Aguila Blanca
Staff
I have always carried some variant of a 1911 in .45 ACP, and I've loaded thousands of rounds of .45 ACP. I have also loaded some 9mm,but more in the high hundreds of very low thousands, and that was all 115-grain round nose.
Fast forward to today, and I'm looking at an Officers-size 1911 in 9mm. According to a friend who is a retired police chief, police arms instructor, and Colt certified armorer, one of the preferred rounds for carry in a 9mm is Remington Golden Saber in 124-grain. Yes, I know that's discontinued, but I have several boxes so I have that covered.
What I don't have covered is practice ammo. To correct that, I bought a batch of Berry's plated hollow-point 124-grain bullets and set out to load up some ammo to test the feed, function, and reliability of the pistol. Since what I'm looking for is to prove reliability with Golden Saber, I'm more interested in duplicating the profile and COAL of the handloads rather than trying to optimize accuracy.
And that's where I ran into trouble. I load both .45 ACP and 9mm with Winchester 231, so I started with the Hodgdon web site. The only load they give me is for a hollow-base, round nose bullet at a COAL of 1.15". The Golden Sabers measure 1.21".
So I moved on to the Western powders web site. They have some recipes for "Rem GS," which I'll assume is a Golden Saber. They show a COAL of 1.145".
On to Alliant's web site. For a 124-grain JHP they show a COAL of 1.12". They also show 1.12" for the 124-grain Speer Gold Dot hollow-point.
Lastly, Berry's web site doesn't offer load data, but they do say to load that bullet to a COAL of 1.090".
So it looks like everyone calls for the cartridges to be shorter than what Remington is (was) selling as premium, self defense ammunition. I've got my press set right now so the ammo I'm producing runs 1.19" to 1.20". Since what I'm after is the physical profile of the cartridge, is there any reason why I shouldn't keep on loading at that COAL?
Fast forward to today, and I'm looking at an Officers-size 1911 in 9mm. According to a friend who is a retired police chief, police arms instructor, and Colt certified armorer, one of the preferred rounds for carry in a 9mm is Remington Golden Saber in 124-grain. Yes, I know that's discontinued, but I have several boxes so I have that covered.
What I don't have covered is practice ammo. To correct that, I bought a batch of Berry's plated hollow-point 124-grain bullets and set out to load up some ammo to test the feed, function, and reliability of the pistol. Since what I'm looking for is to prove reliability with Golden Saber, I'm more interested in duplicating the profile and COAL of the handloads rather than trying to optimize accuracy.
And that's where I ran into trouble. I load both .45 ACP and 9mm with Winchester 231, so I started with the Hodgdon web site. The only load they give me is for a hollow-base, round nose bullet at a COAL of 1.15". The Golden Sabers measure 1.21".
So I moved on to the Western powders web site. They have some recipes for "Rem GS," which I'll assume is a Golden Saber. They show a COAL of 1.145".
On to Alliant's web site. For a 124-grain JHP they show a COAL of 1.12". They also show 1.12" for the 124-grain Speer Gold Dot hollow-point.
Lastly, Berry's web site doesn't offer load data, but they do say to load that bullet to a COAL of 1.090".
So it looks like everyone calls for the cartridges to be shorter than what Remington is (was) selling as premium, self defense ammunition. I've got my press set right now so the ammo I'm producing runs 1.19" to 1.20". Since what I'm after is the physical profile of the cartridge, is there any reason why I shouldn't keep on loading at that COAL?