Reloading

A

astrohound24

Inactive
Hello everyone. My name is Greg and I am new to the forums. I have a question about realoading and accuracy. I own a Sig Pro 2022 in 9mm. The gun has been excellent and very accurate for the time I have owned it. I recently started reloading 9mm for it and took great care to make sure I did everything correctly and safely. As of now, I am afraid that my reloads did something to my Sig. It is no longer accurate and throws bullets completely off target now. Sometimes I can nail the bullseye but every few shots it is just obviously lost accuracy. I know it's not me shooting as it is happening to anyone that shoots it. What do you guys think happened? Sights have not moved at all. No signs of damage to the barrel but I am at a loss. It is making me afraid to reload anymore. Thanks for any help or advice you guys can give.
 
have you tried factory ammo lately? have you let someone else have a try with the pistol? if it's something new, i would imagine there is an issue with your loads, not your gun. you would have to run hella numbers of super hot loads down it to cause un seeable internal damage that would affect accuracy

y favorite "accuracy" load is an extreme plated 125 9mm with a middle-high dose of HP38, accurate out of all my 9mil pistols, i have different loads that run better in rifles though, generally using a heavier bullet and slightly slower powder.

buy some factory ammo and bench your pistol best you can to determine a difference in accuracy between higher end fact loads and your reloads.
 
Gun barrel is dirty?

What was your load? What press? Bad with your loads or everything? Pull 10, check the powder.

Look for broken gun parts. Could be the loads or a bad part.
 
It is doing it with factory ammo and any of my reloads. I was loading 115 grain FMJ using 5.6 grains of Power Pistol. I never went over that. They were doing great at first and then all of a sudden my gun just went crazy. I will do what you guys recommend and let you know what I find out. I didn't think the load I was using was extreme. I started off at the lowest and worked my way up. I have cleaned the barrel also and I don't see any noticeable damage or any on the gun parts itself. It's just weird. I was kind of hoping it was just my shooting and maybe I was just having a bad accuracy period :)
 
Also I was using Hornady dies with a Lee hand press. I always checked COAL etc. I thought I was doing ok but I will admit I am new to all of the reloading stuff.
 
What bullets where you using for reloading? Hard cast? Plated? Full metal jacket? Do you have a chronograph to test feet per second on ten rounds at random? How did you measure your overall length? I don't mean to make reloading seem. Overly complicated but you did not give us much information to start with. :-)
 
The first thing you probably need to do is determine if something went wrong with your SP2022. This should be easy by cleaning your gun and shooting some factory loads again. Once you determine it is not the gun, then you will have to provide a bit more detail so that the forum members can help out.

I am less than one year into handloading and one of the first things that I found that impacted accuracy very badly was overcrimping plated bullets. If you load plated bullets, make sure you only apply a light tapered crimp. Another thing that impacts accuracy badly is if you don't expand the case properly and scrape the plating of your plated bullet.

What I stated above is probably/maybe not what is causing your very bad accuracy, but hopefully it shows that you need to provide more detail to receive more accurate advice.
 
Unless you can come up with some physical evidence, something far more specific and concrete, I simply cannot possibly imagine that this is anything other than your own shooting and perhaps (likely?) your confidence in your shooting.

We also have no baseline whatsoever to work from. How much shooting had you done with this pistol BEFORE this change? Was this excellent shooting done repeatedly on one particular range, target, distance and with one particular ammo? A hundred rounds, a thousand, many thousands?

It all seems horribly vague to blame it on your handloads. And as you might imagine, the question is being addressed to an audience that pretty much LIVES to handload their ammo, so you can see how it doesn't seem likely that we believe handloads might alter our handguns in such a way as to inherently reduce their accuracy?

I could see a possibility of this -IF- you told us you were using soft lead bullets and there was a chance that you coated your bore in lead. But 115gr FMJ with Power Pistol?

My best suggestion is to get other people behind your pistol with factory ammo and see what kinds of groups can be put up with you pulled from the equation.

And don't give up on handloading! I couldn't... ever.
 
