I forgot to offer one more thing. Don't change your load before trying to change your trip/stance/arm stiffness. If pistol is allowed to move backwards too easily it takes away from it's function.
Working up 9mm load
- Thread starter patriot15joe
- Start date
Well first off if you are loading 9mm to the exact tenth of a grain it will take you about 4 days to load 500 rounds.
Second go up on your powder charge. Make sure you are crimping them good.
But more importantly your bersa is probably picky you have a better pistol to test fire in? 4.2 should be plenty to cycle.
To update, I went ahead and loaded 4.3gr, 4.4gr and 4.5gr. All three cycled all 5 shots. There is no sign of pressure being too high on any of them. Of the three, the 4.5gr load was the most accurate keeping all other variables the same. I think I will try another load at 4.2 with the seating a little deeper as mentioned in a previous response to see if that will work.
Also, I do not see any signs of leading in the barrel.
Also, I do not see any signs of leading in the barrel.
The bersa is the only 9mm I have currently. Going to test fire some in my brothers SW and compare.
OK let me try and help you.
you are going to want to do 2 things first:
1) Shoot commercial ammo in same session as reload to confirm gun is as normal, and you have a control there. Then you can confirm its the reload 100%.
2) notice shell ejection pattern. How far is it flying? barely falling out? 1 foot? 3 feet? 10 feet? With softer reloads, they will only fly out 2-3 feet, with normal commercial loads flying 3-6 feet, and +P and beyond farther. you can judge how strong a load you have from this, generally.
The other factors are basic too. Fire the commercial ammo. Feel the recoil. Then fire reload. Is reload harsher recoil than the commercial? No? Then the load is less energy.
Lastly, load books are just guidelines. Nothing else. In reality, if the load book says 4.5, that means its using X brass, from X lot that has exact internal case capacity of X, in Y degrees outside, in a Z gun that has a chamber that is .356" exactly. If your gun, and brass and primer are not exactly the same, and I mean exactly, then that means max load of 4.5 is not accurate. It could be 4.0 and it could be 5.0. It depends on ALL the factors. If you get a gun that has a chamber/barrel bore that is .354, and you shoot .356 out of it..Its going to jack up the pressure. And 4.0 might be max load. If you get a gun that has .357 bore and you are shooting .355, then you might be able to go higher.
Compare to commercial ammo, steps 1-2 and this is very very good at inexpensive way to understand loads without high end gear.
sorry, I forgot to mention. in 124 grain using oal like 1.140 or something, I would not even go below 4.3, as that would be normally, light load. I would go straight to 4.5 and this will be comparable to commercial in velocity. I can understand how 4.0 and 4.1 didnt cycle. That was probably like 230 lbs of energy or something like this. you need 300-350 energy like commercial.
check my site. hp 38 is same as 231. see how low velocty 4.3 was and thats 4.5" barrel.
you are going to want to do 2 things first:
1) Shoot commercial ammo in same session as reload to confirm gun is as normal, and you have a control there. Then you can confirm its the reload 100%.
2) notice shell ejection pattern. How far is it flying? barely falling out? 1 foot? 3 feet? 10 feet? With softer reloads, they will only fly out 2-3 feet, with normal commercial loads flying 3-6 feet, and +P and beyond farther. you can judge how strong a load you have from this, generally.
The other factors are basic too. Fire the commercial ammo. Feel the recoil. Then fire reload. Is reload harsher recoil than the commercial? No? Then the load is less energy.
Lastly, load books are just guidelines. Nothing else. In reality, if the load book says 4.5, that means its using X brass, from X lot that has exact internal case capacity of X, in Y degrees outside, in a Z gun that has a chamber that is .356" exactly. If your gun, and brass and primer are not exactly the same, and I mean exactly, then that means max load of 4.5 is not accurate. It could be 4.0 and it could be 5.0. It depends on ALL the factors. If you get a gun that has a chamber/barrel bore that is .354, and you shoot .356 out of it..Its going to jack up the pressure. And 4.0 might be max load. If you get a gun that has .357 bore and you are shooting .355, then you might be able to go higher.
