Improvised Bullets in a 36 Navy

[BigHunt 1981]

I was contemplating ordering a conical mould for my 36 caliber revolver when an idea struck me to try my 9mm Makarov mould.

It is a Lee 95 grain round nosed bullet with 1 lube groove. The nose is almost the exact same profile as a round ball and fit the face of the loading lever almost perfectly. It drops bullets that measure about .366" when cast from pure lead.

This worked out almost perfectly as the chambers on my revolver measure .368". I loaded them over 25 grains of 3F blackpowder and they grouped to the same place and with the same accuracy as my round ball loads. So to say about 2 inches right and high with about a 3 inch overall spread at 25 yards.

One of the bullets I recovered showed that it had bumped up nicely to fill the grooves of the barrel. I think this will be my go to projectile when shooting this revolver from now on!

 

[perldog007]

would be interesting to chrono those loads and see what kind of numbers they are putting up. I can see around 950-1030 fps guestimating. Wonder what reality is??

 

[BigHunt 1981]

They sure seem like a handful. If I had to guess I would say they are very close to roundball velocities so I would guess around 1000 fps or so.

I know they penetrate deep into the oak block I have been using as a target backstop.

 

[swathdiver]

Aren't those rounds just falling into the chambers? Did any of the others walk forward under "recoil"? I'm sounding like a "Nervous Nellie" but you could be setting yourself up for a chain fire from the front.

 

[Hellgate]

Keep using dead soft pure lead or you will get either chain fires or "ball creep" (sounds like a weird V.D. don't it?) I think they are bumping up when rammed firmly and further when fired. You might want to use an over ball lube. It sounds like you have an oversized mold. Aren't 9mms supposed to be .356 as opposed to .357 or .358? I think you lucked out since pure lead castings tend to shrink when they cool and usually drop from a mold smaller than with a harder alloy.

 

[ljnowell]

Keep using dead soft pure lead or you will get either chain fires or "ball creep" (sounds like a weird V.D. don't it?) I think they are bumping up when rammed firmly and further when fired. You might want to use an over ball lube. It sounds like you have an oversized mold. Aren't 9mms supposed to be .356 as opposed to .357 or .358? I think you lucked out since pure lead castings tend to shrink when they cool and usually drop from a mold smaller than with a harder alloy.

9mm mak is .360"

 

[Noz]

I would worry about creep with a projectile that small. My RB for my 1861s are .380

 

[BigHunt 1981]

I believe the bullets are swelling up to seal the cylinder when they are pressed down into the chambers. I am using bore butter to seal the chambers over the bullets.

I read an interesting article explaining that chainfires were really caused by unburnt powder grains being crushed against the chamber walls leaving a trail or fuse of powder to the main charge under the projectile. The author claimed that users of c&b revolvers in the 19th century didn't bother with using lube over their bullets and rarely had a chainfire as they loaded mostly from paper cartridges and not with loose powder as is common today.

I use a small funnel to pour the powder into the chambers so there is no powder sticking to the chamber after the bullet is seated. It has worked for me so far.

 

[swathdiver]

...chainfires were really caused by unburnt powder grains being crushed against the chamber walls leaving a trail or fuse of powder to the main charge under the projectile.

Sounds like nonsense to me. If the ball seals the chamber it will carry that crushed powder back down on top of the powder charge. Most chain fires happen from the cap area but using skinny balls can cause them to happen from the front.

The old school method of hand loading a cap and ball revolver (aside from paper cartridges) included the grease over the chamber until wads were used in the early 20th century.

 

[artee]

9mm Mak is in the area of .365 inch. Of Sierra, Hornady, and Speer jacketed bullets, two measure .364 and one measures .365. Seems like the US manufactures see a bit of variation in the foreign barrels and the metric conversion they are producing bullets for. Sounds like Lee got the dimensions right (for once) for a mold. But a bit hard to believe you're not having any bullet creep.

 

[4v50 Gary]

Group size. Let's have them.

 

[BigHunt 1981]

I don't have a picture of the group, but it was about a 3 inch group 2 inches high and right of POA just like the round ball load.