iflyskyhigh

The remainder of my Blue Bullets order showed up a couple weeks ago. It was the case of 115’s. The 125’s and 180’s showed up couple months back. They were nicely packaged in cool little plastic containers that look like ammo cans. Order was from 3/25/21. Shipped on 6/23. Showed up 6/25. Only thing I’m still waiting on is 180’s from Precision Bullets.

Not sure if it applies here, but if you remove and then replace the slide on the Sig, and put the take down lever back in the up position WITHOUT using the slide lock, it will result in a dead trigger. Not sure how that could have happened in the situation described though?

Not saying you’re wrong, but when I was using the old chrono I couldn’t get plated bullets to read. Then shot FMJs and JHPs in the exact same conditions, minutes later, and gotten correct consist readings. I used two different chronos in the AZ desert sun for years before I got my lab radar with little issue (except for plated). So you are probably correct that traditional chronos work best in the conditions you described, and maybe the chrono can read plated in perfect conditions, but how often to we get that scenario?

I’m a “JHP” for open guns guy

This. For some reason when I used plated bullets years ago I could never get a traditional chrono to consistently read correctly. I would imagine if you were actually getting that big of a swing you’d see other signs. Noise, feel, POI shift. When I chrono plated bullets with my labradar they read fine.

I built a G17 Open Pistol with a Lonewolf barrel (also famously short lead). I have a Manson throat reamer and opened up the throat to allow me load to 1.155-1.160" with RMR or Everglades 115gr JHP. 1.160" is the max I can run due to the Glock magazine restrictions. I could probably go a little longer with the MBX metal mags, but not sure it's worth it in this platform. MBX mags are awesome...but expensive. I originally ran 124gr JHP with Silhouette and the gun worked great, but then I tried 115gr JHP and the gun really started working as intended. It's never gonna be a 2011 platform open gun, but it's as close as you're gonna get without spending 2011 money. I dabble in too many things to spend 2011 money. I have also switched to SW Major Pistol and am loving it. The whole point of this story is that with plastic open guns I found that the extra powder that I was able to squeeze in with the 115gr projectile really allowed the comp to come to life. The gun shoots extremely flat and is extremely accurate. I found the 115's pushed to 1460 FPS to be a touch more accurate than the 124's pushed to 1370 FPS. Unless you can have someone make ammo to your specs it's probably gonna be a tuff go. As stated, most major ammo is more than likely gonna manufactured for 2011 platforms and hence is gonna be loaded hot (and long) for an M&P or Glock. 2011's have better, more efficient comps, and can handle more powder to make the same power factor. Do you not reload?

Which is crazy because I ordered 180’s months ago and was told it would be summer.

Save yourself the frustration. I've tried relaying the lessons of basic economics to many in the "2A" community. It's like talking to a wall. "If we could just stop humans from acting on basic human nature, this silliness would stop...fairness". Good luck with that. Save yourself the frustration. Go to the garage. Get a hammer and start bashing your hand. Much less painful than the afore mentioned conversation. Most people, including the gun community, are only free market capitalist when they can get what they want at the price they want. If they can't, then that free market nonsense goes right out the window.

am too in need of some 115 JHP

Yep. Got an order of Nosler 175 RDF’s back last year from Midway. Needless to say they didn’t all make. They were nice enough to credit me back for the missing bullets as they’ve been back ordered ever since. That is weird. I received the 9-125 and 40-180s. Still waiting on the 115s. They said those will be this summer. Did you order a case of the 125’s?

On another note... I do not believe there is a package the post office can not destroy. All my orders have been very well packaged, but damn, you can really see the abuse these boxes are taking on their way to us. Every exterior box looks like it's been to hell and back. I feel like the postal employees are doing on it on purpose at this point. "Wanna put 60 pounds of bullets in a box? Fine, I'll show you." DG and Precision are the best packaged, being double boxed. Strong heavy duty plastic bags inside strong heavy duty boxes, which are then placed inside the flat rate boxes and taped for the ride to hell. There is no wasted space inside the inside box which, and any empty space is filled with heavy duty filler material, allowing the packages to take more abuse as the bullets aren't moving around inside much at all. Blue, BBI, and Brass Monkey were all about the same. Good, but not quite as good as DG and Precision They all use smaller lighter duty boxes inside the flat rate box. They do use fillers, but it wasn't packaged quite as snug, which allowed the interior boxes to bang around and break open. Blue did use heavy duty plastic bags inside the smaller boxes which kept the bullets in one place at least. But you could tell the smaller boxes of bullets had been sliding around inside the flat rate box damaging them. Again, it's all relative. They were all packaged well. I didn't lose a single bullet in transit. But I did spend a few minutes picking up bullets off the floor after opening a couple of the packages. I don't even really fault the bullet makers. It's tough to defend your product during long distance shipping against spiteful postal employees.

