My First Reloads

[blutch]

I took my first reloads to the OKC Gun Club today to practice and I have some observations and questions.

I went to the plinking range and was shooting steel plates at what I *think* is 20 yards. Please correct me on that.

I was shooting three types of 9mm ammo out of my M&P Pro that Olyeller just did the trigger on.

Factory WWB

Reloaded - 125 gr lead coned (J & K) with 4.2 grs of Titegroup to an overall length of about 1.145 (going on memory here)

Reloaded - 124 gr FMJ Montana Gold with 3.5 grs of titegroup to an overall length of 1.135.

The factory and the lead bullets both shot very accurately for me. No failures of any kind with the lead bullets, but I had 3 failures to fire with the WWB, something I've never had with that pistol. The primers were dented, but the bullet didn't fire... any ideas on that? 3 out of only about 30 rounds... I thought that was odd.

The FMJ MG bullets were incredibly inaccurate - or I was incredibly inaccurate with them. I literally missed about every other shot with them. Couldn't hit anything. Anyone know why that is??

I'm quite happy with the lead bullet recipe and will be repeating that. I shot about 200 rounds of it and had great results.

I welcome any comments/suggestions.

B

 

[tyromeo55]

My reloading books are all packed up so DONT quote me but, off the top of my head.... Seems you are a little light on the powder for the MG and a little too hot on the lead.

 

[oknavy]

If you're trying to determine the accuracy of a load, use paper targets.

Once you've found the right load, have fun with the steel plates.

 

[F16mickey]

According to hodgdons manual you are a little lite on the MG's

 

[tul9033]

Verify your don't have high primers on the FTF rounds, they should fire the 2nd go around. The first strike usually seats them further and the 2nd fires them. I started verifying the primer on many of my rounds and find maybe 1/20 are a bit past flush.
As for the 124gr MG, I use the same OAL (COL for DG) but go up to 4.0gr of TG and get good accuracy out of that load.
I've found my MP Pro to be more sensitive to high primers than my Glocks.

 

[Shadowrider]

My reloading books are all packed up so DONT quote me but, off the top of my head.... Seems you are a little light on the powder for the MG and a little too hot on the lead.

Ditto this. I'm shooting 4.4 of WST behind the 125 J&K and it's a good bit slower than titegroup. That load sounds really hot. Hodgdon's website shows 4.0 titegroup to be a max load for 125 gr lead and 4.4 for a Sierra JHP.

 

[blutch]

Yeah, my load on the 125 Gr cast was too hot. I loaded a bunch at 3.6 tonight. We''ll see how those are tomorrow. I also loaded some 147 gr cast.

The FTF's were on factory ammo.. so, not sure what's up with that. IT was WWB.

B

 

[ByrdC130]

Might be shooting FMJ after shooting lead bullets. Read somewhere that FMJ's sometimes don't like following lead.

 

[Roadking Larry]

Generally you can run into problems shooting lead after copperjacketed. It can lead to leading of the barrel.
Best advice for shooting lead is to start with a completely clean barrel that has had all traces of copper fouling removed.
Shooting jacketed afteSr copper isn't a problem unless your barrel is heavily fouled with lead enough to cause pressure problems.

 

[Uncivil]

Yeah, my load on the 125 Gr cast was too hot. I loaded a bunch at 3.6 tonight. We''ll see how those are tomorrow. I also loaded some 147 gr cast.

The FTF's were on factory ammo.. so, not sure what's up with that. IT was WWB.

B

How did these end up working for you? I loaded up some 9mm with 3.0 gr Titegroup and an OAL of 1.115. Some problems loading and some FTE. My Lyman pistol manual said 2.8 starting grains. But looking at the Hodgon site their starting load is higher than my max load from the manual....All the conflicting data can get very confusing.