Makarov slugs
Hello all, I am new to this forum, & thanks for having me!
I have had rather extensive experience in bullet casting professionally, and I would like to relate an experience with a client's 9mm Makarov at our private range in Florida.
His was a heckuva specimen, he paid only $100 for it if I recall correctly (for one in such immaculate condition, it was a screaming deal!) and he was stoking it with milsurp Russian ammo. He loved the pistol, and brought it out because he had no place to fire it in his town of residence (I was 35 miles or better away from his town) and the local ranges there just left him cold - we were friends of sorts.
He was trying to shoot the Mak for accuracy at 10 yards, and found he was entirely perturbed about the perceived recoil, and it was quite difficult for him to handle it. He was discussing with me also the possibility of ordering new grips for it so that it would be more controllable.
It was not accurate beyond perhaps a 6 inch circle at that range, and he was NOT happy about many facets of the pistol in that regard, but he LOVED the feel and concealment aspect of it when the trigger was not being pulled.
I asked him to let me borrow some of his spent brass (he was going to trash those cases anyway) and told him to give me a few days to make a surprise for him.
I checked the brass, and amazingly it was Boxer primed (!!!), so I dug out a dusty mold I had, and cast him a few hundred slugs. I then processed the brass, and loaded him up some manual level rounds (unlike the machine gun loaded surplus he had) and when he returned he fired 12 rounds into a ragged bughole at the prior range of the 6 inch circle, and no sore hand, all the brass fell right close to him as well instead of 15 yards away..
My point is, this is one heck of a pistol, and if you are looking for practice ammo for one, Lee Precision makes a 9mm Makarov mold, and loaded over a reasonable full manual listed charge of Bullseye ( I think 3.0 grains was most accurate, it was .2 less than max for accuracy, but the max load functions fine and also allows the shooter to not be bit by recoil. PLEASE CHECK, I could be misremembering the max of 3.2
), it is a pretty accurate little pistol to boot!
With the right alloy choice, it does not lead a clean bore either. I did not get a chance to make him defense bullet styles, he moved away and we have lost touch.:banghead:
Don't let the milsurp ammo limit you, there are DEFINITELY better options out there for ammo!
by the way $200 is a pretty good price, which Makarov is it?
