steel1212 Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 Is the only reason to do this is to get a couple more rounds? I'm sure price has some to do with it for reloading as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redmercury2 Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 Cheap once fired 9mm brass seems to be the only significant advantage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benny hill Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 But on the downside, bullet selection & powder is not as good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steel1212 Posted July 28, 2006 Author Share Posted July 28, 2006 Wouldn't it be easier to make major with super than 9? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgtsvi Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 Round count is the same in most mags for 38 super and 9mm. The big advantage is not having to shag brass after a stage. I have several friends with 9mm major open guns and it took them a little while to find the right combo of bullet and powder to make their guns work. I have one in 38 super and a new one in super comp that have a broader spectrum of loads you can experiment with. 38 super has been around a long time and it works. That is good enough for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmcnx2 Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 I recently shopped for a new open pistol and talked to at least 4 big name smiths, all said if I want to have something that I knew would work with minimial or no messing around go super 38. The only expection was if you were going to make a open gun from a Glock, they only did 9. I was told that if I liked playing around with loads and potetnially gun tuning the 9 was option. There is just not enough knowledge base that makes as predictable. Again the only advantage they could come up with was brass cost. And my concern is that while range brass is cheap or free you never really know if it is once fired or ten times and someone left it lay. I'm conservative, some may say a perfectionist, with my equipment. I went with a super 38 from Brazo and am using his, powder, bullet, primer, and brass recommendation. I mark my brass(I do not pick up others 38 brass) and will use it 2-3 times based on how the primer pockets spec out. On the plus side the gun has run 100% right out of the box. Now all I have left to do is learn you to drive it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Gaines Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 i was talking to a guy at a local match and he says that he uses 9major for local matches and practice, and he has a replacement barrel in 38 super that he switches out for big matches. I just thought that was an interesting idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam B Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 I have had 3 open 9mm major guns in the last 2 years. All of them have run 100%. The hardest part is finding the right load for your gun, there is more than enough info on the forums to accomplish that. The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages as far as I am concerned. My latest 9mm is a shorty and has run for over 5000 rounds (so far) without a hicup. Give it a try and if you dont like it you can always ream the gun out to a 38 super. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harmon Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 9mm is the shzzle cheap brass and its not that hard to find a load that works...so far ive got major loads from the following powders HS6, HS7, longshot, power pistol, WAP, ramshot silhouette and imr 7625. best bet on the bullet is the montana gold 124 jhp.. load to 1.160 and your golden. Harmon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XRe Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 best bet on the bullet is the montana gold 124 jhp.. load to 1.160 and your golden. No pun intended.... Personally, I wouldn't do the "switch calibers for big matches" thing - inevitably, the timing on the gun is going to change between the two, and you won't be completely dialed in on the new feel.... That's why I shoot the same load all the time, too... (no minor loads for practice or anything like that....) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flatland Shooter Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 I have had 3 open 9mm major guns in the last 2 years. All of them have run 100%. Three guns in 2 years? I hope you just like buying new guns and this is not an indication of the short life span of a major 9 gun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azone41 Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 (edited) I have a Bedell super and a JL Hardy 9mm. Brass costs the same with the 9mm because you don't pick it up so you have to buy brass all the time. I pick up my super so I get to reload it quite a few times before I lose it. I open a new box of super ( $175.00 2000 rounds) each year. If I reload it 10 times thats 20,000 rounds. If I do the same with the 9mm @ 8 bucks ( very good price) a 1000 then thats 160 bucks a year. The cost thing is hogwash ( If your lazy and don't want to pick up brass thats a different story). Now the JL Hardy gun is awesome it shoots as flat as anything I have ever shot. The Bedell is also a great gun and it's what I shoot most of the time I also don't get much rise out of it either. Your Choice.... If you have a local supply of cheap 9mm brass it's not that hard to load it to major but I wouldn't reuse the brass after a major power factor load . The 9 is cool and it's safe if you pay attention to the details. I use HS-6 in both guns and a Zero 124 JHP. Edited July 28, 2006 by Azone41 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
