Home Forums Reloading Handgun Reloading New to 9mm Reloading

Back over the summer, I was looking for a cheap solution for shooting pistol and pulled out my Walther P1/P38. I've had it for 10 years now; I have not shot it all that much, and it seemed to only like FMJ reloads. I read an article on using Lee .358-124-SWC cast bullets, and I thought I would give it a try. Bottom line: by the end of the summer, I was no closer than when I started. However, I had enjoyed the shooting 9mm. I decided to buy a Ruger SR5, and give it a go. Yesterday was the first time I've been out with it.

I had 100 rds of .358-124-SWC, and 50 rds each of Hornady 124 grain XTP and Berry 124 grain HBRN-TP's. I loaded them all with a fairly light load of Universal.

The cast lead bullets in the Ruger fed the best. The XTP's in the Walther shot the most accurately. The Berry bullets didn't seem to feed well at all in either pistol.

I'm new to 9mm, and I don't have a lot of experience tuning loads for semi-automatic handguns. I have a Ruger 45 ACP that I've been shooting for 16 years now, and whatever I feed it seems to work well. However, we don't learn much from our successes.

Here are my questions:

1) When faced with stovepipe jams, what is the best course of action to correct? My first idea would be to increase the powder a bit.
2) In the case of feeding-related jams, I'm thinking a change in bullet seating depth is advised as a place to start. Is this correct? I had a few instances where the XTP's went up instead of going into the chamber.

Many thanks in advance.

Walthers can be picky as to bullet nose design because they were a military pistol designed for RN FMJ ammo. That said I have a 60s vintage ex-LE P1 that so far has eaten everything fed.

If you are having stove pipes with reloads and not with factory ammo you are not using enough powder. Slides need energy to work and you aren't going to blow anything up....

As to feeding length. Seat a bullet to maximum SAMMI length that will be listed in the reloading manual. Take the barrel out of the gun and drop a dummy round into the barrel to make sure it it is headspacing correctly. If not keep seating the bullet deeper till it does and then a little more. Next make up some dummy rounds of that length and put them in the magazine. SLOWLY work the slide and watch how they feed. If they feed smoothly then pull back the slide rapidly and let it go at the end of the stroke to see how they feed.

If it feeds smoothly AND you have enough powder in the round it should be fine on the range.

Also what kind of final crimp are you putting on the round? I have found that the Lee Carbide Factory Crimp Die eliminates all feeding problems...

Bob

I'm using the Lee Factory Crimp Die.

Good. My guess was right that the source of my troubles was working with starter loads. The lead loads in the SR5 worked the best of all, and they also had the most recoil. I'll just add a couple /10ths of a grain on the next batch, and I'll see what that gives me.

This is relatively new territory for me. I've mostly loaded for revolvers in the past.

Thanks for the tips.


One other question: Is there any benefit to keeping the brass segregated by the firearm that shoots it? As I said, I'm a revolver guy and most of the loads I shoot end up staying with the piece for which they were loaded. All my rifle cartridges are that way as well. However, I'm figuring there's not much difference with 9mm.

About the only thing I do with my semi-auto brass is separate the nickel cases from the plain brass as the nickel cleans quicker in the tumbler...other than that they all go in the same bucket... Life is too short for sorting...

Bob

...these days, loading for the 9mm is quite easy. going back 35 years ago, there were nagging issues that often cropped up, making it a bit of a challenge.

since the case is tapered, old sizing dies were made to accommodate this, and subsequently, they had to be lubed. when carbide sizers arrived, resized cases then showed a "wasp-waist" appearance when pills were seated. somewhat of a surprise, but it turned out to be of no practical moment.

back then, many different brands of cases showed variations in rim thickness, so some wouldn't even fit in the shell holders, which was a real pain. this has sure been remedied.

the various modern 9mm rigs have fairly consistent chambers--so brass sorting is not a big issue across the board. the Walther p38 can be a horse of another color, as wartime 9mm chambers from back in those days are not always as consistent as today--and some have had polishing done to remove chamber pitting, and they too, can be overly large. so if you fire rounds in some of them, when you go to resize these "over-expanded cases", you can tear the rims off trying to pull the case out of the die on the upstroke.

these days, if loading hardcast practice fodder--whether in 9mm, .40 s&w, or .45 acp, you can save yourself a multitude of headaches by forgetting about semi wad cutters, and simply loading truncated cone pills.

regarding propellants--stick with ones that have burning rates similar to Unique, Herco, HS6, WSF, and you will be golden. load them as hot as you can while avoiding any leading issues. in my experience, 950--1000 fps is about right in 9mm. when it comes to these target hardcast loads, a load that operates the slide in one rig, may not operate the slide in another, so its best to check "lighter" loads in all rigs.

various rigs and magazine/feedramp geometry can at times cause issues in some rigs, and sticking with factory specs is the place to begin. if you fire your handloaded ammo in various different rigs--you may need to resort to some trial and error--part of the fun of problem solving in handloading.

the stove pipes you mention can sometimes be corrected by a slight increase in the propellant charge as you mention--or sometimes--it can be as simple as curing a limp wrist issue...

Thanks all.

I've found that sorting brass by make can make for better accuracy in any semi auto pistol. Make sure the cases are all the same lenth as well. I've found that different makes of brass can have different case lenths as well. E

Being the curious type I ran a test on this.
10 rounds loaded with brass with the same headstamp from the same box.
10 rounds loaded in brass with 10 different headstamps.

Carefully fired at 10 yds. from bench with bag support.

The mixed brass won.

I have only found sorting semi-auto pistol brass to help in a very few niche circumstances.

One is with long heavy bullets for subsonic/suppressed loads - different brands have different case web dimensions, and FC brass has the most room for long bullets.

The other is with top end +P+ loads and light bullets, where uniform case capacity is important to reduce pressure and velocity swings. I use Win brass for that.

For everything else in between though, it just simply doesn't matter.

This^^^^
Loading the 9MM with mixed range brass can be a challenge. There are lots of headstamps that cause some type of problem in some loads, the stepped cases will cause bulging with longer bullets and sometimes a crimped primer pocket shows up. I use a 1050 for the long runs so the crimped pocket is not a big deal but the stepped cases and occasional 380 are a show stopper.

The small primer pocket .45acp has been my snag lately, used to just pretty much use everything when loading mixed brass loads now I have to sort the small primer pocket cases out.