9mm Gauge Check - A man with two clocks, never knows what time it is.

J

Jeffm004

New member
I have three plunk gauges, Lyman, Dillon and a EGWguns 4 cal. My 9 mm passes two, fails one I just bought. I ran the ammo today, about 200 and all worked fine. The gauge that fails most of my reloads, will pass Sig and Hornady factory. I pulled the failed ones, the brass is in spec for length, a sharpie test looks like it is binding right near the case mouth. I cranked down the Dillon crimp die 1/4 then 1/2 turn to no effect but deforming the bullet at the crimp. I tried 5 different bullets including a couple JHP, no effect on pass fail. I measured bullet diameter, none were different. If you put the round in backwards, it goes in about a 5th of the way on all three.

The manufacturer says send it in and they will check it but the gauge passes factory ammo, leading me to believe my reloads are not factory spec, I just cannot tell what exactly causes the brass to stick out on one gauge and not the other two. Thoughts? The reloads do have the classic bullet bulge while factory does not but like I said, I measured the bullets, even put a Sig in a different case, it failed. Passed when put back in the original case. Ideas?
 
This may seem too simplistic (I am new to all this...) but I use my barrels and the cylinder for revolvers to do my plunk test. Do your rounds plunk in the actual barrels? I am sure this might be too easy to be correct ;) but sometimes it IS the simple things that get overlooked. Good luck!
 
^^^
Ditto.
Have never even owned a plunk test gauge.
Never saw the need other than to cause confusion.
I'm mostly confused quite enough, thanks.
 
I use a gauge so I don't have to take a gun apart for plunk test and don't have to wonder about which gun to take apart. I used to have a couple of gauges reamed with the same reamer used on the gun.

Although I load 9mm on a D550, I have a Hornady sleeve/micrometer seating die for bullet alignment and easy OAL adjustment and a Lee Carbide Factory Crimp die to rectify the case just above the rim where the well-radiused Dillon die does not size.
I still get a few gauge rejects with that setup but none too bad to shoot for practice.
I use an EGW "U" sizing die when loading 115 gr bullets with their short bearing surface and shallow seating.
 
When I used "plunk gauges" (good name) I had a bunch of trouble. I rarely got a 45 ACP reload to "feel" right as to how far over or under the rim was from the face of the gauge. Each and every 45 ACP that wouldn't "feel" right fed and shot well in my 2, 45s. I bought a gauge when I first started reloading for my Garand. I chased a problem for at least a month with some reloads not entering the gauge completely. I tried adjusting the sizing die, even neck sizing. Tried 3 different kinds of brass. I even bought a new sizing die. One old Garand shooter asked me "Will the offending rounds chamber and fire in your gun?". Humm. Yes they did. It turned out the rims on a few were bent about .010" from hitting the op rod handle on their way out. I haven't used a gauge since.

I have 3, 9mm and 2, 45 ACPs. If one of the the guns has a "smaller" chamber that's the barrel I'll use for the "plunk test". My Ruger LC9s is a hair smaller than the others so that's the bbl I'll use. I have my Ruger in it's case, disassembled and just grab the bbl when testing reloads (it only takes 30 seconds to assemble the gun). I don't have to think about which ammo to grab as they all work in all the guns...
 
Gauges won't be the same size as your chamber. My CZ has a very short chamber and I have to test any new bullets I use, in the chamber to make sure the bullet is seated deeply enough.
Since no two gauges and no two chambers are going to be the same using the gun you will fire them in is a sure way to test the ammo.
 
There is no better 'gauge' than the actual chamber of your pistol. Nearly all of the assorted gauges have the primary function of separating you from your money. Worst ones are the so called 'case headspace gauges'. Cases do not have headspace.
"...never knows what time it is..." What time is what?
A man with two clocks will still know when it's time to eat. snicker.
 
To each his own, and if I only had one gun then that's all i would use/need. But since I have 6 9mm and they are all different to some degree I find using a Lyman Chamber checker and it hasn't let me down yet. If it passes the Lyman it will fit in all my guns.
But that's just me...
 
Plunk into my 1911 Govt. It has the tightest chamber of any of my 9mm. If it will fit there it will fit everywhere else.
 
If the case gauge passes only ammunition that will run in all of your firearms of said caliber 100%, that's as picky of a gauge as you need.

The barrel will work too as long as there is no damage at the base of the case that will pass a "plunk" test in a barrel but later fail to enter the breech face/extractor.