Ok guys I am back home now. I can give more detail for you. I started off loading 115 grain Hornady FMJ bullets in various pieces of brass from different manufacturers. It was all once fired that I shot new in the gun. I measured COAL with my dial calipers and they all fell within about 1.150-1.160 and I was crimping width at about .375-.378. When the Hornady bullets ran out I started using Berrys plated bullets which were 115 grain also. It is possible I was crimping too much and being a noob I am sure I made some errors somewhere. I generally just resized the case and used the expanded die and then seated the bullets at the above mentioned depth. I didn't do any case trimming or anything. Since my gun is doing it with everything I shoot now I really feel the gun is damaged, but my worry is that I am the one that damaged it as it was fine until I started shooting my reloads through it. I naturally thought it was just my loads but when I went back to factory ammo I realized it was everything I shot now. I always always checked to make sure my bullets were not setting back in the cases and checked them when I would chamber them. I do know I wasn't overly aggressive at flaring the mouth of the case and perhaps that was a mistake. It's a mystery to me. I hope I gave you guys enough info. My main concern is I want to keep reloading but almost afraid to now. Afraid I might damage another gun. I do not own a chronograph. If you need any other info let me know.
 
At this point of time it seems that it will be a waste of time to try and figure out what went wrong with your reloads. You should probably first figure out what is wrong with your gun.

It does not seem that anything is broken, otherwise you probably would have had feeding or ejection issues.

If I were you I would start with the barrel and again make sure you don't have any leading. Make sure the barrel is clean and inspect the barrel. Make sure the crown is not damaged. If you see anything out of the ordinary, post pictures on this forum and also try the SIG forums.
 
Thanks guys I appreciate it. I will pay attention to the crimp too. I never once had a cycling problem with any I loaded. I will keep loading and try to learn as much as I can on it. I enjoy doing it. Thanks again!
 
Did the accuracy go sour mid-session or after going home, cleaning the gun and starting with the next range session?

What I am getting at is, when you stripped it for cleaning, did something happen then?

It does sound as if something went "off" with the gun (since both reloads and factory ammo shoot poorly and no ammo shoots well any more). What vaalpens said is spot on. Once you find out what is wrong with the gun, you have a chance at figuring out what caused it.

I am with Sevens. I doubt your reloads caused it. Here's one possible (but highly unlikely) scenario. One squib load left a bullet in the barrel and the next bullet (luckily) did not blow anything up, but merely bulged the barrel asymmetrically, but not enough to interfere with cycling. Highly unlikely, but you cannot know until you examine the gun thoroughly.

Good luck,

Lost Sheep
 
i am sorry, i am really not trying to be rude, but i very highly doubt anything is mechanically wrong with your pstol. loose sights? that's a possibility, even if they aren't noticeably loose, they could have moved. other than that or a busted up crown, i don't think there is anything you could have done to damage a critical part that would effect your accuracy. you said barrel looks good and clean, the slide is still as tight as it was.

load up some more in the middle-load of published data, go to the range and look out for someone who appears to be a good shooter and ask if he will check out your gun for you. this is a common request at ranges i go to, and i am always happy to help out. the rangemaster could also likely be talked into it. i am a pretty good pistol shooter nowadays and have many thousans of rounds through my guns, but some days i just have a crappy day, either too much coffe and didn't eat or whatever the reason, some days i'll be all over a 12" target, just the way it is. check your barrel good and make sure nothing is out of the ordinary and get out and shoot it some more and ask for help at the range. if you get another couple guys to say your gun ain't shooting striaght, then start to worry. but i bet you were just having a bad day.

good luck, let us know wha comes of it

p.s. buy a box of factory ammo for when you let others shoot your gun, people probably wuold be nervous shooting some random guys hand-rolls.
 
Sounds like a barrel being fouled or just plain bad shooting. assuming it wasn't the shooter causing the problem, Plated bullets need to be pushed at lead velocity's. if you were shooting hot, or too hot for the bullets, you have a fouling issue in the barrel. Disassemble and clean and scrub until pristine. A leaded barrel is erratic in bullet placement.

I'm not in the camp that there is something wrong with your gun until you eliminate the obvious. And, I absolutely know that powder grain variations, if there is that much or any at all, is NOT causing it as you describe. God Bless
 
Sounds like a barrel being fouled or just plain bad shooting. assuming it wasn't the shooter causing the problem, Plated bullets need to be pushed at lead velocity's. if you were shooting hot, or too hot for the bullets, you have a fouling issue in the barrel. Disassemble and clean and scrub until pristine. A leaded barrel is erratic in bullet placement.
Click to expand...

+2 on fouled barrel. over crimped plated bullets can lead up pretty fast. try some Chore Boy copper scrubbing pads or some brass wool wrapped around an old bore brush will speed up the lead removal process.
 
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