Problem with Wolf barrel for 9mm Glock 19

[LiveLife]

OP can seat them to 1.08" in his LW barrel. There's no problem.

The number of people wrongly criticizing LW without having any prior experience with this bullet is astonishing.

Missouri 125 gr RN (SmallBall) at 1.080"-1.100" OAL have worked well in my Lone Wolf barrels. Due to the shorter more rounder nose profile that increases the length of the bearing surface of the bullet base, more typical 1.125" OAL may not work in all pistols and the bearing surface will hit the start of rifling when chambered (see blue arrows).

BDS, The barrel should be able to shoot the vast majority of cast bullets, and not just 1 or 2 models out of hundreds. If they REALLY wanted to make their barrels for the general public, why not just make an extra version of each barrel that would allow customers to shoot with a bit looser of a tolerance. Doesn't seem like a big deal to me... The side benefit is that they wouldn't have upset customers like me, telling people to pick a different company or skip the aftermarket barrel all together.

carlspeed, I agree and if you read my past threads/posts, I expressed similar discontent in regards to the use of larger than jacketed diameter lead bullets. But there's more to the story.

This is what Lone Wolf advertises:

Ready to use, pre-fit drop in. No gunsmithing required.
Precision machined from heat treated 416R stainless forgings.
Oversized lock-up area produces greater shot-to-shot accuracy.
Tighter dimensions than the original.
Polished feed ramp and bore, diamond turned exterior
Maximum chamber support, improved feed ramp design.
Match grade broach cut rifling and target crown.
Ok to use lead, plated or jacketed bullets.
Lifetime warranty.

Lone Wolf will replace any of our barrels or barrel accessories which are found to have manufacturing or material defects. Customer modifications or the use of reloaded ammunition will void this warranty.

I bought Lone Wolf 40S&W and 40-9 conversion barrels because I wanted to shoot lead bullets and have fully supported chambers for 40S&W loads (BTW, 9mm chambers have comparable case base support to Glock/KKM barrels but have tighter chambers).

Although Lone Wolf barrels have tighter chambers than all the pistol barrels I have used, I guess Lone Wolf really wanted to provide tight, fully-supported chambers for their 40S&W barrels.

But not all the issues reloaders experienced are due to Lone Wolf barrels. Here's why. Although Glock barrel chambers are generous than most other factory barrel chambers, their 9mm chambers are on par with most other barrels and really don't bulge the brass even though the case base is not fully supported. Lone Wolf and even KKM barrels do not fully support the 9mm case base but I have not really seen bulged 9mm cases even with near max loads.

It's another story with 40S&W. Perhaps it's the larger case wall area that makes brass more malleable (compare longer length of paper clip that's easier to bend like 1/2" vs 2") but coupled with more generous Glock chambers, 40S&W cases seem to bulge more than 9mm. If you look at Glock chamber mouth, it is cut completely away from the case. While this aids in more reliable feeding, it aggravates case base bulging as there's no part of the chamber wall that will apply force against the case.

The picture above illustrates what a typical "guppy belly" bulged 40S&W cases look like. Although the visible bulging is about 2/3 way down the case, there's also slight bulging/stretching of the bottom portion of the case base. I use Lee carbide dies, and the 40S&W resizing die's carbide sizer ring will resize this bulge enough to make most of the bulged cases reusable. I can feel this bulge being resized as it takes more effort on the ram lever of my Pro 1000 press and the bottom of the die won't touch the top of the shell plate. Whenever I resize a bulged case, I will use a Lone Wolf barrel to see if it will fully chamber. If it won't, I will rotate the case 90 degrees and attempt to resize again. If the case fully chambers in Lone Wolf barrel, I will use the case. If it won't, I deem the case wall stretched too thin and will toss in the recycle bin.

Other reloaders I shoot with have expressed that some of their dies like Dillon won't fully reduce the base of the case and need to use Lee FCD "Bulge Buster" or Redding G-Rx "Glock-Rx" to push-through resize the bottom part of the case their resizing dies won't reach. I even know some reloaders who use Lee carbide resizing dies on their Dillon presses for this reason.

As to using larger sized lead bullets with Lone Wolf barrels, IME, most cases that have .010"-.012" nominal case wall thickness with .401" sized lead bullets will "snuggly" fully chamber. However, case wall thickness often vary and some are .013"+. Also, some commercial cast bullets come with so much excess bullet lube that they essentially add another .001" to the diameter of the bullet. How do I know? When I experienced finished rounds that failed to fully chamber, I measured the case wall thickness and used .010"-.012" thickness cases and wiped lube off the bullet surface - these then fully chambered. Well, I don't have the time or the desire to measure case wall thickness or wipe lube off the bullets. So I enlarged/polished the 40S&W Lone Wolf chambers by ~.001" and now all of my finished rounds will fully chamber, regardless whether they have thicker case walls and/or extra lube on the bullet surface. Interesting thing is that I do not have this problem with Lone Wolf 9mm barrels.

Should Lone Wolf offer/enlarge the chamber of their 40S&W barrels? If they ask me, I would say yes. Should they add comments about using bulged Glock brass? It may help.

OK, back to OP.