929 amo testing

[Joe4d]

Test procedures,, load 8. shoot 6 at a mix of chrono and for groups.. then ran 3 through a 4.5" XDM over the chrono

First up Remington UMC 147's
I just bought from Targetsports. .24 cents per round delivered.  I was expecting a typical poin, but these are a flat point. Also they are extremely loose in the clips. They fall out of Speedbeeze,, and are wobbly in the OEM clips. I ordered some TK and RSC .040 clips, hopefully arrive this week, other wise this ammo would be useless for reloading on the clock. 
OAL at start 1.098  OAL of 2 remaining in clips multiple times showed zero creep issues,, went through 50 rounds always leaving 1 or 2 in the clip,, zero movement.

929 velocity 970 FPS                    

XDM Velocity 985
Advertised 990

 

Blazer Brass 124's   had these for a year or so. Paid .23 cents
Pointed FMJ,   
OAL 1.156 at start,   1.185 at finish, severe creep basically unuseable. I had one bullet pull out and stay in the chamber when I unloaded.
929 Velocity 1066

XDM 1113
Advertised  1090

 

LAX 135 gr Reloads. These are loaded with Xtreme plated bullets  SD was pretty wide, but these actually shot decent, probably sized at .356 .21 cents

Had 1 misfire that went off with second strike.. Is the first one in several hundred rounds of this ammo.
OAL 1.120 at start to 1.147 at finish... a bit of creep. Probably not enough to cause an issue as long as you dont reload the same rounds again..  I purpouly did this and didnt have any malfunctions,, although in hindsight the one misfire might have been a round that went round the cylinder a couple times.
929 velocity...  988

XDM  1009
Advertised 1000

 

Personal reloads.. PD FMJ .356 diameter. 3.9 gr tightgroup. 1.135 OAL. Wolff primers. assorted brass
OAL 1.135  to 1.148 at finish.. A bit of creep.
929 velocity 1019 

XDM 1044
Gonna sort through these for like headstamp and use for on the clock reloads.,, Start with the remingtons.. POI is a bit higher
 

Edited July 17, 2023 by Joe4d

[Cuz]

What exactly are you testing?

[Joe4d]

On 7/17/2023 at 9:09 AM, Cuz said:

What exactly are you testing?

trying to find factory loads I could count on in a 929 revolver..  and wanted to see velocity difference.. I ended up selling the 929 and getting a 627... I dont have much use for a gun I have to dick around that much with ammo. With short colt and moons readily available,, 9mm 929 wasnt worth the hassle for me

[pskys2]

2 hours ago, Joe4d said:

trying to find factory loads I could count on in a 929 revolver..  and wanted to see velocity difference.. I ended up selling the 929 and getting a 627... I dont have much use for a gun I have to dick around that much with ammo. With short colt and moons readily available,, 9mm 929 wasnt worth the hassle for me

With good moons 38 specials don't give up anything and you don't have to reload.

Jess christensen won the 2022 free state with that combo.  He is making a return for the a3 sc championship in april. I should be practicing rather than posting!

[Joe4d]

15 minutes ago, pskys2 said:

With good moons 38 specials don't give up anything and you don't have to reload.

Jess christensen won the 2022 free state with that combo.  He is making a return for the a3 sc championship in april. I should be practicing rather than posting!

I dont mind reloading 38 short... Just cant bring myself to waste components on 9mm.. I had several cases on hand,, but as mentioned only the Rems worked... 
Was gonna try the USPSA match in Hutch on Sunday, but rain and 30-40 mph wind... although had planned on using my old Limited gun.

[pskys2]

1 minute ago, Joe4d said:

I dont mind reloading 38 short... Just cant bring myself to waste components on 9mm.. I had several cases on hand,, but as mentioned only the Rems worked... 
Was gonna try the USPSA match in Hutch on Sunday, but rain and 30-40 mph wind... although had planned on using my old Limited gun.

With your schedule i can understand, the goal is to have fun.  

[Joe4d]

2 minutes ago, pskys2 said:

With your schedule i can understand, the goal is to have fun.  

yeh with the 627 If I dont have reloads, like you said I can pick up a couple boxes of wally world 38's on way to match. Plus I had fun they other day shooting some drills with my full power magnum loads over 2400. 

[pskys2]

56 minutes ago, Joe4d said:

yeh with the 627 If I dont have reloads, like you said I can pick up a couple boxes of wally world 38's on way to match. Plus I had fun they other day shooting some drills with my full power magnum loads over 2400. 

Did that in a uspsa match 2 years ago, fun.

[zombywoof]

.040" moons give me better ignition on my 929

[ysrracer]

I have both a 627 and 929. The 929 took hours and hours of dicking around to run smoothly.

 

The 627 was plug and play.

