I've been reloading 124gr hbfp subsonic for a 9mm 1911 that shoots pretty accurate and are reliable.  The benefit I see is it's accurate and you can get follow up shots pretty quick compared to normal 9mm loads >1200fps. 

Interested to see what you find!  You planning on shooting ballistic gel?

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No ballistic gel.
The purpose of this project is not to find an accurate or deadlier load. Nor is it to find a competition reload.
The purpose is to find a cheap reload that looks and feels like real self defense ammo.
The theory is that if you carry 147 subsonic, then you should practice with 147 subsonic.
A cheap reload would allow you to get accustomed to your self defense gun and ammo without breaking the bank.
Hopefully, a cheap reload that looks and recoils like real self defense ammo will have adequate accuracy for short to medium range practice.
Another consideration is functional reliability. If your defense gun chokes with your realistic practice ammo, then maybe it could choke with real ammo at a bad time. Some magazines will feed ball ammo fine, but choke on hollow points.

xtreme 147 gr on sale today. either RN, HPCB or hollow point, all 5% off

xtreme 147 gr on sale today. either RN, HPCB or hollow point, all 5% off

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I guess I'll order some hollow pts. They have a similar profile to win and fc ammo.

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I guess I'll order some hollow pts. They have a similar profile to win and fc ammo.

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Also going to explore some xtreme 357 and 44 bullets to see if the plating can really handle magnum abuse.
Pm'd wirecounter for some ww296 to punish those plated heads. Haven't had some magnum fun for quite a while.

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Also going to explore some xtreme 357 and 44 bullets to see if the plating can really handle magnum abuse.
Pm'd wirecounter for some h110 to punish those plated heads. Haven't had some magnum fun for quite a while.

My buddy had some Berry's Bullets and some no name plated bullets he got somewhere. Both in 38/357. He noticed right away that the no name plated bullets were separating even at 38 Special velocities. He literally couldn't hit his target with them. The Berry's were much better and didn't separate even at 357 Magnum velocities. But even so he noticed quite a few flyers in the batch he had. I have had similar results with plated bullets including Berry's so I personally only use jacketed. I am excited to see what you come up with running these at magnum velocities as so far you have had very good results with the Xtreme line of plated bullets. If you get similar good results with the 38/357 at magnum velocities I will be placing an order with them as my batch of JHP's is about gone. Thanks!

My buddy had some Berry's Bullets and some no name plated bullets he got somewhere. Both in 38/357. He noticed right away that the no name plated bullets were separating even at 38 Special velocities. He literally couldn't hit his target with them. The Berry's were much better and didn't separate even at 357 Magnum velocities. But even so he noticed quite a few flyers in the batch he had. I have had similar results with plated bullets including Berry's so I personally only use jacketed. I am excited to see what you come up with running these at magnum velocities as so far you have had very good results with the Xtreme line of plated bullets. If you get similar good results with the 38/357 at magnum velocities I will be placing an order with them as my batch of JHP's is about gone. Thanks!

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Oh yeah, I used to get some horrible and painful spitting out the bbl cylinder gap with old gen plated bullets. But I know some ipsc boys are running 9mm major and  38 stuper with these xtremes. I have pushed 10mm auto past 1100 no problem. We'll see if I can hit 14 or 1500 with those puppies.!

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Oh yeah, I used to get some horrible and painful spitting out the bbl cylinder gap with old gen plated bullets. But I know some ipsc boys are running 9mm major and  38 stuper with these xtremes. I have pushed 10mm auto past 1100 no problem. We'll see if I can hit 14 or 1500 with those puppies.!

What weights are you going to order? Even though my 627 likes 158gr it actually is a little more accurate with 125gr. According to the load data on Hodgdon's website I am pushing them around 1,900fps. Only issue I have seen so far is copper fouling. Which brings me to my next project loading with CFE Pistol...

My buddy had some Berry's Bullets and some no name plated bullets he got somewhere. Both in 38/357. He noticed right away that the no name plated bullets were separating even at 38 Special velocities. He literally couldn't hit his target with them. The Berry's were much better and didn't separate even at 357 Magnum velocities. But even so he noticed quite a few flyers in the batch he had. I have had similar results with plated bullets including Berry's so I personally only use jacketed. I am excited to see what you come up with running these at magnum velocities as so far you have had very good results with the Xtreme line of plated bullets. If you get similar good results with the 38/357 at magnum velocities I will be placing an order with them as my batch of JHP's is about gone. Thanks!

i had issues with the thinner plated berrys also.  Those actually have a note not to exceed 1200fps.  However they sell some with a thicker plating for up to 1500fps haat work quiite well. 

I noticed fliers with the thin plate variety at velocities <1000 fps so i pulled some bullets to see the problem.  Turns out some  bullets were deforming when you seat them in the casing!  I have not experienced this problem with the thick plate variety offered by berrys.

What weights are you going to order? Even though my 627 likes 158gr it actually is a little more accurate with 125gr. According to the load data on Hodgdon's website I am pushing them around 1,900fps. Only issue I have seen so far is copper fouling. Which brings me to my next project loading with CFE Pistol...

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I ordered 357 158's....swc and hp. I believe the hp are heavy plate which should do 1500fps.
I thought I read somewhere not to exceed 1500.
Cfe pistol is too fast for hi vel mag loads eh?

