[Sevens]

All I wanted out of a 10mm bullet was one that was between 150 and 180 grains and jacketed, at a price that wouldn't break the bank. I use a TON of plated in many calibers, mostly all Berry's, but because of the pressure and speed I load for in 10mm, I didn't want plated for this role.

I launch them from a Glock 29 and a S&W 1006, typically powered by Alliant Power Pistol. My purpose for these loads? Just paper punching and plinking, but at full power as the G29 is my EDC and I want to always shoot it with the kind of blast, recoil and flip that I'm getting from my carry load. Anything else would be a lousy idea for my EDC, in my opinion.

I started with Nosler 150gr JHPs and those were very pretty little bullets that shot well. BUT... I found that they were ever so slightly on the slim side. I don't actually own a micrometer (I need one!) and you can't tell the difference with a dial caliper, but you can tell the difference when you seat the Nosler bullets that they are just a tiny bit slimmer than I like and they don't give you the case mouth tension quite as tight as I want/need/DEMAND from a semi-auto round that is going to be shucked violently in to the action by a pistol. The fact that they were 150 grains and thus a bit shorter didn't help.

In combination with R-P brass (even more so in nickel), I didn't have reliable or safe mouth tension. This is not something I wanted to try and band-aid with a "factory crimp" die, this was just a poor mix of components that left unchecked could certainly lead to unintended setback and possible KB situation.

So after 750 of these Noslers, I moved on. I still like those bullets and if I could find them for a decent price, I'd use 'em again, but they aren't cheap. I don't know of any source that can get them for less than about $30-$35 for the 250-count box. That's expensive for bulk bullets. But then again... I suppose the pretty Noslers are NOT bulk bullets!

I next tried Precision Delta and their 180gr FMJ-FPs. These guys are a little different to deal with... the smallest lot they sell is 1,000 bullets and they ship free but you must order at least 2,000 bullets. So to simply "try" them, you've got to make a significant dollar investment and you get a lot of bullets. So I bought a thousand of the 180 grainers and a thousand of 9mm slugs to bring my order to the 2,000 floor.

Well, apparently, Precision Delta is habitually behind on 9mm slugs... so these things delayed my shipment quite a bit. But I did get them and I immediately went to work with the 180 grain .400" FMJs.

They shoot great, they feed perfectly, they load in to ALL my brass with no hassle, no fuss, and no muss. I don't have any odd ones, all seem to be quite uniform and they are nicely accurate from both of my 10mm pistols.

But... (you knew there would be a but...) They must be the single ugliest jacketed bullet I've ever laid eyes on. That doesn't seem to matter when it comes to loading or shooting them, they perform for me. But they are an eyesore. I mean ULGY. They are dull, goofy looking and just entirely uninspiring.

I'll be buying more of them unless I can find something else that hits a similar price point. When I bought 'em, they were $106/1000 and are up only to $110 per thousand last I checked.