rhyrlik

I read somewhere that moly absorbs moisture and becomes acidic. Guns with carbon steel barrels will rust faster if allowed to sit in a humid environment.

147's tend to be more accurate in 1-10" twist barrels, i.e. military pistols.

I go inside a black hole I meant 4.1 grains.

Any 147gr jacketed bullet loaded on top of 41. grains of WSF with a FC-100 primer @ 1.125" OAL. XTP's should be loaded closer to 1.100", but it is a perfectly safe load per Hornady's manual. It drills teenny weeny groups from my Sig.

What are you trying to ask? I have found that if you ask a terribly complicated question, most will ignore you.

The carbide ring is improperly beleled/polished on the bottom.

Many 9mm pistols have .357/.358" bores. US made 9mm tend to have tight bores. European guns tend to have loose bores in my personal experience. I recently slugged my P210. It measured .357". Prior, I had assume it had a .355" bore. Boy was I wrong! Although it is extremely accurate with 147gr .355" jacketed bullets. I read about a fellow who slugged a P38. It measured .358". My Berettas had .357" bores. I shot .358" 125gr lead TC through them @ 1.050" OAL without any problems. In fact, 3.9grs of 231 gave me 890 FPS, which contradicts every loading manual out there. Best of all, they outshot every load I had developed for them. I've been handloading the 9mm for 15 years using the wrong bullets!

Sounds like you have lower lug clearance issue with the barrel.

The question I have (not pretending to be an expert, by any means, here) is why haven't the powder manufacturers ever been able to reproduce a detonation with a very light charge of fast powders? I know they've tried. I know they've documented problems with light loads of very slow powders (I think W296 is the one you see the most warnings about). Then they go and test multiple charges of those same powders and get the results people have described with exploding guns....makes me wonder. R, Why do Glocks explode with factory ammo on law enforcement ranges? God knows Glock and the ammo manufacturers have tried to simulate these KB's. I don't think they tried to load a 500 FPS HBWC load in a 357 case, however. That's not something alot of people would be interested in. I think their experiments were taylored toward standard loads, not near-squibs.

And another theory is that when all the powder is lying on the bottom of the case, the primer flash will ignite all the powder granules at once. The powder will not burn gradually. Instead, it will burn instantly and cause a pressure spike. Ideally, you want a 100% load density so you have an actual powder column to ignite. Such a column will burn from the bottom to the top and the pressure will rise gradually. This simply is not possible with some target loads.

I have to call BS on this one. Take a look at the recommend loads for the .41LC using Bullseye. There has never been a labratory induced "detonation" ever. Not one. Go over to the Cast Bullet Forum if you want to find loads using reduced powder charges using cast bullets. 10 gr of Unique in rifle cases under lead bullets is almost a standard gallery load. 16 gr of 2400 in virutally any of the military cartridges is used regularly by cast shooters as a starting point for developing loads using cast bullets. DonT - I shot over 5,000 rounds of 2.8 gr of Titegroup under my 180 gr lead bullets in .40cal. last year. Load makes minor PF for IPSC and IDPA . Load is soft shooting and entireingly safe. I find it amazing that folks can feel safe to load near the maximum in their firearms but attribute almost mysterious qualities to a couple of flakes of powder if used by themselves. Take Care Bob Let me explain something to you Bob, I wanted to load some very light loads primarily to reduce noise as much as possible. I loaded a bunch of ammo from as light as 1.5 grains all the way to 3 grains of Bullseye. With loads at or below 2 grains, I experienced detonation. How? I don't know, but pierced primers and pristine cases that stuck in the chamber were suere signs of excessive pressures. How does one get excessive pressures with 1.5 gains of Bullseye in a 357 case, Bob? Please explain it to us. Please explain how such a load sticks in the chamber, how such a load seals the chamber so well that there is absolutely no soot, no carbon, no fouling at all on the outside of the case, how the report from such a load sounds like piercing noise instead of the typical bang? How about it, Bob? Every single round was loaded on a single stage press and checked. There were no triple or quadruple charges. How is it that when the powder charge exceeded two grains of Bullseye the gun started to sound normal, the primers stopped piercing, the cases stopped sticking, and ejected dirty? Please explain, Bob. Please explain it because you seem to know everything about internal ballistics, don't you, Bob.

Personal experience: 148gr HBWC + 2 grains of Bullseye in a 357 case = Detonation + pierced primers.

Ant they will lead the bore like crazy due to gas cutting of the bullet shank.

I use a Redding sizer with a shaved RCBS shell holder. The combination sizes my 9mm brass all the way down.