[tomjerry1]

I can remember when I bought a 929, asked the revo shooters what it would take to get it ready for competition, no problem, easy enough to do. Well, the true story is nowhere close to that. Getting the trigger to a light pull and being able to set-off primers reliably is where I should have made the decision to move on. Then stopping the bullets from walking out of their cases was another venture. Sell, trade your 929 for a 627, your mental health will appreciate it. Oh, if you want to shoot 38 S/SC, you're in for another huge hurdle with a 929.  Good luck

[ysrracer]

My 929 wouldn't fire factory ammo reliably, had bullet creep with factory ammo, and some brass was nearly impossible to get in or out of my TK moon clips.

 

I finally settled on FC Federal brass, Federal small pistol primers, and .358 160 grain bullets.

[Dr. Phil]

But on the other hand, my 929 was just like any other S&W revolver. A little work and a lot of testing. I tried about 4 different loads I had for various 9mm and the 'hotter' ones stuck cases. My normal load was fine from the start.

Never shot factory through it. My crimp doesn't let the bullets creep. FC brass and Federal primers.

It has never shot a factory load. I reload so why bother.

25K the first year and 23,500 the 2nd.

BossHoss has done most of the work (trigger, tune, bore the end cap) and the gun now has something around 75K and still going.

Wish I had 2 or 3.

BTW a S&W former factory shooter told me a couple years ago that he has 11!

[Joe4d]

I didnt like the nose heavy feel of the 929 either... I had no problem lighting off rounds, and my trigger was ok.. Although I dont mess with my triggers to the point they wont shoot anything I put in them.. If it wont light off wolff primers I have no use for it. 
Reloads were fine, and the flat nose factory remingtons were fine as far as bullet creep.. I was also curious about the velocity loss between a 6" revolver and the 4.5" auto. 
For my 686 and 627, I basically have 2 groups of moon clips, 1 size for starline brass and 1 for everything else..
I bought 1000 38 short brass that was mixed remington and Magtech,, that didnt work well in moons for starline brass., I do keep it seperate,, and only shoot the mixed brands in my 686 as they work with the generic moons I have

[Dr. Phil]

I just had TK cut my 686Plus for 9mm. I use the same loads. About the same length/weight but only 7. The 686 moons are only .022 or .025 so they are weak. The TK moons are .035. Nice.

I use it for practice to keep from wearing out the old fella.

Or the 929!

[ysrracer]

Oh, and the factory comp was useless.

[tomjerry1]

Cut the barrel back to 5", a whole new animal.

[ysrracer]

8 minutes ago, tomjerry1 said:

Cut the barrel back to 5", a whole new animal.

 

Agreed, I have a five inch 627 and a five inch 929. Smith missed the ball on 6.5" and a useless comp.

[guns_and_labs]

I found Federal 147 grain Syntech worked fine, but did not have great accuracy. The 124gr version was better. Never any creep. But neither came near the accuracy and consistency of hand loads with 160 grain .358 BBI bullets. That load is magical for me in both 929s (one Limited and one Open).

[ysrracer]

1 hour ago, guns_and_labs said:

I found Federal 147 grain Syntech worked fine, but did not have great accuracy. The 124gr version was better. Never any creep. But neither came near that's becausethe accuracy and consistency of hand loads with 160 grain .358 BBI bullets. That load is magical for me in both 929s (one Limited and one Open).

That's because 9mm bullets are .355, and 929 barrels are usually .357.

[MikeyScuba]

I know a 929 shooter who uses syntech and i can hear the different power loads when he shoots.  As far as I know these are all from the same box.  I thought he was having issues with his powder measure until he told me he was using factory ammo.

 

As for the 6.5” barrel I thought it was for making the 929 a highly accurate gun due to its sight picture/radius (or whatever it’s called)?
 

The comp, yea I’m not sure if it was failure of design/execution or a marketing gimmick.  Or all 3?

[guns_and_labs]

31 minutes ago, MikeyScuba said:

 

The comp, yea I’m not sure if it was failure of design/execution or a marketing gimmick.  Or all 3?

The comp might work at higher pressures/velocities, but I don’t see how it can do much at 120PF.

[MikeyScuba]

My wife’s guns are magnaported.  I think it might do something  as ICORE wanted action shots and I went through the videos and noticed there was a slight decrease in the height of the gun during recoil compared to the stock gun.

But with oversized coated projectiles she is forever soaking and picking away at the ports.

Edited April 7 by MikeyScuba

[Joe4d]

I thought about magna porting my flat side 627 4" but not sure if it can be done on a flat side,, or if Id really gain anything.  With the whole revolver thing having to revolve between shots, the generally heavy guns, and 120 pf , I cant much benifit that helps on the score board

[testosterone]

I just this morning resprung/tuned a gun up for factory ammo.

Rem umc whitebox shoot fine, blazer primers still to hard though, 2/8 would fail to pop and would not go after repeated hits.  Like you observed, even with just 6/8 popping, the amount the oal increased was impressive... unusable as you say.