loading 9mm for the first time

[littleguns223]

I am going to start loading 9mm I am going to use missouri 125 soft ball bullet.4.0grs of hp38 cci primer .My col will be 1.090. Does this sound like a good formula? If not tell me what might be better. The hardness of the bullet is 18

 

[Josh45]

Follow your manual and you will be fine. Don't stray from it especially since your are beginning to reload this pressure sensitive cartridge

 

[JDGray]

Your load sounds good, may want to load it a bit longer. I had to load my .380 Missouri bullets a little short so they would function, so see what your pistol likes. Playing with oal is part of reloading, but longer is better in my book.

 

[john16443]

Totally agree with JDGray on COL. Since this is a RN bullet, I'd suggest you start at a COL closer to 1.15 as this is about what factory RN ammo is. I realize that the nose shape of the MBC's is more rounded, but 1.09 sounds awful short to start with.

On the other hand, Brad at MBC is usually willing to offer his insight into these COL questions, shoot him an email and see what he has to say. He won't offer any input on your load, but it's a good starting point.

 

[Jim Watson]

I assume you mean "smallball" since there is no "soft ball" 9mm bullet that I can find on the MBC site.

It is a rather blunt bullet and will probably have to be loaded shorter than FMJ.

You can see a lot by just looking. The transition from the round nose to the straight sides of the bearing surface is pretty obvious. Seat with that line just slightly above the case mouth and see what you get. If you want to try longer OAL, go ahead but only do one and chamber check it to see that it chambers fully. Adjust as required. Longer is generally better but it has to go in the gun.

When you get the OAL to where they will chamber, load and shoot a FEW.
You do not want to end up with a thousand rounds loaded too light to cycle the action or so hot as to pound the gun and lead the bore.

 

[Hondo 60]

Soft Ball is a 45 acp bullet.

Did you mean Small Ball?

When I use Small balls, my OAL is about 1.100.
1.090 should be just fine though.

 

[Tom609]

I would start at 1.15 and drop a dummy round in the barrel of your disassembled gun. Adjust accordingly until it drops in cleanly and fully by itself. Using this same bullet, my 92fs is fine at 1.15, but the S&W 5906 will only chamber it properly at 1.10.

 

[LiveLife]

My col will be 1.090

I'd suggest you start at a COL closer to 1.15 as this is about what factory RN ammo is. I realize that the nose shape of the MBC's is more rounded, but 1.09 sounds awful short to start with.

Actually, 1.09" OAL would be about right. Missouri Bullet 125 gr RN (SmallBall) has shorter/rounder nose than more pointed parabellum-like RN bullets. This allows for longer bearing surface to stabilize with the rifling. Even with shorter OALs, the bearing surface will engage the start of rifling to build chamber pressures. Of course, as already posted, use the barrel drop test to determine Max OAL then function check test by feeding/chambering from the magazine to determine the final Ideal OAL using your pistol/barrel.

Here's a comparison picture of MBC RN, SWC and CN. As you can see in the picture, bearing surface comes up fairly high on the bullet and is longer than most commercial 124/125 gr RN bullets.

I am going to use missouri 125 soft ball bullet.4.0grs of hp38 cci primer .My col will be 1.090. Does this sound like a good formula? If not tell me what might be better.

When I did my initial load work up with MBC 125 gr RN (SmallBall), 1.08"-1.10" OALs were tested using W231/HP-38 (same powder) load data. Hodgdon website listed 3.9 - 4.4 gr for 125 gr CN using 1.125" OAL, so I started at 3.8 gr due to shorter OALs used and worked up to 4.2 gr with good accuracy and no leading in Lone Wolf 40-9 conversion barrels in G22/G27.

125 gr LCN W231/HP-38 .356" OAL 1.125" Start 3.9 gr (1009 fps) 25,700 CUP - Max 4.4 gr (1086 fps) 31,200 CUP

Here's a comparison of MBC RN (SmallBall) with Winchester 115 gr FMJ and MBC SWC bullets. As you can see, at 1.125" OAL, significant amount of bearing surface will be above the case neck and hit the rifling if you have short leade (space the bullet jumps from case neck/chamber to the start of rifling) barrels. If you are loading for Glock barrels that have longer leade, 1.125" OAL may be OK, but if you are loading for barrels with shorter leade, then you will need to use the shorter 1.08"-1.10" OAL so the bearing surface won't hit the start of rifling when chambered (using the barrel drop test will determine this Max OAL and then you need to determine the Ideal OAL that will reliably feed/chamber from the magazine by manually releasing the slide).

 

[littleguns223]

9mm loaded and tested

Yesterday I loaded up 50 rounds 4.0grs hp38 oal 1.105 missouri 125 small shoots accurate with no leading understand that I am shooting these out of revolver ruger blackhawk. aut willcome later. Before I load up a bunch what do you think. Thanks

 

[LiveLife]

Well, didn't know you were testing these out of a revolver, but your initial results sound promising. Keep us posted!

 

[JDGray]

In a revolver, as long as the cylinder turns, your not too long

 

[918v]

When I had my Beretta M9, my favorite load was a .358" TC 38/357 lead bullet loaded to a 1.050" OAL under 3.7 to 4.1grs of 231. Believe it or not, any charge in that range shot under 1" at 50 feet and cycled the gun reliably. No leading either. I used FC-100 primers and they retained their roundness at the edges and case expansion was .002" under factory.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

4.0gr HP-38/W231 under a 124/125gr lead bullet is my favorite 9mm practice load. It should work fine in all your handguns. (or at least most of them)