njl Posted February 7, 2010 Share Posted February 7, 2010 I'm getting close to the end of my first case of Montana Gold 124gr CMJ and would like to try some JHP next. Are Zero 125gr JHP worth the extra $8.50 per 1k vs MG 124gr JHP? BTW...now that I'm getting close to the bottom of the case, I've noticed MG must tumble their bullets. There's what appears to be fine ground corn cob in bottom of the bag. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoshidaex Posted February 7, 2010 Share Posted February 7, 2010 I'm sure they use some sort of lube when they swage the bullets. They must tumble them to remove the lube and to give the bullets their shine. You might want to save a few of the MG bullets and run a accuracy comparison with the Zero bullets. Accuracy might be different between the two in your gun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gm iprod Posted February 7, 2010 Share Posted February 7, 2010 (edited) You might want to save a few of the MG bullets and run a accuracy comparison with the Zero bullets.Accuracy might be different between the two in your gun. Agreed, I have used both, one of my guns does not care, others certainly do. I have one gun that for any money won't shoot the MG anything worth a damn, and one other that shoots them like they are Sierra's. I personally use Zero, they are easier to get down here and more people seem to like them. MG bullets use a slightly different composition of jacketing material and it gives them their distintive colour. As far as I know all bullets manufacturers tumble the projectiles before they leave the factory. It just makes them look nice when you open the box and more importantly it helps the QC dept find discrepencies better. Edited February 7, 2010 by gm iprod Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CocoBolo Posted February 7, 2010 Share Posted February 7, 2010 First MTG and Zero are two very good bullets and I have used both. The JHP's from both shoot more accurately than the RN. The major difference I have found is that the MTG will take .2gr more powder to hit the same FPS. When I can't get Zeros I use MTG, and just bump my load. I shout USPSA and find the accuracy of both suits this sport well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njl Posted February 7, 2010 Author Share Posted February 7, 2010 I'm shooting them out of Glocks...and so far I've tried MG 124 CMJ and PD 124 FMJ...and not noticed any difference between the two in velocity or accuracy. I'm only pushing them about 1060fps from a G17. It seems like MG is the easiest to get...they're the only ones that seem to generally be in stock. Shooters Connection seems to be back ordered on all the zero's I've looked at. Anyone know how long the wait from them is? Even though the MG were apparently tumbled, they still feel like they have some kind of lube on them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njl Posted February 7, 2010 Author Share Posted February 7, 2010 Even though I can probably afford to wait as much as a few months...I think this http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=100695 is going to force my decision towards MG. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Hefta Posted February 7, 2010 Share Posted February 7, 2010 Another thing about MG is they are a big sponsor for shooting sports, we should try to use the products that help to support our great sport. IMHO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flatland Shooter Posted February 8, 2010 Share Posted February 8, 2010 Many moons ago I started shooting 9x21 and then 9 Major with Zero 125 gr JHP. Liked them a lot but they got real hard to find. Out of necessity I switched to MG 125 gr JHP and found I liked them just as much as the Zero's yet never had a problem getting some delivered when I needed them. That's not to say MG always had them in stock, its just that they always had them in stock when I needed them. And the icing on the cake, I won a gift certificate at Space City 2009 for $100 of MG bullets. I support those firms that support our sport. Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njl Posted February 19, 2010 Author Share Posted February 19, 2010 I put in the order with MG yesterday for a case. I got confirmation today that they've shipped. What's a good COAL for these? I've been loading the 124gr CMJ to 1.150". I'm guessing the MG 124gr JHP should be loaded a bit shorter, maybe somewhere around 1.120"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gm iprod Posted February 19, 2010 Share Posted February 19, 2010 That would work very well. My old standby rule (which someone else made up) is fmj at 1.150 and jhp at 1.125 so you are likely to be just right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chendersby Posted February 19, 2010 Share Posted February 19, 2010 Another thing about MG is they are a big sponsor for shooting sports, we should try to use the products that help to support our great sport. IMHO a BIG +1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1SOW Posted February 22, 2010 Share Posted February 22, 2010 I put in the order with MG yesterday for a case. I got confirmation today that they've shipped. What's a good COAL for these? I've been loading the 124gr CMJ to 1.150". I'm guessing the MG 124gr JHP should be loaded a bit shorter, maybe somewhere around 1.120"? Depends on the gun. My CZ wouldn't like your formula---1.10" maybe a thousandth or two more max. