Adorable little 55 grainers (Read 6075 times)

shdws

Adorable little 55 grainers
« on: May 07, 2018, 03:07:53 PM »
Kawaii desu ne!

oldfart

Re: Adorable little 55 grainers
« Reply #1 on: May 08, 2018, 12:32:47 PM »
Nan desu ka?
What, Me Worry?

shdws

Re: Adorable little 55 grainers
« Reply #2 on: May 08, 2018, 01:17:18 PM »
Nan desu ka?
OF, was going to get in touch with you about these sooner or later.  I dont have the dies in yet (or the gun, just at HPD today, lol).

They're 55 gn flat points, BHN 15, sized at .251 from Rim Rock bullets.  These are for the mighty 25 acp.

The problem is that I cant find any load data for 55 grain - only 35 and 50 and they're for FMJ.  Extrapolating from load data that is available, I'll have a really slow bullet sitting on barely over a grain of powder.  Going to use HP38 and Titegroup, but the titegroup charge might put me below a grain.

Check out the miniature mag.  The mag next to it is a 32 auto and is already a tiny mag.


« Last Edit: May 09, 2018, 08:12:18 AM by shdws »

oldfart

Re: Adorable little 55 grainers
« Reply #3 on: May 08, 2018, 06:19:41 PM »
I can make an educated guess about what would work best but maybe there is someone here that has actual experience with the 25.
What, Me Worry?

astroboy

Re: Adorable little 55 grainers
« Reply #4 on: May 30, 2018, 12:07:56 AM »
I looked thru my old manuals only found some load data for cast 51 grain (#2 alloy) bullets in my lyman (1973) cast bullet hand book.
Bullseye start: 0.8 gr    max: 1.1 gr.
Unique  start: 1.2 gr     max: 1.6 gr.
700x     start: 0.8 gr      max: 1.1 gr.

I could not find anything on 55gr cast bullets.

The smallest cartridge I ever reloaded was the 32acp. High ammo prices due to low volume of 25 and 32 acp sales makes handloading attractive.
I recall seeing 9mm ammo at half the price of the same brand/type of 32acp ammo.

Let us know if you find any more info on this subject. Good luck on your project.
btw: you are right, those are some cute little bullettes. 

rklapp

Re: Adorable little 55 grainers
« Reply #5 on: May 30, 2018, 07:26:00 AM »
FYI, SEC has plenty of 700x (afaik). WGS is the only place I know that has Unique and Bullseye.
Yahh! Freedom and justice shall always prevail over tyranny, Babysitter Girl!
https://ronsreloading.wordpress.com/

shdws

Re: Adorable little 55 grainers
« Reply #6 on: June 14, 2018, 10:49:16 AM »
Apologies for the delay; needed a breather from this site (few nasty guys specifically, you guys are cool) and have been travelling a bit.  Havent had time to dip into this project until last night.

Anyway, I got the dies all set up, just need to set up the powder drop to do some experimentation with charge weights and powder types.  Thanks for looking that info up, astroboy!  I reload 32acp with great success thanks to this forum (oldfart specifically).  I've already shot nearly a thousand reloads of 32 8)  oldfart has legitimately saved me hundreds of dollars in ammo costs in that caliber alone in only months.

Here's a few pictures of the dummy rounds/snap caps I produced and cycled through my pistol.  The FMJ is the factory Federal round I was trying to mimic in dimensions, but its just not possible 100% with the bullet I have.  The bullet lengths are roughly the same, but the shapes are quite different and so are the widths.  The factory FMJ is a "small" .250 and the lead is a "big" .251, if that makes any sense.  You can see the lead slightly bulge the casing moreso than the factory FMJ bullet.  Also, the bullets are seated to almost identical depths since the lengths are so close.  However, the bullet shape and slightly bigger diameter has the lead touching and getting bitten into by the rifling.  I hope this is not an issue, and read that it may help accuracy (in rifles).  I just hope the bullets arent too big for my barrel?  They seem like it will fit, but theyre definitely going to be cut deep with the rifling.  Chambers fine, but sometimes if the lead is bitten into and the rifling catches it well, it will be difficult to pull the slide back to cycle the next round through.  Should be a non-issue when live firing, I hope  ;D

The've got wine bottle cork in the primer pockets to absorb the pin hit if i squeeze the trigger, and the cork is also necessary to properly eject the dummy round from the pistol since it uses the pin as the ejector.



shdws

Re: Adorable little 55 grainers
« Reply #7 on: July 19, 2018, 10:53:57 AM »
Snuck in a bit of reloading time and prepped a couple of charge weights for testing sometime in the very near future.

