9mm plunk test eye opener

Miracle Man

Miracle Man

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So I ordered a Hornady 9mm plunk tester and got it couple days ago. I decided to test her out and see what's up.

I had 6 boxes mostly full of previously reloaded 9mm. Couple boxes115 gr XTP's 1 box Hornady HAP and 3 boxes 115 gr FMJ. Say 250 rounds. These were loaded using LEE 9mm carbide die set.Here's what wouldn't seat:

box.jpg

About 65 rds.

I also recently purchased a Redding 9mm taper crimp die and loaded 2 boxes of 115 gr FML using it. Here's what wouldn't seat:

two.jpg

2 out of 100

And several of the rounds using Lee dies were not even close to seating:

test.jpg

I noticed both the rounds that wouldn't seat using Redding crimp die have rough spots around the edge of rim. And they can be seated using slight pressure.

But man as pic shows several of the reloads using the Lee crimp die are BAD. (I'm not bashing Lee dies, I probably didn't have it set up right.

I guess I have the Redding crimp die spot on. Now to try them in my new Sig P365
 
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Last year I had a Glock jam. Had to take it to a Gunsmith to get it open. I am assuming that the brass was a range pickup and it was originally fired in a Glock with unsupported chamber.

Regardless, I also bought a plunk tester and was surprised to find that a good many of the 1000 rounds I had loaded would not "plunk".

Couldn't believe the results. Went to Plan B. I field stripped the 4 different Nines I own and did a barrel plunk with all 1000 rounds. 100% passed. The round in question fit in 3 other nines. The Glock was the only barrel it wouldn't fit.

I don't use the plunk tester any more. If they plunkmin the Glock, they are good to go anywhere.

As an aside, I bought a Lee "Bulge Buster", and after using it on the "defective" round, it now fits the Glock as well.
 
I found out that 75% of the problems go away if the sizing die is set correctly.

The other 20% go away if the crimping/bell removing die is set correctly.

I leave 5% for adjusting for the types of bullets used and proper seating of them.

One reason I have lots of "Dummy loads" in my opened bullet boxes or in my die box.
 
If you aren’t sorting you brass by manufacturer you are just looking to have issues such as this. Unsorted brass leads to a lot of headaches. I would bet 80% or reloaders just pick up any brass off the floor, and have at it. ALL brands of brass are of different specs.

Sort brass by manufacturer, get a good set of dues. Adjust dies for each brand of brass, every time you change. I usually load 5-6000 rounds at a time. Maybe 1 might not pass the case gauge.

GLOCKS haven’t had an “unsupported chamber” since the early Gen 2 models.

Regards,
Rick Gibbs
 
I've always field stripped a pistol and used the barrel as a plunk tester. And of course chambered a few rounds. Key words being "a few".

Now. I've not shot a ton of semi-auto reloads. I've shot more revolver. Just been reloading semi-auto a couple years now. And I've had "a few" rounds not chamber while shooting. Had to smack back of slide. Once I had to punch round out of barrel from muzzle.

I'm learning haha.

But it seems to me many of the 65 rounds that wouldn't plunk loaded with Lee dies have suspect rims. You can feel burrs/rough edges on them and I believe that's at least part of problem. Many will seat with just light pressure.

There's probably a dozen though that don't even make it to the rim. And yes they're just mixed brass from all over the place. My wife's brother in law passed away several years ago and I ended up with a ton of misc. 9mm from him.

I may start sorting.
 
I have never heard of a "Plunk Tester". Some use a cartridge gauge, but I don't shoot my handloads out of a gauge. I thought I needed a cartridge gauge when I first started reloading 45 ACP. But found it to be more trouble than it was worth (I chased about .006" for a month, but found they fed, chambered, fired, extracted just fine, 100%). I put the gauge away (somewhere?) and use the barrel of the gun I'm reloading for. Yesterday I loaded some 9mm with 124 Nukes and plunk tested in my Masada barrel, which has the tightest chamber. If it plunks in my Masada, they will fit in my 3 other 9mm pistols. I use Lee dies, a lot of range pick ups/mixed brass, several different bullets, no crimp just deflare with a deflaring die (aka taper crimp die), plunk test every load and normally have zero feeding/chambering problems with any semi-auto round I reload...
 
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My worst problem is loading lead in 45acp, but I might have had a bad batch.

I sort my 9, gauge both 9 and 45, and have few issues that don’t show up there. I do have trouble keeping COAL accurate with JHP, going to try some flat seating stems.
 
A piece of emery paper will usually take care of any small nicks, burrs, etc. on brass rims.

If it won't you need to determine whether the brass is worth (i.e., a 35 Remington or 338 Lapua Magnum vs. a 9mm) more than the time it takes to pull the bullet (and, often the primer as well:eek:) to reload into another case... It does work, but usually I keep those rounds segregated to use for test purposes.

Cheers!

P.S. Running some through the ammo checker PRIOR to crimping can tell you a lot about your expansion activities.
 
STORMINORMAN said:
A piece of emery paper will usually take care of any small nicks, burrs, etc. on brass rims.

If it won't you need to determine whether the brass is worth (i.e., a 35 Remington or 338 Lapua Magnum vs. a 9mm) more than the time it takes to pull the bullet (and, often the primer as well:eek:) to reload into another case... It does work, but usually I keep those rounds segregated to use for test purposes.

