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Justsomeguy

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About Justsomeguy

  • Birthday 02/27/1945

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    Near Portland OR
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    Shooting sports in general and computers for fun. I did go to and graduate from a gunsmithing school back in the late '70's, but never actually did it for a living. I did build and repair computers for a living though, but they are becoming like toasters and people just get new ones now, so I retired. But then... now I have more time to shoot!
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    Herb Rowder

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  1. Though 4756 is a nice powder, it will no longer be imported into the United States after this year (Pharoh's in Canada, and I don't know about there though), so if you do find some, you will not be able to continue using it. However, Pharoh's OAL and bullet selection will certainly hold up with a variety of powders.
  2. Like Rdinga and Rowdyb said, going cheap and shooting 9mm Major is sort of like trying to get into Polo with cheap nags. If they don't drop dead, you might hit the ball once in a while. I am not trying to discourage you, but 9mm major means a "race gun" and race ammo. This reminds me of the sign I saw as a kid in a local automotive speed shop... it said "Speed costs money, how fast do YOU want to go". It's really like that. You want inexpensive, go Production, you want to race, well... you know. But if you do find some local reloader who has experience with 9mm major and he or she will allow it, then learning from him or her while reloading is probably best. 9mm major ammo is "chancy" stuff. It is really above the limit for what is supposedly allowed for the 9mm case, so the more control you have over the process the better. Also, each gun being different, you may have to go through a lot of different combinations to maximize the results, so again, having someone close to you that you share time with is probably best.
  3. Red Dot, Promo, e3, and TightGroup all have their proponents in 9mm for faster powders with light loads. In the medium burners I tend to favor True Blue or Silhouette (if you can find them), but you take what you can get nowadays. Almost any powder that will burn completely in a 9mm pistol will give decent results if you load it right, so you will see almost all powders mentioned if you do a search. Bullseye would not be my first choice as a 9mm powder. It was one of the first (if not THE first) smokeless pistol powder, and most users find it on the dirty side but with acceptable accuracy. There are others that will burn cleaner, have a wider load range in many calibers, and be more accurate in most guns.
  4. I like 147's in most of my guns, but yes, like FullRace said, you will probably need about 900fps at least to have them shoot nicely in most 9mm guns. Some guns, mostly polygonal rifled ones in my experience, have less luck with 147's, but this is not true of all of them. However, 6" is a pretty large group and something else is going on there if you are not shooting at 100 yards. I would look to the belling and crimping operations as suspect. I have lately been using some SNS coated lead flat point 147's that shoot into about an inch (hey... it's as good as I can hold them!) at 15yrds.
  5. You can safely use bullets of even .357 diameter in a 9mm pistol, but you may want to adjust your powder load to compensate for the higher pressure created if you are near the maximum load for your powder choice or use a short OAL. Many people use .356" lead bullets in 9mm as that is the nominal size recommended for lead 9mm bullets, and some plated bullets are also that size.
  6. If you have a 3 die set, you have a decapping die, a seating die, and a crimping die. The belling is, of course, done with the "powder through" die which is part of the powder measure with progressive reloaders. Some die sets are only 2 dies, and combine the seating and crimping operation. I don't like those as they are harder to control accurately, and most of them also "roll crimp" if you go down far enough, and that's a bad idea with semi-auto rounds. So... if you have a 3 die set (hopefully Dillon) your seating die is not really a crimping die, and frankly I don't know if it will crimp or "straighten" out the bell much, or if to any degree since it is meant to force the bullet down to the proper OAL without interfering with that process. If you have a 2 die set that combines seating and crimping, then the die would still have to be adjusted for the correct height in the press or you will still be over or under crimping. The correct crimp is relative to the brass and bullet. If you measure the thickness of the brass at the case mouth, you double that measurement and add the bullet diameter to get the absolute perfect crimp (which is no crimp at all, but no bell left either). That is, if the brass measures .011 thick, you double that to .022 then add the bullet diameter... say a nominal .355 and you get .377. Not all the brass will be the same, and though close, not all the bullets will be the same either. However, they will still work even with slight variations of .001 or even 002" (but personally I wouldn't like that and would try to eliminate it at .002" variation). If you are getting readings on the bullet diameter that vary more than .001" then you could have some accuracy problems especially with lead, coated lead, or plated bullets because you will not be able to properly control the crimp. The taper crimp is meant to assure good feeding in an auto pistol. It does not hold the bullet in place. Proper sizing holds the bullet by case tension on the slug. If you under crimp, you could run into reliability issues as the mouth of the case will hit on parts of the barrel and prevent clean feeding (and in extreme examples not allow the case to enter the chamber completely). If you over crimp, you will run into accuracy issues as the bullet is being smashed by the case in the die and that is not a good thing as it will be too small for the bore, damaged and not fly straight, could cut the coating or plating on certain types of bullets and again cause it to lose said coating or plating (maybe even leaving some behind, though that would be rare). So... crimp is important, and more important for lead, coated lead, and plated bullets as more things can go wrong when using them. I hope this helped.
