Newbie Reloader with general questions on 9mm case length and min OAL

tateconcepts · July 3, 2013, 01:12 AM

Hello all,

In the past six months of profits and shortages of brass and cartridges, I have decided to get my Dad and I into reloading for Father's Day. I chose Lee's brand because of cost and value for what we want to reload. Since I have a platinum membership at two locations in North Texas, I shoot almost daily with no range or target fees therefore I needed ammo in a reasonable quantity. Due to my Unique needs (no reloading puns intended) - I and he will only be loading what we use frequently to offset expenses which are

9mm, 223/5.55, 300 BLK, 357 SIG and 12GA - for him it would be 38 SPL/357 MAG, 41/44 MAG along with my calibers and 30 Carbine.

I chose a Lee Challenger Breech Lock Single-Stage Kit for pops along with Richard Lee's Second Edition book and a set of 38 SPL dies (three die set); as for me since I shoot far more than my 64 year old retired father, I chose the Lee Classic Turret Press and then added the Pro Auto-Disk Powder Measure and Safety Prime System with the Auto-Disk riser and respective carbide dies. No doubt, it has been hard as hell to get powder and primers all in time for Father's Day (and I frequent Cabela's in Allen, TX daily) so I was able to find 4lbs of powder for use - Winchester 231 and Super Field (WSF) for most if not all pistol loads along with Hodgdon H110 (for 300 AAC subsonic or for larger pistol loads) and Varget for 223/300 supersonic loads. I have CCI and Winchester small pistol primers along with Remington 7 1/2 rifle primers and more ATK brass (CCI or Remington) than I can count. I also have several flavors of Barnes, Remington, Sierra and Winchester bullets - all jacketed of course - mainly FMJ but some HP/SP or TSX/XPB.

My question is this - I started with some Remington 9mm fresh fired brass, sonic cleaned and tumble polished along with using WSF (listed in the load data of the Lee dies for 115gr FMJ) through the .40 hole of the Lee Pro Auto-Disk cavity. This states it should produce 4.9g although the Pro-Auto Disk conversion gave me a general 4.8g for that size cavity. The oddity I am confused on here is that my Lyman 49th Edition and my Lee die load data states on the cartridge dimensions that the max trim length is .754 with Lyman indicating a minimum trim length of .751 but my Remington factory OEM cases loaded are .741! Even after fired they are obviously the same length. I used a cheater part (a spare Remington 9mm 115gr FMJ) to adjust bullet seating length and it is nowhere near the WSF load data to never exceed 5.7 with an OAL of 1.169. It is more like 1.109 - this makes no sense and I have measured other cartridges - my duty 9mm NATO WWB and ATK CCI Blazer Brass are near the same. Perhaps my old Mitutoyo calipers are just too worn out but they zero out each time and measure my cheato brass correctly each time. So out of all of this, why is this brass case short as are most (and shorter than max or min trim length) - why is the OAL so short even when seated the same as the UMC round itself and more importantly - I am getting only 4.4g consistent drops out of the .40 size cavity - which might be good if I have a shorter case since I would expect that to increase inside case pressures. Any input from the veterans here? I am going to use the WSF - I bought it and it isn't going in the 12GA since I have no need to reload that at all. The damn load data says I can use it up to 147gr FMJ - which is my final desired purpose - reloaded, suppressed 9mm loads to test against 220gr 300 BLK loads with H110 but with a G19 and a Roni (or modified Kel-Tec Sub 2000) and a custom Bushmaster XM15 in 300 BLK with a 9' barrel. Everyone's thoughts on the shorter cases, shorter OAL and what you think about WSF with 4.4g instead of the maximum starting load of 4.9g (5.7 for Never Exceed) since the case is shorter than the Min OAL next to the Never Exceed 1.169 (no way I can turn this case into Gumby and get it to stretch to .751 from .741 - thoughts please... I want to use the UMC stuff before I move on to better stuff for the Father's Day fun!

Misssissippi Dave · July 3, 2013, 06:30 AM

I wouldn't over think things too much with pistol ammo. I don't trim 9 mm cases. Remington brass for pistol is not a favorite of mine but I do have some and so far it is working fairly well. Straight walled pistol brass is not going to grow longer like you normally find bottle necked rifle brass doing. If anything, it tends to get shorter.

I have loaded 9 mm from 1.080 to 1.140 OAL. The main thing is to make certain they will not be too long to fit all the way to the bottom of the magazine. When too long you will have problems putting them in and getting them out. Some CZ and CZ clone pistols need a shorter OAL than say a Sig does. I load for the pistol I have with the shortest OAL needs. This way my ammo will fit every pistol. HP bullets will need a shorter OAL than round nose FMJ due to the profile of the bullet.

