Thoughts or experience with 9x18 Makarov load

I just ordered the dies, brass (9x18), and bullets (95 grain Berry's RN) for 9x18 Makarov and wanted to run this load by you guys. It's listed as a max load on the Hodgdon site, but I'll be shooting it from a CZ82 which as I understand is significantly more robust that most if not all of the other guns chambered for this round. Have any of you loaded 9x18 with HP38 (or Win231)?

Let me know and thanks in advance,

Warner

Powder: 3.8 gr HP38

Bullet: Berry 95gr RN

OAL: .965”

Legion489 said:

Yeah Win 231 (the EXACT same powder as Hodgdon HP38) is my "go to" powder for handguns. You won't go wrong with it.

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Yeah, so far so good for me, too. Here are the 3 loads that I’ve done already, which work great:

9mm Luger: 4.5 gr HP38, Berry 124gr HBRN-TP, 1.135” OAL

38 Special: 4.3 gr HP38, Berry 158gr FP, 1.45” OAL

45 ACP: 5.2gr HP38, Berry 230gr RN, 1.265" OAL

rcmodel said:

Regardless of what gun you will shoot it in?

Start with the recommended Starting load (3.4) and work your way up to the Max load (3.8).

NEVER start with a Max load in anything!

rc

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While it IS listed as a max load on Hodgdon's site, in the Speer manual the load for a 95gr FMJ 9x18 Mak starts at 3.9gr of 231 with a max load of 231 being 4.4gr. Having said that, the Hornady manual has a start load of 3.3gr and a max load of 3.8gr which is the identical to the load data on the Hodgdon site for HP-38. Hmmm. Well, I'll see what charge the different powder discs throw and go from there. Thanks for the response....I've searched far and wide for 9x18 reload data and there's just not THAT much out there. I know the european loads were significantly hotter than what's available domestically, which leads me to believe the CZ82 in particular could handle a hotter than advertised load. I was hoping someone with experience reloading with the combination that I'm using would chime in.....but then I'm pretty sure that not many folks would want to "sign off" on any load that goes above published data.

Warner

Twmaster said:

What RC said. Unless you see published data for plated pills use lead bullet data.

Also, It's a good idea to have more than a couple load data books on hand. For example the Lee 2nd Ed. book covers lead and some plated bullets that my Speer or Lyman books do not have..

I've also seen Berry's bullets specifically listed on the Hodgdon web site data charts.

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Yeah...it seems that most of the data that's available on 9x18 suggests the 3.4-3.8 grains of HP38. I found that the .43 disc throws 3.6 grains of HP38 on my press and that's what I'm going with.

Thanks guys,

Warner

Warners said:

Yeah...it seems that most of the data that's available on 9x18 suggests the 3.4-3.8 grains of HP38. I found that the .43 disc throws 3.6 grains of HP38 on my press and that's what I'm going with.

Thanks guys,

Warner

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I know this is an old thread....but I found it doing a related search on Google. This is when I noticed a pretty major mistake in my post! I use the .34 powder disk to throw 3.6 grains of HP38 powder, NOT the .43 disk!!! (the .43 disk I use for my 9x19 loads, as it throws 4.5 grains of HP38 powder for me).

Warner