9mm for rifles

A limiting factor would be with the case capacity and the bullet design. Hand gun bullets are not designed for high speed aerodynamics.
 
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Keep in mind that a 9 mm cartridge loaded "hot" for a rifle may inadvertenly find its way into a handgun.

Not a good practice.

If you want to shoot pistol bullets, invest in a 357 magnum or 360 DW rifle. 1800 FPS with 158 grain bullets is possible and still stay within SAAMI pressure limits.
 
Keep in mind that a 9 mm cartridge loaded "hot" for a rifle may inadvertenly find its way into a handgun.

Not a good practice.

If you want to shoot pistol bullets, invest in a 357 magnum or 360 DW rifle. 1800 FPS with 158 grain bullets is possible and still stay within SAAMI pressure limits.

Pretty well any pistol featuring some sort of locking system will be more robust than a blowback carbine. I learned that the hard way many years ago when I tried to use my otherwise safe handloads in a new rifle. No one here is suggesting going over max pressure. I see 9mm major suggested but anyone dumb enough to do that would almost deserve the results.
 
I picked up a chronograph the other day and tested out some 9mm of different sorts I had on hand through my Chiappa M1-9. IVI NATO 115grn ammo game me an average of 1460 FPS with the odd one over 1500. I have some older Norinco military that wasn’t far behind at 1400 FPS on average with 124grn projectiles. You can really feel the extra snap of the NATO loads.
 
Pretty well any pistol featuring some sort of locking system will be more robust than a blowback carbine. I learned that the hard way many years ago when I tried to use my otherwise safe handloads in a new rifle. No one here is suggesting going over max pressure. I see 9mm major suggested but anyone dumb enough to do that would almost deserve the results.

not quite. most AR based 9mm blowback guns have too light of a bolt mass so they wont do well with higher power loads. built from the ground up blow back guns will likey be fine. the sterling SMG and police carbines eat 124g ammo that goes over 1500 fps from the ~9" barrel. original british loads were so hot that they exceeded nato small arms max pressure for even rifle ammo and had to be withdrawn.
 
not quite. most AR based 9mm blowback guns have too light of a bolt mass so they wont do well with higher power loads. built from the ground up blow back guns will likey be fine. the sterling SMG and police carbines eat 124g ammo that goes over 1500 fps from the ~9" barrel. original british loads were so hot that they exceeded nato small arms max pressure for even rifle ammo and had to be withdrawn.

I wonder how I can get my hands on some of that hot British stuff..... lol.
 
A high velocity 9mm projectile your talking about a 357sig there are a few pcc that are chambered for them. A 357sig is a 40sw case necked down to a 9mm bullet so you get over a 200 fps over a 9mm right there and then another 200+ for using it in a longer barrel !

I think it was TNW Aero rifles that has a video they were getting like 2000 fps with 115gr ammo and like 2400 fps from 90gr ammo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oxox8r79wI8

I always ask when people want 9mm +p or +p+ its like dude just go 357sig that's already +p+++ and that is factory standard loads
 
Staying on topic.... I have a bunch of TC 115 FMJ bullets. I don't think I am going to find any shorter than these guys. I'm hoping to (safely) push them to at least close to 1600fps using Longshot. I have a few other powders I can try but I think Longshot is my best bet with what I have on hand. If I can get the FMJs moving along that fast I will try some powder coated bullets I have. It seems easy to get those moving very quickly.

I even have a treat for you 9mm NATO guys, I have at least 3 kinds of NATO spec ammunition AND some German WW2 surplus iron core ammunition. I will put it over the chrony and see if it's anything special. I have tested and compared NATO spec ammo with other commercial ammunition in pistols but not full size rifles.
 
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A light bullet will be faster, but it will shed velocity very quickly. Think of a ping pong ball vs a golf ball.

A 147 will carry velocity better, but has less case capacity.

You need case capacity for more slower power. 3N38 (about 6.5g under a 147) is about max performance for a carbine.

But, if the carbine is a blowback action, you are beating the gun up. Maybe you can change to a heavier action spring?

My Sten has a massive bolt block compared to an average PCC.
 
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A light bullet will be faster, but it will shed velocity very quickly. Think of a ping pong ball vs a gold ball.

A 147 will carry velocity better, but has less case capacity.

You need case capacity for more slower power. 3N38 (about 6.5g under a 147) is about max performance for a carbine.

But, if the carbine is a blowback action, you are beating the gun up. Maybe you can change to a heavier action spring?

My Sten has a massive bolt block compared to an average PCC.

The effective range, regardless of bullet weight is 200m at most so shedding velocity doesn't really matter. He wants speed and so do many others. You can't get enough powder into the x19 cartridge to gain much velocity at all with a 147. 100fps or a bit more. I haven't tried 3N38 but even if it was much better than the different N3XX powders I have tried it won't be enough to get excited about.

Your Sten has a massive bolt because steel is cheap and you need to slow down the rate of fire somehow... Even if yours is semi-only it's not hard to imagine why the bolt is as large as it is. TNW bolts are massive, Ruger PCC uses a Tungsten insert to save space and so on and so forth. Different guns are engineered around different parameters.
 
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I just did a whole bunch of chronographing. The NATO and CDN military ammo did well but nothing special as I expected. I wish I had more IVI since the three rounds I had came out to 1464fps avg. That's pretty impressive considering the 124grn bullet... I was also impressed by the Winchester 1997 NATO ammunition I tested, 1368fps and only a 7fps SD over five rounds. All other ammunition tested was well over 50fps SD up to over 200fps with the German iron core that definitely was past it's best before date.

My handloads were all a bit disappointing but as I mentioned I haven't gotten as far into this as I plan to. My loads are all based around my various 9mm pistols. The CZs in particular have me loading my bulk 9mm quite short. I will put up all the data into a thread sooner or later, too lazy right now.
 
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