OAL RN vs HP 9mm?

[mike240se]

Ok I am on my second batch of 9mm reloads, my first batch of 115gn round nose fmj worked great at 10% reduced load.

I am now making the same rounds with the same powder and amount but using hollow points. Now of course the bullet is shorter. In my manual it says OAL should be 1.125. My die is set to that, but of course with hollow point its 1.040, much less... But I assume this is ok? I feel that the bullet will not have enough in the case if i dont seat it enough to make it the recommended OAL. How does this work with HP? My manuals dont have any info for hollow points for 9mm, the lee reloading manual and a hodgons book i have.

EDIT: I ended up making 4 with OAL of 1.040, 5 with OAL 1.050 and 20 with OAL of 1.070. Am I safe with these OAL's since I am not running a max load?

 

[RustyFN]

I seat 124 grain FP to 1.030. I have shot these and had no problems. If I were you I would take the barrel out of your gun and drop them in to make sure they will work. I had to seat the FP deeper than the manual said in order to work in my CZ. When ever you reduce the OAL below minimum you want to reduce your powder and work back up.
Rusty

 

[Idano]

mike240se,

According to my Nosler manual acceptable S.A.A.M.I overall cartridge length for 9 mm is specified from 1.000" min to 1.169 max. I know I load my 115 grain HP at the 1.169. I can tell you that by seating your bullet deeper definitely raises your chamber pressure. I had some light target loads that would occasionally not cycle in one gun so I seated them a little deeper and that resolved the ejection issue. So you do have to be careful if your load is hot, but if not then you should be fine.

 

[Walkalong]

Off the top of my head I do not remember where I load JHP's at in the 9MM, but the 1.030 that RustyFN states is definitely in the ballpark. I load them a good bit shorter than FMJ.

I record the length of all the bullets I load as well as the O.A.L. of the loaded rounds. That way you can tell how deep in the case one bullet is compared to another regardless of the O.A.L. difference.

Idano's point about pressure rise is a good one and needs to be watched.