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TL;DR: I think I have a +P+ bunch of 9mm, not sure weather to buy a hi-point to shoot it through or pass it off to a more deserving home (suggestions appreciated, was thinking a gang perhaps).
I am somewhat new to reloading, but have had some good successes over the past two years, mainly with .223 reloading for matches. This time I done stepped in the bubblegum it seems trying to reload 9mm.
I had an order of 115 grain ACME bullets on order since mid December. They were supposed to come in before the holidays so I had plenty of time before the next match to reload about 250 rounds of brass I had kicking about, delayed due to the snow in the area (what little of it still remains) and I decided to make a trip to Sportsman's. I am not a huge fan of box stores like many users on these forums, but occasionally they will have the item I need in a pinch, which they did. Being the novice I am to 9mm reloading, I saw that they had some "Total Powder Coated" bullets from Gallant Bullets on sale for $40/500, which is about what I paid for the ACME bullets, so I figured Id give it a try. Being in a bind with my not so copious free time, I figured what could go wrong?
After spilling the whole box of bullets on the floor by simply picking the box up from the shelf (500 bullet pickup from Sportsman's floor challenged my loose sense of cleanliness and my double kneed trousers) I got them home without further incident, whereupon I noticed they were 135 grain. There seem to be few manufacturers out there who produce load data for that bullet weight, and now the mystery of why they were on sale was solved. To make the science of booms more complicated, the only powder I had any luck finding recently for 9mm was Ramshot Silhouette, which by all accounts works for 9mm but has very limited load data available for 135 grain bullets, and by limited I mean only one that I could find by the powder manufacturer. By the way, it is high thievery in these times to charge access to a full loading manual online, but hey, thieves have to eat too apparently.
"No problem," I say to myself. Just start low and work high, and Ill be in the ball park. As long as I start loading low, and work my way up, Ill be in great shape, regardless of projectile weight. I figured that the factory manual had from 4.2 grains of powder to 5.2 grains for the only 135 grain bullet listed, so I would just begin at the lower level. I changed out the die holder on the press for the 9mm and away I went loading. I use a Lee turret press, mainly for .223, and the Lee auto powder measure, which has worked very consistently for the thousands of rounds I have loaded for the past year using a variety of powders. I kept checking powder weight over and over to ensure I was not loading too much for the proof rounds, 10 of each of 4.2, 4.7, and 5.2. This in lies the problem, one heretofore unknown for me: it turns out that pistol powder, or perhaps this pistol powder, does not like to come unstuck from the scale. Not the dish of the scale, oh no, the plastic bar of the scale.
To the crux of the problem, powder that I had measured consistently throughout the loading process and dumped back into the powder can was occasionally getting loose from the scale upon dumping and sticking to the back of it, mainly on the weighted side. "No problem," my readers will think, "you only measured and loaded 30 rounds." True, I did for proofing. Then I proceeded to load another 50 rounds of the intermediate charge, changing the charge weight back to around 4.7 grains of powder. I didn't want to waste a trip to the range to fire only 15 rounds, what sense would that make? So I proceeded to go from my last charge to a lighter charge, or so I had thought. By the time I did that adjustment, approximately 1.7 grains of weight had been added to the far side of the scale by damned escapist, freedom loving powder.
Now, to a far more experienced loader, or perhaps one that owns a digital scale, this may not be within the realm of plausible. Perhaps you zero out your scale every time you remove the powder pan. Perhaps you only clean your scale with ultra distilled tears of a virgin crocodile. Perhaps you have more care around explosives than some ground pounding Marine. Not I, for I consume crayons for a snack and the hearts of camel spiders for lunch (if they have them, pretty much just crunchy shell as far as I can discern). So I did not notice any discrepancy until I loaded the final round and tested it for powder weight.
The final round was a bit light, according to the scale, at 4.2 grains. I dumped the powder, then decided to zero the scale, thinking perhaps the past 50 rounds from the press had jarred it a bit. Turns out, my faithful lee scale was about 2 grains off! Well, that is an easy fix, just move the counter weight forward, right? So I picked up the scale and noticed all of the powder in a new light, covering the bar on the back side prolifically. After a through cleaning (brake parts cleaner, although I was tempted to lick it clean; hungry work this reloading) the scale zeroed out just fine. I measured one more powder charge, and it was 6 grains even. Hummm.
So now, I am left with 50 rounds of 9mm that has a charge of around 6 grains silhouette powder behind a 135 grain "TPC" slug. No where online can I find load data that indicates this powder is unsafe at that measure (natoreloading.com takes it as high as 6.6 for a 124) but that does not mean that it is safe either. I am thinking that my trusty old M9 can handle the pressure, as it has handled all kinds of pressures before, although most of the pressures we faced were external. The decision is, should I attempt to fire these loads and see what happens, or get a Hi Point to test them first? Other options abound, but I would hate to waste 50 rounds for nothing, considering 50 rounds is about a third of the cost of a C9. Also, I can't refuse the pull of another gun for a good cause.
