Laser Cast 9mm 124 grn Load Help

[codefour]

I purchased my first 9mm. I clear my stupid California 10 day wait period tomorrow and can go pick it up. I got a 9mm because I have two large buckets of cleaned 9mm brass going to waste and it is cheap to load compared to .45 for target shooting.

A friend gave me over a thousand 124 grain Laser Cast 9mm RN bullets to load.

I currently have W231, Unique, and Auto Comp on hand. Do any of you guys have a load with either of the powders I have on hand that will work well with a cast bullet..?? I have never loaded lead before and usually use jacketed bullets.

I am putting in a powder order to Powder Valley in the morning. Any recommendations for a good 9mm powder..??

Thanks in advance.

 

[Fishslayer]

There's a load listed for W231 on the Hodgdon website.

http://data.hodgdon.com/cartridge_load.asp

So far all I've tried myself for 125gr 9mm are Bullseye & Green Dot.

I'll be giving the W231 a try in 125 & 147gr loads.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

Try loading a charge of between 4.0gr and 4.4gr W231 under those bullets. I load a 4.0gr charge of W231 which makes a fun to shoot 9mm load under 124/125gr lead bullets.

 

[1SOW]

ArchangelCD: +1.
I ended up using 4.3 grs of Win 231 (HP38) @ 1.125 with 124gr fmj to get about 1060 fps for a competition load.
My only complaint was that it shot a little 'sooty/dirty' loaded that light in my pistol---not enough pressure for efficient combustion.
With a little more powder it shot much cleaner.

Be sure to work up from min loads using published data as your results may differ from mine. (Did that sound politically correct?)

 

[goon]

I've used Unique to load for every handgun cartridge I've ever reloaded for. It's not perfect for everything and it's not the cleanest powder, but it is versatile. I don't remember what I was running with 124/125 grain cast bullets though. It's been a long time since I've loaded any 9mm and I used up the rest of the ones I had in .38 Special loads. The .355 bullets probably shouldn't have worked well in them, but they did.

 

[LiveLife]

After many happy years of using W231/HP-38 (same powder), I am trying Unique with "Cleaner Burning" on the bottle. At most mid-to-high range load data in 9/40/45 loads, it's burning fairly clean for me.

Although I use W231/HP-38 primarily for 9mm target loads, you should be able to work up accurate loads with Unique and Auto Comp (some posted that Auto Comp is WSF with flash suppressant and I use WSF for full power loads).

 

[Galil5.56]

For 125 grain cast in my 9mm's; 4.4 grains of WW231 is very nice, and my favorite is 4.7 grains Unique... Accuracy is simply amazing, and it chronographs 1070-1095 fps depending on what pistol I'm using that day.

 

[Twmaster]

I've been loading 125 gr hard cast lead in 9MM. I am using 4.4 grains of Unique. Mostly loading target/plinking rounds. Works great.

 

[oldreloader]

with HP 38/231 I run from 4 gr to 4.4 gr. My favorite is 5 gr AA #5.

 

[codefour]

Thanks for all the advice. I am going to try W231 in 4.0 to 4.4 range first because it meters so much better than Unique.