9MM P1 and cast!

KHornet

Well-Known Member
I have given up completely shooting cast bullets in my Walther P!.
Have tried every cast bullet for 9mm and with various loads that
shoot well in the Walther. ALL of them produced Jams, stove
pipes ect. That said, a friend recommended I go to jacketed, and
whoopee. problem solved. the 115 Speer Semi pointed over 3.7
gr of Tight group produces good grouping and NO jams of any
kind. 100 rds with that load, and perfect functioning, and I am
a happy camper. Guess the Nazi manufactures and no consideration
for cast bullets when they designed the weapon. Now I need to
fine tune the load.

Paul
 

358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
Old European 9mm pistols usually require pretty hot loads to function with cast. I once helped a friend develop a cast load for a P38, and we ended up over the maximum "book" loads with 125 gr cast to get it to function. U.S. ammo specs for 9mm are also notably lower than European specs are.
 

CZ93X62

Official forum enigma
^^^ THIS! ^^^

USA ammomakers have never been very kind to the 9mm Luger. The were afraid of it after WWII, having invested HEAVILY in the 38 Special as a "Do-everything" handgun caliber for law officers and sportsmen. That bias continued after the war, with the 357 Magnum getting much of the R&D while the 9mm got relegated to "milsurp" status. The 45 ACP had steady popularity as a target and defensive caliber.

The 9mm is "crippled" to this day. Its SAAMI specs are a 25%-30% under-load of the European CIP standards. Euro 9mm ballistics, on an even playing field--4" barrels, 125 grain bullets--38 Special +P/945-975 FPS; 357 Magnum/1425-1450 FPS; 9mm Luger/1225-1250 FPS. Right smack in the middle between 38 +P and 357 Magnum, at full safe potential.

This could degenerate into a rave sequence easily, but I will close by saying that the 9mm has been the red-headed step-child of American ammomakers for a very long time. FBI has done it no favors, either.
 
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dale2242

Well-Known Member
I was having a lot of problems getting my Taurus 9MM to function properly with some plated bullets.
All types of failures, as mentioned above.
Sure enough, as I increased the load the failures became less and less.
As I approached a max load it started to function perfectly.
Some 9MMs need hot loads to function right....dale
 
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fiver

Well-Known Member
the 9mm was also designed with a truncated cone bullet design originally.
my pop was having all kinds of issues with a Luger P-08 and a swap to some heat under a TC type bullet had it running like a swiss watch in about 2 minutes.
I almost didn't want to tell him I had it working just fine so I didn't have to give it back so soon.
 

CZ93X62

Official forum enigma
What Lamar said, in entirety. The truncated-cone bullet design fixes a lot of what ails balky-feeding autopistols, as does a swifter kick in the aspirations.
 
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Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
I will be giving him some loads with PC’d 120 TL Lee bullets to try. Not wimpy loads either. Will likely be close to max Power Pistol. The muzzle blast will scare the pistol into functioning.
 

KHornet

Well-Known Member
Dale, I have a Tarus P111, that shoots very well with
the 125 Lee RN, .357, over 3.5 gr of Tight Group.
Might want to try that one.

Paul
 

KHornet

Well-Known Member
358156, Agree with what you posted. Have been working on running
my P1 up to max with Tight Group ( Because I have a lot of it) and it
is running well and pretty accurate. Appreciate the advice.

Paul
 
F

freebullet

Guest
What diameter cast were the problems encountered with? If a simple switch to Jax fixed the issues, it sounds like a size problem. I'd guess the throat is not cast friendly. I have a reamer for that. You or Brad would be welcome to use it.

On tg we run 3.8-4gr regular in 15 different 9's @356. Below 3.6 is a tiny light charge. Seat deeper, size smaller, and/or bump the charge a scootch. Best of luck!
 

L Ross

Well-Known Member
^^^ THIS! ^^^

USA ammomakers have never been very kind to the 9mm Luger. The were afraid of it after WWII, having invested HEAVILY in the 38 Special as a "Do-everything" handgun caliber for law officers and sportsmen. That bias continued after the war, with the 357 Magnum getting much of the R&D while the 9mm got relegated to "milsurp" status. The 45 ACP had steady popularity as a target and defensive caliber.

The 9mm is "crippled" to this day. Its SAAMI specs are a 25%-30% under-load of the European CIP standards. Euro 9mm ballistics, on an even playing field--4" barrels, 125 grain bullets--38 Special +P/945-975 FPS; 357 Magnum/1425-1450 FPS; 9mm Luger/1225-1250 FPS. Right smack in the middle between 38 +P and 357 Magnum, at full safe potential.