My Beretta locks the slide back 100% of the time with 3.7grs of 231. I think you are limpwristing the gun.

I use Laser Cast 125gr .358" bullet in my 9mm. I load them to 1.050". At this OAL, the case mouth is right in the middle of the crimp groove. I taper crimp slightly and do not have any bullet hardness springback issues. 3.7-42.gr of 231 with a FC-100 primer is very, very accurate out of my Beretta M9.

My most accurate 9mm load is a 147gr XTP over 3.5gr of 231 (1.1" OAL and FC-100 primer) It shoots inside of a dime at 15 yards from my Sig P210. As a comparison, factory 147gr loads shoot 1" in this gun. My P226 loved 3.3gr of Universal Clays under this bullet. Same accuracy.

I did not know Clymer makes a shorter one for the PC gun. I have a couple 25-2's and one has a noticeable constriction in the forcing cone area. My PC 625's are weird in that there does not appear to be a constriction, but rather a loose spot right where the barrel shoulder meets the frame. In either case, I'd like to try it.

I dunno. How about it, Carmoney? Can you shed some light on this? Also, how is this thing piloted? How much slack is there between the cutter ant the top of the lands?

1.250" may not be the ideal OAL for SWC. Ceratin SWC have a shorter nose, so if they are seated to 1.250", more of the shoulder sticks out past the case mouth. Use an OAL that is appropriate, i.e. so that enough of the shoulder sticks out to start the bullet in the throat, but not too much so that it causes the shoulder to hit the rifling prematurely and jam the gun. Then there's the issue of bullet diameter. Some 45 ACP chambers are tighter than others. In my CQB, for example, I could not use Lasercast bullets without resizing them first. The reason was their diameter was .4525" and my chamber throat measured .452". Some people suggested I reduce the OAL, but all that did was caused the bullet to shave lead as it transitioned from the case mouth to the throat. Resizing the bullet through a .451" die reduced the diameter to .4515" and eliminated the problem.

You should be happy you're getting this nice of a fit in your 9mm. S&W traditionally have tighter bores and throats than Sigs and Berettas. My Beretta has a .359" throat and accepts 38/357 lead revolver bullets without any issues. I had a P226 that had a .360" throat. I could not get it to stop leading.

115 FMJ HB 4.9grs 231 FC-100 1.150" OAL This load shoots into .75" at 15 yards from a stock Beretta 92FS or a Sig P210.

That's a good idea... those 38 S&W dies.

If everything else fits, soft lead generally should be used at 900 FPS or less. Hard lead can be used up to 1300 FPS. After that, you need a gas check. The mechanics of leading are as follows: Upon chambering, the bullet sits partially in the throat/ freebore. Let's just call it the throat (the part of the barrel between the chamber and the rifled bore). Upon ignition, hot gasses accelerate to 7000+ FPS, hit the bullet, and push it forward. The bullet moves forward until it encounters the leade (the part of the rifling that tapers down toward the throat). The bullet slows as it hits this obstruction. The bullet then obturates (grows in diameter) due to the pressure of the gasses pushing on it from behind and the leade pushing on it from the front. You want the bullet to obturate the throat completely, else the gasses will overtake it and gas-cut it's shank, depositing molecular lead ahead of the bullet in the bore. Soft lead obturates the throat at a lower pressure than hard lead, therefore hard lead requires a closer fit to the throat. The prolem with that is the closer the bullet diameter to the throat, the harder it is for the round to chamber. Imagine trying to insert a piston into an engine block at the same speed your slide cycles. 9mm throats range from .356" to .360+" With this in mind, understand that with some 9mm chambers there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop leading. You cannot obturate a soft lead bullet anymore than .003" at pistol pressures. Hard lead won't obturate more than .001". You simply cannot use .360" bullets. They are to fat to slip into the case while the case slips into the seater die. My Redding seater die will not allow .358" bullets to seat. Sadly, that is the ideal bullet diameter for Sig P226 chambers. Beretta 92's have .357" throats, so .356" bullets are just about perfect. I bet your bullets measure .356" in diameter. I have no idea how big Hipower throats are. But if they are any larger than .357", you will see leading. Commercial bullets are cast hard. They won't obturate more than .001". If your throat is .358", you will have .001" of gap for the gasses to slip through. If your throat measures .360", you'll have .003" of gap. FYI, Bar-Sto 9mm barrels have .357" throats. This is from the horses mouth, I asked. They are a great addition to any factory gun. They don't lead.

So you claim that you can squeeze a round measuring .423" in diameter through a carbide ring measuring .415" without sizing the bullet? Can you please explain the magic involved?