First 9mm Loads - Advise Me

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film495

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I went through the steps to make a sample set of dummy rounds. All passed plunk test in cartridge checker and barrel, cycles through my Beretta 92S just fine. I just want to make target/plinking loads, not concerned with ultra accuracy at this point, just want them to work. Components as follows

* Mixed 9mm range brass - all .744-.750" case lenght, not separated by brand
* Xtreme Bullet - XJ9MM-124RNFMJ-B0500
* OAL - 1.135" - Speer data for 124 grain TMJ - RN
* Primer CCI 500 Small Pistol Primer
* Win 231 - 4.0 grains start 4.5 grains max - Speer data same as above

I was thinking I would just start at the lower end of this for powder charge, and make some at 4.1 grains, with the above components. Any tips of words of wisdon?

As an aside, for anyone who read the other thread on the Hornady dies with the roll crimp, I used them to put a 1/16" turn of crip and - seemed to work enough to take and bell out of the case, but the rim is still proud to headspace against, so - they work good, and I would not know the difference with such a light crimp.

I'm not fully sold on the OAL or the charge. I measured some factory rounds and they were much shorter, and read a bunch on OAL and such, but - from what I've read those are common questions on a new cartrdige working out the details.
 
film495 said:
I went through the steps to make a sample set of dummy rounds. All passed plunk test in cartridge checker and barrel, cycles through my Beretta 92S just fine. I just want to make target/plinking loads, not concerned with ultra accuracy at this point, just want them to work. Components as follows

* Mixed 9mm range brass - all .744-.750" case lenght, not separated by brand
* Xtreme Bullet - XJ9MM-124RNFMJ-B0500
* OAL - 1.135" - Speer data for 124 grain TMJ - RN
* Primer CCI 500 Small Pistol Primer
* Win 231 - 4.0 grains start 4.5 grains max - Speer data same as above

I was thinking I would just start at the lower end of this for powder charge, and make some at 4.1 grains, with the above components. Any tips of words of wisdon?

As an aside, for anyone who read the other thread on the Hornady dies with the roll crimp, I used them to put a 1/16" turn of crip and - seemed to work enough to take and bell out of the case, but the rim is still proud to headspace against, so - they work good, and I would not know the difference with such a light crimp.

I'm not fully sold on the OAL or the charge. I measured some factory rounds and they were much shorter, and read a bunch on OAL and such, but - from what I've read those are common questions on a new cartrdige working out the details.
Click to expand...
pop it in your gun and light off a few rounds
 
Sounds like you're on the right track.
Your oal sounds OK to me, but make sure your rounds will pass the 'plunk test' - look it up if need be.
4.0 W231 is good for a starting load, I use it with Xtreme 124 flat points.
Don't make too many.
 
Only thing I'll add is, when you do the plunk test in your barrel, make sure that you can freely spin the cartridge. If you can't freely spin the cartridge, try seating it a smidge deeper. It took me months to learn that. I think OAL recommendations with 9mm need to be viewed as just suggestions, due to how much the ogive of 9mm bullets seem to vary from one manufacturer to the other.
 
IME 4.0 gn of W231 is often too light for the action to run reliably. A rather common and my favored plinking load using 4.3 gn W231, 124 gn JRN. Reasonably accurate, friendly recoil and from my favorite 9mm, the cases fall in a predictable little area. Great for cleanup. You will, of course, want to do your own workup to see how it runs in your gun(s). Add 2 or 3 more tenths of a grain for more power and perhaps better accuracy.
If it plunks right and the oal is right, go shooting.
 
At that OAL with that bullet I would likely start at 4.2 Grs W-231, but a smart fellow would start at 4.0. Load five, get numbers and shoot a group, notice recoil and case ejection, go from there.

