I just purchased a HiPoint 9mm carbine (don't bust on it, their handguns suck but the carbine enjoys a great reputation!!) and I want to reload for it, but I want to +P or even +P+ which the gun is rated for. It has a 16.5" barrel and I have no idea how to begin calculating velocity for that size of barrel.

I'm using hodgdon HP-38 powder and 115 grain FMJ and hollow points. Maybe some 124 and 147 grains in the future but not right off the bat. I'll be reloading my winchester white box cases and I'm not sure how +P/+P+ loads will effect the longevity of the brass and it's reloading life.

Where can I get reloading data to get +P/+P+ rounds? Also how does the increased pressures effect the brass?

Last time I checked, I couldn't reload the 9mm as cheap as I could buy the Winchester USA fodder at Wal-Mart. $11.00 for 100 rds. Pretty hard to beat that for FMJ. Hollow points are another story.

I just bought 200 rds of wally-world winchester whitebox for $22

It's really the +P/+P+ part that gets expensive.

Based on what I'm reading I think I'll just stick to the max pressue listing the reloading manual. It would appear that the increase in pressures for the modest velocity gain may not be all that worth while.

Sure wish I had a chrono so I could test out some loads. Eh, someday.

Thx all.

I find factory +P+ 9mm wimpy.

I load my own with 158 gr. XTPs and Power Pistol.

I pre compress the powder in the case so that seating the bullet will not crush the nose and/or squish the diameter of the bullet body out beyond the size of the chamber throat. This powder pre compression with an M die or pin gage in a collet bullet puller balloons out the case. I resize the loaded ammo in a sizing die with no decapping stem. I check that the rounds will fall all the way into the chamber. Those details are important, as regular loading in an incremental work up will get a pierced primer, but loading 3.5 grains higher still is possible without pierced primers if bullet is not pinched in the chamber.



Overloading is all real dangerous if you don't know what you are doing, but there are gains for the 9mm. I don't look at a 270 book load and say, "I can get twice that much power from overloads." One cannot get 5000 foot pounds with a 270 and a 130 gr. bullet. That is because the 270 specified max pressure is already near the limit of full hard CDA 260 cartridge brass. The 9mm book loads are not near any natural limit, but an artificial specification limit that some people with some guns can exceed by a significant amount.

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