9x23 steyr or 9x25 mauser?

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justin22885

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im considering one of these cartridges... why? both can be made as cheap as 9mm since the 9.7mm diameter of the steyr and 9.8mm of the mauser is close enough you should be able to make them with once fired .223 brass or spent .223 blanks.. also loaded to 9mm parabellum +P pressures either cartridge can drive a 147 grain .355 bullet at the same velocities a parabellum can drive 124 grain bullets, so these are two advantages over typical 9mm for the same cost and ammo capacity

itll be a 1911 with a custom reamed .355" barrel on an otherwise 38 super weapon

so which one? 9x23 steyr or 9x25 mauser (both of increased pressure with 5.56/223 brass)
 
Why not just go with the 9x23 Winchester? There's commercially available ammo and brass available and you won't have to buy a custom die set and possibly a set up to inside ream cases.
I believe the 9x23 will meet the criteria easily and you can get a barrel from several barrel makers.
 
Will a standard 1911 frame stand up to 9x23 Dillon. highlander_5? My understanding is that that cartridge produces 357 Magnum levels of power. 10mm gave standard Colt 1911 frames problems; have frames improved since then, or are there other factors involved?

OTOH, justin22885 wants to solve his brass problem by cutting down .223 brass. If he's going to do that, I don't see any reason to bother making it similar to any pre-existing round except for bullet diameter. 9x23 Steyr has very few advantages over 9mm Parabellum, and the existing guns and brass probably aren't suited to his purpose. And 9x25 Mauser guns are extremely rare.

It sounds like an interesting wildcatting project.

PS - I was wrong to say 9x23 Dillon. The cartridge I had in mind was 9x23 Winchester. There are too many obscure 9mm cartridges for me to keep straight anymore.
 
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I have a Colt 1911 Combat Commander and a Springfield Armory 1911 Government .45s that I converted to 9x23.

I bought 2 of these kits from a friend who bought several of them from CDNN about 15 years ago. Please note the info on the top of the box and that the ejector is not shown:

They both had 5” barrels, so I had one cut down to 4.25” to fit the Commander.

Factory ammo is available from WW and I believe CorBon and you can use .38Super magazines

Starline makes brass, but from what I have read it can’t take the pressure (50,000 psi) that the Winchester case can. See this link for reloading info.: http://www.shootingtimes.com/ammo/cartridge-review-9x23-winchester/

I CCW the Commander mostly. The 9x23 in the Gov’t model launches a 124 gr. bullet at 1450 fps - same as a .357mag without the stiff recoil and the gun holds 1 in the tube and 9 or 10 in the magazine. The 9x23 in the Commander zips out at 1425 fps.

If you load anywhere maximum don’t forget to use small rifle primers.
 
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except i wont be converting to 9x23 winchester.. that has a base diameter the same as a 9mm which is close to 10mm base diameter.. the 9x25 dillon is a bottleneck cartridge based on 10mm (basically a 357 sig on roids)

the reason to go with 9x23 steyr or 9x25 mauser is because dies and reamers are available to do the conversion (the difference between it and 38 super or 9x23 winchester is just the barrel), but because the 9x23 steyr or 9x25 mauser have a smaller base diameter than the others, it can be properly made from .223/5.56 brass thus making them cheaper to handload than 9x23 winchester

to clarify.. 38 super brass once-fired is $0.125/rd, i cant even find 9x23 winchester brass once fired, so new brass is $0.21/rd...but since i can make 9x23 steyr or 9x25 mauser from 5.56 brass, im able to make that brass at $0.045/rd, thus making them the cheapest of the long 9mm cartridges and it allows me to repurpose old 5.56/.223 brass when it gets damaged
 
its close enough a 9 mil breech face and extractor (maybe a little modification to the extractor) should work.. the chamber size is what im more concerned with getting perfect

however, if i could find an unfinished slide where i can do a bit more customization on it, that would be fantastic, id like to build the pistol for more of a combat pistol type of role, possibly based on a para ordnance doublestack frame with P18 (38 super) mags.. if i could find a slide thats for the most part, blank, then that would be better
 
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so would there be any reason to choose the 9x25 mauser over 9x23 steyr or vice versa?.. seemingly both options would yield the same end result, both fit the COAL of the 1911, i can get reamers and reloading dies for either one.. seems like it doesnt really matter which

im curious though, how well does .223 brass make 9mm mauser or even 7.63x25?.. im also considering 7.63x25, assuming i could fit the cartridge into a 1911

edit: seems no matter how hard i try, i cant find 9x25 mauser loading dies... so, 9x23 steyr or 7.63x25 mauser IF itll fit a 1911 mag
 
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justin22885 - “so you see the point of this idea, right?”
Click to expand...

