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9mm loads
- Thread starter demac
- Start date
It sounds like the lead you used is essentially pure lead.
I'm not sure, but Lee may label their bullet mould weights, assuming a particular alloy of lead, tin, and antimony. The one I see most often is Lyman's #2 alloy, which is 90% lead, 5% tin, and 5% antimony, and has a density of 10.683 g/cc (pure lead is 11.34 g/cc). If I did the math right, that means the lead(alloy) you used has a density of 11.23 g/cc, which is very very close to pure lead.
If you can scratch or dent them with your thumbnail, they're probably too soft to shoot in 9mm, without seriously leading-up your barrel. Do you have access to tin or tin solder? If I was you, I'd consider remelting the projectiles and adding small amounts of tin, then casting and weighing 5 or 6 projectiles. Off hand, I don't know HOW much tin would bring the weight down to 125(ish) grains, but unless you cast 1000 of those bullets, it shouldn't take much.
I'm not sure, but Lee may label their bullet mould weights, assuming a particular alloy of lead, tin, and antimony. The one I see most often is Lyman's #2 alloy, which is 90% lead, 5% tin, and 5% antimony, and has a density of 10.683 g/cc (pure lead is 11.34 g/cc). If I did the math right, that means the lead(alloy) you used has a density of 11.23 g/cc, which is very very close to pure lead.
If you can scratch or dent them with your thumbnail, they're probably too soft to shoot in 9mm, without seriously leading-up your barrel. Do you have access to tin or tin solder? If I was you, I'd consider remelting the projectiles and adding small amounts of tin, then casting and weighing 5 or 6 projectiles. Off hand, I don't know HOW much tin would bring the weight down to 125(ish) grains, but unless you cast 1000 of those bullets, it shouldn't take much.
Do you have access to tin or tin solder? If I was you, I'd consider remelting the projectiles and adding small amounts of tin, then casting and weighing 5 or 6 projectiles. Off hand, I don't know HOW much tin would bring the weight down to 125(ish) grains, but unless you cast 1000 of those bullets, it shouldn't take much.
Tin won't make the boolits lighter or harder. Tin probably will make the mold fill out better which may make it cast bigger, and therefore heavier. Tin also does not harden lead very much at all. It takes antimony to harden the softer lead, and make it lighter.
Kosh is right though, that lead is way too soft to be used in a 9mm. The nines are a high intensity/pressure round, they will lead the barrel badly if too soft. And the accuracy will be terrible.
Try finding some different powders, Hodgon web site list 12 different powders that have starting and max loads for 9mm 130 gr. berrys round nose, which this data can be used for lead bullets, most Lee molds are designed to cast the weight listed using wheel weights, which is about 96% lead, 2% tin and 3% antimony, these should drop from your mold at close to the weight listed if that concerns you, SIZE is king in shooting lead bullets, after casting resize to about 1-2 thousands over you bore size, {that's assuming that you have slugged your bore} coupled with a good lube, or powder coat and they will shoot great. on the castboolit web page has a lead alloy calculator that you can use to sweeten up your range scrap.
anothernewb
New member
measure them out, if they're a tad oversize, then that accounts for the weight.
1) Cast bullets weigh what they weigh depending on alloy.
2) The harder the alloy (more antimony), the large diameter and the lighter the bullet. The more lead, the smaller the diameter and the heavier the bullet.
3) If the bullets cast fine, everything is good to go--if the as-cast diameter is large enough (at least 0.001" larger than the actual groove diameter of the barrel(s) you'll shoot the bullets in.
2) The harder the alloy (more antimony), the large diameter and the lighter the bullet. The more lead, the smaller the diameter and the heavier the bullet.
3) If the bullets cast fine, everything is good to go--if the as-cast diameter is large enough (at least 0.001" larger than the actual groove diameter of the barrel(s) you'll shoot the bullets in.
chris in va
New member
Having cast many thousands of 9mm, my advice is to not shoot those you made. They will lead up your barrel in less than a mag, especially through a polygonal rifled version if you have one.
Clip wheelweights are what you need.
Clip wheelweights are what you need.
the lead you have is fine if you feel like setting up for powder-coat. it's super easy and saves a lot of headaches(no worrying about perfect fit or alloys). I do mine with airsoft BB's(1 can 12$) a Walmart toaster over(less than 20$) and some Cool-Whip container(2.00 at grocery). powder coat is for sale at harbor freight, but eve better powder is available online. 20$ worth has lasted me a very long time so far.
If you want to start playing with your alloy go "here" and download the calculator posted by Bumpo628.
Also read through some of the post as well so you get ahead of some of the FAQ's.
His calculator runs your input and gives you within reason what your going to end up with on the bottom line. The better thing is it gives a LOT of known alloys which came from reliable sources he researched in putting it together. The one thing about it is you have to us percentages of pounds for small amounts. If you using a quarter or half pound you have to input .25 or .5 for it to work properly. I use another freeware program called Convert for Windows to get things down quickly. My math skills aren't quite up to calculating it all out to the finer points when I blend up a small test batch. I can quickly change the numbers around in the calculator spreadsheet, then convert them to ounces or grains depending on which scale I need to weigh out my tin or shot in to get the blend to where it needs to be.
For adding hardness the easiest thing to use is magnum shot. You don't need a 25# bag either just a few cut open shells will do fine for a decent batch of test alloy. Now once you find something that works you simply multiply the ingredients by 2,or 4 times and run them back through the spreadsheet calculator to see where you stand. You will probably have to adjust your amounts of shot but it will save you from wasting time and material when you make up a bigger batch, or are looking for a specific hardness.
