Hi all.

I've just started reloading 9mm parabellum with cast bullets. Never thought I would, but I figured I'm casting and reloading for a bunch of others, so why not?

The Jim Taylor article on reloading 9mm threw the fear of God into me about this cartridge. In particular, the fear of meeting God sooner than I'd planned by over-pressuring the cartridge due to seating depth.

I've recently acquired some Blue Dot, and I like that powder for 9mm because a double-charge won't fit in the case. After consulting a number of reloading manuals I started with 7.0 grains. I'm loading cast bullets out of a Lee mold, the 120-grain truncated cone. I selected that shape because I thought it would feed okay.

Well, it feeds okay, but out of an abundance of caution (re: fear of God, above) I had seated the bullets just deep enough to cover the lube groove. Consequently the bearing surface of the bullet extends into the throat far enough to stick. Pretty tight, too. Test gun is a Smith M&P EZ, about three years old.

I discovered that if I seat the bullets deeper, so just a hair's worth of bearing surface sticks out of the case mouth, the resulting cartridges will feed and cycle just fine, but... (fear of God, above). So I backed the powder charge down to 6.0 grains of Blue Dot.

OAL is 1.060". No particular pressure signs. Can I work up to 7.0 grains without fear of dynamic disassembly?

-AaronB

--
Ele era velho.
Ele era corajoso.
Ele era feio.

I haven’t used blue dot with cast in 9mm but have shot hundreds maybe over a thousand of 7.8gr with a 124gr JHP. They chronograph about 1225 to 1250 FPS out of a 5 “ barrel and high 1100s in shorter barrels. The powder is highly compressed but they work great. There are two or three manuals that list loads that high.