I have a full sized 9mm 5943 that eats ANYTHING without a burp. However, I'm new to compact pistols (a Shield and Kel tec P11) and tried lead semi wadcutters and had one lousy range session. The cartridges came out of the mag, but never made it to the feed ramp and got closed up in the mechanism long wise. I had to drop the mags and pull back on the slide to get it to drop out, either through the port or the mag well. Also there seem to be a bit of forward assist needed some times in the Shield. The Kel Tec P-11 was the pickiest.
The next range session I took reloaded JHPs and FMJs (both factory and home made) and not only did they work great, but I had good for me session accuracy wise and was I was able to realistically evaluate the guns when they worked better. (No kidding, if I were in a fight with these I'd do better throwing it at the perp)
I've got three semis now that I need to get proficient with. I need to 'play' with the loads to see what the main problem is since I'd really like to shoot lead for economy.
The OALs that were used were:
1.08" 147 SWC (light load) 3.6 gr Acc #7
1.12" 124 gr. SWC (medium load) 3.4 gr Red Dot
1.137" 124 gr SWC (light load) 5 - 5.3 gr Acc #7
1.105" 124 gr. SWC 3.8 gr. Bullseye
Since 9mm max OAL is 1.169, I'd say these were a tad short and should probably be hotter. What bugs me is needing the forward assist. I plunk test my rounds, at least in one of the barrels. Maybe the chambers vary. Next time I'll try plunking in all three barrels
I'm not going to spend a great deal of time on this, though I want to satisfy my curiosity about the poor results. If I can't get them to work well, I'll try some lead round nose bullets.
Can anybody see anything obviously wrong here.
Another observation is that practicing with three semis I'm going to go through a LOT of ammo.