All that said I run an alloy for my cast HP's which is a 1.75/1.75/96.5 according to the calculator. It gives me very nice malleable bullets which hold together and expand very nicely up to about a 1300fps muzzle velocity out of the .357 and has been just a touch over 1600fps in the 41, and is the alloy I use for my magnum handguns in 357,41, and 44.
I recently purchased a nice Sig 226 and probably the same Lee mold your using. After pouring a few through it and another 125gr mold I already had I found that mine are also dropping between 130 and 135 depending on how I set up the other mold. It has changeable pins to allow different HP cavities to be used. Sized to .356 they all have shot great out of my pistol with no leading what so ever noted. Granted I'm not tying to push the envelope with any of them but most of the loads are running between 1050 and 1150fps. As to the hardness of my alloy, well off the calculator it shows it should be a 10.7 BHN, which when tested on my hardness tester is close coming out at around a 9-10 BHN. I have run them both plain lubed with Carnuba Red and powder coated but either way they shoot very well. These are all flat base non gas checked.
As for data yes it is a bit of a pick and choose. I use a LOT of Bullseye as well as Accurate powders so those were the ones I concentrated on finding data to work with. I used the start data loads for the closest jacketed weights both above and below then sort of split the difference in between. While this isn't always the best route to go, with lead loads you do get a touch of forgiving due to the slick nature of the bullets themselves usually giving lower pressures to begin with. It is also always better to err on the side of caution as well. Also knowing that the loads I started with, and had already shot some of, using almost the identical powder weight with 125gr bullets had no issues, I felt good in my assessment and all has worked just fine in my pistol.
I will say that there has been a LOT of either good to great results or the complete opposite in dismal results with folks working on cast loads in the 9mm. For me, I got lucky I guess in that I already had an alloy I knew would work for the pressures, I just needed to know if the size I was using would be a good fit and so far no issues. I can easily run several hundred through it with hardly any residue left behind that a standard cleaning won't take care of in about 15 minutes for the barrel. It does take about an hour to do the whole gun if I completely strip it and get down in all the nooks and crannys though. That is usually powder residue and I don't really sweat the little things that aren't in the running gear.
Hope that helps some.
Also read through some of the post as well so you get ahead of some of the FAQ's.
His calculator runs your input and gives you within reason what your going to end up with on the bottom line. The better thing is it gives a LOT of known alloys which came from reliable sources he researched in putting it together. The one thing about it is you have to us percentages of pounds for small amounts. If you using a quarter or half pound you have to input .25 or .5 for it to work properly. I use another freeware program called Convert for Windows to get things down quickly. My math skills aren't quite up to calculating it all out to the finer points when I blend up a small test batch. I can quickly change the numbers around in the calculator spreadsheet, then convert them to ounces or grains depending on which scale I need to weigh out my tin or shot in to get the blend to where it needs to be.
For adding hardness the easiest thing to use is magnum shot. You don't need a 25# bag either just a few cut open shells will do fine for a decent batch of test alloy. Now once you find something that works you simply multiply the ingredients by 2,or 4 times and run them back through the spreadsheet calculator to see where you stand. You will probably have to adjust your amounts of shot but it will save you from wasting time and material when you make up a bigger batch, or are looking for a specific hardness.
All that said I run an alloy for my cast HP's which is a 1.75/1.75/96.5 according to the calculator. It gives me very nice malleable bullets which hold together and expand very nicely up to about a 1300fps muzzle velocity out of the .357 and has been just a touch over 1600fps in the 41, and is the alloy I use for my magnum handguns in 357,41, and 44.
I recently purchased a nice Sig 226 and probably the same Lee mold your using. After pouring a few through it and another 125gr mold I already had I found that mine are also dropping between 130 and 135 depending on how I set up the other mold. It has changeable pins to allow different HP cavities to be used. Sized to .356 they all have shot great out of my pistol with no leading what so ever noted. Granted I'm not tying to push the envelope with any of them but most of the loads are running between 1050 and 1150fps. As to the hardness of my alloy, well off the calculator it shows it should be a 10.7 BHN, which when tested on my hardness tester is close coming out at around a 9-10 BHN. I have run them both plain lubed with Carnuba Red and powder coated but either way they shoot very well. These are all flat base non gas checked.
As for data yes it is a bit of a pick and choose. I use a LOT of Bullseye as well as Accurate powders so those were the ones I concentrated on finding data to work with. I used the start data loads for the closest jacketed weights both above and below then sort of split the difference in between. While this isn't always the best route to go, with lead loads you do get a touch of forgiving due to the slick nature of the bullets themselves usually giving lower pressures to begin with. It is also always better to err on the side of caution as well. Also knowing that the loads I started with, and had already shot some of, using almost the identical powder weight with 125gr bullets had no issues, I felt good in my assessment and all has worked just fine in my pistol.
I will say that there has been a LOT of either good to great results or the complete opposite in dismal results with folks working on cast loads in the 9mm. For me, I got lucky I guess in that I already had an alloy I knew would work for the pressures, I just needed to know if the size I was using would be a good fit and so far no issues. I can easily run several hundred through it with hardly any residue left behind that a standard cleaning won't take care of in about 15 minutes for the barrel. It does take about an hour to do the whole gun if I completely strip it and get down in all the nooks and crannys though. That is usually powder residue and I don't really sweat the little things that aren't in the running gear.
Hope that helps some.