[eldon519]

Has anyone ever successfully gotten their 9mm pistol to feed true .38 special wadcutters loaded into 9mm cases? I ran a search and could only find info about people trying it with SWCs. I am thinking about trying it with cast, double-beveled (ie non-hollow-base) bullets like you see from Meister, Hunters Supply, etc. Seems like they would be fun at the range or if they feed well, a good small-game round for woods carry.

[eldon519]

FYI, I also load with a Lee Factory Crimp die, so it should resize and reduce the bulge of a .358 projectile.

[Floppy_D]

My reloading buddy uses 158g LSWCs meant for a 357 (but sized down to .356) and has had great success with them... that bullet in particular has a much wider meplat than traditional SWC intended for semi-autos...

I imagine you're going to have feeding issues. If you have any luck, let us know, but I've never heard of that working.

[RyanM]

You're also going to have trouble getting the gun to cycle, unless you either load them faster than intended (lead city), or use a reduced power recoil spring.

[ranger335v]

You can single load them but few, if any, 9mm auto loaders are going to feed WC ammo from a magazine.

[dwhite]

This sounds like a fun experiment. if I had a 9mm I'd absolutely give it a try. Load 10 and see what happens.

All the Best,
D. White

[eldon519]

I think I might seat a FMJ upside down just to see if I can get my pistol to feed it and then go from there. If that works, I might make a small test batch, but I don't have any on hand at the moment.

[Steve C]

The problem is going to be the length of the bullet and the small 9mm case capicity. The HB wadcutter is aobout as long as the case and the solid base is very close. The next problem will be having enough room to seat the bullet without having it run into the rifling before the case is fully seated in the chamber.

There are 115gr SWC's bullets for the 9mm available from commercial casters that are similar in design to what is used in the .45 acp that would be more appropriate for target paper punching.

[ranger335v]

You can reduce the charge to compensate for the larger bullet/smaller residual case volume. But you can't compensate for that square case mouth/bullet hitting the feed ramp and stopping.

[eldon519]

And the award goes to....[drum roll]....wait for it....Steve C!

Exactly as predicted, the bullet rams into the rifling. They do actually feed like a charm in my Hi Power despite this fact. I tried it with both a 158 grain SWC beveled base seated upside down and a 147 grain Oregon trail beveled base FP seated upside down. The bullets were seated about as deep as I could get them with light tapping.

The 158gr SWC probably had about 1/4" protruding from the case and chambered but could not go all the way into battery. The bullet engraved into the rifling and was pulled out of the case when I got the slide open.

The 147gr had about 1/8" protruding and chambered, but engraved into the rifling and was very difficult to extract, but came out still in the case once I got the slide open.

I would suspect that it may be possible to get a 148gr double-beveled cast bullet to load and fire, but it would require a greatly reduced powder charge, and I am not comfortable experimenting further because I do not have experience making super-light squib type loads, nor do I have a chronograph. If anyone would like to continue where I left off, I'd recommend just to try seating a beveled-base case bullet upside down to check if your gun would feed and then go from there but feeding really posed no issue. Something like a upside down 124 gr FP may achieve similar desired results without the required experimentation.

[Marlin 45 carbine]

I wouldn't attempt it myself but feel free to experiment.
mike at mastercastbullets makes a very good 124gr tc fp that shoots great from my 5906, feeds perfect too.