My appreciation goes out to Steve Hurst for this well written article on cast bullets in the 9mm for match use. I feel especially gratified to see someone else write about the necessity of sorting 9mm cases, and proper bullet design selection. Cast bullets in the 9mm is a heck of a lot more involved than people give it credit for.
Well done Steve!
Bob
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ditto on great article ... thank you Steve ...
I have a bushel of 9mm brass I have been too lazy to start on ... my neglected Beretta 92S is giving me the evil eye ..
I am getting energized tho ..... now that someone else has done the dirty work ... heh
ken
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+1 for Steve's article. Great info!
73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia
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Thanks for the good words. I always hope the information will be useful.
This article involved ~2000 rounds, eight powders, 6 bullets and dozens of range sessions.
Yes, several other bullets and powders were tested which were not mentioned.
The payoff is shooting a match with a gun and load capable of a perfect score. Everything out of the 10 ring is the shooters fault.
The shooting has improved the SIG's trigger. It is the single action only target trigger and was good to start with now it is very good. The trigger is wearing in nicely, I wonder about the gun. This is an aluminum frame pistol and I am careful about lubrication. Still, I wonder how long the accuracy will last, it is not a 1911. We will see, round count is now over 3000.
Steve
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Whos reloading dies were you using? That was another thing that flies in the face of "they're all the same". I have a 9mm M&P that has similar case chamber and bore situations as you described. I'm looking at going with a Redding Nexgen carbide sizing die.
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I have a RCBS carbide die set, 1989 vintage. This sizing die has a nice wide mouth and does not size down far enough on the case. After sizing and depriming in the RCBS die the case is run into a Lee factory crimp carbide die without the crimp collar. Next is the 0.356 expander set to the bullet seating depth. I am using a 380 auto RCBS expander to bell the case mouth.
Some 9mm pistols have way oversize unsupported chambers. If the Lee die leaves a ring on the case, it is a throw away.
After bullet seating and bell removal the last die is again the Lee factory crimp die. This has caught a few cases with overly thick walls.
Redding makes good dies. I have their profile crimp die for every revolver cartridge.
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I cling to an old set of Hornady (real) carbide Durachromes for use with purchased brass. The sizing die is tight, and has a minimal bevel at the entry. These dies were made before progressive presses took over the world so the sizer also sizes the cases down almost to the extractor groove. I feel they size the cases down too small for cast, with even .356 giving the cases that "snake swallered a pig" look. Most of my 9mms seem to have .358 bores except for my lone M&P which I've already mentioned. So the M&P pretty much lives on jacketed bullets.Someday I'll have the time to sort this out correctly. The other nines are loaded with plain old Hornady New Dimension dies that seem adequate, but not ideal for the task. I also thank you for your very specific information on the Accurate moulds you've described. That insight is very useful.
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I haven't finished the article but it sparked my interest and will dig into it. I have a Sig 365X and like it better than any 9mm I have ever handled. It feels like it is made for my hand. Having some factory and some defence ammo I don't intend to load a lot for this but want to be able to.
It has a very tight chamber, cases fired in my Glock and sized in a RCBS carbide die will not fit in the chamber. Fired in the Sig and sized in the RCBS will fit but just barely. I even tried sizing in an old Lee whackamole die. A Lee undersized carbide will not work either. If there is any bulge left at the base of the case it will not fit. I am not shooting any reloads till I get a fit that I am satisfied with.
I have read that the older steel dies were made for a better fit than the carbide. A carbide ring will not put a proper taper on the case.
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Not a big 9mm fan but I do own one. It’s a Walther P-38 that my father-in-law picked up during the Battle of the Bulge in Dec. 1945. He was wounded during the battle. He gave it to me as a birthday gift in 2005.
I have not fired it yet. I don’t have dies, molds, etc. I do have a box of factory rounds that I should try. Should be interesting.
Tom
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Mmmm..not seen the article but all y'all comments are interesting. I.shoot IPSC with a CZ Shadow 2, bought in 2020 with a good 6000 plus rounds thru it now, mostly the likes of Berry's 124gn but also some commercial cast 135yn. I don't sort my range pickup brass, tumble clean it and reload with Dillon dies on a Dillon 550B. The CZ is accurate and extremely reliable. More so than I'll ever be. Any brass that fails to pass the Dillon Gauge test when loaded is trashed. If it looks ugly its trashed. Apart from the cast 135gn being hard to manually unchamber for a round that has not been fired I've never had an issue. Again, I haven't read the article. But I am wondering about putting a lot of effort like sorting brass, into a calibre that in a decent gun just performs.
John - New Zealand
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Battle of the Bulge was 1944, not 1945. Just saw the typo...ooooops.....thank you fat fingers and I-pad!
Tom
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John
I agree! Any increase in accuracy would probably not be worth the effort. In IPSC the targets are big and usually close, what is required is dependable function. What you are doing works, keep it up.
Sometimes accuracy is secondary. I started loading 9mm in the 1960s for a Browning Hi Power. The only round nose mold I had was Lyman 358311, a 158 grain 38 bullet. I looked in the Lyman reloading handbook (#44) and lo and behold there were loads for 358311 in 9mm! The bullets seated deep and many of the cases bulged. No problem, I ran them part way into the sizing die until they would chamber. The only case sorting was to pitch crimped primers, too much trouble.
Accuracy? Tin cans at ten paces fell over (sometimes). The gun went bang, we were happy.
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