9 mm mauser

[dab102999]

I am gunna start this by saying I am a long ways off from doing this but want to ask some questions before I embark on a dead end idea.

I have a 9 mm mauser that I would like to think about reloading someday. I have got lucky enough to find some more ammo but i also am sure ( havent pulled bullet yet) that it is all the old corosive primers...and not sure what type powder is in it. But some of the ammo i already had is original ammo. ( early,early 1900's). The gun i am not worried about cus unless sitting in a safe makes em rot away i am good to go cus it has been in my family since day one. I am under the understanding that i can have about any manufaturer make me a set of dies. And from all the checks i have done even though the caseing says. M99 9mm it dimensionally checks the same as the data I have found for 9X57. So where my dilema is now before i progess with this idea is going to be how do i determine powder type and amount to start with once i get to that point...no t to mention finding a bullet in 245 grains ( cant remember exact dia i checked off top of my head) is probably going to be a choir too. So am i nuts here or is this an obtainable goal.

This gun has been shot about 10 times since i can remember so i am not foing this for the ability to shoot it a lot more but more so from the standpoint i would like more modern powder and primmers in it so ky gr,gr grandkids will still have a gun to shoot.

Thanks for reading.
Doug

[Jimro]

Sweet, the 9x57 is a great medium bore round. It didn't have the "oomph" of the 9.3.62 or 375 H&H but it consistently put meat in the pot of a lot of African hunters.

If your rifle is an M98 action you could load to a performance level between the 358 Win (9x51) and 35 Whelen (9x63). In fact that is about where I would start looking at powder charges as they all use the same case head diameter and the real difference is taper, and shoulder angle, (51+63)/2=57.

THIS IS PURELY SPECULATION ON MY PART AND NOT TESTED LOAD DATA FOR THE 9x57. If you look at the data for IMR 4064 for 358 Win and 35 Whelen, the max charge is compressed for each load with a 200gr bullet. There is a ten grain difference in max load (49gr for 358 at 46.2k CUP, 59gr for 35 Whelen at 46.6k CUP), so I would expect that a max load for the 9x57 would just about split the difference and have a max load of 54 grains, compressed with a 200gr bullet and a starting charge of 49 grains. THIS IS PURELY SPECULATION ON MY PART AND NOT TESTED LOAD DATA FOR THE 9x57.

But the above process is how I would start figuring out my handloads for the 9x57, and always work up from the calculated starting charge. If however your rifle is not an M98 base rifle and instead is of the small ring variety, I would reduce the max charge to keep pressures under 45k CUP. I chose 4064 and a 200gr bullet because it is my standby powder and a 200gr bullet will cover all your hunting situations in North America (except possibly the great bears in Alaska).

Or you could just look in some older manuals that still list 9x57 load data.

Jimro