IDescribe

I've loaded these and I use the Barnes commercially produced 115hr +P ammo for SD. I do not have my own load data for that bullet as I lost some load data in a divorce. Sometimes they DO get everything. Use the Barnes data and do not exceed it. Don't think powder XYZ will drive other 115gr bullets to 1200 feet/sec, so you should therefore be able to do that with this bullet, too. It's a dramatically different bullet. SD bullets are engineered to expand at a certain rate at a certain velocity. If you get them going to fast, they will expand too fast, decelerate in soft tissue too quickly, and underpenetrate. The Barnes bullet expands slowly, and so it will penetrate deeper at lower velocities. The Barnes commercial 115gr +P is specced at 1100 feet/sec, and I think my own chronic showed them a little under that. I would keep average velocity at 1100 or lower, and choose a powder that allows that within SAAMI max standard pressure.

I don't imagine anyone would pay to shoot solid copper for 9mm minor competition loads.

YES that is way too much crimp. You should not see a ring, and that bullet looks outright pinched. Set taper crimp for. 378 and be done with it. And if using Lee FCD, stop and get a regular taper crimp die.

Awesome. Let us know how it goes.

Careful with the weak hand index finger across the front of the trigger guard. If you look at that video, I think you'll find that Vogel is not pulling on the front of the trigger guard. Rather, his finger is up there in front of the trigger guard but still clasping the receiver. If you put your index finger across the front of the trigger guard and pull back against it, that is likely to drop your muzzle.

Gallant is in the process of switching from a part-time 2-man operation to a full time job for the owner, and they just got hammered with a bunch of orders. It will settle out soon. You're dealing with their growing pains. ACME are typically .356 to .3565, so not necessarily up to the size you want. And their .38 bullets sized .358 have lube grooves, which I typically avoid for coated bullets. In your position, I'd stick with Eggleston for the time being. And give Gallant some time to get up to speed.

ACME is the most consistent I've dealt with, and I measure with a micrometer. Keep in mind what happens to the bullet when it gets engraved and passes down the barrel. Of you're running at the bottom end of acceptable sizing, a sizing die might help, but if you are running at the upper end, I don't imagine that it makes much difference. The nice even coating going I to the barrel is going to be altered as soon as it enters the rifling anyway.

That's either your sights, or grip and trigger control, which are related. Search YouTube for Bob Vogel on Grip. What he describes works perfectly in my Glock as described and demonstrated, but takes some minor modifications with other pistols. The principles are the same, though, regardless of pistol. It's the best grip video I've seen.

Your shoulders are stronger than your grip, strong enough to tear your grip off the pistol. If you're not using that shoulder/arm rotation to clamp the gun between your hands, you're leaving most of your grip strength and recoil control on the table. There is plenty of discussion of this in the technique subforum. Any thread on recoil control.

And your eyes are a big big deal. When you drive a car, you don't look at where you are - - you look where you want to go, and direct the car toward it. Same with a gun.

Recoil control is about grip and stance. Recoil control is a component of driving the gun. Driving the gun I would define as a deliberate, dynamic, precise, and forceful manipulation of a firearm to allow fast, accurate followup shots and fast transitions between targets. It includes a high, appropriately strong grip with the hands, but not so strong you lose fine motor control with the trigger finger. And it includes an internal rotation of the arms with unlocked elbows, which drives the elbows out and clamps the hands down on the pistol. It includes unlocked knees, squaring the shoulders to the target, and leaning far enough forward, based on your body weight, such that recoil is absorbed through the body and driven into the ground. It includes raising already aligned sights to your eye line and the point of aim, and during the transition to new targets, moving your eyes to the new point of aim, and directing the pistol in a straight line to align with that new point of aim to minimize inefficient movement. And it includes subconscious judgment of how precise all of that has to be to get the shot you need to get. People might compare it to driving a car, where most people behind the wheel are mostly just riding and offering input, but I think it's easier to compare it to driving a dirt bike or race bike, where the entire body is used to forcefully push the bike around and make the bike do precisely what you want it to do without consciously deciding what every part of your body has to do to make it happen. I also like the comparison to driving a nail. Ever see someone who doesn't know how to handle a hammer and drive a nail? The nail pitches this and that way, the hammer turns in the person's hand and has to be readjusted. The nail pushes the person around. Meanwhile, direct, deliberate, precise, efficient application of force controls the nail completely. GENERAL examples of not driving the gun - - Exercising bullseye level trigger control for a shot that does not require bullseye level accuracy, delaying the shot, increasing time between shots. Keeping eyes on aligned sights while moving the sights to the next target, which slows transition time and often results in overshooting the target and having to track back to it. When looking to fire a follow up shot on the same target - - any body dynamic, grip, stance, or otherwise, that brings the point of aim to a significantly different point of aim on the same target at the end of a recoil cycle. In other words, letting the gun push you around. When transitioning to a new target, any body dynamic that delays or otherwise reduces efficiency of transition or reduces your body's stability for the next shot. Not driving the gun usually involves the person making compromises with the gun. But you can make the the gun an extension of your body, and no compromise is necessary. So... Driving the gun - - Deliberate, forceful control of the gun to make it do what you need it to do in as efficient a manner as possible, and in as precise a manner as necessary, to get the hits you need to make as fast as they can be made.

