American Reloading 9mm mixed 115/124gr projectiles

[JDubDub]

Being a reloaded (I.e. a cheapskate) I'm always looking for the best possible deals. I generally end up casting my own bullets, even 9mm, but lead is getting harder to find. American Reloading is one of my go-to vendors for the occasional "can't pass it up"deal. Never had any major issues, but you do have to accept that what you're getting isn't brand-new, absolute perfect, ready to go all the time.

My 9mm bullet selection was down to zero, so I was willing to take the chance on their pulled 9mm 115/124gr bullets (https://americanreloading.com/product/9mm-115-124gr-fmj-mix-pulled-1000ct/). With the 30% discount, it worked out to just under 4 cents/per. Its hard to get that low even casting your own, so I placed my order and thought I'd share the results.

The bullets arrived clean and well packaged, minimal pull marks and only minor crimp rings. I ordered 2k, so it took a while to sort through by weight and ended up with about 2/3rds 124gr. Just as an experiment I loaded up 100 of the 115gr bullets without any further sorting…and this is where things started to go wrong. The OALs were all over the place, from my targeted 1.135 all the way up to 1.175. WAY more variation that I'm comfortable with, especially using a faster powder like Titegroup.

So out came my OCD (there are old reloaders and bold reloaders, but not many old, bold reloaders with all their fingers), my reading glass, dial indicator and hand cramps. I found projectiles as short as .540 and one wannabe spear at .586. I sorted by .005 increment, then started looking at the biggest group at .560". I'm guessing there are bullets from at least 6 different manufacturer, with ogives all over the place. The ogives are variable enough that the normal conical seating punch isn't consistent, even if the projectiles are the same length. My Dillon seating die has a 1/8 breather hole, so even trying the flatter of the 2 seating punches allows too much variation in OAL. I'll be switching over to an older RCBS seating die with a flat punch. I might be sacrificing a small amount of concentricity, but I think getting the OAL correct will be worth it.

So, over all thoughts? Not horrible, but for the time involved I think I'll just stick with the RMR bullets in the future. If you're willing to put in the time to sort through all the projectiles and you're comfortable with losing some safety margin, the American Reloading Bullets may be worthwhile. Personally I'm not looking forward to sorting through the 124gr projectiles, but I'm not willing to risk it.

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[2ndtimer]

I have ordered quite a few times in the past year from American reloading. The only pulled bullets were some 124 gr 9mm Speer Gold Dots, and while they had specks of bullet sealant on them, they loaded and fired fine.
I have also ordered a couple thousand of their new LOS plated 115 gr RN bullets for 9mm and have been pleased. My experience with their V-Crown blems 115/124 gr mixed has also been quite satisfactory with about 95% being 115 gr and only 5% 124 gr. (And, yes, I weighed each bullet in the 3 boxes of 500 and the vast majority of them were between 114.8 and 115.2 gr in weight.
My latest order was for 500 10mm 180 gr FMJ RNFP blems. We will see how they work out, but for less than $39 delivered, it will be hard to be too disappointed.

 

[phidelt208]

At the prices they have now you're only saving pennies practically.
Then you've got all that time sorting everything out at the end you end up with 3-5 different lots of bullets.
Way better off, casting your own or just buying some coated bullets for $80 per 1k.
Thanks for testing some of these lots. I've always wondered how inconsistent they were.

 

[JDubDub]

At the prices they have now you're only saving pennies practically.
Then you've got all that time sorting everything out at the end you end up with 3-5 different lots of bullets.
Way better off, casting your own or just buying some coated bullets for $80 per 1k.
Thanks for testing some of these lots. I've always wondered how inconsistent they were.

Worked out to be about the same time as casting and coating my own. Price wise, these FMJs were about the same as my cost for casting materials. I prefer FMJ rounds in my PCC - even PC bullets tend to lead the bore more than I like. For pistols, I'll probably stick to casting my own, especially since prices have jumped in the last couple weeks.

 

[gmerkt]

I've bought my share of pulls, factory seconds, etc, etc. The problem is, sometimes these things come in mixed lots. And you wind up with the kind of problems you mentioned.

Rifle bullets from mixed lots, if a cannelure is present and you crimp (like for AR's), that can be all over the place. It's a headache to batch them by common cannelure depth. At one time, I bought demilled .308's from Jeff Bartlett, those were mostly in mixed lots.

I've bought a batch of mixed .224's from RMR, they were worth what I paid for them. The Sierra Bullet Co. sells factory seconds. Years ago, I've visited their factory in California, later the new one in Missouri. Last time I was there, I bought mixed caliber rifle bullets ("floor sweepings"). I think I gave away more than I kept.

You have to be able to use it to save money. These days, mostly what I buy in the way of bullets is from Midway's factory seconds list.

 

[Valley-Shooter]

Thanks for the heads-up about those mixed jacketed bullets. Not worth my time. I buy coated cast bullets locally with free shipping.
I do buy brass from American Reloading. I've had some problems with their 9mm brass, thick rims or cracking during expansion.