Well, I never planned to reload for the 9x19, but with ammo prices where they are, and my son really enjoying his new FNP, it's time to start.

But If I'm going to load for it I figured I might as well go all out. I picked up a Lee 6 cavity 124gr truncated cone, tumble lube mold. I tried it out last night with a 95% lead 5% tin mix, and it cast some nice looking bullets.

I'm also sitting on 40 pounds of lyman #2 lead, and 1200 pieces of mixed, process brass.

My original plan was to load it with AA#9.Spear said you could go up to 10.5gr, but even at 9 grains the load was so compressed I was swaging the bullets while seating them. I like a compressed load.....but not that compressed.....

I'm looking to build a general purpose load, that will be shot in several different guns, loaded in mixed brass. Since I plan to fill an ammo can or two with this load, it's important it meters really well. I was considering HS6, or AA7, but I'd appreicate hearing what powders have worked well for other when loading for the 9mm, especially if you've used them with cast bullets.

size to 358
3.5-4 grs of unique.
throw the alox away, burnt vaseline and calcium soap [stearate] is not gonna help.
you'll be seating them deep start low and work up.

You'd be better off with something in the Unique to AA #5 or WSF burn rate range. The latter two I find are consistent from a powder measure than Unique.

#7 is a great powder for IPSC Major in 38 Super.

#9 is a good powder for larger magnum pistol cartridges for stiff but not max loads.

Antelope - I cast that same 9mm TC boolet only not the TL version and size mine .357 for my S&W 639. I cast mine from wheel weights to keep it simple and my cost low. I have found AA #5 to work very well, meters great, clean burning and versitil too.I have had excellent results using AA #5 with cast boolets for my .38/.357, .40 & .45. That said I recently ran out and stopped to pick up more and my supplier was out, so I picked up 4# of RamShot True Blue. It's so damn close to AA #5 in appearance (perhaps a bit more fine) and similar data that its a good knock off; very clean, meters great and less expensive. I have been using 5.0g of True Blue, it fills the case well but not compressed, it cycles my S&W and my buddies Browning HP just fine. With Wolf primers, scrounged brass & free wheel weights I am loading my 9mm's for less than $2 box.

I haven't got into the reloading of the 9mm with cast bullets yet, but have reloaded a ton of other calibers with the lead stuff.

For the 9mm so far I've had great luck with Blue Dot getting some velocities up there and having good accuracy. With a 124g plated bullet and 8.0 grains I'm getting 1235fps out of a Ruger SR9C. From your OP it seems like that would be maxing out the case capacity but there should be some info out there with that number.

Your shooter may differ and all that.......

Thanks guys, I appreciate all the advice.
I picked up a pound of AA #5 today, I'll let you guys know how that works out.

Lamar, I was wondering what was in Alox. Thanks. It sounds like you have a lube you like better?

Mike, yea, I had the AA9 from loading .38 super, and .357 Mag. I was hoping to avoid another powder on the shelf, but that didn't happen.

SM I like that $2.00 a box. About the only place around here I've seen the Wolf primers is at the gun shows. I"ll keep my eyes out for them at the next one. The True Blue sounded interesting, but they did find any, so I went with the AA #5.

Teancum, like Lamar said, these bullets seat deeper then I expected, so the blue dot's probably not the best option, but I'll keep it in mind if jacket bullets ever return to a price where us mear mortals can afford them. It might also be an option if I switched to a 2 ogive round nose. I'll see what these components do, and go from there.

Thanks again.
AS

I use W231 for my cast bullet loads in the 9mm. It works well for plate shooting where max velocity isn't required. I have noticed that cast loads tend to produce quite a bit of smoke, but I believe this is due to the lube rather than the powder.
C.G.B.

I have complete success with a light tumble lube coating of LLA on all my cast bullets. All my cast bullets are fired as-cast. Sizing does not make a bullet more accurate.
Best results will be with 231/HP38, AA2, AA5, Green Dot, Unique, Herco, and Silhouette--depending on velocity desires and bullet weight.
A compressed load will not swage a bullet down. Not expanding the case ID enough will swage a bullet. Be sure your expander plug increases the case ID, over most of the length the bullet will be seated, to 0.001-0.002" under bullet diameter. Thus, if you are shooting as-cast bullets at 0.358", you should try a .38 Special expander plug. What ever expander plug you use needs to give you a case ID where the bullet will be seated of 0.356-0.357". Measure you expander plug OD and the case ID after expansion to determine what size seater plug you need.
Also, I don't know where you got your alloy, but you only need 2% tin at most and I usually aim for the minimum that produces well-filled out bullets. You should have 4-6% antimony for hardness. More tin does not increase the hardness much, in my experience.

Noylji, Thanks for the info, but I'm not up on all the lingo....what is LLA?