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I ordered 357 158's....swc and hp. I believe the hp are heavy plate which should do 1500fps.
I thought I read somewhere not to exceed 1500.
Cfe pistol is too fast for hi vel mag loads eh?

Yes, the CFE Pistol is not suitable for real magnum loads. However, the idea behind the CFE Pistol project for me is to see how well it works getting rid of the aforementioned copper fouling I am seeing. It gets so bad at times that if I look inside the barrel I can actually see the grooves are copper/gold colored. I plan on shooting a few rounds with the CFE Pistol right before I leave the range. I am hoping that after 5 or 10 rounds using CFE Pistol that the copper fouling will be gone before I go home. Making my clean-up a little easier.

Here are some photos comparing some different 147 Gr. 9mm ammunition.
I got some xtreme bullets in on Friday so I loaded up a few rounds.
For the initial test, I fired a test round with 4.2 gr CFE-P in my workshop to test for obvious pressure signs.
It looked fine.
Xtrm=xtreme 147 HP
GD= Speer Gold Dot 147jhp
FHS= Fed Hydra Shok 147jhp
Q4217= Winchester 147 jhp controlled expansion
FC96= Military contract 147 jhp


see the pics

Continuing on now.
Here are some speed tests of some factory ammo as well as a quicky test reload.
I see velocity between 846 to 1009 fps.
My test load of 4.2 CFEP and the Xtreme147HP fell sort of in the middle ground at 917fps.

I finally got out to the rifle range today. It was crowded today. Probably due to people trying out their new gun show toys. There was a short waiting list.
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Anyway, as a part of this project, I wanted to see if subsonic pistol ammo stayed subsonic out of a long bbl gun.
In the past, I saw dramatic increases in velocity from pistol barrels. What if I went from a stock glock 4.4 inch to a 16 inch carbine?
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The test gun was my Marlin Camp-9 carbine with a 16 inch bbl.
I fired the same lots of ammo that I tested 2 months ago.
There were some surprises!
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SURPRISE#1- The 1st shot of each test string was consistently lower in velocity than the rest.
SURPRISE#2- My reloaded ammo sped up much more than the factory rounds
SURPRISE#3- The factory rounds did not speed up very much at all. One load hardly changed at all.
SURPRISE#4- Velocities in all tests showed a much higher amount of deviation than pistol tests.
UNSURPRISE- the carbine hates hollow point ammo. But I had fun shooting some ball that I loaded this morning.
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Analyzing the results, I think some of the inconsistent results might be due to loose chamber dimensions.
Beyond that, I don't really know what's going on. None of the test loads came close to going supersonic.
It would be interesting to see if the same results happen from some other carbines.

See the chart:

Awesome!  I think that in longer Bbls, fast burn pistol powder is all expended by the first10 or 12",  the remaining Bbl time actually causes drag on the projectile, causing velocity drop. 

Awesome!  I think that in longer Bbls, fast burn pistol powder is all expended by the first10 or 12",  the remaining Bbl time actually causes drag on the projectile, causing velocity drop.

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Yeah. I thought about that too. But I think there is more to it than just that.
The biggest factor here is the loose chamber. I know from past tests that match bbls in 45 auto shoot faster than stock colt bbls.
The fired shells looked sooty and bloated.
Possible bullet setback...I did observe bashed bullet tips when I had FTF. They were slamming into the feed ramp.
That carbine balks at hollow point ammo. I did get a little better consistency with round nose reloads.
Those factors could contribute to the lower speeds and inconsistent speeds.
This experience tells me to stay away from non-round nose ammo in that particular gun.

oldfart, Sorry for hijacking the thread, but do you have any CFE Pistol loads for the Xtreme 124gr?

oldfart, Sorry for hijacking the thread, but do you have any CFE Pistol loads for the Xtreme 124gr?

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No pilikia
Everything I know about xtreme 124 and cfe is right here:

https://2ahawaii.com/index.php?topic=15673.20

Read the whole thing. There is a lot of info there.

I just read the whole thing. Thanks for the info.

Since you're loading for practice loads, does that mean I can play around with the charges to find a more accurate load? Also, do you load to different COL for the Xtreme 124 RN vs the 124 HP?

I just read the whole thing. Thanks for the info.

Since you're loading for practice loads, does that mean I can play around with the charges to find a more accurate load? Also, do you load to different COL for the Xtreme 124 RN vs the 124 HP?

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Sure you can tweak a little, though 5.5 cfe is pretty much max.
If you go down too much, it might get dirty and/or malfunction.
The COL for hp and rn will be different obviously. For the rn, try measure some factory ball and duplicate it.
Alternatively, you could try seat the rn way out until it won't fit the mag, then push it in till it fits comfortably and you can fill the mag to full capacity.
Then see if it drops into the chamber completely and falls out by itself. Take the bbl out first.
Theoretically, that would be the best col for accuracy. Then you have to actually run it to see if it feeds 100%.
You would need to test it with every magazine too. Sometimes ammo works in one mag, but jams in another.
Also, it might not work in different guns because of differences in chamber dimensions or magazine dimensions.
After you establish the physical size, then you can tweak the powder charge to tighten groups.
If you are planning to shoot with a practical club, you need to make minimum power level and have enough horsepower to knock down steel plates reliably.