Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting New favorite cast bullet

I picked up one of the new-ish Lee 95gr molds (in six cavity of course!) a while back, seemed like it was worth a try for what Lee molds cost. I didn't have real high expectations, being such a light bullet for 9mm, but I already have a 105gr hollow point that shoots really well so I was interested in a solid version.

The mold comes from Lee with tumble lube grooves; I don't like TL grooves much but went ahead and cast some and loaded them over 3.3gr of Bullseye. To my surprise, this is one of the most accurate 9mm loads I've tried. It is a very light load though, and only cycles my Glocks with a firm grip, so I've bumped the charge up to 3.7gr, for 1070 fps.

I still don't like TL grooves though, so I bored them out to straight walls. This added a whole 2 grains to the bullet weight; they drop at 102gr now, and cast so well that I'm only rejecting one every few hundred casts. Accuracy is just as good, or possibly better, with the straight sides.



I'm also using these in a +P 9mm load that shoots very well. These pics show an unfired bullet next to one that penetrated 5 water-filled plastic milk jugs, fired at 1,500 fps from a Glock 19. Alloy is clip-on wheel weights, heat treated by water quenching after powder coating. (FYI that is one coat of powder on the fired bullet.)

Notice the nose riveted a little on impact, but otherwise the bullet is undamaged. It burst the first jug in two, and just punched clean holes in the rest. For comparison, every expanding JHP 9mm bullet I've tested does about the same damage to the first jug, and only penetrate 2 or 3 jugs total.