[Noxx]

After a couple of weeks of setting up a reloading bench, dialing in dies, and reading everything I could get my hands on, I'm off to the range with my first boxes of handloads. I was a little hesitant about the powder loads because there's some variance between the different reloading manuals. For 9x19 with plated RN bullets I settled on two test batches at 5.2 and 5.6 grains of Unique, loaded to 1.140" C.O.L.

Here's hopin' I come back with the same ten fingers I left with. :o

[Shoney]

Congratulations and good luck!

If you would like us to make intelligent comments on your loads, in addition to powder, powder weight, RN plated bullet, and COL, we need:

Bullet weight:
Case:
Primer:
Crimp: Being a novice, you will probably not know just how much crimp you have without experimentation.

[Noxx]

Well forgetting to list bullet weight is a little embarassing, 115gr. I used Win small pistol primers. Crimp is a little harder to figure out yeah? That was one of the things vexing me as I was getting started. Essentially I made fine adjustments to the crimp die until it took about the same amount of force with the inertial puller to remove it as it did for a factory taper crimped round, then checked to make sure I wasn't deforming the case or bullet at that setting.

If I ever get my range bag in order and get out of here (the wife decided she was making pancakes) I'll let you know how it came out.

(edit: cases are a bit of assortment, I've read a lot of conflicting info on sorting them by headstamp, I just mic'd them to check against the max case length listed in Speer)

[Shoney]

The 5.2 load will definitely do well as far as shooting, but accuracy will of course an unknown.

The 5.6 load, which is 0.1 grn over the max listed by Alliant, may be a little too much for the plated bullet, unknown, but most lead plated bullets are pushed well under jacketed data to avoid chances of leading. Check your barrel and chamber for leading.

[Noxx]

Whee.

Everything went well, no failures of any variety.

The 5.2 load was a very "soft" shooter, but spot on and cycled the action reliably. The 5.6 seemed to mimic a factory load more closely.

I didn't have any problems with unburnt powder or fouling, altho I do need a good cleaning of course, I put 200 factory rounds downrange along with the 100 I had loaded.

Thanks again for all the advice in the archives. Good stuff.

[RustyFN]

Congrats and welcome. It sounds like you are off to a good start. I have loaded 9mm 124 FP at max with Titegroup and they shot fine. I have noticed that most of the time they shoot better before you get to max. You might want to work toward max a little slower. As far as crimp most people I know including myself only crimp enough to remove the bell that the powder die put in. You want to be very careful not to over crimp plated bullets.
Rusty

[Noxx]

The max load from Speer and Nosler was listed at 6.1gr. I didn't know until this thread that the powder manufacturers specs varied from those. I'm planning on coming down to 5.0 to see if that still cycles fine.

[scrat]

congrats and welcome to the club.


hahahhaa


your hooked now.

wait till your start casting bullets. hahahhhahah your hooked