  7. Like "Likes to Shoot" above, I too have been shooting some of the SNS coated bullets lately (a few thousand of various weights) and really like them. They seem as accurate as any with the possible exception of Montana Gold, though in some guns they seem MORE accurate. I don't have a compensated pistol so I can't say how they would do under those circumstances, but otherwise they are hard to beat for accuracy and certainly superior for the price.
  8. To use One Shot with pistol cases, I generally put about 3 or 4 handfuls of cases in a gallon plastic bag, flatten out the bag and cases and spray into the open mouth of the bag, then rub them around and dump them into the case feeder... DONE.
  9. Wish I could find some True Blue... been looking for it for about 3 years. I do have Silhouette though which has proved to be a very good all around powder to me, but still want to experiment with True Blue.
  10. I am amazed that more people are not shooting the 9X23. It has a very stout case that can easily make major with no drama and pressure to spare. It loads easily, can accept a wide variety of bullet weights, feeds reliably, and can use 38 Super magazines. A lot to like really... That would be my vote.
  11. Like Deerassassin22 mentioned, even though most carbide dies do not REQUIRE lube, Hornady One Shot is a blessing to those who use it. The reasons to use it are several. First, it makes it a lot easier to size the brass and if you are reloading several hundred at a time it is so much easier that you will never want to forego it again. Secondly, you do not have to remove One Shot as it is a wax based product and dries to a slick non-sticky coating that will not pick up dirt or grit and makes loading magazines somewhat easier too, as well as insuring good feeding from the magazine. And third, most reloaders find that when using One Shot, the OAL variations are minimized. The ease of sizing afforded by the lube when using a progressive press, eliminates some of the flex or "tipping" in the shell plate and those rounds on the opposite side that are getting their bullet seated are not exposed to the variations in sizing pressure flexing the plate that can result in greater variance of the OAL as they have the bullets pressed home. So no, you don't HAVE to use it, and I don't like the sticky lanolin based lubes that then have to be removed, but One Shot is another thing altogether and really, you should try it. Things will go better.
  12. The .40 is really a pretty easy cartridge to load for. The only caveat is that some pickup brass you may find could possibly have the "Glock Bulge" that may have to be eliminated in order to use that brass if you have a lot of it (if you have only a few like that just discard them). This bulge is the result of firing full power loads in chambers that are not fully supportive of the case head, whether or not it was an older Glock. If you encounter this, a push through die like the Redding or some U dies (U stands for "undersized" or less than standard diameter) that can be set to just kiss the shell plate may remove these problem bulges. Once addressed, you will not need to worry about any brass that is fired only in your gun, so this is generally a "one time" operation if you use a pass through die to correct any anomalies. That said, I would go for an OAL of about 1.135 or so, and using an 180grn bullet, you should start to hit "major" somewhere around 4.2 grns of TiteGroup in that 5" barrel, but you will want some cushion, so maybe 4.3 would be better. Regardless, at some point you will want a chrono of your own so you can check various loads for power factor as well as consistency using the "ES" (Extreme Spread or difference between the fastest and slowest shots in a string) and "SD" (or Standard Deviation from a median velocity in the string of fire). Good consistency means you can be assured that should you go to a match that is chrono checking for power factor, that even your slowest reloads will still make the power factor required. Good luck. I am sure with some attention to detail that you already learned reloading 9mm, that you will have a good experience with your new 40 cal.
  13. Wow... Extremist's little thumbnail chart seemed to show quite a variation of ES and SD figures using the bullet types he tried in his guns. Perhaps this is what we can expect depending on bullet choice, but it seems more various than one would usually anticipate.
  14. Those maximum power factors seem strange for a powder that rests somewhere between WSF and True Blue on the burn rate chart, and indeed in some uses would likely be slower than that. Perhaps it is the 9mm case size that resulted in such low velocities, and 800X does better in other environments. I wish they had included some pressure test figures. I don't have some of my reloading manuals in front of me, but perhaps the Lyman book or some other would give some insight into actual pressure figures. Good luck with your testing and please keep us informed of your findings.
  15. 800X is a pretty slow powder with very large flakes... sort or like loading waffles into a case (Well... ok not quite that bad but still...). So yes, this is not the first time I have heard of problems getting it to meter properly. It would seem to me that pressures would also have to be pretty high in order to fully light up the stuff, so going for the light end of minor is probably not going to work, especially with light bullets. Maybe with 147grn you could get to about 140PF with a decent ES and SD reading, but even higher would probably be better.
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