I do that with the chrono at 5 yards and the target at 7 yards. I do small batches all the time, I have loaded only one test round more than once over the years., then two, then more. More often than not though I load six for revolvers and seven for autos to start. (seven for autos got its start shooting 1911s years ago)

.45 Colt testing. 12 shots, six powder back and six powder forward.
12 Shots of Load #51 - 6 PB & 6 PF Pic 1.jpg
 
I hardly ever start at the bottom. With your powder range you only really have 6 possible loads with .10 gr increments. I would probably load 5 each of the middle four 4.1 - 4.4 and then give those a go. If supplies are short then start at 4.2. If 4.4 seems to be your best load out of the group with no pressure issues then you could try at 4.5. With pistol I don't usually go to max because I am not being precise with my powder and don't want to exceed max even though I don't think there would be an issue if I did.
 
Build a ladder for testing. If these are your first load from min to max powder loads with all other parameters the same. 10 rounds each and shoot them from min upwards. If you have an issue stop and leave the range. Take the brake to evaluate and ask questions. Max is not plus p just book Sami max.
 
film495 said:
All passed plunk test in cartridge checker and barrel, cycles through my Beretta 92S just fine.
Click to expand...
Then keep going!:thumbup:
Load some up and shoot them!

The OAL is found. They plunk. With that bullet and your pistol, that is the COAL.

You don’t have a charge settled on yet because you don’t know if it will cycle the pistol yet.
Only one way to find out.
Run the experiment!:)
(That’s the fun part.;))
 
Factory COL will vary depending on a number of factors so you can’t use that to judge your reloads. You took the right steps to determine your working COL, and if that’s in line with published data run with it. It’s a good idea to start low and work up, but if all you’re after is plinking ammo, just load a few to see if they cycle the gun.
I don’t recall the other thread wrt to the roll crimp, typically 9mm would use a taper crimp but it’s just to remove the bell, not increase neck tension. Check to make sure you don’t have setback and you’ll be fine. One last tip, while you have mixed brass, just pick out a few of the same HS to do the testing with. It likely won’t make a difference but it’s a good practice to get in to and eliminates one variable. Good luck.
 
vaalpens said:
What is the length of these Xtreme bullets?
Click to expand...
that is a good question, I did measure it, but I'll have to do it again and come back. when I was working out the OAL, I was going to go a bit longer to test at first, but I wanted more of the bullet seated, still less that .355 seated I think, so - I opted for a little shorter OAL - matching Speer data, and not off the Hodgdon website which was a bit longer.

Anyone have some data from the Xtreme book data, they have one - might put out the $10 just to have their data, but really think they should make that available.
 
the only other thing that comes to mind is I'm not 100% sure I'm using the Hornady expander to flair correctly. It is different than RCBS in that it is one solid piece that doesn't come apart, so - I'm not sure if I'm just supposed to touch the ball to the case to flair the mouth, or if it is supposed to extend down further into the case to expand, as it touches higher up on the expander ball, but I can't take it out to see how it is supposed to work. It is possoble I'm just expanding the top of the case and not really flairing at all, and that works to seat the bullet, but - not sure if that is correct, or if the neck tension will be right - but, again - not fully sure I'm using the die correctly for expansion/flair.
 
film495 said:
the only other thing that comes to mind is I'm not 100% sure I'm using the Hornady expander to flair correctly. It is different than RCBS in that it is one solid piece that doesn't come apart, so - I'm not sure if I'm just supposed to touch the ball to the case to flair the mouth, or if it is supposed to extend down further into the case to expand, as it touches higher up on the expander ball, but I can't take it out to see how it is supposed to work. It is possoble I'm just expanding the top of the case and not really flairing at all, and that works to seat the bullet, but - not sure if that is correct, or if the neck tension will be right - but, again - not fully sure I'm using the die correctly for expansion/flair.
Click to expand...
In a pistol case your basically using an expander mandrel with a tapered section or step depending on design. The tapered ones will roll the mouth open like a trumpet if you get real agressive. Take a piece of junk range brass and dial the die way down so you see an exaggerated version of what the die is doing.
 
What he said, play with junk brass to understand the function of the die and how to set it. Basically you screw the expander die in/out to suit the bullet you are loading for. You want to use as little flare as possible so you don't over work the brass, it's not the end of the world if do a little too much bit again it's not ideal. A perfect flare lets you rest the bullet on top of the case without it falling of or being too "wobbly". There's probably a few methods or approaches to set it so I might suggest some searching to get some ideas.
 
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