At the same PF, a pistol will cycle faster with a lighter bullet than a heavier bullet. You can feel it. Many people find at minor PF that heavier bullets cycle the pistol in a fashion that seems downright sluggish. There are plenty of people who start off with 147gr for minor PF because that's the common internet wisdom, then move onto 124gr after trying some 124gr minor PF loads and discovering there just as fast or faster. Basically, they figure out that softer "felt" recoil doesn't make their splits faster, and that a faster cycling pistol makes them feel faster, and in a game where fast fluid transitiins is the key to better scores, feeling faster with a faster gun often equals faster. Recoil control is about grip and stance and learning to drive the gun, not "felt" recoil. If heavier bullets at the same PF was the path to greatness, every pro would be shooting Production with 230gr .45ACP at 130 PF, and the number of pros doing that is... zero? And for every guy loving his supersoft bunny fart loads, there's a guy shooting. 40 major at 173PF killing him on splits.

I was referring to 147 being necessarily longer bullets, automatically putting you closer to a problem because they are automatically seated deeper into the case at max OAL compared to a lighter bullet of the exact same nose profile. And I'm talking about that situation being magnified because one bullet will have a shorter max OAL than the same bullet sized a thousandth smaller. So heavy bullets plus oversized typically equals shorter OAL and very deep seating. In other words, a 125gr RN sized .358 is likely to be fine, and a 147gr RN sized .356 is likely to be fine, but a 147gr RN sized .358 is more likely to leave you with the same problem you started with where you had to swat a lead bullet super deep into the case.

That is correct. I have never slugged a barrel myself. No matter the result, I would still want to test different sizes and let the pistol tell me what size it likes best. And since I have 9mm pistols with bores of different sizes, I always have bullets of different sizes on hand. The only way I would even consider it is if I had a problem I couldn't otherwise figure out.

Remember not to go heavy with the fat bullets right off the bat unless you want to run the risk of more OAL issues.

Another issue is quite simply that we don't know how accurate your measurement is. You may be using less than precise calipers and be off by a thousandth. Or you may have a top notch micrometer and be right on it. Your .357 might be .3565 or .3575. Because you used fishing weights that are probably alloyed, there may be a little springback in the alloy and your. 357 accurately measured may reflect a. 3565 groove diameter because of spring back. Basically, you should try both sizes.

In your shoes. I'd buy a couple of hundred Gallant 125gr bullets at .357 and a couple hundred Blue Bullets 125gr at .358 and test them for precision and leading. If the. 358 had no advantages, I'd go with .357. If the .358 had any advantages, I'd go .358. In your case. With Eggleston local, I might get both my .357 and .358 there. However, while we can tell you that you should go to at leadt .357, only your gun can tell you if there's a benefit to .358. Let us know.

Who could have guessed?

That's the truth, sir, and it's a good way to look at this experience. You had to deal with a few different issues trying to track down one. To that point, velocity was no longer a potential issue with the Precision keyholing at 3.2gr of TG, so that's out. And you weren't seating deeply enough to swage the bullet base at 1.12, so that's out. Ultimately, your issue was bullet to barrel fit, supported by the fact that your Precision bullets measured .355, and the 92's reputation for an over-sized bore. And the fact that three new bullets at .356 did not tumble reinforces that conclusion. I would suggest that if .355 was small enough to tumble, .356 is probably still not ideal sizing -- it might be just borderline. I would guess that there would be better fit and additional benefit of going to .357. If you go that route, keep in mind that with two bullets from the same maker of the same profile, just different sizing, the larger diameter bullet will have to be seated shorter to stay out of rifling engagement. That's no problem for you at 124/125gr bullets, but it might be at 135 or 147 -- it could put you right back in the same situation you started in with bullets stuck too deeply into the case. If you wanted to try a slightly heavier bullet at .357, I'd try the Gallant 135gr. It's a long-loading profile, and I suspect the "heavy" bullet least likely to cause you problems at .357. If you wanted to try .357 in 124/125gr bullet, either Gallant or Eggleston would do the job. As I think about Eggleston being close to you, I think in your shoes I would probably buy their 124gr bullets in two sizes -- .356 and .357, and then test them against each other and see if my pistol seemed to shoot one more accurately than the other. THEN, if .357 was the better, AND I wanted to try a heavier bullet, I'd try the .357 135gr Gallant. If .356 was the better, you'd be free to purchase from any of the major ones with little worry, and at 135 or 147, either one. The only company I'd recommend against, given that your pistol has already problems with a .355 -- is Blue Bullets, who undersize their bullets to .355 as standard. Good luck.

You have to select 38 Super to get to the .356 bullet. Precision Delta 38 Super .356 It no longer lists the discount for buying 2,000 or more, but if you add to cart, the discount is still there. If you want JHP, Zero is your option at 10 cents per bullet. Those 121gr bullets are more or less made for comped Open guns.

I shoot brass at the range, and for practice sessions, I typically come home with more empties than I shot. That will never happen with these. These cases are a solution looking for a problem.

One more issue with Blue. If you're happy with accuracy with .356 jacketed, the .355 sizing on the Blue Bullets is likely not a good fit for your barrel.

Why not just buy cheaper jacketed bullets? Everglades .38 Super 125gr JHP (.356) = $130/1000 Or... Precision Delta .38 Super 124gr RN $89/1000 (when you buy 2,000 or more) Zero Bullets .38 Super 121gr JHP (.356) = $100/1000 (when you buy 2,000 or more) Zero Bullets .38 Super 125gr JHP (.356) = $109/1000 (when you buy 2,000 or more) You really can't go wrong with those Precision Deltas for $89/1000.

OAL 1.12 keeps your bullet base above the .300 recommended max seating depth. I'd start there. Just make ultra sure the slide is closing all the way. ?