al503 Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 Brass costs the same with the 9mm because you don't pick it up so you have to buy brass all the time. I pick up my super so I get to reload it quite a few times before I lose it. I open a new box of super ( $175.00 2000 rounds) each year. If I reload it 10 times thats 20,000 rounds. If I do the same with the 9mm @ 8 bucks ( very good price) a 1000 then thats 160 bucks a year. The cost thing is hogwash ( If your lazy and don't want to pick up brass thats a different story) $8 bucks is great. It's about $14-$16/K in my neck of the woods. Regardless, 9mm brass will cost about the same as Super/SC if one is fairly diligent about picking up their brass after practice. 9mm is great for those who might have back problems though and you will also save time by not having to pick it up afterwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steel1212 Posted July 28, 2006 Author Share Posted July 28, 2006 Brass costs the same with the 9mm because you don't pick it up so you have to buy brass all the time. I pick up my super so I get to reload it quite a few times before I lose it. I open a new box of super ( $175.00 2000 rounds) each year. If I reload it 10 times thats 20,000 rounds. If I do the same with the 9mm @ 8 bucks ( very good price) a 1000 then thats 160 bucks a year. The cost thing is hogwash ( If your lazy and don't want to pick up brass thats a different story) $8 bucks is great. It's about $14-$16/K in my neck of the woods. Regardless, 9mm brass will cost about the same as Super/SC if one is fairly diligent about picking up their brass after practice. 9mm is great for those who might have back problems though and you will also save time by not having to pick it up afterwards. Ok so let me see here. You load 9mm to major but its so hard no the brass its not worth picking up BUT you load super to major and you pick it up and load a few more times because it can handle it right? So as you pointed out the price evens out if you can reload it 10 times. So I'm back to my original question, unless the range says NO you can't pick up your brass, My range encourages people waiting to shoot to pick up brass while other tape, then why 9mm over super? On a side note how many people shoot minor in open? How many times do they win over major competitors? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chriss Grube Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 You can pick up 9 brass and reload it. The 9MM is actually rated for higher pressure than the .38 super. You save on brass, pick up an extra round in the mag and you get to listen to the keyboard experts bitch about it! Plenty of bullets and powder combos that will easily make major. if you have the gun built by a good gunsmith it will run in super or 9 major...some hack puts it together and you will have problems with any caliber. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smokshwn Posted July 28, 2006 Share Posted July 28, 2006 (edited) 9 major is not necessarily hard on brass its simply a matter of it not being worth it to pick up a piece of brass you only paid less than a penny for. For cost lets assume $10 per k for 9mm brass. For a shooting year involving 25k rds that's $250 in brass cost. Even if you only buy 3k of new super brass at $85 per k that's $255. That means you cannot shoot any more than 500 rds at lost brass matches and then you have to have somewhere in the neighborhood of 95% brass retrieval the rest of the year. Sorry but that just doesn't happen. So no matter how diligent you are in practice and local matches (I love watching the guys who shoot super try to find their brass in the snow/mud/rocks/weeds/etc ) I think you need to bump the cost of 38 super brass a little. As far as performance differences go I can't see it as anything but a wash. I realize that there are those who say it MAY take a little more effort to tune a gun in 9mm than Super but there are plenty of smith's who have figured it out. Yes technically Super has more powder/bullet choices but I see a lot of super shooters continually playing with loads instead of bettering their skills. As for the load choice with 9mm you can make major with at least 11 different powders(hs6, hs 7, 3n37,3n38, n350, true blue, longshot, silhouette, 7625, sp2, power pistol, etc) and four bullet weights (115, 121, 124,125). To those who say 9 lacks options, that's at least 44 load combinations. How many more do we need?? All in all for me the choice boiled down to the fact that both cartridges can be made to function and shoot 100%. However, I prefer not to bend over and pick up a piece of brass 25,000 times a year (apparently I am too lazy). Hope this helps you a little, Craig Edited July 28, 2006 by