Then you have a "mystery" malfunction because it plunked fine but failed to go into battery after being stripped from the mag.

This is why shooters of timed competition tend to be the highest percentage of case gauge users and casual plinkers that don't mind an occasional malfunction dont do much of anything.
 
Odd, but I have 2, 45 ACP pistols and 3, 9mm pistols and I plunk in the "tightest" chambers. I don't have a round count, but I have been plunking 45 ACP since 1990, and 9mm since 2003 and have yet to have a chambering problem/failure to go into battery in any of the 5 pistols...
 
I don't have any case gauges and I don't use the chamber of my gun(s) as a substitute. Once I get my reloading dies adjusted so that the ammunition works with the components I have, I proceed to load and have yet to have a round fail to chamber.
 
There is no better 'gauge' than the actual chamber of your pistol. Nearly all of the assorted gauges have the primary function of separating you from your money. Worst ones are the so called 'case headspace gauges'. Cases do not have headspace.
"...never knows what time it is..." What time is what?
A man with two clocks will still know when it's time to eat. snicker.
Click to expand...

The purpose of the gage is to make in spec ammo for multiple guns. The purpose of more than one gage is.......no idea. I like them for setting up crimp and checking loaded rounds, but what do I know....I'm just old.

Are you saying cases have no relationship to headspace or that you don't like the naming conventions?
 
The purpose of the gage is to make in spec ammo for multiple guns. The purpose of more than one gage is.......no idea. I like them for setting up crimp and checking loaded rounds, but what do I know....I'm just old.
Click to expand...

Agreed on all counts. If ammo passes two gages and functions correctly, but fails another gage, it just about has to be the last gage that is off, doesn't it?
 
This is how one of the guys at Dillon explained how my EGW chamber checker works:

The chamber checker is purposely made to be smaller than most if not all actual pistol chambers. If my handloaded round fits in the checker, then it should fit in just about any actual pistol chamber.

To date, I've only run about 2500 rounds through my 9mm chamber checker, and I only have three 9mm handguns, but so far his advice is holding up. Any handload that fits in the chamber checker has functioned as intended. Ones that don't plunk properly using the EGW chamber checker, get culled for a second round of checking against all three of my actual 9mm barrels.

About half the time my culls will plunk in all three barrels, another 25-30% will fit at least two of the three, and the rest will either only fit the Shield (the most agreeable of my 9mms), or won't plunk any of the three. The culls that will fit only the Shield get tossed in their own box, and the ones that don't plunk in any of the barrels get disassembled and I toss the brass.

I toss them because I found through trial-and-error, that nearly 90% of the time if I just used a different piece of brass, that round would chamber/plunk. I can't give you a reason for this, but then again considering that 9mm brass is my least expensive component, I don't really care about why. And no, so far I haven't found any correlation between failure rate and brand name.

Mathematically, out of every 1,000 rounds of handloaded 9mm about 100 won't pass the EGW. So around 50 will pass all three of my 9mms, 25 or so will fit two of them, and so on. I have no idea if this cull rate is excessive, and for awhile I worried about it, until I realized that I've got nearly 7,000 pieces of 9mm brass. Now I just toss the 'bad' ones and move on.
 
The EGW is not only tight, it has no chamber throat like a real gunbarrel. Mine is only useful for inspecting 115 gr JHP.

I mostly use a Lyman... because Midway was out of Wilsons when I ordered.

The first gauge I had - Midway label but it sure looked like a Wilson - was stated to be made to maximum cartridge dimensions. Since a minimum chamber must accept a maximum cartridge, that seems reasonable to me.
Unless, of course, you have an undersize chamber, found on cheap guns chambered with worn reamers and overambitious guns with "minimum match chambers" that are really smaller than spec.
 
FWIW, Dillon pistol gauges are cut to SAAMI minimum chamber diameter, maximum case length and maximum cartridge length. They do not have chamber throats, though. A bullet will drop straight through the gauge, just like Jim's EGW gauge. Bottom line is if your reload passes a Dillon pistol gauge, it should fit any SAAMI spec chamber, provided the COL is short enough for your particular bullet that it doesn't hit the lands in your barrel before it headspaces on the case mouth.

Each time I load a new to me brand or style of bullet, I plunk test it in each of my pistols of that caliber to determine what COL will plunk in them all and use that as a guideline to set COL, as many of us do.
 
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