I only load 10 round of a given load for testing and increase the powder amount either .1 or .2 grains and load 10 of those going from min data to about .1 below max data. I will normally find a range of say .3 to .4 grains that give me the accuracy I am looking for. I will then load 50 more to test from the middle of that range that worked best. This is part of working up the load. I do keep notes of how each load worked or didn't work written at the time I shot it at the range. I am not going to trust my memory for these things. When testing I will only load 5 rounds at a time starting with the minimum load. If I have cycling problems in the first couple of shots I will stop and go to the next step higher until the gun cycles properly. After that I start to look for accuracy. You can use reduced slide springs to allow you to shoot lower velocity ammo. I prefer to use the standard slide spring and make the ammo to do it.

W231 will work with 9 mm for low to mid range loads. Pushing it beyond mid range tends to be a problem with accuracy. WSF will normally work best from the lower mid range to max levels.

Heavier bullets will have the bullet seated deeper in the case with the same OAL. This is one of the reasons you reduce the amount of powder as the weight of the bullet goes up. Less room for powder increase pressure. I work up a load for each bullet I am going to use. It normally is not plug and play when you switch them.

It is kind of slow going when you are first working up a new load. Once you find what works well for you, you can start loading in quantity. Occasionally I have found I needed to increase my powder by .1 or even .2 grains after testing my first 50 test loads to get a cleaner burn. I don't like pulling bullets so I try to not load much of any load I'm not sure of. I do have a few different pistols from different companies in the same calibers. I found testing a box of 50 in each of them once I think I have a good load is best. Occasionally I will find one of them needs that extra .1 grain of powder to function properly. I have been luck and only needed to make 3 range trips to find a load that works for me. I have also needed as many as 5 trips to develop a good load too. This is just for pistol ammo.

I'm not using Lee equipment and can dial in .1 grain increases easily with my powder measure so most of the time this is the amount I use for each step in the loads I work up. This is what I am doing and you are going to find other people will do things differently. There are a few different ways to get the same end results. I do what works for me and I'm comfortable with.

tateconcepts · July 8, 2013, 04:08 PM

So after much research, most factory ammo I use - WWB 9MM NATO, CCI Blazer Brass 9MM 115gr FMJ, Remington UMC 9MM 115gr FMJ or CCI Blazer 9mm 115gr TNJ has a much shorter OAL. Even the Winchester PDX1 and Barnes TAC-XPD is shorter. Turns out that my old dial calipers were off, so most of my cases I am measuring OAL on (Rem UMC) are .7505 to .754 with a rare exception of a shorter one (as low as .741 I believe). Once I switched to digital calipers, all was answered there...

Now for the money question, as many newbies using Lee dies and equipment - the 9MM load data that comes with the sets indicates a Min OAL of 1.169 on the right. I'm not sure if that is for both the starting and never exceed loads or not but I am speculating that it is for all loads of Winchester Super-Field (aka WSF not WST). I gave the Winchester 231 to my Dad for his new Lee Breech Lock Kit with 38 SPL (357 Mag) dies - which I felt more appropriate for him. So now, I am using the starting charges with the Lee Classic Turret Kit and Pro Auto-Disk with the auto cavity of .43 (the Lee Load data says .40 but when I weighed it only the Hornady GS-1500 it was only 4.4gr not 4.8-4.9 as supposed to be).

My question is, I loaded the Remington 115gr FMJ bullet into the 9MM Remington case with a CCI #500 pistol primer and 4.8-4.9gr of WSF with a min OAL of 1.165-1.169 (pulled down too hard on one during the seating - oops). I can get my G17C barrel test function and it appears the Kel-Tec Sub 2000 will also except this length. Why does Lee have the Maximum OAL (according to the Lee load data and the Lyman 49th manual) of 1.169 ALSO AS THE MININUM OAL? That seems odd and leaves no room for tolerances as are usually acceptable with most calibers. Am I reading the damn Lee load data wrong? Is the Min OAL listed on the right only for the Never Exceed Loads? That might make sense because of pressure - but I would think that pressures increase as the bullet is seated deeper and less empty case volume to powder ratio increases this. This must have something to do with WSF too (yes I saw the Hodgdon Burn Rate chart) because most other powders have much shorter OAL and that's important - I want my ammo to feed in anything and accuracy is second to energy delivered/penetration depth/terminal velocity and weight retention. It appears these will fire at this long length but I feel like I am going to fart the bullet out of this G17C in an hour or so. Thoughts everyone?

