Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting 9mm Casting Project

The voices inside my head told me that I should start trying to run cast through my Walther P1-P38. I was pleasantly surprised to find out my Lee 358-125-RF mold is a perfectly good candidate, without even sizing. Is there anyone out there loading 9mm Luger using this mold?

I was told the bullet wouldn't work for a 9MM, shaped wrong, took too much space in the case as the profile of the bullet caused it to be seated too deeply & on & on.

I seated the bullet per plunk test over 3.5 grains of Promo & went to the range. Performed like a champ from my CZ75. That was a year ago & got off on something else & haven't revisited the issue. Here's a couple of pictures took while working some loads with the bullet.

I use the 125-RF in 9mm for subsonic loads; it tends to be fairly accurate and functions well, as long as it's seated deep enough.

Because of the full diameter ogive in front of the crimp groove, it does have to be seated deeper than many other 9mm bullets; this makes it less ideal for full power loads but is fine for plinkers. As-cast diameter does have an effect here of course; these bullets from a mold that casts larger will have to be seated deeper.

This is cool, y'all. Yes, I'm thinking just plinkers that are just hot enough to work the action consistently.

Many thanks. I'm still new enough on this cast bullet thing that I don't want to run down a bunny hole without checking to see if I'm going to blow my head off.

I loaded up some cast bullets that were 0.358" semi-wadcutters designed for 38 SPL. I sized them back to 0.356" and loaded them with a light charge of Bullseye powder. Cycled perfectly, functioned flawlessly, and we're very accurate out of my CZ-75.

That's one of the Lee molds I haven't tried. I've used the 95rf, 105 swc, and 120 tc. 4.5 gr of Universal works well with the 120 tc.

Let's try again.



Here's my try and loading the Lee 358-125-FN over a minimal load of Titegroup. It gives a very satisfying KERPLUNK going into the chamber of the P1.


Ah! Hah! I finally got the picture to load!!!

That picture and your description is a good illustration of why you get varying reports about this bullet's suitability in 9mm.

Bullets from my mold loaded to that same length will not "plunk" into even a relatively loose Glock chamber; mine must cast larger than yours. Because of the larger diameter, they have to be seated deeper, even though they're sized correctly.

It's a decent bullet for light loads, if it fits. If you get one from Lee that casts a little large, it may give you trouble in 9mm but will still work fine in 38/357.

I'm sizing to .358 before seating. That may have something to do with it. It's a nominal 358 mold, so all I'm doing is shining up the bands.

I can't wait to try this out. I've promised myself this coming weekend, the stumps at the farm are going to feel my wrath.

One can lengthen the throat to accept a longer OAL. I see no benefit from tight chambers and short throats. CZs are the worst offenders and often need the mod...also helps reliability.

My barrels do have longer throats.

The point being that mold, in a slightly larger diameter, requires deeper seating. Only way around that is to open up the throat too large.

I'm sizing at .3595 and still squeezing that bullet down a bit; there's a sized ring just in front of the crimp groove at least .050" long.

Yes, I don't disagree with your point about that bullet design, it may not fit all stock 9mm pistols well. Your mold is on the larger side compared to the op's. 358 vs 360+ with the added thickness of PC...so you got the short straw on that deal. I have a hard time getting Lee molds to to cast large enough.

I have a custom 9mm chamber reamer I had made some years ago. I call it a "combat chamber" to distinguish it from a "target" chamber. (I have one for the 45 too).

It's larger than many factory chambers, handles most cast bullets and is designed to avoid stoppages. IIRC I specd the throat 3585 to handle 160gr 358 bullets.

At the time I thought the largest diameter I might run in a 9mm was 358, but a bullet sized to 359.5 might still have some interference. So it's not be just a length issue, but that short throat area just in front of the case could easily be opened .001 larger and wouldn't affect accuracy, but it would open the 9mm to wider flat nose profile designs.

I lap the throat out in any of my barrels that have short throats. 99% of what I shoot in 9mm is cast, in both OEM Glock and aftermarket barrels. Some of the aftermarket barrels do require reaming or lapping the whole chamber to be large enough for my cast bullets, but haven't needed to make any modifications to the factory barrels.

I had the P1/P38 out this weekend and ran a few of the rounds through it. The 358-125-FN's were mostly as I expected, with reasonable accuracy. The only odd thing was that I had 3 mis-feeds, each on the second round of the magazine. The round failed to feed and wound up jammed bullet-down, having taken a wrong turn on the way to the chamber.

I'm in the process of giving everything a good cleaning and lube. My son and I both had it happen to us, and we both suspect the magazine. It was acting a bit wonky and sticky when we loaded it.

However, I wanted to throw this out to y'all in the meanwhile: could this be bullet shape? I'd previously heard the Walther P38 design was meant for round nosed FMJ only. Could this be too hot a load? I used 3.8 grains of Titegroup. Could this be a seating depth issue? I just thought I'd ask those more knowledgeable what the best course would be.

Thanks in advance.

You can experiment with OAL. Many pistol designs are not as feed friendly as a Glock and are more sensitive to cartridge length.

I normally start by using a factory RN to set up my seating die with a RN seater, and seat the FN bullets with the same die setting and see how that works.

It could be related to the short bullet but try a few different magazines and see if they all do the same thing. Sometimes jams are related to one bad mag in a bunch.

Feeding issues are related to bad ammo or bad mags usually...but customer brought in a pistol that wouldn't feed factory ammo, it wss a Beretta or Tanfoglio.

The reason it wouldn't feed wasn't an ammo or mag issue. I found the real problem...

The barrel didn't have a chamber!

Whoops...

Apparently they just slap them together and ship them out...they obviously don't test fire them at the factory.