If your intent is to shoot 9x23 Steyr or 9x25 Mauser ammo exclusively out of your pistol, then I agree with you on that point.

For CCW carry I load my Commander with potent reloads in the 9x23 Winchester brass but I don’t shoot the 9x23 ammo except for a short full power practice after my usual practice with the 9x19 barrel in the gun. It’s just a simply matter of changing the 9x23 barrel out for the 9x19, or the other way around, and have at it.

When I was a LEO firearms instructor I was trained as a police armor by Colt gunsmiths for their auto pistols. Nothing fancy mind you, but enough to realize that your idea of tweaking the extractor to hold a smaller based cartridge in a 9mm breech face with the slide slamming back and then picking up a cartridge and holding it steady as the slide slams it into the feed ramp would be a weak link if not an impossibility in reliability.

I’m not trying to talk you out of the 9x23 Steyr or 9x25 Mauser conversion, but just pointing out some other alternatives. If your heart is set on other cartridges then you should go for it. I hope you succeed and if you put it all together I would really like to see how it turned out. Good luck….. Doc
 
im well familiar with 9x23, but i will probably be stockpiling ammunition by the thousands, that added cost will pile up and yield no ballistic advantage in the process... so theres absolutely no reason to go with 9x23 for me

the way i used to do things was .308 winchester used to be my primary rifle cartridge, and i also wanted suppression, plus a pistol caliber i can make from damaged rifle brass.. well naturally this lead me to 45acp, can be made from 308 brass and tons of powder suppressed due to the heavy, slow nature of the 230 grain projectiles

however, ive since made a switch to 300 blackout as my primary rifle caliber and i will be getting a suppressed rifle in that caliber... since .308 is no longer my primary (so no need to be able to make pistol brass from it).. and since the blackout covers the suppression better than a 45acp, i have no reason to stick with 45acp so i was primarily looking for something i can make with 5.56 brass, leads me to 9x23 steyr which loaded to higher pressures will allow me to match 9x23 ballistics but at much lower costs and allows me to repurpose old brass

__

as for the extractor.. since im starting with 5.56/.223 brass, it will have a 9.6mm diameter rim, 22 TCM is used in converted 1911s and is also based on 5.56mm, so a .22 TCM slide + 38 super mags + the custom barrel and i should have the working pistol.. however, it seems most .22TCM conversions use a 9mm slide, so id just need a .22 tcm extractor if anything
 
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Forget the 9x25 Mauser Export, it like the 7.62x25 is too long for the .38 Super magazine.

The 9x23 Steyr is a straight case very much like a rimless .38 Super, all the others in the 9mm service pistol family are tapered. See below.

If you can find it in the archives or in old print articles, read up on the Jeff Cooper Super 9. It is made as you describe, 5.56 or .223 cut off to 23 mm and loaded hot, depending on the rifle temper brass to hold the overload.

Just ream a .38 Super Nonte chamber or buy a modern Super barrel with "minimum match chamber._ The .223 brass won't bulge too much. That is what Cooper's gunsmith did.

Stick to roundnose bullets or JHPs with ogival or conical nose so you won't have to have a deep barrel ramp cut. The rifle brass is stronger than pistol, but no sense in pushing your luck.

