite a bit (~.008") necessitating an additional neck expansion, not good for case attrition. I lost a number of cases upsizing the the ID of the neck after forming. So, the Sig die gets the nod.

    4. The "sweet spot" of forming with the Sig die to just chamber in my barrel fire forms perfectly, and reloading necessitates only the 10mm size, then neck size with the RCBS Sig die and on to the rest.

    The down side of this is needing 5 stations... In that EXACT forming / reloading order. I wrote Dillon to see if their 750 station locations are fluid enough to accommodate this exact sequence, if it will I'm in if only to save that fifth offline crimp operation.

    I haven't been able to chronograph the Dillon 9x25 and load data for more than a few powders is non existent so, I've had to work up loads extrapolated from .357 Sig, 10mm and others for AA#7 and red dot. Overall I'm very happy I got the 9x25, so much so I may get another barrel for a 5" wide body 1911 just to light up the range with the spectacular flash from AA7.

    Even my 70 year old eyes (albeit still 20/20) can make one hole at 25-30 feet with iron sights. Double taps with the long slide are a bit slow, but muzzle rise is minimal, feed is flawless every time, not a hint of forward slide slowing when chambering or any jams. Feed, Extraction and ejection is flawless (my pistol is a SS Kimber 10 frame with a Rem R1 SS 10mm slide) and most empties would land in a 5 gallon bucket at my five o'clock 5 feet behind me.

    Having loaded .357 Sig since the dies first came available and now the 9x25 I'm surprised these never overtook over the 9 Luger. The only advantage the 9mm has is mag capacity, while these necked cartridges have the advantages of feed reliability, power, and heavier bullet weight selection in my experience these benefits trump the 9mm in capacity any day.

    Anyone else here loading the 9x25?
    Regards,

    Gary

  2. #2
    Boolit Master


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    Heck of a write up. I always thought it was a cool cartridge but I know I’ll never get around to owning one. I’m too lazy to make that brass lol.

  3. #3
    Boolit Buddy gnappi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Michael J. Spangler View Post
    Heck of a write up. I always thought it was a cool cartridge but I know I’ll never get around to owning one. I’m too lazy to make that brass lol.
    Actually, with the right press, 9x25 is no more difficult to form and reload than any other cartridge. My bugaboo so far has been the need to offline taper crimp at what would be station 5.

    On a 5 station press my station sequence would work be ideal, on a four station, I'd need a taper crimp seating die (on the way here) and even better that in addition to the Dillon die fixed so that it doesn't under size the neck. To that end I wrote Dillon to see if they could / would fix my 9x25 sizing die to work as I expect it to.

    But as it is on a single, turret, or three stage press re-forming any cartridge like the .357 Sig or 9x25 would be a PITA.
    Regards,

    Gary

  4. #4
    Boolit Master
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    I load the .357 SIG. It’s real fun to shoot, and the damage it does to targets outshines what my .45ACP can do. The biggest drawback is that the lube groove is exposed to powder in the case, which means I’m getting into powder coating boolits. Every once in a while I think about forming .357SIG cases from 10mm to get a max length case neck and a LPP pocket.
    *
    Does the lube groove stay inside the neck for 9x25? Have you tried .40 Super or .400 Cor-Bon?

  5. #5
    Boolit Buddy gnappi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by justindad View Post
    I load the .357 SIG. It’s real fun to shoot, and the damage it does to targets outshines what my .45ACP can do. The biggest drawback is that the lube groove is exposed to powder in the case, which means I’m getting into powder coating boolits. Every once in a while I think about forming .357SIG cases from 10mm to get a max length case neck and a LPP pocket.
    *
    Does the lube groove stay inside the neck for 9x25? Have you tried .40 Super or .400 Cor-Bon?
    The 9x25 and .357 Sig I load because I like the flawless feeding of the bottle neck cases and the high performance I can get from heavier bullets I can't get from the 9mm. But no, I haven't loaded .40 super or the .400... my .40 S&W and 10mm's feed pretty darn good, and I have energy to spare.

    Anyway, all of the bullets I load for the 9x25 (and the .357 Sig as well) are PC'd 139 and 149 grains I cast here and none of the lube rings are exposed.

    How can lube rings be exposed to powder in the case AND inside the bore?

    Question(s)? With the Sig case, to meet LOA I wouldn't think lube rings would be exposed unless you are using a free bored barrel in a full sized 1911 type pistol (not a short framed .40 grip length) with 10mm mags and REALLY S-L-O-W powder? Are your bullets so long to be exposed to powder in the case AND bore? Why are your bullets set out so far?

    Funny, a few weeks ago I "found" several hundred .357 Sig rounds with wax lubed lead bullets. WOW I forgot how much I disliked lubed bullets! The range and my mouth was so full of smoke I could only use up 50 rounds. I changed all three of my Star sizers over to lube only PC'd bullets. I even got some of the lube less dies from lathesmith for them. Slowly I'll replace all of my Star dies with his excellent shorter lube less dies.

    I never had issues with re-formed .40 brass once I found the right bullet for them. Later on I stumbled onto sever thousand native .357 Sig brass and don't need to use the reformed cases any more.
    Regards,

    Gary

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check