Justsomeguy

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I see no reason why the SNS bullets could not be at least the equal of the BBI's offerings. I don't shoot an open gun, but have, in some testing, driven the SNS 125grn bullet well past 1200fps without incident. Albeit I was using Silhouette which burns pretty cool so I can't say much about hotter powders personally. Certainly this is not the same as 1350fps but the basic materials are sound. The problem with Open is the compensator. Since I do not shoot one, perhaps someone else here can elaborate on how much poly coating to expect in the comp when pushing such bullets to the speeds required. I doubt there would be much difference between the two bullets mentioned in that regard.

@Longshot83... First, "you gotta run the gun". You can only go so light before things won't operate. Having said that, the powders you mentioned can, and often are loaded below the "starting charges" listed in the manuals. There are caveats though. The medium burners you are using all need a certain pressure to light up completely. So, loading lighter will often result in incomplete ignition that will vary the ES (extreme spread between the slowest and fastest velocity in a string of fire) and SD (or standard deviation from the median velocity). Which means you cannot always count on the exact velocity you are looking for across all the rounds you are loading, and if you load close to the minimum for the power factor and get chrono-ed, they may not pass and your day at the range will be for naught. Sometimes, if the pressure is still high enough they will work fine, but for most shooters who want to shoot "minor" with a .40, the way to go is to use a faster powder than normally used for more "full power" or major loads in the caliber. This means powders like WST, Clays, 320, or even TiteGroup which is sort of fast and can be loaded to minor, but will still make major without blowing up the gun. Still... you gotta run the gun, and this will oftentimes mean you have to use reduced power recoil springs to get a full slide thrust with light loads. This is problematic in that the springs still have to be good enough to push a round from the magazine and make the slide go into battery which is not as easy as it sounds with some striker fired guns if that is what you have. XD types for instance, have to have enough recoil spring pressure to offset the striker spring to go into battery, so the recoil spring must have enough power to overcome the striker spring. It's all about balance, and so you may not be able to shoot the absolute lowest amount of power factor and still make the gun work without a lot of testing and fooling around with spring rates of both the recoil and striker springs which then gets into how much energy is needed to fire up the primers you have. For most striker fired guns with stock springs I think you will find that a power factor (bullet weight times the velocity divided by 1000) you will need is about 140. This is easily reached with the powders mentioned above, but may lead to incomplete ignition like I said with the medium burners you mentioned in your post. Try it and see if you can live with the powders you have. Otherwise you will be hunting around for a somewhat faster powder to accomplish your goal.

Especially for TiteGroup, the actual "flame" of the primer is a non issue. TiteGroup will light up if you whisper "fire" over it. The question is what primers will work with your action or trigger group. If you have a really light trigger which is the result of very light springs, then Federal's are the primers of choice. Winchester's are reportedly also more easy to set off than some others, but I cannot personally verify that. I have used CCI's in a lot of guns for years that have fairly light triggers and they always worked for me, but some guns are like some women and are fickle about what they can live with. Soooo... experiments are in order. Good luck, but I think you will be ok with any of the domestic primers available.

@ DR.Love... Wait... What? Uhmm, are you saying you are loading long and the bullet is touching the rifling and thus causing a failure to go into battery? I don't understand your analogy about "in real life, the bullet will not come from the other side of the barrel". Perhaps you are experiencing the phenomenon I mentioned earlier about the completed round "growing" because of powder compression and that is causing the problem. We are trying to help, but need a little more information about what is happening.

CFE being a new powder, it is interesting to see what people who use it are getting as far as results. Though I don't shoot Glocks, I cannot recall getting the front to back shooting results you got with Berry bullets with any powder I used before, and indeed generally got good results with them. Others who will be using CFE for experiments can perhaps do some testing at 25yrds also and see if they get any deteriorated group sizes as the day goes on. Meanwhile, even using Montana Gold bullets with the same testing procedure should be revelatory and we all, I'm sure, look forward to further posts on this subject.

