Looking For Boat Tail 9mm Bullets

[OPENB]

I started loading for my 9mm open gun using my supply of Zero 125 gr. JHP's. I am loading them out to 1.195", and using mixed range brass. I loaded a couple hundred, and used the barrel to case gauge them. About half of them would not chamber. I took them apart, and resized them, and they gauged fine. I load them back up, and they won't chamber again. Evidently, the base of the bullet is bulging through the case body, presumably because I am loading them so long and the 9mm is a tapered case. I could fix it by loading shorter OAL, but 8.5 gr. of HS6 is not compressed with my current OAL. So,

does anybody make a boat tail or beveled base 9mm JHP? I remember Hornady 147 XTP's had a bevel base, but they are quite a bit more expensive than Zeros, and I want to stay with 124's or 125's.

What would be perfect is a Zero or Montana Gold style 125 JHP with a bevel base, sold in bulk.

Advice?

[shred]

Are you sure that's the problem? I know little of the internal dynamics of the 9x19 case, but I bet the walls get thicker the further towards the head you go.. thus deeper seating might just put a thucker ring of brass sticking out around the bullet.

[eric nielsen]

The Zero 147gr has a step-tail on it too, similar to Hornady. Probably all the brands of 147 have something like that.

I doubt that the base of the bullet is your problem, so 147s won't help. What they will do, though, is make your gun kick up a lot more.

Measure the crimp on your rounds. I recommend .002" of crimp because it's enough to see it and measure it, it's enough to help reliable chambering, and it's not so much that you'll see much if any pressure increase, and definitely won't hurt your accuracy.

Also check each round with your fingernail, right in front of the case mouth. If you're expander die isn't set wide enough, you'll shave jacket material on the last few thousands worth of bullet seating. It rolls up in front of the case mouth. Been there done that.

[OPENB]

I assume that was the reason Hornady beveled the base of their 147 XTP. The long length of the heavy bullet (the shank of which is straight) sitting in the tapered case of the 9mm, prevented a bulge where the base touched the case. I only loaded one box of those XTP's, so my experience is limited to that.

I loaded my 9mm Major on a Dillon SDB. Trying to figure out what was possibly wrong, I took the decapping stem out of a Hornady resize die, and ran the loaded rounds through the die body on a single stage press. This only ironed out my taper crimp, and resized the bullet down to under size. If I only ran a loaded round into the carbide ring a couple hundredths and then gauged it, it dropped right in. So, my bulge is up at the bullet, not at the extraction groove. For the most part, this happened with R-P and Geco brass. Win, Speer, FC, and PMC. for the most part, worked ok.

If I can't find bevel base bullets, I guess I can cull my brass, and follow up with a step on my single stage press.

[diehli]

Also, chances are that you have a genuine 9mm chamber if it wasn't reamed by a gunsmith. I ASSume that most gunsmiths that are building 9Major guns are reaming short chambered barrels to 9mm length, but straight-walled. If not, this kinda issue would be common as I would assume that there are very few "crimp" dies out there that would taper a 9mm case with a bullet in it.

That being said, I'm going to go check the diameter at the case mouth of my loaded rounds against the diameter of factory-loaded rounds.

[BEDELLCUSTOM]

i use the Zero 125hp bullets in all my 9mm loads and never have a problem whether i load them short or real long. This may be a dumb question but are you using a .355" diameter bullet, if you are using a .356" diameter bullet then that could be the problem, i'd check the diameter no matter what it might say on the box just in case they had a mix up in packaging. If that is not the problem check and recheck the bell on the case mouth and make sure you don't overcrimp the bullet. You actually need almost no crimp to keep the bullet properly in place, if the case is resized properly just taking the bell out of it will create enough case mouth tension to hold the bullet in place. Also if your barrel does not have enough freebore cut into it the long loaded rounds will not drop all the way into the chamber because the bullet is out so far it is actually making contact with the rifling. In this case you must load shorter or have more freebore added to your barrel. freeboring will remove some more of the rifling just in front of where your chamber ends to give you more room for the longer loaded rounds.

on the other question for a 9mm boattail bullet, i once used a hornady 124gr FMJ RN ENCAPSULATED BULLET HORNADY # 35577, it's a boat tail type bullet .

Edited January 6, 2006 by BEDELLCUSTOM

[diehli]

Also, chances are that you have a genuine 9mm chamber if it wasn't reamed by a gunsmith. I ASSume that most gunsmiths that are building 9Major guns are reaming short chambered barrels to 9mm length, but straight-walled. If not, this kinda issue would be common as I would assume that there are very few "crimp" dies out there that would taper a 9mm case with a bullet in it.

That being said, I'm going to go check the diameter at the case mouth of my loaded rounds against the diameter of factory-loaded rounds.

So much for that theory. .373-ish and .385-ish on my rounds and .375-ish and .385-ish on the WWB I had lying around.

I think Dan's nailed it with the freebore issue.

[diehli]

Evidently, the base of the bullet is bulging through the case body, presumably because I am loading them so long and the 9mm is a tapered case.

I really should have read your complete post before I posted my first reply.

I get the "bulge", too, on my 1.165" loaded 125-grain Zero JHP 9Major rounds. It's actually an hourglass shape with the center of the case being smaller than that of an unfired factory round. Yes, the upper portion of the round is bulged, too, but it's not at the bottom of the bullet, it's at the midway point between the case mouth and where the bottom of the bullet sits.

