greyling22
Member
Bear with me please, this is a little long.
So I've been loading lead 9mm for years. I had some very real teething problems early on with leading and keyholing etc, but I got them all sorted out by abandoning the lee FCD which was swaging down my bullets. But then I got a suppressor started having to rework my loads.
Here's the problem: I have a witness elite match. I love the gun, but I think the bore must be slightly oversized or something, because it really wants a bullet sized .358. Anything less and I get keyholing. And that's a problem I can easily fix. I also have a cmmg radially delayed ar9 with an 8" barrel, and it liked my oversized lead bullets too. As did the glock 43. Then I added a can to the mix and I had to back WAY down on my powder charges to keep my 125grn bullets subsonic. Still not a problem, other than they are moving pretty slow out of the witness, and even slower out of the glock 43. But it all works. So I added a cz p07 with a fairly heavy can on it. Still worked, though I had a little bit of trouble ejecting all the time because my loads were so light. So I lightened the recoil spring just a but and it worked well. And it worked 100% with the can off.
Then I changed bullets away from a plain lead I cast, to a coated lead bullet from brazos precision to keep from leading up my can and piston so bad and problems started. [First off, brazon precision has been a great company to deal with, and their bullets are well cast and are spot on as far as advertised weight, diameter and consistency. They are delivering exactly what I ordered.]
I ordered some .358 truncated cone 125 grn coated bullets. They all have weighed 127grn and are sized .358. should be an easy swap from my lee 358-125-rf https://www.grafs.com/catalog/product/productId/7753 that drop about 126 grn and are then sized to .358.
The .358 brazos bullets run just fine in the glock, the witness, and the unsuppressed cz. They jam in the ar9 and the suppressed cz. In the cz, the slide won't quite go into battery. It stops about 1/8" from fully forward and has to be pushed the rest of the way with my thumb maybe 8 out of every 10 rounds. The cmmg ar9, about 4 out of 10 rounds, appears to go fully into battery, but when the hammer drops it doesn't go bang and the primer has not been struck, and I cannot pull back the charging handle. I have to bang the butt on the table while holding on the to charging handle and the round ejects.
So it's acting like the bullet is either oversized or the ogive is too far forward. I have seated the bullets as deep as they will go and the problem persisted. I have run them though a lee 357 post sizing factory crimp die, which I could feel the bullet being squished a little, and that actually made the problem worse in the cz, and a little better in the AR. I tried running them through a lee 380 FCD to really squish the bullet down. That should have fixed an oversized bullet for sure, and it sill gave me problems.
My goal would be to keep buying coated bullets from brazos, because I don't really have time or situation (toddlers+lead casting= bad) to cast any more, and I like the coating to not lead up my can. I'd also love to have just 1 bullet that I could load for all my firearms so I could not have to keep track up 2 or 3 different 9mm loads. Brazos has many different 9mm and 357 bullet weights and profiles I suppose I could try.
9mm https://www.brazosprecision.com/9mm_c_15.html I had avoided the 9mm ones because they won't offer a 358 diameter
357 https://www.brazosprecision.com/38-Special357-Magnum_c_13.html only the truncated cone looked like it would work right in semi autos.
Whew, that was a lot of words. Does anybody have and suggestions other than pay 25% more for a plated bullet? I am open to abandoning the p07 in favor of a different 9mm host pistol if it is known to have a tight chamber or something. I'm not in love with it. I do rather like the cmmg ar9 though.
the 2 bullets in the picture are rounds ejected from the ar9 after they jammed, were ejected, and at least 1 was tried again. They were loaded as short as possible.
The picture with 4 items in it are, from left to right, a factory 115 grn 9mm. My old cast lead 124 grn lee bullet. They brazos bullet loaded as deeply as possible. And unloaded brazos bullet. Apparently I took the picture at a slight angle because it looks funny.
So I've been loading lead 9mm for years. I had some very real teething problems early on with leading and keyholing etc, but I got them all sorted out by abandoning the lee FCD which was swaging down my bullets. But then I got a suppressor started having to rework my loads.
Here's the problem: I have a witness elite match. I love the gun, but I think the bore must be slightly oversized or something, because it really wants a bullet sized .358. Anything less and I get keyholing. And that's a problem I can easily fix. I also have a cmmg radially delayed ar9 with an 8" barrel, and it liked my oversized lead bullets too. As did the glock 43. Then I added a can to the mix and I had to back WAY down on my powder charges to keep my 125grn bullets subsonic. Still not a problem, other than they are moving pretty slow out of the witness, and even slower out of the glock 43. But it all works. So I added a cz p07 with a fairly heavy can on it. Still worked, though I had a little bit of trouble ejecting all the time because my loads were so light. So I lightened the recoil spring just a but and it worked well. And it worked 100% with the can off.
Then I changed bullets away from a plain lead I cast, to a coated lead bullet from brazos precision to keep from leading up my can and piston so bad and problems started. [First off, brazon precision has been a great company to deal with, and their bullets are well cast and are spot on as far as advertised weight, diameter and consistency. They are delivering exactly what I ordered.]
I ordered some .358 truncated cone 125 grn coated bullets. They all have weighed 127grn and are sized .358. should be an easy swap from my lee 358-125-rf https://www.grafs.com/catalog/product/productId/7753 that drop about 126 grn and are then sized to .358.
The .358 brazos bullets run just fine in the glock, the witness, and the unsuppressed cz. They jam in the ar9 and the suppressed cz. In the cz, the slide won't quite go into battery. It stops about 1/8" from fully forward and has to be pushed the rest of the way with my thumb maybe 8 out of every 10 rounds. The cmmg ar9, about 4 out of 10 rounds, appears to go fully into battery, but when the hammer drops it doesn't go bang and the primer has not been struck, and I cannot pull back the charging handle. I have to bang the butt on the table while holding on the to charging handle and the round ejects.
So it's acting like the bullet is either oversized or the ogive is too far forward. I have seated the bullets as deep as they will go and the problem persisted. I have run them though a lee 357 post sizing factory crimp die, which I could feel the bullet being squished a little, and that actually made the problem worse in the cz, and a little better in the AR. I tried running them through a lee 380 FCD to really squish the bullet down. That should have fixed an oversized bullet for sure, and it sill gave me problems.
My goal would be to keep buying coated bullets from brazos, because I don't really have time or situation (toddlers+lead casting= bad) to cast any more, and I like the coating to not lead up my can. I'd also love to have just 1 bullet that I could load for all my firearms so I could not have to keep track up 2 or 3 different 9mm loads. Brazos has many different 9mm and 357 bullet weights and profiles I suppose I could try.
9mm https://www.brazosprecision.com/9mm_c_15.html I had avoided the 9mm ones because they won't offer a 358 diameter
357 https://www.brazosprecision.com/38-Special357-Magnum_c_13.html only the truncated cone looked like it would work right in semi autos.
Whew, that was a lot of words. Does anybody have and suggestions other than pay 25% more for a plated bullet? I am open to abandoning the p07 in favor of a different 9mm host pistol if it is known to have a tight chamber or something. I'm not in love with it. I do rather like the cmmg ar9 though.
the 2 bullets in the picture are rounds ejected from the ar9 after they jammed, were ejected, and at least 1 was tried again. They were loaded as short as possible.
The picture with 4 items in it are, from left to right, a factory 115 grn 9mm. My old cast lead 124 grn lee bullet. They brazos bullet loaded as deeply as possible. And unloaded brazos bullet. Apparently I took the picture at a slight angle because it looks funny.