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Old 03-14-2013, 06:16 PM
scooter123 scooter123 is offline
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According to my Lee manual you should be loading to a minimum OAL length of 1.125 inch. Since the 9mm has a relatively small case I'd play it a bit safe and set the OAL in the 1.135 to 1.140 inch range to start. Powder is 4.2 grains as a starting point for a velocity of 972 fps and max is 4.8 grains for a 1071 fps velocity. Personally, with that small a variation in velocity I'd start light and work up to testing a load 0.2 grains over the starting point. By doing this you allow a small safety factor for charge variation from however you dispense the powder and you're not pushing the upper limit.

Note the limited range for the weight of powder permitted, what it means is that this will be a somewhat "sensitive" load. As a result I would recommend that you hand weigh the first 20 or 30 charges you throw with your powder measure to insure that it will actually dispense the powder consistently enough. BTW, you will want to use a properly setup and checked BALANCE type scale to check your load weight, they are a lot slower to use but much more trustworthy than the electronic scales. If you find that every single load thrown is within 0.10 grain you can then proceed to load normally, if you see any flyers of more than 0.10 grain I'd recommend you weigh every single charge.

Finally in regards to leading from the aspect of velocity you shouldn't have a problem. However, Velocity is not the only component in causes for leading, how "hot" the powder burns and even the shape of the bullet base can come into play. I think that you'll have to load up some ammo, shoot it, and then see how clean your barrel is.
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