Cheers!

P.S. Running some through the ammo checker PRIOR to crimping can tell you a lot about your expansion activities.
Click to expand...

I just field stripped both my Kimber and Sig to use the barrels and low and behold, of the first 20 or so I tested (that failed in the cartridge gauge) (don't want to offend anybody with my hillbilly slang). Everyone seated in the Sig barrel and fell out. And also seated in the Kimber barrel but about half wouldn't fall out of it.
 
I bought my first 39-2 in 1975 and have been reloading nines since then. I have never bought a piece of brass because my club's range has them in trash baskets all the time. Most are once fired. Plus, all this time I have been using Lee dies, and crimping with the bullet seating die, not with a 4th taper crimp die.

Not saying it is right, but I also have never sorted brass by headstamp. If I carry, it is with new self defensive ammo. Otherwise, it's just simple target shooting and plinking.

In all my years, I have only had 1 squib, and the Glock jam was my first issue with a nine. For all I know, that single brass case may have been in my inventory for 20 years before I reloaded it.
 
GypsmJim said:
I don't use the plunk tester any more. If they plunkmin the Glock, they are good to go anywhere.
.
Click to expand...

Have a cz-75 compact barrel that has a short lede that use when setting up a brass/bullet combo. If it plunks in that, am good to go for all my 9mm pistols/rifles. Also make dummy rounds for cycling test.

Just got done sorting a 5 gal bucket of 9mm. Currently have it sorted into Fed, Win, Rem, Speer, PMC, other and crimped primer. At 1.5 gal bags of "other", will likely sort them in the future. And that bucket ws was from almost 7 yrs ago, the makers of 9mm brass has gotten more diverse.

Sorting the brass may be a pain, but imo it reduces future problems considerably.
 
mikerjf said:
My worst problem is loading lead in 45acp, but I might have had a bad batch.

I sort my 9, gauge both 9 and 45, and have few issues that don’t show up there. I do have trouble keeping COAL accurate with JHP, going to try some flat seating stems.
Click to expand...

I use a Dillon 550, and dies from Dillon, RCBS, Lee, Lyman & etc. However I don't really have enough tool heads and stands for all of the calibers I load, so sometimes I have to re-set my die adjustments from scratch when changing calibers.

The last I went back to loading 45 acp was one of those times. I thought I had things dialed in and loaded about 10 rounds before I checked any with my case gauge. Surprise! None would drop in completely (same as a plunk test).

I finally figured out I was over-adjusted on the crimp setting, and was ever so slightly bulging the brass during the crimp. Easy fix, once I figured out I got in too big of a hurry. Lesson learned. Test the first round, and fix it right up front. They looked great, and being I have loaded them off & on for 30 years, I was just overconfident (and a bit rusty). I hadn't run any 45s in probably 10 years or so.

But the biggest mistake was not testing that first round, no matter how good it looked. Cockiness will get you in trouble most everytime. ;)
 
For 9mm I never used a cartridge gauge or did the plunk test with a pistol's barrel for years and years. Never had any issues until I got a Springfield Garrison 9mm. One batch of LAX reman ammo gave me issues. It worked fine in my Sigs, but not the Garrison. The first few rounds took a little nudge on the slide to get it into battery. New gun, I figured; needs some breaking in. Then I got one that stuck the slide partway out of battery. It took small screwdriver between the barrel end and the slide port to coax it open.

OK, then. I pulled the Garrison barrel and plunked the LAX ammo. About half failed the test. Using a couple Sig barrels, I had no issue in the plunk test. I had no difficulties in any of the barrels plunking CCI, S&B and Norma new ammo.

My conclusion was that the LAX reman ammo was inadequately sized - not back to SAAMI specs. And that the Garrison is tight-chambered although presumably in spec.
 
What am I missing here? I thought all guns came with a built-in plunk tester. And who makes a 9mm Para crimp die in anything other than taper crimp?
 
I can make rounds that pass the plunk test and fail in the chamber and conversely can make rounds that fail the plunk test and feed and chamber just fine. I thought that was strange so I bought a second, different gauge. It chokes when using any bullet wider than .355. I pretty much exclusively use .357 lead bullets so that was a waste of money.
 
This is what lead to me adopting a policy of seating and crimping in separate steps.
Seating moves the bullet in the case, crimping stops that motion. In the range where they interfere with each other, oal and crimp runout are the result.
This might not be a problem unless you have a chamber on the tight side of tolerances.
As far as dies go. That seems to be the thing with Lee. They just don't have a lot of extra crimp potential.
Working with 350 legend, Lee cannot make enough crimp to chamber in my AR platform Pizza hunting rifle.
I made a spacer to allow me to use a 9mm RCBS die to finish the job.
At some point, I'll get an RCBS set for the cartridge.
It relates here enough to tell you "yup .... It's a thing" the agrees with your observations
 
SMSgt said:
What am I missing here? I thought all guns came with a built-in plunk tester. And who makes a 9mm Para crimp die in anything other than taper crimp?
Click to expand...

Same thing should be said for 350 legend, as it's best described as a 9mm super magnum.
It headspaces the same way as 9 Para.
Yet, Lee dies offer a compound crimp feature.
It's both taper and roll crimp
In my case, it doesn't provide quite enough taper crimp before it gets into the roll crimp, which it just shouldn't have at all.
 
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