I purchased 3K 124gr round nose hi-tek coated lead bullets from Missouri Bullet. I have 3lbs of titegroup I'm hoping to use. Hodgdon lists 3.6-4.0 gr for 125gr LCN at 1.125" COAL. this is the closest published data I've been able to find so far. I was going to start at 3.6 and work up a load but upon seating bullets I discovered these have a wide nose and the longest I could successfully plunk a round in all 3 of my 9mm Glocks was seated at 1.088" COAL. This has me a bit concerned.
The fact that you are "concerned" has me concerned. It tells me you are afraid to follow the auto pistol reloading guidelines, no matter where it leads. The
entire reason we do the barrel testing is precisely because
we DO believe our bullet-to-barrel testing is going to report something
strange and wonderful that we
DID NOT expect. If we knew what to expect in the very beginning then the reloading instructions would read something like: "Put the bullet in. Shoot it." Thankfully it's not that way.
Allow me to state this in the inverse to make my point... If the future could be known, if any bullet fit in any barrel, then people would be marrying the first girl they ever met. Every paring would be perfect. There would be no reason for dating or divorce. Some parents might even marry you off at 5 years of age because it wouldn't matter. Ridiculous! But you get my point. There
are differences, and differences matter.
So listen to your measurements.
Has anyone loaded these? Would you suggest lowering my started point to around 3.3 gr or go even lower? Hodgdon lists 125gr HDY HAP at 2.8-3.2gr with a COAL of 1.069" for another reference.
• I have not loaded these bullets. I always use 135gr IDP#8 from MBC.
• I do not own a Glock, but I have loaded for my nephew's G19, and gotten similar OALs. All my 9mil guns are CZ which will report similar bullet-to-barrel surprises.
• The Hornady HAP is a
jacketed bullet and the data should
NOT be used for lead bullets. Find another 124/125gr
LEAD bullet to get your load data from.
• The Hornady data is
NOT Suggesting you use 1.069", they are merely
Reporting they used 1.069" in their single-shot test barrel. You must work out your own OAL... which thankfully you have.
• You could use the same
Reported OAL as Hornady,
but only if your Glock looks exactly like....
► Here's what I
do suggest...
• First and foremost,
believe in yourself. Believe in your test numbers.
• I believe your 1.088" number is truth. But due to tolerance stack-ups, you'll need to back off that number even more for absolute safety.
I'd be aiming at 1.075" and accepting cartridges in the range of 1.073" to 1.083". No one is perfect, most especially me.
•
TiteGroup is a very dense, power-packed powder. So your incremental loads (no matter where you start) are going to need to be 0.1gr just to stay safe.
• You cannot elongate your OAL to make the powder happy, so you may also need to back off the
Starting Load. You can work up a mathematical proportion to get a general idea of how much to back off.
Using a chrono would definitely be an asset!
• The root cause of all this concern is exactly because you are dependent upon the Hornady web site... which you yourself have found to be
worthless. You cannot reload from a website. Go buy yourself a proper reloading manual, such as the Lyman #49 or #50.
• My
Lyman 49 gives the following data for your load with Lead bullets: 3.3 to 3.7gr at 1.110" with TG. Doing the simple proportion makes the safe
Starting Load to 3.2gr. So the
Load Range (which is still 0.4gr) runs from 3.2 to 3.6gr.
• A chrono will help verify this.
DO NOT exceed an average velocity of ~1109fps with any incremental load.
• In truth, even 3.6gr may be well below this. This is because proportions only "work" with straight-line changes, and incremental loads are anything but straight line. Experience tells me 3.2gr may not operate the auto ejection, and 3.6gr may be in the middle of the pack. But the main thing is these loads will be safe and you'll end up still having all your fingers and eyeballs. And that is the optimal result.
Hope this helps.