muddocktor
Member
It's time to tell on myself, for not checking measurements.
Ive been buying some of the Zero 147 grain JHP bullets to reload 9 MM lately and had tried some out earlier this year, loaded at 1.162" OAL and they shot great out of my Beretta M9. So after trying them out and liking them, I loaded up 400-500 more and didn't recheck OAL since I had just loaded with those dies not long before (the ammo I tried out at the range). I did do some plunk test spot checking and had no problems with them plunking nice in my Beretta barrel.
Fast forward 4 months to yesterday, when I brought the Beretta to the range along with my ATI 1911 and my S&W SW22 Victory. After burning up a box of some junky Browning 22 LR ammo and running around 100 rounds of 45 Auto downrange, I decided to load up the Beretta and shoot a couple of boxes quickly before I left to go home. So I grab up the 147 ammo and my Maglula and go to load some mags and lo and behold, something is wrong and it doesn't feel or act right. I pull off the Maglula from the mag and I see the rounds are sitting down in the mag and not coming up to the feed lips. Oh cr***, what's going on! I tap the mag upside down and the rounds drop down good enough to unload the 4-5 I had gotten in the mag, then tried feeding them in by hand and they were a hair too long. I took the barrel off the Beretta and did a plunk test and sure enough, they plunked just fine like when I had loaded them. So I put them back in the box, put up the Beretta and came home. This afternoon after church I brought those 2 boxes into the loading room and put them to the dial caliper. The darned things measured 1.170-1.171, which evidently is just long enough to rub the front of the mag.
So now I have to run all those loaded rounds back through my Dillon and set the bullets a bit deeper.
So far I've done 150 with no problems except a little higher variance in OAL than normal. About half of them measure out 1.160-1.163 and the other half measure out at 1.164-1.166. I did mag check them and now they load up just fine, like the first batch I loaded up with an average of 1.162"
Moral of the story; recheck OAL when starting a new loading session even if you had everything set the last time you used those dies.
Ive been buying some of the Zero 147 grain JHP bullets to reload 9 MM lately and had tried some out earlier this year, loaded at 1.162" OAL and they shot great out of my Beretta M9. So after trying them out and liking them, I loaded up 400-500 more and didn't recheck OAL since I had just loaded with those dies not long before (the ammo I tried out at the range). I did do some plunk test spot checking and had no problems with them plunking nice in my Beretta barrel.
Fast forward 4 months to yesterday, when I brought the Beretta to the range along with my ATI 1911 and my S&W SW22 Victory. After burning up a box of some junky Browning 22 LR ammo and running around 100 rounds of 45 Auto downrange, I decided to load up the Beretta and shoot a couple of boxes quickly before I left to go home. So I grab up the 147 ammo and my Maglula and go to load some mags and lo and behold, something is wrong and it doesn't feel or act right. I pull off the Maglula from the mag and I see the rounds are sitting down in the mag and not coming up to the feed lips. Oh cr***, what's going on! I tap the mag upside down and the rounds drop down good enough to unload the 4-5 I had gotten in the mag, then tried feeding them in by hand and they were a hair too long. I took the barrel off the Beretta and did a plunk test and sure enough, they plunked just fine like when I had loaded them. So I put them back in the box, put up the Beretta and came home. This afternoon after church I brought those 2 boxes into the loading room and put them to the dial caliper. The darned things measured 1.170-1.171, which evidently is just long enough to rub the front of the mag.
So now I have to run all those loaded rounds back through my Dillon and set the bullets a bit deeper.
So far I've done 150 with no problems except a little higher variance in OAL than normal. About half of them measure out 1.160-1.163 and the other half measure out at 1.164-1.166. I did mag check them and now they load up just fine, like the first batch I loaded up with an average of 1.162"Moral of the story; recheck OAL when starting a new loading session even if you had everything set the last time you used those dies.