While seating, the bullets were going in really hard. I was pretty sure I was opening the case mouths enough, so I tried a couple without any powder, and they seated and crimped just fine. That's when I concluded I needed a faster powder.

As for dies and expanader plug, I'm actually using my .38 Super dies. These dies came with two seating plugs, one for semi wadcutters, the other is flat. Now that you mention it, I think my .357 seating plugs may also work in those dies. I'll have to take a look and see.

sniper,

first, welcome to casting.

lla is lee liquid alox, but it's sold by others for less, i.e. xlox.

with tl designs, add liq. alox to a butter tub half-filled with your dry bullets...swirl them around to coat and then pour the bullets onto a wax-paper or foil covered baking pan to air dry. if you're impatient, use a fan to speed up the process. when you think you have enough alox on the raw bullets, you probably have too much, but it won't hurt.

i use la for rifle bullets at 1800 fps and non gas-checked pistol bullets at 1100-1200 fps with no visible leading after thousand of rounds, so 9mm velocities won't pose problems.

re. original question, i want the ammo to function but drop the brass close enough to find and be accurate and economical. also important is a powder's consistency in an rcbs 'lil dandy powder measure; fine-grained powders like b'eye, hp-38, aa-5 work for me.

budman

Well, I made it to the range today for a short bit to try out some loads.

With CCI standard primers, and 7gr of AA#5 I could cover 8 out of 10 rounds with a quarter at 15 yards. With 6.5gr, I could still hold them in the bullseye, but the group did open up some....Maybe it was the load, maybe it was me...

I could see visible leading, so for now I think I'll stick with the 6.5gr. QL predicts that load at 1100 fps, which is plenty fast for what I'm doing. I'll chronograph it this weekend.

In 100 rounds, 3 times a double strike was necessary. Each time I could see where the primer was struck, it just wasn't struck hard enough, so I'll be switching to Winchester primers.

Thanks again to everyone who helped get me onto the right path.

4. gr of Bullseye has been very good in my 9mm's. I shoot the 125gr round nose and some of the 120gr TC bulllets, lubed the regular way....Fired quite a few out of my PC9 and they have worked very well...Plus you get a lot of loads out of a pound of powder..

quote:

Originally posted by Antelope Sniper:
Well, I made it to the range today for a short bit to try out some loads.

With CCI standard primers, and 7gr of AA#5 I could cover 8 out of 10 rounds with a quarter at 15 yards. With 6.5gr, I could still hold them in the bullseye, but the group did open up some....Maybe it was the load, maybe it was me...

I could see visible leading, so for now I think I'll stick with the 6.5gr. QL predicts that load at 1100 fps, which is plenty fast for what I'm doing. I'll chronograph it this weekend.

In 100 rounds, 3 times a double strike was necessary. Each time I could see where the primer was struck, it just wasn't struck hard enough, so I'll be switching to Winchester primers.

Thanks again to everyone who helped get me onto the right path.

Your use of AA#5 caught my eye in your post.

I was looking through my powder supplies and found a can of AA#5 that had a little bit used a long time ago and since I was mucking around with a .45ACP I decided to try a few loads for it with the AA#5. I was using mixed brass, Winchester primers, a cast lead 230g slug and 9.0g of AA#5. That load is over book and was one I worked up to with some great accuracy results.

Through the chronograph it was pumping out average velocities of 966 and 931fps with great accuracy out of a Glock 30. I had done some trigger work on the Glock and was having a blast popping balloons at around 50-60 yards and hitting a gong at 65-75 yards. It's going to be my go to load for carry in the deep dark woods when I need some poop power for the furry critters.

I'm off soon to buy some more AA#5.

Well, the AA5 is a real winner in the Sig.

With a MAX load of 7.2gr in Win brass, it shot a 3/4" group at 25 yards, and chronographed close to 1300, with single digit SD's. I'll post more exact figures later.

I have always used Bullseye and AA#7.
Peter.

Ok guys, here's the final results:

cartridge	gun	barrel	wt	bullet type factory case	primer	powder	powder wt	OAL	average	high	low	spread	SD	energy
9mm	Sig 228	3.5	124	Lee TC		Mixed	Win	AA5	6.5		1202	1227	1176	51	18.06	398
9mm	Sig 228	3.5	124	Lee TC		Mixed	Win	AA5	7		1296	1311	1270	41	16.16	463
9mm	Sig 228	3.5	124	Lee TC		WW	Win	AA5	7.2		1306	1318	1299	19	7.53	469
9mm	Sig 228	3.5	115	FMJ	Millan	Mixed					1139	1183	1118	65	22.82	331

7.2 grains was the recommended +P max listed by Quickload. Although the rest did used mixed brass, on the max load I went to straight WW brass inorder to better control the pressures. It appears to have helped the SD as well. In every case my SD was lower then the factory stuff, so my cast bullets couldn't of been all that bad.