All done for you 42 years ago. But you will have to develop your own loads, he did not give recipes. I don't know if you will need 9mm or .38 reloading dies; I GUESS the best combo would be a .38 Super die set with a "U" undersize sizing die.

http://forum.m1911.org/showthread.php?34036-Jeff-Cooper-s-quot-Super-Nine-quot-(Yes-a-9mm)
 
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hmm, looking at 9x23 steyr its 9.7mm base diameter and 9.6mm neck diameter, vs the 38 super which is 9.75mm base diameter and 9.75 neck... the 38 super IS straight, but the steyr does have a bit of a taper in it which is good.. hmm at 9.75mm i could go with a rimless 38 super as another option.. would definitely be easier to find dies and reamers for.. but it seems a taper, even a very small one like the steyr has would be better

also, the only info i found on 9x23 mauser listed a 32.8mm COAL and thats what i used to simulate loads on quickload
 
Why don't you just get a .357 SIG and make brass out of .40 S&W cases. I know, officially you can't....but you can. Seems like the same level of performance with way less time spent prepping brass, and there are readibly available guns out there without all kinds of custom work.
 
i really dont care if there are readily available guns in 357 sig or not, i have absolutely zero interest in that cartridge for a number of reasons, besides, a 9x23 will outperform a 357 sig, cost significantly less and offer a higher mag capacity.. so 9x23 steyr or rimless 38 super
 
What happened to simply hot rodding 30 Luger? Also, it's more work than you realize to make pistol cases from 223, especially if necked. You'll need annealing and case neck reaming, neither of which is particularly easy to do en masse for a home guy.

I'd suggest getting a lathe, frankly. Brass turning operations become easy, as do reamers, as do sizing dies (well, comparing to paying for custom ones), as does turning & chambering barrels, and opening breechfaces. You'll never make progress on this if the plan is to have everything made for you, as the cost & timeline will be astronomical.

Heck you could even easily make aluminum sabots and brass projectiles with even a small lathe, and just use that hod rodded version of 45acp (Rowland?)

45 brass can be had from spent 308-based cases, btw ;) (neck turning required)

TCB
 
Your cost savings on the brass will be eaten up by all the time spent cutting off and reaming out .223 brass. If you want thousands it's gonna take a long time.
 
We get into this sort of gedankenexperiment, I always assume the OP has the resources. In this case, time to spend cutting and forming surplus brass for his thousands of rounds of stockpiled pistol ammunition. I assume to go along with the surplus brass being trimmed and formed for his standard rifle ammo, .300 BO.
 
Judging by his post though he seems to think all he has to do is cut it off he will have to ream them as well.
 
lmao, i know whats required, this isnt my first rodeo and im not the average "newbie" or fudd that tends to come to such forums.. this is why im not asking about the process to do it or the tools required, i already know this, thats why my question is simple, for what reason, if any, would the 9x25 mauser or 9x23 steyr be preferable over the other as a full pressure (35k-38k PSI) pistol cartridge

since my search for 9x25 mauser reloading dies have turned up empty, this probably isnt going to happen.. so 9x23 wins out over the mauser but the rimless 38 super dimensions makes it another good candidate for being made from 223/5.56 brass and dies, barrels, etc are readily available and fairly common so theres a huge advantage to that, however it is a straight walled cartridge, not even a little taper

so now the question is, will the straight wall of the 38 super cause extraction issues under larger volumes of fire, and hotter, stickier chambers, and is the 9x23s taper (about .1mm over the length of the cartridge) even enough to not have the same potential issues as the 38 super?
 
The 9x23 CP Elite was the forerunner of 9x23 Win. It was a semi-wildcat with brass but not ammo available from CP and no factory guns.

They offered two reamers, one was for chambering a new barrel, available from some places as a .355 short chamber that could be reamed to about anything of 9mm or .38 caliber. That was very close to what you would get now in a 9x23 Win barrel or chamber reamer.

The OTHER reamer was made to recut .38 Super chambers to handle the tapered case. This came out a bit oversize in some dimensions but seemed to work ok.

SOME .38 Super chambers on the large end of I.D. would handle 9x23 as is and were so used, with a lot of caveats about doing it only in a strongly constructed racegun that was probably already being shot with overloaded Supers.

Anecdote 1. I know one shooter who, when he did not want to be bothered loading .38 Super, shot 9x23 Largo aluminum Blazer, back when that was cheap. Tapered cartridge in a straight chamber, no problems.

