Harriw
Member
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2018
- Messages
- 282
Hi folks,
I love shooting RMR's "MPR" jacketed HP bullets in 9mm. But they have their hands full trying to keep up with a huge backlog at the moment, so I thought I might let my stash of MPR's sit on the shelf for a while and try shooting some coated cast bullets for a change instead. they're quite a bit cheaper, and much more available for now so why not give it a try?
Lots of options out there, but I went with "DG Bullets": https://dgbullets.com/ They seemed to have the best price of any I could find that could actually have inventory any time soon. I ordered a few thousand, which showed up at my door a week later - pretty impressive turn-around time for these days. Here's the bullet I'm starting off with: https://dgbullets.com/product/9mm-115/
Anyway, I'm looking for some opinions on load data for these. I'd like to try W231 (at least initially). Hodgdon's site gives the following:
115 gr LRN W231/HP-38 .356" 1.100" Start 4.3 gr (1079 fps) 28,400 CUP - Max 4.8 gr (1135 fps) 32,000 CUP
However, in order to plunk in my CZ barrel comfortably I have to seat these down to 1.075-1.080." Meanwhile, My Lyman's 50th provides the following datapoints for 120 Gr. cast bullets:
My DG bullets have no lube grooves or anything - just your typical round-nose form factor. But the significantly lower powder charges shown for these two bullets are giving me pause... The 4.1gr. Max for the bullet on the left is less than the starting charge Hodgdon is calling for. And my AOL is smack in between these two. I also noticed that Hodgdon ran the pressure up higher than Lyman did too, so that's part of the difference. Hodgon measured 32000 CUP at their max charge, while Lyman stopped at around 30k for each of their bullets.
Seems to me this Lyman data might be a bit light... but I do believe I should back off on the Hodgdon data bit due to my shorter AOL. Does anybody else have some more 115gr. cast lead data for W231 that might help shed some light on this?
Just from what I'm seeing here, I'm thinking of testing something like a 3.4 gr starting charge, and working up to 4.4 gr max? That sound reasonable?
Thanks a lot!
I love shooting RMR's "MPR" jacketed HP bullets in 9mm. But they have their hands full trying to keep up with a huge backlog at the moment, so I thought I might let my stash of MPR's sit on the shelf for a while and try shooting some coated cast bullets for a change instead. they're quite a bit cheaper, and much more available for now so why not give it a try?
Lots of options out there, but I went with "DG Bullets": https://dgbullets.com/ They seemed to have the best price of any I could find that could actually have inventory any time soon. I ordered a few thousand, which showed up at my door a week later - pretty impressive turn-around time for these days. Here's the bullet I'm starting off with: https://dgbullets.com/product/9mm-115/
Anyway, I'm looking for some opinions on load data for these. I'd like to try W231 (at least initially). Hodgdon's site gives the following:
115 gr LRN W231/HP-38 .356" 1.100" Start 4.3 gr (1079 fps) 28,400 CUP - Max 4.8 gr (1135 fps) 32,000 CUP
However, in order to plunk in my CZ barrel comfortably I have to seat these down to 1.075-1.080." Meanwhile, My Lyman's 50th provides the following datapoints for 120 Gr. cast bullets:
My DG bullets have no lube grooves or anything - just your typical round-nose form factor. But the significantly lower powder charges shown for these two bullets are giving me pause... The 4.1gr. Max for the bullet on the left is less than the starting charge Hodgdon is calling for. And my AOL is smack in between these two. I also noticed that Hodgdon ran the pressure up higher than Lyman did too, so that's part of the difference. Hodgon measured 32000 CUP at their max charge, while Lyman stopped at around 30k for each of their bullets.
Seems to me this Lyman data might be a bit light... but I do believe I should back off on the Hodgdon data bit due to my shorter AOL. Does anybody else have some more 115gr. cast lead data for W231 that might help shed some light on this?
Just from what I'm seeing here, I'm thinking of testing something like a 3.4 gr starting charge, and working up to 4.4 gr max? That sound reasonable?
Thanks a lot!