I found this link that may also help a newbie with similar issues and using WSF (as that was all there was to buy)...
http://www.nyfirearms.com/forums/amm...e-9mm-oal.html

Brian

July 3, 2013, 01:12 AM	#1
tateconcepts Member Join Date: July 2, 2013 Posts: 39	Newbie Reloader with general questions on 9mm case length and min OAL Hello all, In the past six months of profits and shortages of brass and cartridges, I have decided to get my Dad and I into reloading for Father's Day. I chose Lee's brand because of cost and value for what we want to reload. Since I have a platinum membership at two locations in North Texas, I shoot almost daily with no range or target fees therefore I needed ammo in a reasonable quantity. Due to my Unique needs (no reloading puns intended) - I and he will only be loading what we use frequently to offset expenses which are 9mm, 223/5.55, 300 BLK, 357 SIG and 12GA - for him it would be 38 SPL/357 MAG, 41/44 MAG along with my calibers and 30 Carbine. I chose a Lee Challenger Breech Lock Single-Stage Kit for pops along with Richard Lee's Second Edition book and a set of 38 SPL dies (three die set); as for me since I shoot far more than my 64 year old retired father, I chose the Lee Classic Turret Press and then added the Pro Auto-Disk Powder Measure and Safety Prime System with the Auto-Disk riser and respective carbide dies. No doubt, it has been hard as hell to get powder and primers all in time for Father's Day (and I frequent Cabela's in Allen, TX daily) so I was able to find 4lbs of powder for use - Winchester 231 and Super Field (WSF) for most if not all pistol loads along with Hodgdon H110 (for 300 AAC subsonic or for larger pistol loads) and Varget for 223/300 supersonic loads. I have CCI and Winchester small pistol primers along with Remington 7 1/2 rifle primers and more ATK brass (CCI or Remington) than I can count. I also have several flavors of Barnes, Remington, Sierra and Winchester bullets - all jacketed of course - mainly FMJ but some HP/SP or TSX/XPB. My question is this - I started with some Remington 9mm fresh fired brass, sonic cleaned and tumble polished along with using WSF (listed in the load data of the Lee dies for 115gr FMJ) through the .40 hole of the Lee Pro Auto-Disk cavity. This states it should produce 4.9g although the Pro-Auto Disk conversion gave me a general 4.8g for that size cavity. The oddity I am confused on here is that my Lyman 49th Edition and my Lee die load data states on the cartridge dimensions that the max trim length is .754 with Lyman indicating a minimum trim length of .751 but my Remington factory OEM cases loaded are .741! Even after fired they are obviously the same length. I used a cheater part (a spare Remington 9mm 115gr FMJ) to adjust bullet seating length and it is nowhere near the WSF load data to never exceed 5.7 with an OAL of 1.169. It is more like 1.109 - this makes no sense and I have measured other cartridges - my duty 9mm NATO WWB and ATK CCI Blazer Brass are near the same. Perhaps my old Mitutoyo calipers are just too worn out but they zero out each time and measure my cheato brass correctly each time. So out of all of this, why is this brass case short as are most (and shorter than max or min trim length) - why is the OAL so short even when seated the same as the UMC round itself and more importantly - I am getting only 4.4g consistent drops out of the .40 size cavity - which might be good if I have a shorter case since I would expect that to increase inside case pressures. Any input from the veterans here? I am going to use the WSF - I bought it and it isn't going in the 12GA since I have no need to reload that at all. The damn load data says I can use it up to 147gr FMJ - which is my final desired purpose - reloaded, suppressed 9mm loads to test against 220gr 300 BLK loads with H110 but with a G19 and a Roni (or modified Kel-Tec Sub 2000) and a custom Bushmaster XM15 in 300 BLK with a 9' barrel. Everyone's thoughts on the shorter cases, shorter OAL and what you think about WSF with 4.4g instead of the maximum starting load of 4.9g (5.7 for Never Exceed) since the case is shorter than the Min OAL next to the Never Exceed 1.169 (no way I can turn this case into Gumby and get it to stretch to .751 from .741 - thoughts please... I want to use the UMC stuff before I move on to better stuff for the Father's Day fun!

