102gr round nose 9mm

[USAF_Vet]

So I ordered a Lee 9mm mold, and either I made a mistake or Amazon did because I thought I ordered the 124gr round nose mold, but ended up with a 102gr round nose mold.

If I cast up some 102 gr bullets, how well will they fit and function in once fired brass? The loading data exists for 102gr 9mm Luger, and these are just going to be plinking rounds. My concern is the shorter OAL of the bullet and the non typical ogive might cause a lot more jams.

Or should I just go out and buy a .380 pistol, dies and brass?

 

[Schwing]

People do load and shoot these all of the time. I would cast a few and see what results you get before making any decisions. I have read some posts here on THR where some folks run into cycling issues with these. Others don't have a problem.

I personally feel like the perceived recoil is also a little snappier on the smaller projectiles driven faster. I very much doubt you will have jamming issues because of the ogive though. OAL might be more of an issue but you won't really know until you plunk test a few in your barrel.

On a side note, I never really had much interest in .380 but did pick one up a few years ago and have a blast with it at the range. Any excuse to buy something new works for me

On another side note, I call my .380 "Vera".

 

[USAF_Vet]

I'll be shooting them through my second gen S&W, so recoil won't be that bad. People talk about snappy recoil on the .40, but I don't find it that bad.

I'll try a few hotter loads if I have any cycling issues.

"Vera" Love it.

 

[Steve2md]

Good excuse to buy a Glock 42 or a PPK and start powdercoating....

 

[USAF_Vet]

I've been reading up on powder coating cast lead bullets here, and that's probably the next step.

Not too keen on the Glock 42. The PPK might work, but I'm leaning toward a Kel-tec P3AT, but realistically, there isn't room in the budget right now for a new gun.

Unless I go with a CZ61 Skorpion in .380 and SBR it. I might make an exception for that.

 

[jcwit]

I have 2 SCCY's, both 2 nd generations. I load this very bullet in front of 3.5 gr.s of Red Dot and no cycling issues at all. Makes for an excellent plinking round and doesn't beat the gun or the shooter up.

 

[USAF_Vet]

What sort of FPS are you getting? I've read data putting the 102 in front of up to 4.4 grains of Red Dot. Do you powder coat? If not, how quickly does lead build up? I figure 3.5 gr of Red Dot should push the 102 gr bullet at pretty standard 115 gr velocities. I don't have a chrono, just looking for ball park numbers out of a 3.5" barrel.

 

[jcwit]

FPS? No idea. I'm using a Lyman lube/sizer and yes I get some leading, am looking at trying the powder coat method but haven't gotten to it yet.

 

[FROGO207]

I would have a go-round with Amazon myself and get the correct mold sent to me. But I MIGHT expect more from a store than most do.:banghead:

 

[USAF_Vet]

You can bang your head all you want to in contribution to the discussion, but the mistake was mine. It adds nothing to the conversation, which is why I didn't mention it.

But thanks for letting me know what you'd do. Its been very insightful.

As it stands, I'll have the correct mold sent to me when its back in stock.

 

[LiveLife]

... realistically, there isn't room in the budget right now for a new gun.

I really like 124/125 gr bullet weight for 9mm and many reloaders seem to have issues with 115 gr bullet weight (not to mention 102 gr) in terms of leading/accuracy and needing to push the bullet harder to reliably cycle the slide.

PIF proposal PM sent.

 

[FROGO207]

In your original post you stated you were not sure who made the mistake. So I thought I might be helpful.
I am always looking for a reason to reload for a new caliber. I bought a couple 40 CAL pistols and die set when I realized I had accumulated a 5 GAL bucket of fired brass.

 

[USAF_Vet]

Sorry Frogo, I kinda snapped at you a bit. I know you were just trying to help, and I acted like a jerk.

I think I might have a single piece of .380 in my brass bucket, so buying guns, ammo, dies, etc just to more effectively use a $20 mold seems like a bad investment.

Maybe I need to hit the range more and pick up after people.

 

[LiveLife]

OK, USAF_Vet is PIF the "wrong" bullet mold to blarby and I will be PIF the "correct" mold to USAF_Vet.

Glad it all worked out.

Happy Father's Day!

 

[evan price]

Eh, I load the Lee 105-grain SWC in 9mm without any trouble and that's a harder feeding bullet than the RN 102... Took a couple tries at OAL and now they feed in just about anything and cycle nice. The 102's will work fine, if you need to run 'em a bit longer then they will work fine. It's more of a ball profile than the 2-radius ogive typical in 9mm but it will feed no trouble if you get the OAL right.

 

[Schwing]

On the subject of powder coating... I have done a lot of it and will never go back to traditional lube options again, at least for 9mm.

I am only a couple of years into reloading but 9mm seems like more of a challenge in terms of accuracy and leading. I have had fantastic loads in .45, .357 and .44 with very little work up time and with very little tinkering required.

To date, I have tested over 90 9mm loads and have all of 4 loads that I think are worth shooting. With traditional lubes, I have yet to find one that is sufficient for anything but very mild 9mm loads. Even sized properly (.001-.002 over bore size), I have had horrible leading in all of my 9mms until I switched to powder coating. I read ad nausea about how you are just sizing them wrong etc but I don't buy it anymore. I can size them .005 over bore size and lube them until they look like a crayon and still have leading with anything over about 800fps.

 

[zxcvbob]

I experimented with 95 grain commercial cast bullets in 9mm a long time ago; they worked just fine (but I prefer heavier bullets.) Promo and Green Dot are good powders for light bullets.

 

[LiveLife]

The 102's will work fine

I think the issue with the OP was not whether the 102 gr RN would work in 9mm but that he wanted 124 gr RN and instead got 102 gr RN.

If all I had were 102 gr RN bullets to shoot in 9mm, sure I would somehow make it work so that they would shoot and cycle the slide but if I had a choice, I would prefer to use 124/125 gr bullets over the 102 gr for 9mm. I too thought about suggesting to OP that 102 gr RN could work but figured life was too short to fuss over this issue and proposed a 2-way PIF instead.

BTW, for the 2 cavity 102 gr mold, I sent the OP 6 cavity 124 gr mold with handles in the hopes for early Father's Day (ETA 6/12).

 

[FROGO207]

I like these happy endings. Everyone on this forum is especially helpful to the others here.

The biggest reason I stay on this forum for the majority of my on line time.

BTW I generally like using the heavier bullets in hand gun calibers myself.