I guess I was trying to make a load closer to what Hodgdon listed with their 1.125" COAL, backing down .1gr from their listed max. I already made a batch of 1000 with the shorter COAL. I guess I wanted to bump the velocity about 30-50 fps. I noticed their velocity max of 1167fps is from a 4" barrel, I have a 5" so I'm guessing at least 20-25fps higher in my barrel vs. Hodgdon max if not way more (like 60ish)?
I couldn't take the chrono today to measure, since I had to shoot indoors and my chrono says I need an indoor lighting kit for accurate readings. I shot it out my Beretta 92 pistol today in an amateur league (just slow fire) with the new shorter COAL ammo. I grabbed some box factory load spent brass of Federal and Winchester people didn't want it (mine were all WIN headstamped rounds). So there is some comparison: Granted the 92 has always left a massive crater from day one, boxed factory or reloads, bigger than any other 9mm pistol I've seen making it a bit harder to examine spent primers (light primer strike? I do not know of such things
). I'm not seeing any primer stress indicators, case issues etc. Granted I had way too much caffeine, and shaky hands, the ammo still shot pretty well, and the recoil didn't seen over the top vs. my old load. Wasn't any worse than my prior load which I thought worked well still.
So, am I technically still under max? Am I going to be looking to pull out the bullet puller with all these 1000 rounds, or am I more or less just pushing the max more, but just short of over it?
But yes I understand now. What I should have done is made another 900 of the old 1.150" to have on hand, and worked a batch of 50 or 100 with the new 1.125" in different powder increments instead of just crank out 1000 with the new COAL. I guess I was naive thinking that wasn't that big of a jump, since my velocity readings were lower than I thought.