Orders from Blue and Brass Monkey showed up Friday. Day early, weren't supposed to be here till today. This is unusual. So far I have ordered form BBI, DG, Precision, Blue, and Brass Monkey. The packages referenced above are the only ones so far to show up on time or early. All Packages from BBI and DG were several days past the expected delivery date. But at least they made it. Have faith. They'll get there. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to which packages make it where and when.

Lot's o updates. Precision Bullets 9-125's ordered on 3/16 were delivered on 4/16. 4 weeks to the day. Way better than the estimated 14-16 weeks. Which would explain the relatively fast shipping. Excellent product and packaging. Shot my first tests this afternoon. Precision Bullets 9-115's from same order, notified they'd be shipped Monday. Dave from Precision is really good at communicating! Still waiting on 401-185's. Dave advised summer sometime. Ordered a case of Brass Monkey 9-127's about 19:00 MST last night. Got a shipping notification this AM. Shipment on its way. USPS shows Saturday...so sometime next week. Hope these are as good as the BBI's and DG's. Ordered a case of each 9-115, 9-125, and 40-180 from Blue Bullets on 3/26. Got a shipping notice on the 9-125's and 40-180's yesterday. Packages show Saturday delivery...so next week. Was told this AM that 115s would be closer to June. Possibly sooner. So both Precision and Blue beat the time frame they gave when I placed my order. Not sure if they are catching up, or I just got lucky and ordered when they were making a run of what I needed? Those Bayous must be something special to be waiting on them for so long. So far I've tried the the BBI 125's and 180's, DG 115's and 125's, and Precision 125's. Can't tell a major difference between them. They're all great. No more smoke than FMJ's (Clean Shot is really clean). Phenomenal accuracy. Can't believe it took this shortage to turn me back onto them. It's good to know going forward I can just buy whatever is cheapest and available.

Can’t we all just get along... Should get you in the ball park. I know people love em, but I couldn’t get anything resembling accuracy from them. Tried several powders and multiple COAL. Admittedly I don’t put a ton of effort in, since I didn’t see improvement. Decided to stick with 124/125gr. Just a cut and paste, you can ignore my little notes to myself. Gen 3 Gucci G34 Agency Arms Barrel. RMR 135 gr FP MatchWinner 1.090” 3.6 grs 982 FPS 19.5 SD / 70 ES (promise) 3.8 grs 1042 FPS 8.5 SD / 26 ES 1.100” Titegroup G34 Agency 3.6 grs 987 FPS 14.9 SD / 67 ES 3.8 grs 1032 FPS 13.6 SD / 68 ES 1.110” 3.6 grs 963 FPS 15.4 SD / 47 ES 3.8 grs 1021 FPS 11.0 SD / 30 ES 1.120” 3.6 grs 960 FPS 12.2 SD / 37 ES 3.9 grs 1027 FPS 8.1 SD / 28 ES 1.130” 3.9 grs 1025 FPS 13.9 SD / 50 ES (FTF) HP-38 G34 Agency 1.120” 4.2 grs 1028 FPS 16.4 SD / 52 ES (promise)