Well... there are such things as throating reamers too. Same procedure. Have a dummy of the size you want to shoot made up, perhaps with the worst case bullet, and cut a little and then see if it fits. And yes, those squatty looking flat nose or short truncated cone bullets do seem to have to be loaded annoyingly short. .999 is, as you probably know, .001 shorter than SAAMI spec for a 9mm and can indeed present some feeding problems with a lot of magazine/feed ramp combinations. The aftermarket barrel makers, knowing that these barrels will generally NOT be used for any self defense work, seem to favor short throats thinking that accuracy will be improved if the bullet has less of a "leap of faith" between the case and the rifling, thus staying straighter in the bore. Just how much extra accuracy can be gleaned from such tactics is questionable at best and, in my opinion, extremely limiting to the person who actually has to shoot such barrels. If you do some throat reaming, take it slow and use the dummy after every couple revolutions using plenty of cutting oil to keep chips out of the way. It's not that hard to do and you may like your barrel a lot more if you do it. The amount of accuracy you may or may not give up depends just as much on how you do your reloading. Certainly extremely long throats can slightly affect accuracy negatively, but for the purposes of this discussion we are talking about an increase of more like .010 or .015 in order to allow loading a bullet to a length more conducive to reliable feeding, which at the proper length won't reduce your accuracy anyway. I'm sure there are people here who have done this and maybe they will chime in with advice and results too.

The small rifle primer is a bit harder in the cup so really light springs in a particular gun may not always crush them enough to reliably set them off, but if you are running stock springs or at least not really light ones you should be ok. From some reports I have read, the small rifle primer has about the same "flame" as a magnum small pistol primer and thus with some powders may give a few more feet per second as it will light up a bit more powder at one time with some of the medium and slower pistol powders. This won't mean much unless you using a "maximum" load with the powder you are using, in which instance everything matters, so you should probably back off a tenth or two tenths grains and re-chrono when trying them for the first time and see what is going on with your powder and bullet combination.

If it was really only less than 15deg outside temperature in June where you live I feel sorry for you! Plus, at those temperatures a lot of powders will shoot poorly. Some are "reverse temperature sensitive" and indeed may be MORE powerful at those temperatures, but most will be weaker. Soooo... be careful about loading up to a fairly high power factor at low temps and then later in the year shooting the same load on a 90 degree day... things could go wrong! It would be good to test those loads at various temperatures as things get milder and see just what they are doing so you have a clue as to how to proceed. But, like Bowenbuilt said, some variance in ES (extreme spread) and SD (standard deviation) is to be expected with ANY round factory or handload. While it is nice to see very small ES and SD figures, especially SD figures in the single digits, they are not always necessary to produce accurate rounds. Building in a little cushion to around 170PF or maybe a bit more is always best when you have to count on a power factor for a match, but don't go overboard. You just penalize yourself if you're shooting 180PF loads when others are shooting 167-170PF on a given day. Therefore, it is nice to know the possible effects of weather variations as well as perhaps altitude variations if you shoot under different conditions than you loaded the rounds at. So keep your chrono handy and try some "favorite" loads out on various days with different temperatures and look for opportunities to test at different altitudes too if you can do it. Such data will stand you in good stead for matches that will come up.

Like Bowenbuilt and some others have said, there are a lot of variables and even OAL with the same bullet and powder can affect accuracy in some guns. I will say this... that I have had very good accuracy with plain old lead bullets in most of my guns, and very good accuracy with Zero and Montana Gold bullets in most of my guns. The jury is still out on some of the coated bullets for me, but they too will shoot very well with a tuned load in a particular gun. This is why we reload. We are constantly looking for that "magic combination" with any particular mix of components.

Although the OAL MAY be the problem, and should be checked because the ogive or bullet shape outside of the case may be different, I suspect the additional .002" in diameter is the problem with your tight chamber. Unless you are willing to ream the chamber to a more standard diameter, you will most likely never be able to use a lead or coated or any other bullet of that diameter in your barrel unless you use some very thin brass. If you have the skills to "slug" your chamber and measure its exact size you will be able to tell what will or will not fit in it. However, just calling KKM for information should be revelatory and provide you with the information you need. In the end reaming seems like the way to go unless you only want to shoot jacketed bullets of lesser diameter.