Anybody tried

[MW surveyor]

loading 125 grain LRN with 3.5 grains of Bullseye? Saw this load in the cast bullet forum the other day and the majority of the responses were positive.

Alliant (and Lee manual) lists a max load at 4.9 grains and if you reduce by 10% you get a starting load of about 4.4 grains. I've used these loads in the past and I can tell you that they are plenty "snappy" and not real accurate. I've loaded some at 4 grains and they shot better and accuracy was good in my CZ and fair in the CW9. I think the information is not correct in the load data as it has the same load for the jacketed bullet.

Looking in my Lyman pistol book they give a starting load for the 125 grain at 3.3 grains and a max at 3.9.

Think I'll load some up and give it a try.

[Tilos]

MW:
I'm guessing you're talking 9mm.
I've loaded in that range with BE and it worked in a glock.
I can't say about it working in a Kahr though.

I'd make sure I had a new hole in the target before pullin the trigger again though.
But usually if the action cycles and loads another round, the bullet has left the barrel.

Tilos

[DKD]

I do and have used Alliant Powder {prior "Hercules"} for over three decades. I have never really used Bullseye...mostly stuck with "Unique" & "Blue Dot". Blue Dot was really good for the hotter rounds and heavier bullets for the JHP rounds.
Unique always tends to be a bit dirty burning, but always yielded good result for me in all of my pistols from 32 ACP, 9mm, 38 Spl, .357 mag, 44 Spl, 44 mag, and 45 ACP, and 45 Colt. Blue Dot was superior in velocity in the magnum loading. Bullseye is a very fast burning powder mostly used for light target loads and lead bullets. I found that just a very minor change in tenths of a grain make a large difference in the bullseye loads & there subsequent increase in chamber pressures.
You can use a slightly heavier charge of unique say in about 4.5 -4.7 grain charge weight for 9mm in the 121-124 grain bullet weight with good results. I would check out my memory with the load manuals. Cast lead slugs tend to use slighly higher charges per same bullet weight, due to the reduced amount of chamber pressure from the reduced bore friction of the lead slugs.

[MW surveyor]

Thanks for the replies so far.

Forgot to say it was a 9 mm. Sorry about that. (the CW9 further on should have given it away )

[Tilos]

MW:
I didn't know I was supposed to read the whole post.
Tilos

[MW surveyor]

MW:
I didn't know I was supposed to read the whole post.
Tilos

No soup for you!

Anyway, loaded up 30 each 9mm 125 grain at 3.5 grains and 3.8 grains of BE. Was going to shoot them today but work is getting in the way. May have to go to the range on Sunday. Will test in the CW9 and the CZ.

[Tilos]

MW:
I'm not where I reload and my log book, but do recall I tried 3-4 different powders to get point of impact to point of aim (top of the front sight) for my CW9 and know ended up using Bullseye.

I'll pm you when I find out what load it was/is.
Tilos


Edited to correct the "jocko's".

[MW surveyor]

Always up for a good load.

[Tilos]

PM sent

[MW surveyor]

PM sent

Thanks and PM replied to.

[MW surveyor]

Tried the loads today

The 3.5 grain BE with the 125 grain RNL were really soft shooting and plenty accurate in my CW9 and the CZ Phantom (remembered again why I really like this gun ). Best group I ever shot with the CW9 at 7 yards. Hardly any muzzle rise at all in the CW9 and back on target quickly.

The 3.7 grain loads were also accurate in both of the guns and again light shooting rounds. Will probably stick with these from now on.

Was trying out the Wolf brand small pistol primers with these loads and had two failures to fire in the CW. Ran both through the CZ and one of them failed to fire and the other did fire. The CZ is a DA/SA gun and after about 5 additional strikes on the bad primer, gave it up.

Also function tested the 638 after putting in the 8 pound hammer spring and the 13 pound rebound spring. No problems in getting the rounds to fire the first time. Now just need some more trigger time with the gun to tighten up the groups.

[mr surveyor]

why are you using wolf primers???

[noylj]

Light loads (below manual "starting" loads) are perfectly safe with almost all pistol powders (H110/296 will not work, but they will not burn below a certain pressure and you can end up with a wad of melted unburned powder in your barrel). The Alliant powders of old (Bullseye, Red Dot, Green Dot, Unique, Herco, Blue Dot) don't have this problem.
If you want a reduced load, you should move to a faster powder. Since Bullseye is a very fast powder and was designed for low-pressure, very accurate Bullseye shooting about 80-90 years ago, any concerns about very light loads was dispelled decades ago.
The problem of squib loads is operator error: no powder, very small charge of slow powder, and powder contamination. If the expected velocity is over about 500 fps, the bullet will exit the barrel.
For 121-125gn lead bullet loads, 3.5-3.8gn has been the "historic" sweet-spot for 9x19.

[MW surveyor]

why are you using wolf primers???

Just to try them out if I can't get any CCI or other US made primers.

noylj - thanks for the input.

[Tilos]

I bought/have a lot of wolf primers during the hoarding and have come to like them.

For me, I found that the cup to be a little shorter and they need to be seated DEEPER.
If seating by hand, the anval hits the bottom of the pocket and it feels seated...it is not.
I re-adjusted my press to seat them deeper and have had no problems since.
Tilos