First off, I'm new to reloading. I have the following manuals; Hornady 8th, Lyman 49th, Lee 2nd and a One Caliber book for 9mm luger. I'm loading 9mm luger and 40s&w, and purchased a few different powders to try; AA no7, TiteGroup, Power Pistol, HS-6 and Unique. The cheapest bullets I could find were the plated Berry's and Rainier, but the load data has me concerned.
With AA no7, Accurate published some data for the 124grain plated RN I have (identical to Lee's plated data) , but it seems very weak even at the max of 6.9gr @1.100COL, throwing brass just a foot or two from an SR9, and no symptoms of excessive pressure as far as I could tell. The starting load of 6.2 would stove pipe up to 6.5gr. Rainier suggests using lead data, so looking at that, the Hornady book calls for 6.2 to a max of 7.9gr @1.090, but this is for their lead RN item#10058 with a note that lead should be kept under 1100fps (7.6gr listed under the 1100fps column).
I'm very tempted to use the Hornady data but fear going beyond the maximum of another data source, especially when I move on to the other powders, as the Lyman book has no 124 grain 9mm data, and the Lee book is limited to just a few powders I don't have aside from no7. Are there better books I should be looking for, or is the Hornady data going to work fine for these bullets? It looks like I'm going to be even more perplexed when I start loading the 40s&w, as my books offer far less info for the 165gr FP plated I have.
With AA no7, Accurate published some data for the 124grain plated RN I have (identical to Lee's plated data) , but it seems very weak even at the max of 6.9gr @1.100COL, throwing brass just a foot or two from an SR9, and no symptoms of excessive pressure as far as I could tell. The starting load of 6.2 would stove pipe up to 6.5gr. Rainier suggests using lead data, so looking at that, the Hornady book calls for 6.2 to a max of 7.9gr @1.090, but this is for their lead RN item#10058 with a note that lead should be kept under 1100fps (7.6gr listed under the 1100fps column).
I'm very tempted to use the Hornady data but fear going beyond the maximum of another data source, especially when I move on to the other powders, as the Lyman book has no 124 grain 9mm data, and the Lee book is limited to just a few powders I don't have aside from no7. Are there better books I should be looking for, or is the Hornady data going to work fine for these bullets? It looks like I'm going to be even more perplexed when I start loading the 40s&w, as my books offer far less info for the 165gr FP plated I have.