COL on 9mm?

greywolf67nt

greywolf67nt

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I have a dilemma.
I loaded a bunch of 9mm the other day at just shy of the COL of 1.165" (Lee manual) and went and tried it out. It worked fine in my 1911 if not a little less bang than I'm used to in factory rounds.
Today I tried it in my PPX and SD9VE and nothing doing. It won't even chamber the round all the way the slide was hung open (measured by eyeballing) 1/8".
I went home and grab a factory round and plunked it in the barrel. TADA goes in all the way. Plunk in reload and TADA sticking out about 1/8".
SO off I go to the reloading room and pull out the calipers and the factory round is 1.067". I made up a dummy round by the old crank in seating die, crank press, plunk test until it dropped in properly. What do ya know? 1.068" COL.
I used 124gn LRN with 3.8gn N320.
Am I asking for trouble if I just take the rounds I already have made up and push them in to that depth?
 
It kind of depends on how hot is your original load. The manuals state to watch out for OAL with 9mm as there is not much case capacity to start with and a deep seated bullet brings pressure up fast. I tried some 150 gr HP cast in my 9mm just for fun and found the suggested data for 147 gr using Titegroup is 3.2 - 3.6 grains. When I tried to seat the bullets they had to be deep seated because of the forward driving band. This upset me somewhat and I cut the powder down to 2.7 gr. The five I fired all showed signs of high pressure (flattened primers) but were relatively quiet with very little recoil. They still functioned in two of my pistols (four in one and one in the other) and fed well but I wound up pulling all the remaining rounds. I guess the pressure curve on a graph would be a high spike.
You might try loading some at reduced loads at the needed OAL and work up to your 3.8 gr load to see if it is safe.

270 totheend
 
I would take one and shorten it bit by bit and see what oal your pistol needs (plunk test). That way you might not have to shorten it that much and therefore you may be more comfortable with the process.
I have done it before but it was because I forgot to adjust my seating die for a different bullet profile and was on a couple rounds.
Also you can't really get away with it if you put a heavy crimp on the loaded rounds.
Overall I would say is its a light load, go for it
 
You need to make sure that the case belling has been eliminated by the crimp die also. Otherwise even with a proper oal they wont fit every barrel.
Often a load with a proper oal will not plunk until you adjust the crimp die to remove the bell.
Measure bullet + case thickness x2 and your round should not be wider than that.
You said lead round nose, so those are lead bullets? What is the diameter? 355,356,357,358?
(that brings us to another question, do they lead? Mine only somewhat stopped leading at 357. 356 leads and 358 leads)

If specifically loading for lead, I learned a lot on cast boolits forums.

I cant help for LRN as they are 356 and i never had a load that did not lead with lube (unless you powdercoat to make them larger, then size to 357).

I personally cast the lee 358 124 RF, leaves the mold between 358-359, and then I size to 357.

Here is my data:
I load at 1.040 with 4.0 grains of hp38, crimped just to pass plunk, with a sized 358 lee 358-124-RF bullet.
Shoots in a gen4 glock 17 with wilson combat rifled barrel.
 
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LRN if you have a crimp and you try to seat them deeper you run the risk of ripping the front of the bullet off
you also might have the chance if removing the neck tension and have the chance of hitting the feed ramp and pushing the bullet even deeper =:(= very bad

My advice is shoot them in the gun they work in
learn for next time

Load label and shoot a load for each gun (using the plunk test)

or load for the shortest oal (plunk) and try them in the other guns
 
You need to find out why the rounds won't seat fully. Might be that the ogive of the bullet is making contact with the leade. If so, adjust the seating depth.
But something else might be going on.
 
1.165" seems long. None of my pistols would chamber that. I use 1.120" because the CZ has a short throat and it works in all the others.

take the barrel off the two that won't work and use them as a gauge to find the OAL that will work in both, then use that for all 3 guns.
 
Ganderite said:
take the barrel off the two that won't work and use them as a gauge to find the OAL that will work in both, then use that for all 3 guns.
Click to expand...

How do you determine if it's the crimp or the OAL that is the issue?
Take a case that is not belled, and seat the lead bullet in it until it plunks, not caring about the scraping of the dummy round?
Then take a belled case, seat the bullet to same OAL, and adjust crimp until it plunks ?
 
Yeah, I did the push test to determine max oal for a 308 norma mag last week, will do the same just for fun with my 9mm I guess.
 
oh well here is the data for my wilson combat glock barrel:

Lee 125RF cast max 1.065 (I load to 1.040 in the crimp groove, feeds well) .025 jump
Campro 124RN max 1.189, (I load to hdy book suggested length, 1.150) .039 jump

Thats it.
 
I just take the barrel out of the pistol I'm going to be shooting and drop a factory round in it that works fine. then I seat a bullet to the same depth. look and see where the base of the factory round ends up when dropped on the barrel . the other day a guy at my range had the same problem . he does'nt anymore.
 
Elmaro said:
Ok, here we go again.......................

http://www.czfirearms.us/index.php?topic=34225.0

Please read the whole thread!
Click to expand...

It's a GREAT thread. Just remember that as far as finding the Max OAL goes, if you have a barrel profile of the same type as the "brand G" illustration, with an extra-long freebore, the "bullet push" method cannot tell you how long that freebore actually is. In that case, you can make your cartridges as long as the max SAAMI length specs call for, 1.1690", or as long as your firearm will reliably feed. :)
 
Not sure why these discussions become as involved as they do. To determine the OAL of any cartridge combination using various bullets do the following. The proedure only takes a minute and takes the guess work out of the equation.

Using veneer calipers.

1. Remove the barrel from the gun.
2. Measure the length of the bullet you are going to use.
3. Drop the bullet into the chamber of the barrel.
4. Measure from the base of the bullet to the top of the barrel hood where the case would normally sit flush with the hood.
5. Add the two measurements together.
6. You now have the maximum length of a cartridge that will fit in the chamber of the gun.
7. Back off a few thousandths to allow for OAL variations in either the bullet or the ability of your hobby press to seat bullets exactly the same depth all the time.
8. Check to ensure a cartridge of that length will fit into the guns magazine.

As an aside, faced with shooting several variations of 125 gr bullets for my 9MM guns I now load all of them 1.10`` and they all run fine in my guns using loads running to 130ish PF. (Bullet weight X Velocity) with no signs of high pressure.

The bullet olgive is the issue along with the amount, if any of the guns leade. Some designs are longer and have a more pointy nose allowing the bullet to seat deeper into the rifling than others with a more blunt nose.

Take Care

Bob
 
OAL on 9mm honesty depends on the bullet you use. Bullet profile varies significantly between manufactures.

I use campro 124gr fmj and I seat them at 1.140 OAL, on campro's website they said to seat the bullet at 1.125.

I hope this helps
 
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