July 8, 2013, 04:08 PM	#3
tateconcepts Member Join Date: July 2, 2013 Posts: 39	Think I found an answer to the Lee 9mm 1.169 OAL and Case Length So after much research, most factory ammo I use - WWB 9MM NATO, CCI Blazer Brass 9MM 115gr FMJ, Remington UMC 9MM 115gr FMJ or CCI Blazer 9mm 115gr TNJ has a much shorter OAL. Even the Winchester PDX1 and Barnes TAC-XPD is shorter. Turns out that my old dial calipers were off, so most of my cases I am measuring OAL on (Rem UMC) are .7505 to .754 with a rare exception of a shorter one (as low as .741 I believe). Once I switched to digital calipers, all was answered there... Now for the money question, as many newbies using Lee dies and equipment - the 9MM load data that comes with the sets indicates a Min OAL of 1.169 on the right. I'm not sure if that is for both the starting and never exceed loads or not but I am speculating that it is for all loads of Winchester Super-Field (aka WSF not WST). I gave the Winchester 231 to my Dad for his new Lee Breech Lock Kit with 38 SPL (357 Mag) dies - which I felt more appropriate for him. So now, I am using the starting charges with the Lee Classic Turret Kit and Pro Auto-Disk with the auto cavity of .43 (the Lee Load data says .40 but when I weighed it only the Hornady GS-1500 it was only 4.4gr not 4.8-4.9 as supposed to be). My question is, I loaded the Remington 115gr FMJ bullet into the 9MM Remington case with a CCI #500 pistol primer and 4.8-4.9gr of WSF with a min OAL of 1.165-1.169 (pulled down too hard on one during the seating - oops). I can get my G17C barrel test function and it appears the Kel-Tec Sub 2000 will also except this length. Why does Lee have the Maximum OAL (according to the Lee load data and the Lyman 49th manual) of 1.169 ALSO AS THE MININUM OAL? That seems odd and leaves no room for tolerances as are usually acceptable with most calibers. Am I reading the damn Lee load data wrong? Is the Min OAL listed on the right only for the Never Exceed Loads? That might make sense because of pressure - but I would think that pressures increase as the bullet is seated deeper and less empty case volume to powder ratio increases this. This must have something to do with WSF too (yes I saw the Hodgdon Burn Rate chart) because most other powders have much shorter OAL and that's important - I want my ammo to feed in anything and accuracy is second to energy delivered/penetration depth/terminal velocity and weight retention. It appears these will fire at this long length but I feel like I am going to fart the bullet out of this G17C in an hour or so. Thoughts everyone? I found this link that may also help a newbie with similar issues and using WSF (as that was all there was to buy)... http://www.nyfirearms.com/forums/amm...e-9mm-oal.html Brian

July 3, 2013, 06:30 AM	#2
Misssissippi Dave Senior Member Join Date: December 5, 2009 Posts: 1,411	I wouldn't over think things too much with pistol ammo. I don't trim 9 mm cases. Remington brass for pistol is not a favorite of mine but I do have some and so far it is working fairly well. Straight walled pistol brass is not going to grow longer like you normally find bottle necked rifle brass doing. If anything, it tends to get shorter. I have loaded 9 mm from 1.080 to 1.140 OAL. The main thing is to make certain they will not be too long to fit all the way to the bottom of the magazine. When too long you will have problems putting them in and getting them out. Some CZ and CZ clone pistols need a shorter OAL than say a Sig does. I load for the pistol I have with the shortest OAL needs. This way my ammo will fit every pistol. HP bullets will need a shorter OAL than round nose FMJ due to the profile of the bullet. I only load 10 round of a given load for testing and increase the powder amount either .1 or .2 grains and load 10 of those going from min data to about .1 below max data. I will normally find a range of say .3 to .4 grains that give me the accuracy I am looking for. I will then load 50 more to test from the middle of that range that worked best. This is part of working up the load. I do keep notes of how each load worked or didn't work written at the time I shot it at the range. I am not going to trust my memory for these things. When testing I will only load 5 rounds at a time starting with the minimum load. If I have cycling problems in the first couple of shots I will stop and go to the next step higher until the gun cycles properly. After that I start to look for accuracy. You can use reduced slide springs to allow you to shoot lower velocity ammo. I prefer to use the standard slide spring and make the ammo to do it. W231 will work with 9 mm for low to mid range loads. Pushing it beyond mid range tends to be a problem with accuracy. WSF will normally work best from the lower mid range to max levels. Heavier bullets will have the bullet seated deeper in the case with the same OAL. This is one of the reasons you reduce the amount of powder as the weight of the bullet goes up. Less room for powder increase pressure. I work up a load for each bullet I am going to use. It normally is not plug and play when you switch them. It is kind of slow going when you are first working up a new load. Once you find what works well for you, you can start loading in quantity. Occasionally I have found I needed to increase my powder by .1 or even .2 grains after testing my first 50 test loads to get a cleaner burn. I don't like pulling bullets so I try to not load much of any load I'm not sure of. I do have a few different pistols from different companies in the same calibers. I found testing a box of 50 in each of them once I think I have a good load is best. Occasionally I will find one of them needs that extra .1 grain of powder to function properly. I have been luck and only needed to make 3 range trips to find a load that works for me. I have also needed as many as 5 trips to develop a good load too. This is just for pistol ammo. I'm not using Lee equipment and can dial in .1 grain increases easily with my powder measure so most of the time this is the amount I use for each step in the loads I work up. This is what I am doing and you are going to find other people will do things differently. There are a few different ways to get the same end results. I do what works for me and I'm comfortable with.