You say that rounds won't chamber. Load one up without primer and powder and get it into the complete pistol and let the slide go on the round (all the usual safety disclaimers fit here). Extract the round and check to see if there are marks on the bullet. The dummy rounds I made up with the above specs will feed in my Storm Lake-barreled Glock 34, but they take some force to extract and there are marks on the bullet indicating that the bullet is contacting the rifling. Chances are that this is what's happening with you, as Dan said.

[BEDELLCUSTOM]

Also as a note on the freebore issue. you never want the nose of the bullet on any chambered round to even be slightly touching the rifling, this will cause quite an increase or spike in pressure at the instant of ignition and can cause primer flow or other serious pressure problems, even case failure. having freebore in the barrel allows the bullet to begin moving freely into the barrel before it starts to enter into the rifling where the pressures will start to increase due to the increased friction between the bullets bearing surface and the lands and grooves of the rifling.

[Rem 700]

I too have had trouble with 125 Zeros in the 9mm. The problem is while this is a very good bullet but it has a very sharp corner between the base and the side of the bullet. This combined with the dies in the square deal B that have a very short carbide insert that sizes the the brass so that it has straight sides almost to the base and then a short taper to the case head causes the bullet when seated to not center itself in the case but to bulge the case on one side. Bullets that have more of a radius on the corner help some but it still happens. I spoke to Dillion on this and they stated that that is the way the dies are designed. Since then I have switched to a 550B and Redding Comp. Pro dies. These dies have a much longer carbide insert and do a much better job of sizing the case and seating the bullet straight and eliminated the problem.

[BEDELLCUSTOM]

i am surprised to hear of this problem since i do have a couple of square deal presses that i load 9mm on with the zero bullets and never had this problem. i once ordered a new set of dies for the square deal and found that the size die was actually sizing the brass too much which immediately was apparent there was something wrong just by looking at the loaded round. measure the inside diameter of your size die and ask dillon what it should be. they are easy to deal with and replaced the size die for me with no problem at all.

here is a picture of the problem, the round on the left is a properly sized and loaded case, the other two are rounds that were loaded with the size die that sized it down too much. you can see where the size die stopped near the bottom of the case and actually left a ring of brass. i'm not sure if this has anything to do with your problem, it's just something else to look at.

the pics are not 9mm they are of a supercomp round but you get the idea.

Edited January 6, 2006 by BEDELLCUSTOM

[Religious Shooter]

You also might want to check your bullet heads.

I seem to recall hearing a fellow shooter saying some of the 9MM Zeros he received on a large order were oversized.

[OPENB]

Thanks for all the replies and advice. I bought these bullets last year and used 1000 in my supercomp barrel, and they worked great. They are .355. I tried chambering some rounds that did not gauge, and when I managed to get the slide open and extract them, there is brass rubbed on the side of the case, just where the base of the bullet is inside the case. There must be enough freebore, as there is no rifling marks on the bullets. I have seen the oversized, brass ring-brass when I tried reloading some Norinco 9mm cases back in the early 90's. That brass was so soft, when fired it swelled up just above the extraction groove. When resized, it would leave a ring just like Dan's picture. I'm definitely not having that problem. I did back the crimp off about a half turn, but still have the problem. I think I will back it off all the way and start my crimp all over. But like I said, I was able to "solve" this one round at a time by running the offending rounds a couple hundredths into a carbide sizer (without the decapping stem), so the resizer must be swaging down the bullet heel enough fix it. I am using brand new 9mm die inserts in my SDB, and the barrel is a brand new KKM that I specified when I called them to NOT have the step in the barrel Dan had problems with last year. This set up runs with standard factory minor 9mm

[eric nielsen]

That's a good post with all your findings.

Sounds like you need to have the chamber reamed. My KKM [for Glock] 9-Major barrel would not take a standard 9x19 reamer to within even 1/4" of the bottom of the chamber so I'm guessing you'll need the smallest diameter 9x19 reamer out there. I was using the same bullet as you and nickel-plated win or speer brass and had no problems at 1.155" oal.

A gunsmith could tell you more, but you can be sure that your chamber is made to tighter specs than a stock 1911 or Sig or Beretta in the chamber dimensions. Because 9x19 is a tapered case you'll need the smaller reamer.

Edited January 6, 2006 by eric nielsen

[Clay1]

The Zero 124 grain FMJ, code 127 from Angus Hobdell is a .355 9mm bullet. The Zero 38 Super, 125 Gr. JHP code number R161 is .356. There isn't a 125 grain 9mm Zero bullet that I am aware of. The 125 is a 38 super bullet.

In a standard 9mm barrel many people shoot the .356 bullet but is a custom cut barrel it might be causing you problems.

Rick

[diehli]

The Zero 124 grain FMJ, code 127 from Angus Hobdell is a .355 9mm bullet. The Zero 38 Super, 125 Gr. JHP code number R161 is .356. There isn't a 125 grain 9mm Zero bullet that I am aware of. The 125 is a 38 super bullet.

In a standard 9mm barrel many people shoot the .356 bullet but is a custom cut barrel it might be causing you problems.

Rick

That's not what Zero says: http://www.zerobullets.com/cgi-bin/miva?Me...ory_Code=JB-9MM

Code number is 162 on the .355 125-grain bullets.

[Clay1]

Thanks 300 pound, I found the #162 on Angus' site too. Must have missed it the first time around- thanks for a push in the right direction.

Rick

[diehli]

Glad to be of service.