Spade5
Member
I loaded some 124 grain 9 mm Nosler Sporting Hollow Points with HS-6 because I have the powder and was trying to work up a load. I bought some Federal HST standard 124 and wanted some range loads at more or less the same velocity rather than shooting up the more expensive stuff.
I have a Springfield XD Mod 2 for carry and had three failure to go completely into battery. Granted it was good practice to clear the round and go on to the remainder of the magazine load which functioned fine. I looked at the ejected round and it looked fine. Put it in the mag and it shot fine.
So I am scratching my head trying to figure out what was going on. The only variables from my prior loads were powder, bullet and I was crimping with the Lee Factory Crimp die. I had a few rounds left and could not see where the FC die had done anything and of course the powder is a non issue so I figured it had to be the bullet.
My COAL was 1.12 so I remembered some of RC's words of wisdom and pulled the barrel to do the plunk test and the rounds failed. So I decided to check the HST and the COAL was about 1.096 and they would plunk fine. So I decided to drag out the dry erase marker and coat the bullet and low and behold, plunking showed some of it being wiped off. The bullet has a little different profile which was more obvious when comparing the wiped off section with some round nose and hollow points I have.
So I spend about half an hour making small adjustments to COAL, marking the bullet then plunking until no marker was wiped off. I ended up at 1.095.
So RC, I figure you were looking down at me laughing but I thank you for your common sense approach to issues. My initial thought was to blame the Lee die when it was simply me skipping a basic step when changing a component. Lesson learned.
I have a Springfield XD Mod 2 for carry and had three failure to go completely into battery. Granted it was good practice to clear the round and go on to the remainder of the magazine load which functioned fine. I looked at the ejected round and it looked fine. Put it in the mag and it shot fine.
So I am scratching my head trying to figure out what was going on. The only variables from my prior loads were powder, bullet and I was crimping with the Lee Factory Crimp die. I had a few rounds left and could not see where the FC die had done anything and of course the powder is a non issue so I figured it had to be the bullet.
My COAL was 1.12 so I remembered some of RC's words of wisdom and pulled the barrel to do the plunk test and the rounds failed. So I decided to check the HST and the COAL was about 1.096 and they would plunk fine. So I decided to drag out the dry erase marker and coat the bullet and low and behold, plunking showed some of it being wiped off. The bullet has a little different profile which was more obvious when comparing the wiped off section with some round nose and hollow points I have.
So I spend about half an hour making small adjustments to COAL, marking the bullet then plunking until no marker was wiped off. I ended up at 1.095.
So RC, I figure you were looking down at me laughing but I thank you for your common sense approach to issues. My initial thought was to blame the Lee die when it was simply me skipping a basic step when changing a component. Lesson learned.