smokshwn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Precision40 Posted July 29, 2006 Share Posted July 29, 2006 This is one of those "Theres no right answer" Threads, so I'll just say I shoot 9mm and the ONLY reason I shoot 9mm is because I would prefer to spend my time not picking up brass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azone41 Posted July 29, 2006 Share Posted July 29, 2006 If you shoot quite a few lost brass matches 9 mm major would be much cheaper. I don't however, and of the three major matches I do shoot I work as a RO at two so I get all my brass and lots of other peoples. It just gets my goat everytime someone says how much cheaper it is to shoot 9mm. But in the end it's your money and you should spend it how you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steel1212 Posted July 29, 2006 Author Share Posted July 29, 2006 one thing I do see as kind of funny. These open guns are 3k+ and people are complaining about brass cost lol. Like I said just seems funny not trying to start a fight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam B Posted July 29, 2006 Share Posted July 29, 2006 I have had 3 open 9mm major guns in the last 2 years. All of them have run 100%. Three guns in 2 years? I hope you just like buying new guns and this is not an indication of the short life span of a major 9 gun. Funny guy, I do like buying new guns! I get a new toy about every 6 months or so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harmon Posted July 29, 2006 Share Posted July 29, 2006 ive loaded 9mm brass 5x times at major with HS6 and power pistol without ill effects. Ive had one bad case in 11000 rounds so far..and i like the 9mm major so much im getting mike caylor of caylor custom guns to rebarrel my SV supa comp to 9x19. IF you have the money, buy a super and a major9. I like both..and am thinking of another 38 super comp to play with..I really like the way 4756 feels in a super...and brass cost really is not as big of an issue as folks make it out to be. armscor kept my supa comp well fed. Harmon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smokshwn Posted July 29, 2006 Share Posted July 29, 2006 (edited) Steel, People will say a lot of stuff to justify their choice one way or another but the economics either way don't work out very well. 3k on gun, 1k on mags, pouches, holster, belt, bag. 10 to 20k rounds per year (or more) at $100 bones per k (conservative) is another $1000-2000. Four major matches at approx 1k per trip (match fee, hotel, travel, food). Dillon 650 with all the goodies close to 1k. I can't even guess what I spend on gas and fees for local matches in a year. So all told you start at around $5000 for the capital equipment and have between $3-5000 a year in expendables. Brass cost is only a tiny part of the equation. So all in all it boils down to how often do you want to be bent over picking up brass. Me I like to stand up, get a drink, load a mag or two, and help the squad tape and score rather than look like a range chicken. Edited July 29, 2006 by smokshwn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
al503 Posted July 29, 2006 Share Posted July 29, 2006 For cost lets assume $10 per k for 9mm brass. For a shooting year involving 25k rds that's $250 in brass cost. Even if you only buy 3k of new super brass at $85 per k that's $255. That means you cannot shoot any more than 500 rds at lost brass matches and then you have to have somewhere in the neighborhood of 95% brass retrieval the rest of the year. Sorry but that just doesn't happen. So no matter how diligent you are in practice and local matches (I love watching the guys who shoot super try to find their brass in the snow/mud/rocks/weeds/etc ) I think you need to bump the cost of 38 super brass a little. Hope this helps you a little, Craig Your 'math' is a little off. If you start off with 3000 brass and you lose 5% each cycle, after the 10th or 11th reloading (~25000 rounds), you'd still have more than half your brass (about 1750) left. Take out 500 for lost brass matches and you'd still have 1250 rounds which adds up to your next 2.5 years of lost brass match brass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
norbs007 Posted July 29, 2006 Share Posted July 29, 2006 This is one of those "Theres no right answer" Threads. +1 Everybody will defend what they have When I was deciding between the two, my smith told me that he makes them shoot the same and the only difference will be the brass cost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smokshwn Posted July 29, 2006 Share Posted July 29, 2006 (edited) The original only assumed 2k in starting brass. That's why I said you needed to bump it a little to 3k. I think 95% brass retrieval is way optimistic, 90% is probably lucky (assuming you don't live anywhere where it snows cuz then its long gone), and that doesn't even take into account that you may not get 10 loadings. Without getting to serious on the numbers I would guess that you are doing pretty well to have a brass retrieval rate (BRR ) of 80%. Anyway again the decision for me isn't the cost of brass, its not picking it up Edited July 29, 2006 by smokshwn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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