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njl Posted February 24, 2010 Author Share Posted February 24, 2010 My bullets arrived. The MG 124gr JHP seem to generally be around 0.020" shorter than the MG 124gr CMJ...and though both are marked as being .355, the CMJ's measure as .355 on my caliper, but the JHP tend to be .354 or .3545. Since the MG JHPs are really a truncated cone shape with a tiny hollow point cavity rather than a long blunt JHP like a Speer Gold Dot, it seems like there's no reason to load these particularly short to avoid the tip of the bullet hitting the rifling...but keeping the case capacity similar to my CMJ load, they'd end up with an OAL of around 1.130". One of the guys at the local matches loads MG 124gr JHP for 9-major, and is loading them real long...beyond spec. Others online say they load them shorter than 1.100. For seating these with a Dillon die, should I use the FMJ or Semi wad cutter end of the seating stem? Neither seems to fit the profile of the bullet terribly well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBore56 Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 I just loaded up 600 of the MG 124 JHP's with RCBS dies in my Lock-N-Load tonight. I used the SWC seating stem and set them to a COAL of 1.125" for my STI Trojan. This gun seems to like them really well! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njl Posted February 25, 2010 Author Share Posted February 25, 2010 I loaded up 50 at 1.122". While adjusting things, I loaded a few as long as 1.130, and those dropped in/out of my Glock 17 barrel. I hand cycled the 1.122's through the G17. Hopefully I can test/chrono them this weekend. The design of these bullets makes pushing them into the mag hurt a little If they don't shoot noticeably better than the CMJ and don't expand, I may just go back to using their CMJ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njl Posted February 27, 2010 Author Share Posted February 27, 2010 Interesting results...I shot most of the MG 124gr JHP I loaded today. Given the same powder charge (4.35gr Universal Clays) that I used for 124gr PD FMJ/MG CMJ, I consistently got a little more than 20fps more velocity in a G17, even more in a G34. From a G17, my PD/MG FMJ/CMJ loads generally did about 1060fps. With the MG JHP, I did 3 10 shot strings through the G17 and got avgs of 1087, 1081, and 1084fps. 1 10 shot string through a G34 avg'd 1112fps. My CMJ load in the G34 would do 1070fps. COAL didn't seem to have any measurable impact. I had a couple that I'd loaded while adjusting the seater...as short as 1.117, and as long as 1.1325. They all shot within a few fps of each other. I had one lucky 10 shot string with the G17 that had an ES of 4fps. All the other strings today had ES's in the 45-60fps range. I'm curious if others who've loaded PD or MG FMJ/CMJ and MG JHP have also gotten higher velocity from the JHP while keeping powder charge the same and case volume about the same? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pezco Posted February 27, 2010 Share Posted February 27, 2010 I haven't seen any differences between the two brands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njl Posted February 28, 2010 Author Share Posted February 28, 2010 I haven't seen any differences between the two brands. I wasn't so much asking about brands (at this point) as asking if people have noticed a difference in velocity between FMJ and JHP. I probably should have started a new topic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BMartens Posted February 28, 2010 Share Posted February 28, 2010 I noticed the same thing with MG JHP runinng just a bit faster that MG CMJ with several powders for 9 major. About 4 points in PF was what I saw. I loaded both the CMJ and the JHP to 1.149 OAL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RH45 Posted February 28, 2010 Share Posted February 28, 2010 I haven't seen any differences between the two brands. I wasn't so much asking about brands (at this point) as asking if people have noticed a difference in velocity between FMJ and JHP. I probably should have started a new topic. Although I've never chronoed them side by side to check the difference, in MY pistols, jhps are more accurate than fmj/cmjs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1SOW Posted March 1, 2010 Share Posted March 1, 2010 I'm just working up my MG124jhp load now. It was noticeably faster than the 124CMJ with the same powder. The shorter oal/pressure had to be the driver. I decreased my powder load to try again for 130ish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ninefan Posted March 1, 2010 Share Posted March 1, 2010 I gave up shooting Zeros after I couldn't get them various times. Montana Gold generally has most of them in stock. The times they were out of stock they seemed to get more made fairly quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njl Posted March 1, 2010 Author Share Posted March 1, 2010 I'm just working up my MG124jhp load now. It was noticeably faster than the 124CMJ with the same powder. The shorter oal/pressure had to be the driver. I decreased my powder load to try again for 130ish. What were your COAL's for the CMJ and JHP? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-ManBart Posted March 1, 2010 Share Posted March 1, 2010 I haven't seen any differences between the two brands. I wasn't so much asking about brands (at this point) as asking if people have noticed a difference in velocity between FMJ and JHP. I probably should have started a new topic. It doesn't really take much difference in case volume used to see 20fps difference in 9mm. The other thing is that one day's chrono results only somewhat correlate to a different day's results. Unless you're using a chrono box with IR screens different lighting can cause that much difference...throw in any temp difference and it very well could be that there isn't a significant difference between the two. Still, I have seen that much difference (consistently, over multiple chrono sessions) where a JHP of the same weight, seated to the same OAL, was faster than an FMJ....without checking my records it was probably about what you saw 20-30fps. R, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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