Just started reloading BBI 180 coated bullets yesterday after loading FMJs for the better part of a decade. Shortage, price increase et all. Anyway, using a Dillon crimp die, I ran the press up with a loaded round in the station. Screwed the crimp die down till I couldn’t screw it any further. Then in small increments started moving the crimp down down until the loaded round would gauge in my Amanov case gauge, AND plunk test in my barrel. I agree. At .423 I had to shove the round into the gauge and barrel. But just a touch more, around .422, gauged and dropped into and out of barrel. I’m running these in a CZ TSO. I have to seat them at 1.120”. Started at 1.150”. Had to go all the way down to 1.120” to get them to plunk. Accuracy was superb. I know guys love to run their rounds long, but I encourage you to shorten them up and just see what happens. Almost always (almost) I get better accuracy with shorter COAL. And that’s across all platforms and calibers. For me the only exception is my open gun, when I run them at max magazine length. When I see guys with issues at match’s I’d say 8 outta 10 times their reloaded rounds are too long. Little more. Little less maybe. But it’s more often then not the case. Good luck. PS. Another issue that you don’t see as much any more, but was especially prevalent in 40 brass is bulged cases towards the bottom from unsupported barrels. Again, not as much of an issue as it used to be due to improvements in barrel designs. But can still be there. If your using once fired bras, try running it through one of the various “bulge busters” out there. I also use the Lee Undersized U die. Helps a lot!

Think I’m gonna try a case of Brass Monkey 9-127s too. Anymore have any experience with Brass Monkey. Did a search didn’t find much. This is fun! Agreed. That being said, I’m still gonna need JHPs for my open gun. I know people shoot lead in their open guns, but I’m gonna stick with JHPs. Also have a Roland Special G19X that I’ll save the FMJs and JHPs for. AND i shoot plated in my suppressed Sub 9 AR...So I’ll still have to stalk RMR, MG, and Everglades websites

Ordered a case of 9-125, 9-115, and 40-185’s from Precision Bullets on 3/16. 9-125’s shipped 4/12 SHOULD be delivered today. Dave advised 115’s would be another 2-3 weeks and 185’s late summer. Really digging all my new coated lead bullets BTW. Glad the shortage caused me to re-examine them. Cheap and some of the most accurate bullets I’ve tried to date. So far only shot the BBI’s and DG’s. Both awesome. Looking forward to trying the Blue’s and Precision’s. See if that “Proprietary” coating makes any difference.

Used SPP with both 115 and 124 gr major loads. In conjunction with Silhouette and now Major Pistol. I switched to SP magnum primers for my major loads, but the difference is negligible. Maybe a touch better accuracy and cleaner burn. Maybe. SDs and ESs were low with all varieties of primers.

I use a Mr. Bullet Feeder Powder Die. I like Lee stuff. A lot of my reloading dies are Lee. I use the Lee U dies for all pistol rounds.

Thank you. Actually solved my issue. The .356s ended up working great after a couple tweaks. Don’t think I’d ever go back to copper bullets. For me personally I always found the accuracy subpar and these days they are about the same cost as as FMJ’s which defeats the purpose of switching to coated lead. The only thing I use plated for are 147 gr subsonic loads for a suppressed 9MM AR. In that case they are plenty accurate. Appreciate the input.

I respect your work, and you are most certainly knowledgeable, but never and always statements are always false and never true. I understand why people say that ref the LFCD, and it for sure makes sense. But for some reason it isn’t always true. I pulled bullets run through the FCD and they were still .356. So it hadn’t swage them. Maybe it had some other effect I didn’t notice or couldn’t detect. It for sure has the potential to cause issues. I’m open too it. Depends on lots of factors. I’m guessing if I had run the .357s through it might have had some effect. Several of the guns shot the rounds that had been run through the FCD like laser beams. So, if I had only had those guns I wouldn’t ever have know I had an issue. So in that case technically the LFCD worked just fine. I for sure had zero leading on the rounds run through the FCD. The barrels were squeaky clean. It wasn’t till I switched to the Dillon crimp that I noticed what I thought was leading. But what I thought was leading I don’t think really was. I may have had a little leading with the Dillon die crimping to tight, but now I think it’s fine. Always be open to things you are sure you know the answer too. I changed 3 different things at once so who’s to say what’s the one that fixed the issue. Or, like I said, maybe it was a combo of all three. I’ll do some more experimenting with the LFCD if for nothing more than to satisfy my curiosity. I’ll run some .357s through and see what happens. I’m guessing it WILL swage down the 357’s some. If I’m wrong I’m wrong. But that’s a debate for another day, and one that has been beaten to death. I’m gonna stick with the super light crimp. May go down a thou and see what happens. With the mixed brass you have to find a middle of the road, hence the .379–.381. I even had a couple of the notoriously troublesome head stamps (we all know what they are) measure .382”, but even those still gauged and chambered without issue. Everything is working great now with the .356s so I’m gonna roll with that. As far as pistols, like I said they all shoots snappy 115s (no matter the material) pushed to around 1175 FPS +/- exceedingly well. Gen 5 G17 MOS shot everything lights out no matter material or weight. I got one of the good ones I guess. Loved the .356s from the first round. The Gen 5 barrels appear to be much tighter and more accurate than previous generations. Sig M17 is really accurate with 124+ gr bullets, but it’s not as though it’s inaccurate with other bullets. Had trouble with the first few runs of 125 gr coated, all sorted and lights out now. Have the Apex kit in there along with Wilson grip module and couple other goodies. I don’t think I own a stock pistol except my CZ TSO 40. Gen 3 Gucci G34, agency arms barrel. Loves 115s. REALLY had trouble with the first few runs of 125 gr coated, all sorted and lights out now Poly 80 G19 build with agency arms barrel really likes 147 JHP’s pushed hard (it’s one of my EDC gunS). But again shoots everything well. G19X same as Gen 5 G17, just got a Parker Mountain Machine barrel and comp. Haven’t had a chance to shoot it. SW Shield. With the Apex carry kit it is amazingly accurate for such a small pistol. Also shot all the coated bullets well no matter what. I don’t have anything that shoots 147 practice stuff all that great beside my AR-9 suppressed sub gun. But truth be told I haven’t put a ton of time into load development on that front.