Thoughts appreciated, and thanks for reading.
I am somewhat new to reloading, but have had some good successes over the past two years, mainly with .223 reloading for matches. This time I done stepped in the bubblegum it seems trying to reload 9mm.
I had an order of 115 grain ACME bullets on order since mid December. They were supposed to come in before the holidays so I had plenty of time before the next match to reload about 250 rounds of brass I had kicking about, delayed due to the snow in the area (what little of it still remains) and I decided to make a trip to Sportsman's. I am not a huge fan of box stores like many users on these forums, but occasionally they will have the item I need in a pinch, which they did. Being the novice I am to 9mm reloading, I saw that they had some "Total Powder Coated" bullets from Gallant Bullets on sale for $40/500, which is about what I paid for the ACME bullets, so I figured Id give it a try. Being in a bind with my not so copious free time, I figured what could go wrong?
After spilling the whole box of bullets on the floor by simply picking the box up from the shelf (500 bullet pickup from Sportsman's floor challenged my loose sense of cleanliness and my double kneed trousers) I got them home without further incident, whereupon I noticed they were 135 grain. There seem to be few manufacturers out there who produce load data for that bullet weight, and now the mystery of why they were on sale was solved. To make the science of booms more complicated, the only powder I had any luck finding recently for 9mm was Ramshot Silhouette, which by all accounts works for 9mm but has very limited load data available for 135 grain bullets, and by limited I mean only one that I could find by the powder manufacturer. By the way, it is high thievery in these times to charge access to a full loading manual online, but hey, thieves have to eat too apparently.
"No problem," I say to myself. Just start low and work high, and Ill be in the ball park. As long as I start loading low, and work my way up, Ill be in great shape, regardless of projectile weight. I figured that the factory manual had from 4.2 grains of powder to 5.2 grains for the only 135 grain bullet listed, so I would just begin at the lower level. I changed out the die holder on the press for the 9mm and away I went loading. I use a Lee turret press, mainly for .223, and the Lee auto powder measure, which has worked very consistently for the thousands of rounds I have loaded for the past year using a variety of powders. I kept checking powder weight over and over to ensure I was not loading too much for the proof rounds, 10 of each of 4.2, 4.7, and 5.2. This in lies the problem, one heretofore unknown for me: it turns out that pistol powder, or perhaps this pistol powder, does not like to come unstuck from the scale. Not the dish of the scale, oh no, the plastic bar of the scale.
To the crux of the problem, powder that I had measured consistently throughout the loading process and dumped back into the powder can was occasionally getting loose from the scale upon dumping and sticking to the back of it, mainly on the weighted side. "No problem," my readers will think, "you only measured and loaded 30 rounds." True, I did for proofing. Then I proceeded to load another 50 rounds of the intermediate charge, changing the charge weight back to around 4.7 grains of powder. I didn't want to waste a trip to the range to fire only 15 rounds, what sense would that make? So I proceeded to go from my last charge to a lighter charge, or so I had thought. By the time I did that adjustment, approximately 1.7 grains of weight had been added to the far side of the scale by damned escapist, freedom loving powder.
Now, to a far more experienced loader, or perhaps one that owns a digital scale, this may not be within the realm of plausible. Perhaps you zero out your scale every time you remove the powder pan. Perhaps you only clean your scale with ultra distilled tears of a virgin crocodile. Perhaps you have more care around explosives than some ground pounding Marine. Not I, for I consume crayons for a snack and the hearts of camel spiders for lunch (if they have them, pretty much just crunchy shell as far as I can discern). So I did not notice any discrepancy until I loaded the final round and tested it for powder weight.
The final round was a bit light, according to the scale, at 4.2 grains. I dumped the powder, then decided to zero the scale, thinking perhaps the past 50 rounds from the press had jarred it a bit. Turns out, my faithful lee scale was about 2 grains off! Well, that is an easy fix, just move the counter weight forward, right? So I picked up the scale and noticed all of the powder in a new light, covering the bar on the back side prolifically. After a through cleaning (brake parts cleaner, although I was tempted to lick it clean; hungry work this reloading) the scale zeroed out just fine. I measured one more powder charge, and it was 6 grains even. Hummm.
So now, I am left with 50 rounds of 9mm that has a charge of around 6 grains silhouette powder behind a 135 grain "TPC" slug. No where online can I find load data that indicates this powder is unsafe at that measure (natoreloading.com takes it as high as 6.6 for a 124) but that does not mean that it is safe either. I am thinking that my trusty old M9 can handle the pressure, as it has handled all kinds of pressures before, although most of the pressures we faced were external. The decision is, should I attempt to fire these loads and see what happens, or get a Hi Point to test them first? Other options abound, but I would hate to waste 50 rounds for nothing, considering 50 rounds is about a third of the cost of a C9. Also, I can't refuse the pull of another gun for a good cause.
Thoughts appreciated, and thanks for reading.