Compare to commercial ammo, steps 1-2 and this is very very good at inexpensive way to understand loads without high end gear.
sorry, I forgot to mention. in 124 grain using oal like 1.140 or something, I would not even go below 4.3, as that would be normally, light load. I would go straight to 4.5 and this will be comparable to commercial in velocity. I can understand how 4.0 and 4.1 didnt cycle. That was probably like 230 lbs of energy or something like this. you need 300-350 energy like commercial.
check my site. hp 38 is same as 231. see how low velocty 4.3 was and thats 4.5" barrel.
I run 4.1 gr. of 231 with a 124 gr. lead bullet, and have fired many thousands of them with no problems, from pocket nines to full size to compensated race guns. Something is wrong other than the powder charge.
As suggested...
Bullet sizing?
Scale not accurate? And I mean WAY off.
way too much crimp?
Some defect with your resizing of the cases?
Chronoing them would quickly tell you if there's a propellant problem, but not everyone has access to those.
It's not the spring (and springs have a lot less effect on cycling than people think-- all they do is close the slide). And it's not a subtlety with the powder charge-- I mean you aren't .1 or .2 grains from success in either direction. Anything close to that charge should work fine. It's something else. Seating the bullets deeper won't affect pressure enough to make a difference in cycling, but changing the OAL may well affect FEEDING.
Whatever the problem is, it's big. That load is as "bulletproof" as they come. It is not sensitive to small changes.
But I gotta ask-- what shape is your bullet? I'm assuming a normal round profile, no ledge on the edge, kind of bullet. You get a weird shape, and things may get sensitive to length for reliable feeding.
As suggested...
Bullet sizing?
Scale not accurate? And I mean WAY off.
way too much crimp?
Some defect with your resizing of the cases?
Chronoing them would quickly tell you if there's a propellant problem, but not everyone has access to those.
It's not the spring (and springs have a lot less effect on cycling than people think-- all they do is close the slide). And it's not a subtlety with the powder charge-- I mean you aren't .1 or .2 grains from success in either direction. Anything close to that charge should work fine. It's something else. Seating the bullets deeper won't affect pressure enough to make a difference in cycling, but changing the OAL may well affect FEEDING.
Whatever the problem is, it's big. That load is as "bulletproof" as they come. It is not sensitive to small changes.
But I gotta ask-- what shape is your bullet? I'm assuming a normal round profile, no ledge on the edge, kind of bullet. You get a weird shape, and things may get sensitive to length for reliable feeding.
I just saw the picture-- those are way too long. They aren't feeding properly. Bullets with those ledges are super, duper finicky to get feeding right. I'll never buy another. You need, probably, 1/32" of ledge outside the case. But it could be 1/16 or 1/64".
I'll bet if you put just one in a magazine, drop the slide to load, and fire it, it will eject and the slide lock back.
But load some up with 1 mm or 1/32" of ledge outside the case, and they should work fine with 4.1.
For crimp, only enough to eliminate a gap between the end of the case and the bullet.
And you should really do the plunk test with a clean barrel when choosing a seating depth. That will let you know the maximum, when you don't have book data.
I'll bet if you put just one in a magazine, drop the slide to load, and fire it, it will eject and the slide lock back.
But load some up with 1 mm or 1/32" of ledge outside the case, and they should work fine with 4.1.
For crimp, only enough to eliminate a gap between the end of the case and the bullet.
And you should really do the plunk test with a clean barrel when choosing a seating depth. That will let you know the maximum, when you don't have book data.
Attachments
they look long for that bullet profile. have a chronograph?
I have the OAL at 1.12”, they feed fine, shells eject about 3ft. I see no pressure signs on the brass.
Checked my beam scale and it seems to be on. I have a digital scale and they were about .2 gr difference between what the digital showed and the beam scale. Also checked a couple factory 95gr bullets and it was very close on the beam scale.
I am leaning towards the spring being tight on the Bersa. Going to fire a larger sample through the Bersa and another pistol this week to see what happens.