Hey Darrel. I read that awhile back and revisited it yesterday. I was belling to about .380-.383 (mixed brass) Opened it up to .388-.391 (mixed brass). Looks WAY too big. Like throwing a hotdog into the Grand Canyon. I use the Mr. Bullet Feeder powder die. It’s a god send when using mixed brass, and when using big bell as you suggest. I think I may have had the crimp a little too tight. I was crimping to about .377-.378ish (mixed brass). I was using a LFCD. I pulled some bullets and verified that the .356 bullets were in fact still .356, and they were. I switched backed to my Dillon crimp die and am now crimping .379-.381 (mixed brass). Even on the high side of the crimp they all still gauged but one, and even that one chambered. Some were just a touch tight in the case gauge, but all still went in flush. I think some times a burr in the case rim is mistaken for some other issue, but often I find it’s the burr that keeps it from going flush. Anyway, even the ones without a burr that were just a touch tight still gauged with a little pressure and chambered. I may go back and experiment with the LFCD and the .379 bell just for s#!ts and giggles. But I’ll stick with the Dillon crimp die for now. Even at .377 crimp, the case mounts had not cut into the coating. Sometimes there was a slight indentation that I could feel with with my nail, but it never pieced the coating. Obviously too much crimp though. Tested .356 115s and 125s yesterday with your suggested bell and crimp. Worked like a charm. Troublesome guns groups tightened up substantially and the guns that were great before were still great. Issues solved. I really like the DG 115s. They are a little snappier obviously, but crazy accurate in all my guns. Which is something I’ve also found with 115 FMJs and JHPs. They tend to be the most accurate weight bullets in all my 9MM pistols, expect maybe my Sig M17 which prefers 124/125. I thought I was getting some leading, but I don’t think it’s leading. I don’t know, maybe it is? After several strings of fire with above loads and some FMJ loads tossed in accuracy was still on point. Do you get leading even with proper bell and crimp? Since I changed 3 different things not sure which one fixed the issue. Probably a combo of all 3. I also tested the .357s yesterday with your belling and crimping, and the good news is they were just a touch less accurate than the .356s. I say good news cause I have thousands of the .356s. Now I know I can just stick with the .356s Very happy with both BBI and the DG bullets so far. Quality product. Good price. Fast shipping. Still gonna try the Blues and the Precision's...because this is fun and why not. Thanks for the help.

For sure. I appreciate the input and suggestions. I meant to say step. I just can’t add another step. I’m loading up the DG .357’s right now. Gunna try and run to the club here in a few and see what happens.

Thank you. I don’t have a sizer and at this point am not interested in another reloading stop. I also wanted to stick with coated bullets. Looks like Bear Creek is just straight lead. And I believe Bayou is taking quite awhile to ship. I was mainly looking for manufacturers with in stock ready to ship, which i know is tough right now. I was able to get some 357’s from DG and have them in hand. Will load up for testing today.

I get a "schister" vibe from Glock Store