Starting my testing with HP38 - I have the most of that laying around and am already using it with 32acp reloads.  I did two sets at 1.1 gn and 1.3 gn.  The data is non existent for 55 gn hard lead.  One 25 acp reloader told me he was using 1.1 gn of HP38 with a 55 gn FMJ as his MAX load.  My goal is to make the gun cycle, shoot point of aim, and not beat the thing up too bad while still getting a defense-worthy round down range (unicorn goldilocks?).

From my initial experimentation, I backed off the seating depth of the bullet after seeing how much volume 1.3 gn of HP38 it takes up in the case - any more powder and I'm probably going to be crunching powder when seating the bullet.  I've been weighing the bullets and they're coming in heavy at 57 or 58 gn and I'd like to avoid pressure problems, as the gun is 100 years old.  However, I cant get close to the max SAAMI overall length of 0.910".  I'm at 0.900" right now which is what was recommended for a 50 gn FMJ.  If I go over 0.902 or so, a single round will chamber, but loading the mag with more than one round will cause the spring and follower to jam up as they tilt out of place.  I'm RIGHT at the top of the bullet lube groove, so I'd really like to seat it a hair deeper if I run these without beating my gun up too bad.

 Thats a 9mm Speer Gold Dot for size comparison.

Inspector

Re: Adorable little 55 grainers
« Reply #8 on: July 19, 2018, 05:36:19 PM »
Snuck in a bit of reloading time and prepped a couple of charge weights for testing sometime in the very near future.

Starting my testing with HP38 - I have the most of that laying around and am already using it with 32acp reloads.  I did two sets at 1.1 gn and 1.3 gn.  The data is non existent for 55 gn hard lead.  One 25 acp reloader told me he was using 1.1 gn of HP38 with a 55 gn FMJ as his MAX load.  My goal is to make the gun cycle, shoot point of aim, and not beat the thing up too bad while still getting a defense-worthy round down range (unicorn goldilocks?).

From my initial experimentation, I backed off the seating depth of the bullet after seeing how much volume 1.3 gn of HP38 it takes up in the case - any more powder and I'm probably going to be crunching powder when seating the bullet.  I've been weighing the bullets and they're coming in heavy at 57 or 58 gn and I'd like to avoid pressure problems, as the gun is 100 years old.  However, I cant get close to the max SAAMI overall length of 0.910".  I'm at 0.900" right now which is what was recommended for a 50 gn FMJ.  If I go over 0.902 or so, a single round will chamber, but loading the mag with more than one round will cause the spring and follower to jam up as they tilt out of place.  I'm RIGHT at the top of the bullet lube groove, so I'd really like to seat it a hair deeper if I run these without beating my gun up too bad.

 Thats a 9mm Speer Gold Dot for size comparison.
Just as an initial observation, lead boolits will help keep the pressure down a bit compared to a comparable jacketed bullet. However, if you push a lead boolit too fast you will experience accuracy issues. And possibly functioning issues. This is just a general observation as there are so many variables that have not been stated there is no way to tell exactly.
SCIENCE THAT CAN’T BE QUESTIONED IS PROPAGANDA!!!

shdws

Re: Adorable little 55 grainers
« Reply #9 on: July 27, 2018, 03:16:08 PM »
Just as an initial observation, lead boolits will help keep the pressure down a bit compared to a comparable jacketed bullet. However, if you push a lead boolit too fast you will experience accuracy issues. And possibly functioning issues. This is just a general observation as there are so many variables that have not been stated there is no way to tell exactly.
Thanks inspector!  I think I hit that point of accuracy issues and functioning issues  :)

Finally, some trigger time.  Anyway, excuse the ugly shooting please  :D

1.3 gn of HP38 is definitely too much juice.  The gun can handle it no problem, but I cant hold on to the little thing good enough without it torquing in my hand heavily when the slide thwacks back.  I tried to get a better grip but I ended up riding the slide causing trigger reset and chambering problems once or twice.  The grip safety doesnt help anything, either.  It really sucks and I think I'm going to get rid of that.  The 1.1 gn recoil impulse is way more buttery feeling (almost the sweet spot), and I imagine I can go down even a little more in powder, and seat the bullet a tad deeper next time.