This could degenerate into a rave sequence easily, but I will close by saying that the 9mm has been the red-headed step-child of American ammomakers for a very long time. FBI has done it no favors, either.
When I think about what you posted, I have to agree, although my experience with the 9 m/m is limited. Our agency went to the 9 because American police officers were being, "out gunned" on the streets. The issue pistol if I remember correctly was a S&W 469. Frankly I found that to be a dreadful handgun. I hated it, and especially that nasty double action first shot, release to the sear single action second shot. The only miscreants shot by our dept. were hit with Federal 147 gr. Hydra-Shok and stopped fighting/attacking with a single round delivered. Very limited sample size, one knife wielder who chased the officer until he was falling backwards in a snow bank, and a pit bull on a drug raid taken out mid lunge with a 9 m/m carbine by the tactical entry team. Eventually we switched to Glocks in 45 acp.
What I don't understand, is the U.S. ammo maker's rationale for such under loading. The old argument about black powder era firearms not being able to handle hotter ammo certainly doesn't apply. There simply are no weak 9 m/m guns. The earliest specimens took some of the hottest Euro ammo. Why do you think U.S. makers are so timid?
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
I don't know why,, maybe better measuring equipment?
but I do remember several rounds of factory ammo losing steam the 357,44 mag, and the 9mm were amongst them.
it wasn't a big thing just noted by the more attentive shooters.
when the reloading manuals come out a few years later then there was a lot more questioning.
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
My P1 has had zero failures with the Lee 122 TC sized to .358. Good accy,
perfect functioning.

I bought 8 lbs of Sp8 Nobel powder real cheap, and need to use up and the ONLY
data is for 9mm. I tried the "this ought to work" starting low in .45 ACP and
.44 Mag for light loads and checking velocities and extreme spreads with
chrono. :oops: It is NOT happy in anything other than 9mm Para, some damned way.

Significantly non-linear velocities as you slowly step up powder quantities, and
very wide extreme spreads on velocities. After about 4 loads in small step progression in
each cartridge, I gave up and decided that there was a reason that Nobel Sport ONLY lists
a couple of loads with this powder and ONLY lists it as being applicable to ONE
cartridge. I guess it might work in .38 Super, too. I need to try that.

In any case, with Sp8, I get perfect function and good accy in my P1 with the conventional
lube Lee 122 TC. My bbl slugs at .3585, and I was worried that my standard 9mm load with
.358 bullets wouldn't work well, but it does. Seems like Sp8 is a slower powder, maybe in the
Universal or Unique burning range. With normal powders, I'd try one of those. OK, I found a
burning rate chart that puts Sp8 in line with Herco, a touch faster than Blue Dot.
Maybe I need to try it in .357 Mag and .38 Super.

Bill
 
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CZ93X62

Official forum enigma
Why do you think U.S. makers are so timid?

Let's call what follows here "Quasi-educated speculation". What I wrote previously might be tinged with a bit of cynicism not favorable to ammomakers, but some portion of their caution might be justified once you add gunmaker-stakeholders into the mix.

At the time that the 9mm Luger caliber and its handguns first became familiar to American shooters--just after WWII--the market got flooded with a number of war-surplus or war-captured European service pistols made in nominal "9mm" calibers. Many were actual 9mm Luger-chambered sidearms, but some were chambered in more obscure 9mm calibers like 9mm Glisenti or other models not up to the task of containing the hot little 9mm Luger as loaded by the using services in Europe--primarily Germany, but others made use of it as well. Some of those wartime-production pistols might not have been as soundly-made as others produced outside the stresses of ramped-up needs and Allied Aluminum Cloud Banks (B-17s, Lancasters--very distracting).

In pre-war years, both Colt and S&W were beset by customer complaints regarding tweaked-out small- and medium-frame 38 Specials firing 38/44 loadings then available from the ammo factories. KNOW THIS--a LOT of American shooters adamantly refuse to read or acknowledge warnings on ammo boxes and incorporate that knowledge into their range and field activities. "It says '38' on the box, so I shot it". Sure enough, "idiot-proofing" does NOT prevent idiocies--it just evolves a more dangerous idiot. One good result from these counter-measures was the birth of the 357 Magnum cartridge and revolvers in 1935, though it took until 1980 before S&W got all of their ducks in a row with the L-frames.

Not wanting a reprise of the "problem" of 38/44 fitting into Police Positive Specials and M&Ps, the ammo and pistol makers put their heads together over the 9mm Luger Project and decided to pull some of the teeth found in European loadings of the 9 x 19 cartridge. I guess European shooters just do a better job of ammo selection--or the USA is over-stocked with lawyers. GMBTA. USA-made 9mm ammo has always been adulterated down to a greater or lesser extent. In the earlier editions of his Cartridges of the World, the late Frank Barnes largely laid this out in his comments about the caliber.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
herco you say?
I shoot 7grs of that under a 158gr rnfp in the 357 case in my lever guns. [pretty much a 3/4 of the way up the ladder load actually]
it is pretty woah blasty loud in the revolvers, I wouldn't have thought that after the foosh type sound in the 20" barrel of the carbines.