Anecdote 2. I know another guy who started to reload 7.62x25 back when all that was available was corrosive Iron Curtain surplus and expensive WW .30 Mauser. He makes cases out of 5.56 or .223. This leaves him with a case head and rim diameter smaller than spec, but it does not affect his shooting.

Anecdote 3. There is interest in caliber convertible guns, things like .38 Super to 9mm P. They usually work pretty well, but the semi-rim to rimless change can affect extraction. I have had two, one required dedicated extractors, the other could be tweaked to handle both. You are going to a still smaller rim diameter, which might call for adjustment.

Conclusion: It seems to not make as much difference as you think. The various 23mm rounds and chambers have a lot of overlap at the tolerance limits. Since you can buy a .38 super barrel or gun off the shelf, that seems TO ME to be the way to get into it. I don't think searching out 9mm Steyr stuff to be worth the trouble and expense.

I repeat, the 9x25 Mauser will not fit a .38 Super magazine. Your 32.8mm = 1.29" and CotW says 1.39" = 35mm. That is a dead end.

Comment: Cartridge dimensions in the USA are commonly given in inches. It would be easier to kick this stuff around if I did not have to convert from millimeters. If you live in a metricated country, I will do it, but if you are in America, use of SI units just strikes me as pretentious.

What gun are you planning to use? There is a lot of industry support for the 1911 type, and not many other guns with long enough action for 23mm cases. I can think of the Witness/Tanfoglio large frame and the Sig Sauer P220.
 
ive already mentioned id be building a custom doublestack 1911 for it with a P14 frame and P18 38 super mags... probably a light DAO trigger

my concern is not whether or not itll fit in the mags or with what extractor.. im wondering how the straight wall is going to be with extraction on whats going to end up being designed as a combat pistol type of build.. so reliability is VERY important
 
I think you need to GET concerned about what will fit the magazine.
9x25 is not usable in a .38 magazine unless you seat bullets so deep that you had just as well have a 9x23. Which is what the Italians did with the 9x21, but that was a legal, not a ballistic solution.

I don't think anybody on the internet is going to be able to reassure you about what exact chamber to use. I cited some cases of using tapered cases in straight chambers during the brief fad of the 9x23 CP. There was an article about a round called the 9mm Auto, same length as 9mm P but a straight case, with advantages claimed in magazine stacking. Testing was necessarily done in tapered chamber 9mm P guns and it did fine.

I think I would do some testing in a cheap gun like a Tokarev; one of the 9mm barrels reamed to 23mm would get you started.

CH-4D makes dies in all the odd calibers of the family.
https://www.ch4d.com/
I don't know what it will take beyond the regular loading die set. Probably not an additional form die but likely a neck ream outfit.

Say, I just thought, you could as easily form 7.62x25 out of .223. Since you are handloading, you will not be stuck at the European OAL, you can use stubbier bullets or seat deeper to fit your magazine and action length.
 
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ive considered a tokarev.. also considered the CZ52 and a C96 mauser if i could ever get ahold of one.. but for now its down to the rimless 38 special and 9x23 steyr (this is only 32mm COAL, a tad shorter than 45acp and with 147 grain bullets id load it out to the full 32.4mm).. so this will fit a 1911 just fine, the 9x25 mauser may be a tad too long.. keep in mind we're talking about two entirely difference cartridges between the 9x23 steyr and 9x25 mauser

anyway, before i started this post i knew the 38 super had a much larger rim diameter, i didnt realize it has a fairly small by comparison base diameter, and the straight wall shouldnt matter much as the 45acp and 10mm are pretty much also straight-walled and operate fine as the cartridges are lower pressure (compared to rifles) so there shouldnt be extraction issues, especially not with a good polished chamber... so in light of more information about the 38 super, this is the route im going to go, but with 223 brass which will be cheaper, and also allow me to load it pretty much as hot as i want without having to worry about the pressure.. and since 1911s have been built to handle 460 rowland (especially the steel framed models) i dont have to worry too much with bolt thrust so long as i use strong components

so, i'll be going 38 super.. which makes things SOOOOO much easier
 
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